The other night, after the kids drifted off to sleep, I caught myself watching the way those blue light reflections danced across your face. Not the tension we sometimes feel when another notification interrupts dinner, not the way our shoulders tense when the digital world creeps into our shared moments—but the quiet understanding between us. That moment when you glance at me across the table, and without words, we both know—we’re learning how to navigate this current together, aren’t we?
The Dance We’ve Been Learning
We’ve all seen the way our children tilt their heads toward screens.
What I’ve noticed most is how you’ve turned that screen time into a conversation starter. The way you’ll ask them about the thinking behind the game they’re playing, explaining the internet as a library full of wonders—but one that requires careful navigation.
That’s the lesson I’ve watched you teach them: ‘Technology isn’t just something we use, but something we shape together.’
I’ve seen how they respond to that—not with rules, but with the slow understanding that the real world offers treasures too, like discovering a hidden trail in our local park or finding shapes in the clouds together.
The Weight of Shared Moments
There’s a lesson in the way you set the screen down. It’s not about the act of putting it away—it’s about the weight of your undivided attention when you do.
I’ve watched you, mid-dinner, when the phone buzzes again. You meet my eyes across the room, and that silent understanding—the way we’ve learned to keep our bond stronger than the pull of the screen.
That’s the lesson we’re showing them: ‘The strength isn’t in resisting technology, but in being present to each other.’
We’ve all felt it—the way that moment of turning off the screen becomes a pathway to discovering something together.
The Anchor of Our Shared Journey
The most profound thing I’ve learned from watching you? That the digital world isn’t separate from us—it’s a canvas we’re painting on together.
The way you’ll ask them about the thinking behind the games they’re playing. How you’ll turn the documentaries we watch into a conversation about the world beyond the screen.
I’ve seen how the real magic is how we’ve learned to balance the screen with the rest of life—like when we pause the show to talk about what we just learned, or take the tablet outside to identify birds we spot in the backyard.
The way you’ve shown them—and us—that the digital world is always there with us, but our connection to each other is the deeper anchor.
The Quiet Strength We Carry Forward
Tonight, in the quiet hum of the house, the lessons I’ve learned from you are etched into the way we navigate the screen time together.
It’s the way you’ve transformed the digital world into our shared journey. There’s beauty in watching our children learn to balance their own curiosity about technology with the pull of the real world—because we’re modeling that balance together.
Not just in the rules we set, but in the way we’ve shown them—through our actions—like when we put our phones in the basket during family game night, or when we use cooking apps together to make dinner, then sit down to eat without any devices at the table.
That’s the quiet strength they’ll carry forward into their own digital journeys—knowing when to engage and when to disconnect, because they’ve seen us do it with intention and grace.
Source: Humans of Digital – Jason Bauer on Honest Results, Smarter Screens, and Shared Learning, IAB Canada, 2025-09-29