Parenting tips

I am not anti-technology, I am pro-conversation

Sherry Turkle: ‘I am not anti-technology, I am pro-conversation’ Sherry Turkle interviewed by Tim Adams Sherry Turkle at home in Boston, near MIT. Photograph: Blake Fitch For nearly 30 years now, Sherry Turkle, professor of social psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been exploring the effects of digital worlds on human behaviour. Her books, Life on the Screen, The Second Self and Alone Together, have charted the seductions of “intimate machines”, the advance of social media and virtual realities and the all-pervasive internet, and the effect these things have had on our culture and our lives. Her latest…

The Gift of No by Helene McGlauflin

The title of this piece may startle or surprise you. After all, few enjoy the limits and finality the word “no” implies. Could such a thing ever be considered a way to show favor toward someone, or to offer assistance, as the dictionary suggests a gift should be? In my twenty years as a parent, counselor, and public educator I have come to see that saying “no,” when done judiciously and appropriately, is a gift all children deserve, for it enables them to grow into the responsible, balanced adults we wish them to become. Fundamentally, the world is not limitless.…