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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
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Parenting: advice & issues

THE BIG DISCONNECT

Catherine Steiner-Adair Teresa Barker

Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age

Families today are embracing technology at the expense of face-to-face engagement. Our children are learning more from entertainment ihan from school. Easy access to the Internet and to social media has erased the boundaries that once protected childhood from the unsavory aspects of adult life. Parents, too, are immersed in the digital world far more deeply than they realize. Whether incessantly chatting or texting on their smart phones, or working in front of their computer screens, they are increasingly absent from their children's lives. Meanwhile, children long for more meaningful relationships not only with one another but with the grown-ups in their lives. The benefits of having infinite information at our fingertips are extraordinary, and we are now more connected than ever, but as the focus of family has turned to the screen and to quick-twitch communications, parents often feel they are Iosing control of both family life, and, worse, the means for meaningful connection with the children they love. As Catherine Steiner-Adair shows, these chronic distractions can have deep and lasting effects. Children don‘t constantly need adults, but they As Catherine Steiner-Adair shows, these chronic distractions can have deep and lasting effects. Children don't constantly need adults, but hey do need parents to provide what technology cannot: close, meaningful interactions with family and friends. Drawing on real-life stories from her work with children, parents, educators, and experts across the country, Steiner-Adair offers insight and advice that will help parents achieve greater understanding, authority, and confidence as they battle the technological revolution that is unfolding in their living rooms. With fresh eyes, an open mind, and the will to act, Steiner-Adair argues, we have the opportunity now to nourish our families and to protect and prepare our children for meaningful life in the digital age that is here to stay. Catherine Steiner-Adair is an internationally recognized clinical psychologist, school consultant, author, and clinical instructor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She is also a director of education and prevention at McLean Hospital and has a private practice outside of Boston, where she works with teenagers, families, and adults. She has appeared frequently on television here as an expert in her field and has been quoted in numerous magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Vogue, Parenting, and others.

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Book Published 2013-08-01 by HarperCollins

Comments

Ms. Steiner-Adair’s book can be eloquent about the need to ration our children’s computer time. . . . Her summary of what to say to your kids - it’s on Page 191- is so good, so State of the Unionlike, that I took a photo of it with my iPhone.

Those who haven’t spent much time ‘IRL’ with their kids lately will recognize their own households in the pages of The Big Disconnect. . . . [Catherine Steiner-Adair] wants us to reclaim the immemorial rhythms of the hearth and shield our children from the...digital age.

In a book that should be required reading for all parents, Steiner-Adair examines the extraordinarily negative impact of the digital revolution on parents and children. . . . [A] highly readable study.

In her insightful and compelling new book, Catherine Steiner-Adair reveals how technology and the Internet are fragmenting American families, leaving parents confused and children lonely. Put down your smartphone and read this book!

Parents face the paradox of the faster, broader communication and access to information that technology brings leading to disconnection in the family as its members communicate less often face-to-face. Clinical psychologist and family therapist Steiner-Adair explores the changes in the dynamics of family life when there are fewer conversations around the dinner table, fewer play dates with children actually physically playing together, and fewer pretend games. Drawing on therapy sessions and interviews with parents, children, and educators, Steiner-Adair reports some children feeling neglected by parents enthralled by their cell phones or computers and parents feeling left out of their children’s lives as they engage electronically with friends, games, and other distractions. Beyond any fears of the neurological threats of technology, Steiner-Adair points to the emotional costs of being worn down by constant communication and hasty responses and from being ignored by others as they communicate via electronic devices. She offers advice on how to develop a “sustainable family” that recognizes how pervasive technology is but focuses on the need to develop emotional connections between parents and children. --Vanessa Bush

An important guide to an occasionally overlooked aspect of modern parenting.