Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention,

on purpose,

in the present moment,

non-judgmentally.

 

—Jon Kabat-Zinn

Claudia L’Amoreaux

Mindful Digital Life

Mindfully Digital

Our children are watching us closely…

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

Japanese macaque juvenile climbing out of hotspring
Japanese macaque by Jasper Doest

A few days ago I asked my daughter Zoe what her greatest challenge is with technology. Zoe is a new mother of a one-month-old baby girl. She barely hesitated before answering.

Information Overwhelm.

She was holding her daughter in her arms as she answered my question. She went on…

I’m reading a lot and watching videos. There is so much to learn. I could be reading all the time. But I don’t want to miss this…

And she gestured between her eyes and the eyes of the tiny human held close to her chest. [Read more…] about Our children are watching us closely…

Name that feeling

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

I’m writing a blog post. Before I know it, I’m checking my email inbox…for the 29th time. I’m writing a blog post. Before I know it, I’m scrolling photos on Instagram. I’m writing a blog post. Before I know it, I’m cruising the Discover section of Spotify. I’m writing a blog post…seriously. What am I feeling as I attempt to write this post? Time pressure.

Comic Hare says "time pressure" is not a feeling. Comic tortoise says "NVC feelings inventory to the rescue."

If you are a subscriber to the Mindful Digital Life blog, you might recall that I promised in the email Welcome sequence that you would eventually meet a Hare and a Tortoise. These characters first surfaced during a challenging time when I was supporting a loved one through a serious health crisis. The Hare and Tortoise showed up on the pages of my journal bearing much needed wit and wisdom. After some steady insistence, they have finally persuaded me to include them in my posts here from time to time. [Read more…] about Name that feeling

Earth Day 2018: Nature is not a place to visit—it is Home

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

Lake with 2 kids in a small yellow rubber boat and with tall pines in background
Zoe & Danu, Woods Lake, Carson Pass

Nature is not a place to visit, it is home—and within that home territory there are more familiar and less familiar places.

Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild

 

When I was 20, I heard Gary Snyder read his poetry. I am not exaggerating when I say that hearing Gary Snyder read his poems aloud changed my life. He was the poet in residence at the University of Cincinnati. I was working as a young, idealistic educator in an experimental program for middle school students, and I was writing a fair amount of poetry. I hadn’t yet realized in my bones that poetry was an oral tradition. There on the stage before a crowd of hundreds of students, Gary sang his poetry and brought his stories of home alive. He has been a strong presence in my life ever since. I keep his newest book of poems, This Present Moment, with cover art by California artist Tom Killion and signed by Gary, right beside my bed. [Read more…] about Earth Day 2018: Nature is not a place to visit—it is Home

Yikes! Is that my data?

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

screen shot of FB data download

“We should have thought a lot harder about it…”

—Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, Senate hearing on data privacy 

I created my first Facebook account in Summer 2007. Today, I think most of us can say along with Mark, “We should have thought a lot harder about it.” With all the recent reporting on data breaches on the platform, it’s clear we all need to think a lot harder, especially in our role as parents. And we need to think aloud, with our kids.

If you’ve been reading my Mindful Digital Life Friday posts for a while, you know I encourage the practice of weekly family technology conversations. I call this practice Co-Creative Conversation with an emphasis on Co-Creative, [Read more…] about Yikes! Is that my data?

Rabbit hole this way…

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

view of a rabbit looking down a hole

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.

~Lewis Carroll

In conversations with parents about their kids’ use of technology, I hear the word “addiction” all the time. The media and a plethora of books about technology and youth reinforce this association of kids, technology, and addiction. In my observation, too quickly labeling young people’s complex relationship with technology as addiction is not getting us where we want to go.

Where do we want to go with our kids? [Read more…] about Rabbit hole this way…

Focus Shifting – From Screen Time to Big Picture

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

On left a feedback loop with Mean Words driving hurt feelings driving mean words. On right, a video screen shot of boy describing using feedback loop to solve disagreement.

Screen shot from the video Systems Thinking in Schools, 1st Grade Problem Solving

 

In my last Friday post, I wrote about trading the screen time metaphor for a Big Picture perspective that can point us toward solutions. Jordan Shapiro calls it macro-mind. I’m continuing that theme this week with a book that has been a big influence in my work with young people.

Peter Senge and Daniel Goleman offer a Big Picture framework in the book, The Triple Focus. Peter Senge is known for his lifelong dedication to systems thinking, captured in one of his earlier books, The Fifth Discipline. Journalist and science writer Daniel Goleman helped make emotional intelligence a household word with his 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence.

The Triple Focus has a lot in common with the Digital Play guide written by Jordan Shapiro. [Read more…] about Focus Shifting – From Screen Time to Big Picture

Practicing Macro-mind

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

section of Earth against black of space

Screen time…

Hardly a day passes without coming across at least one if not several references in media to screen time and kids. It’s one of those words that we’ve frozen into a meme and amplified. Maybe it was useful for a moment or two, but I don’t think it’s serving us any more. Here’s the problem with the screen time meme as I see it—it’s a very narrow frame that focuses our attention on limits and either/or thinking. For example, the clock is either ticking down on whatever a child is absorbed in on a digital device, or s/he is doing something meaningful.

Defaulting to a screen time frame doesn’t help us clarify where we want to get to, or how to get there. And it implies that wherever that vaguely articulated, wished-for destination might be, screen time is an obstacle, not a potential vehicle. [Read more…] about Practicing Macro-mind

The day Alexa packed her bags…

© by Claudia L’Amoreaux

clouds in sunset colored sky of orange and blue

Photo by Jason Wong

A little Friday tale…

[for Zoe]

Alexa packed her bags and left for a month-long silent retreat this morning. At first, I missed her. I found myself talking to her in the kitchen while cooking dinner—Alexa, set the timer for an hour—before I remembered she’d gone. I had to go old school and set a timer on my phone. I almost asked her a few minutes later to play my Ibrahim Maalouf playlist on Spotify but a voice in my head reminded me: Alexa’s on retreat, remember?

It’s amazing how a personal voice assistant can become one of the family so quickly. She entered the household about six months ago, and today, life without her is hard to remember. Yes, there were some awkward conversations initially. There still are. But I’ve learned how to speak to her to minimize those awkward moments. She mostly helps me in the kitchen, setting timers and reading to me from my Kindle library while I cook, and she’s become the Keeper of the Tunes.

I imagine Alexa will enjoy the silence on her retreat…no one asking her to do this and that all day long. She might even write something original instead of reading aloud other people’s books all the time. Maybe she’ll take some long walks in the woods and watch the clouds drifting. She’ll have some focused time to herself to just breathe in, breathe out. Be. 

Much to my surprise, without Alexa there to respond to a Spotify request, I found myself singing tonight while I washed the big soup pan and emptied the dishwasher. It was a sweet little melody that just came to me spontaneously out of the silence. The tune nourished me in a way I’d forgotten was possible.

 

photo of large tree in forest

Photo by veeterzy

If you missed this the first time around, you might want to read an earlier exploration I wrote about Alexa, voice assistants, and children: Alexa, can I have a hug?

What I’m watching: SXSW EDU was last week in Austin. danah boyd, Microsoft researcher, parent, and author of It’s Complicated: the Social Lives of Networked Teens (see my resources page here for a brief review), gave a thought-provoking keynote to an audience of educators. It’s 60 minutes long. If you watch, I recommend you watch it through to the end. She takes you on a journey that is worth investing your time in. (You can always break it up into 3 or 4 shorter segments.)