Digital Wellness

Digital wellness grows through what we teach, how we use technology, and the example we set for students. At Pocantico Hills, we bring students and staff into this work together, building habits that support purposeful learning, healthy relationships, and balance throughout the school day.

• Learning across grade levels. Our library media and STEM integration specialist, health teacher, and school counselor share responsibility for an age-appropriate digital citizenship and wellness curriculum. 

• Professional learning for staff. Teachers receive opportunities to learn about intentional technology use, student self-regulation, and their own digital wellness. Hands-on learning helps them use classroom tools to understand students’ thinking, provide feedback, and make informed instructional decisions.

• Student leadership. Our Digital Wellness Ambassadors help shape the work by sharing their perspectives, exploring tools, creating resources for other children, and helping students, educators, and families learn together. Their ideas remind us to ask students how technology feels from their side of the screen.

• Purposeful classroom decisions. Our PAUSE approach helps educators consider the learning purpose, what technology adds, who it supports, what it replaces, and whether it served the learning. We look for opportunities that help students feel capable, think deeply, and create while protecting time for conversation, movement, and hands-on experiences.

This is ongoing work, shaped by what we learn from our students, staff, and families. Together, we’re helping children understand their choices and practice using technology thoughtfully, with adults beside them to guide the way.

Building Healthy Technology Habits Together

Technology is part of how our children learn, create, play, and connect. Helping them use it thoughtfully takes ongoing conversation, practice, and adults who are willing to learn alongside them. You don’t need to know every app or have every answer. Your interest in what your child is experiencing gives you a place to begin.

Start With Curiosity

Ask your child to give you a tour of a game they enjoy, something they’ve created, or an app they use with friends. What do they like about it? What feels frustrating or hard to stop? Sit beside them, ask questions, and let them teach you something. These everyday conversations help make talking about technology familiar before a difficult situation comes up.

Listen for more than whether they like a tool. The same child may feel proud and capable while creating something and frustrated or overwhelmed during a competitive game. Ask what happened, how it felt, and what they needed in that moment. Their answers can help you understand the experience behind the screen.

Practice PAUSE Together

Before opening an app, during an activity, or afterward, these questions can help your family make thoughtful choices:

• P — Purpose: What are we using this for?

• A — Add: What does it make possible or help us do?

• U — User: How is it affecting the person using it?

• S — Subtract: What is it replacing or taking time away from?

• E — Evaluate: Did it serve its purpose, and was it worth what it displaced?

You don’t need to ask every question every time. Choose one that fits the moment, share your own answer, and invite your child to think with you. Over time, these conversations give children questions they can begin asking themselves.

Create Boundaries Your Family Understands

Talk together about when and where devices fit into your day. Consider meals, homework, bedtime, time with friends, and the moments when you want to give one another your attention. A shared “device parking lot”—a basket, shelf, or charging spot—can give phones and tablets somewhere to go when they aren’t needed.

Put those decisions into a family agreement, including commitments for adults. Discuss what happens during playdates and visits with relatives, too. Explain what each boundary protects and revisit it as your child’s needs and responsibilities change.

Use Settings as an Opportunity to Teach

Explore privacy settings, notifications, time limits, and parental controls together. Explain what you’re changing and why, including what you’ll be able to see or manage. Children need opportunities to understand the settings and practice making choices, alongside the boundaries adults provide.

Check and follow age requirements before creating an account, then consider your child’s readiness for the experience itself. They may need support managing group conversations, recognizing pressure, or knowing when to ask for help. Agree on how you’ll stay involved and how a parent or caregiver can access or recover an account if needed.

Protect Privacy and Practice Kindness

Talk about what belongs online and what needs to stay private, including addresses, school information, daily routines, passwords, and live location. A photo or message can travel beyond its intended audience, even when an account is private. Before posting, consider who might see it and whether it shares something about another person. Asking permission before sharing someone else’s photo is something adults can model, too.

Ask how people treat one another in your child’s games and group chats. Discuss what they could do if someone is excluded, embarrassed, threatened, or pressured to share something. An online profile doesn’t tell us everything about the person behind it. Children should know they can stop responding, block or report an account, and ask a trusted adult for help.

Make It Safe to Ask for Help

Let your child know they can come to you when something feels wrong, even if they broke a rule, shared something, or kept responding longer than they wish they had. Begin by listening and thanking them for telling you. You can work through what happened and decide what needs to change together.

Those conversations may still include accountability and new boundaries. They should also leave your child knowing that asking for help was a good decision and that they have someone beside them as they figure out what to do next.

Help Children Notice When They Need a Break

Children can become so absorbed in an activity that they miss what’s happening in their bodies. Help them pause and notice their eyes, posture, breathing, or how tightly they’re holding a device. Feeling tense, restless, or upset gives you something to talk about and an opportunity to practice responding.

Ask what might help: movement, a change of activity, a drink of water, or time away from the screen. Share when you notice those signals in yourself, too. Learning to recognize a need and respond to it is part of developing independence.

Make Room for Life Beyond the Screen

Look at what your family wants more time for: outdoor play, cooking, building, reading, conversation, or simply being together. Invite children to suggest activities they would actually choose. Our Unplug and Play Kit offers ideas created by students, with simple activities families can try during school breaks and throughout the year.

Leave some space without a plan, too. A quiet car ride or an afternoon without constant entertainment can give a child room to notice something, follow a thought, or invent something to do. Adults can practice this alongside them. We don’t have to fill every pause.

Let Children See Us Practicing

Our children notice how we respond to notifications, whether we look up when they speak, and what we do with an unfilled moment. Choose something you can work on alongside them, such as putting phones away during meals or turning off unnecessary alerts. When you get distracted, acknowledge it and return your attention.

