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“Parents often are conflicted when it comes to digital media,” says Karla Scoon Reid in this K-2 Parents and the Public blog in Education Week. Digital media can at times be a reliable babysitter stand-in when busy parents need to attend to pressing tasks, Scoon Reid notes, but parents often suffer from guilt when using digital media for this purpose. How can families feel guilt-free about their children’s use of digital media—specifically, how can families ensure that their children are having meaningful learning experiences as they engage with digital media? How can institutions such as schools, museums, and libraries provide parents with sound advice to help them support their children's use of digital media?

The author suggests that Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) FINE Newsletter has answers to these and other questions that families and educators often have as they try to navigate the complex but transformative world of digital media in learning.  In the newsletter, four experts explore how these institutions can "partner with parents and families in exciting ways to help them understand, shape, support, and share in their children's digital learning," according to Heather B. Weiss, director of HFRP. Weiss stresses that family engagement is a "shared responsibility for children's learning and development in a digital environment.”

Scoon Reid also provides an update on another HFRP initiative, the Let’s Talk Transition! Family Engagement During the Transition to School discussion board, which helps educators set goals to engage the families of young children during the transition to school. The discussion board is up and running and is at an exciting stage of its development.  

Read Resources Help Parents Explore Instructional Benefits of Digital Media