For parents tired of fighting over screen time, a psychologist’s advice offers a different starting point: help children notice what their feeds are doing to their mood — and find something better.
“They have more power and control than they think,” clinical psychologist Dr. Nicole Amoyal Pensak, founder of Atlantic Coast Mind and Body in Little Silver, New Jersey, told CNN.
Pensak encouraged parents to ask how children think, act and feel while using digital media. A feed that keeps a girl comparing her body with other people’s bodies, for example, calls for a change — not another round of the same scrolling.
“When you don’t like something, or when something doesn’t make you feel good, you try to get rid of it,” Pensak said. She suggested reducing harmful habits and helping children recognize what needs to go.
That gives parents something more useful to discuss than the familiar argument over who gets the phone. Watch alongside your child, ask about the content and help identify an activity that builds an interest rather than feeding a comparison spiral.
CNN’s report offers crochet tutorials and other hands-on creative activities as examples of using a screen to learn something children can actually do. It also describes digital tools helping young people arrange social gatherings, while stressing that online connection should complement — not replace — in-person relationships.
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Those examples aren’t a blanket endorsement of every app or game. Choosing an activity still means checking its content and protecting the sleep, relationships and responsibilities a device can crowd out.
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ five C’s guidance gives families a way to work through those decisions: child, content, calm, crowding out and communication. It encourages parents to learn what their children watch or play and consider whether media has become their main way to handle strong emotions.
The conversation also reaches beyond whether an activity feels good in the moment. What does it teach about people, right and wrong, or the kind of life worth pursuing?
Movieguide® CEO Robby Baehr addresses that task in The Discerning Family: Raising Kids Who Choose Well in a World That Chooses for Them, which released Oct. 6, 2026. It provides guidance for smartphone decisions, gaming, bedtime boundaries and family viewing, alongside age-by-age approaches to media habits.
“A filter can block a screen for an afternoon. A discerning heart goes with your child everywhere, for the rest of their life,” Baehr said in Movieguide®’s Oct. 5 book announcement.
The announcement describes parents watching alongside their children and helping them ask what a story says, who it wants them to become and whether that aligns with what God calls true, good and beautiful. The publisher’s listing also identifies a family media agreement households can adapt.
“When children learn to ask those questions for themselves, they don’t just avoid harm. They can enjoy and benefit from the best of what entertainment offers,” Baehr said in the announcement.
Start with one ordinary choice: trade a feed that fuels comparison for a tutorial that leads to making something, then put the device down and try it together. The goal isn’t to call every digital activity healthy; it’s to help children practice choosing what deserves their attention.
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