Building healthy habits is ongoing work for adults and children. Start with one conversation or one change your family can practice, and let us know where you need support. What you notice at home helps us understand your child’s experience and strengthens the work we can do together.

• Option 1: Your Child Brings Their School-Issued Device Home: If you choose this route, the following practices may help maintain balance and safety:
  • Devices should be used only in shared family spaces (living room, dining room), not in bedrooms.
  • When schoolwork is complete, the device should be put away immediately.
  • Families can create “tech stacks” during meals or family time – everyone places their devices in a shared spot to stay present and connected.
• Option 2: Your Child Keeps Their School Device at School and Uses a Home Device Only: This option is fully supported. If you prefer to use your own home device – where you can set and maintain your own parental controls – you’re welcome to do so. If you choose this:
  • A home device is sufficient for all assignments, projects, and digital tools used at school. 
  • We can work with you to ensure the school-issued device remains in the classroom charging cabinet overnight if this is your preference.
  • Your child can use only your personal device on your home network.
  • All school resources can be accessed through ClassLink.
  • Students can download the Microsoft Office Suite for free using their school account.

There is no shortage of opinions about children and technology. Families and schools need practical guidance that is current, balanced, and grounded in the realities of raising and teaching young people. These are strong places to begin:

• Common Sense Media offers media reviews, family guides, conversation starters, and plain-language explanations of new platforms and digital concerns.
• ConnectSafely provides practical, platform-specific guides to privacy, safety settings, parental controls, and emerging online issues.
• Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital connects developmental research with practical family guidance through its Five M’s: Model, Mentor, Monitor, Mastery, and Meaning.
• Family Online Safety Institute offers resources related to online safety, digital parenting, family agreements, and changing technologies.
• Raising Good Gamers helps adults understand children’s experiences with gaming and think about how to encourage safer, kinder, and more meaningful play.

Use these resources as starting points rather than scripts. Better information gives us better questions and better language for making difficult decisions together. 

Parent-led Movements Worth Knowing About

• OKtoDelay – a parent-led grassroots movement focused on keeping middle school free from the pressure of early smartphones and social media. Families can join or start local chapters that bring parents together, share resources, and build community support around delaying smartphones and social media during these developmental years.
• Wait Until 8th invites families to pledge that they will wait until at least the end of eighth grade before giving a child a smartphone. The pledge becomes active on the site when ten families from the same grade and school join, allowing those families to support one another. Basic phones and smartwatches used for calling and texting do not prevent a family from participating.
• Smartphone Free Childhood began in the United Kingdom and has expanded internationally. Its Parent Pact encourages families to delay smartphones until at least fourteen and social media until sixteen while connecting with other families trying to do the same.
• Mothers Against Media Addiction, or MAMA, is a grassroots movement of parents, grandparents, extended family members, and other allies working on changes in homes, schools, communities, and laws related to children’s media use.

• Smartphones, Social Media, and Your Child's Mental Health: What the Science Tells Us and What You Can Do - By Nate Thoma
  • Evidence behind rising rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm linked to digital media
  • How constant connectivity affects sleep, attention, and emotional development
  • What the science tells us about healthier tech habits for kids
  • Strategies families can use immediately – such as keeping devices out of bedrooms, using shared spaces for screen time, and modeling balanced tech use as adults and creating “tech stacks.” 
• Managing Your Child's Devices - By Joseph McGrath
  • Parental controls available on common platforms
  • Screen-time limits, filtering, and monitoring tools
  • How to set up home-based controls on personal devices (ex: Bark, Net Nanny)
  • Practical strategies for keeping kids safe and focused while online

When you’re ready to turn the conversation into the agreement

At some point your family has to decide what it actually wants — which moments are protected, where phones sleep, what happens when it’s time to stop, and what happens when something goes wrong. That’s what the Family Screen Time Agreement is for. You build it together, so what you end up with is an agreement everyone had a hand in rather than a rule handed down.

What Happened When Our School Went Tech-Free for the Day
Edutopia | August 2026 
What we learned from going tech-free for an entire school day—and how unplugging helped us reflect on where technology truly adds value to teaching and learning.
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Ed Tech Pushback Risks Shortchanging Students, These School Leaders Say
K-12 Dive | July 2026
A look at how school leaders are responding to growing concerns about screen time, featuring my approach to moving beyond bans and focusing instead on digital wellness, intentional technology use, adult modeling, and teaching students how to build healthier relationships with technology.
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Hearing Concerns About Too Much Screen Time? Pocantico Hills Emphasizes ‘Digital Wellness’
New York State School Boards Association (NYSSBA) | June 2026
A look inside Pocantico Hills’ districtwide approach to digital wellness and intentional technology use, including student voice, family engagement, and adult modeling.
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ISTE+ASCD and Pinterest Partner to Promote Digital Wellbeing at School
ISTE+ASCD | April 2025
Pocantico Hills joins 11 other districts in a national initiative bringing educators and mental health experts together to help students build healthy digital habits. The partnership supports thoughtful approaches to technology that encourage curiosity, connection, and meaningful learning.
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Helping Students Thrive in a World That’s Always On
SAANYS Vanguard | 2025 
Why cellphone bans alone aren’t enough—and how schools can help students build the self-regulation, healthy boundaries, and intentional technology habits they need to navigate an always-connected world.
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How One Westchester School District Handled a Cell Phone Ban
lohud / The Journal News | August 2025 
A look inside Pocantico Hills’ approach to creating a phone-free school day, including how we balance clear boundaries with trust while helping students develop healthier, more intentional relationships with technology.
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