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Hi, I'm Anya Kamenetz and this is NPR's Life Kit.

You know, mostly when it comes to screen time,

parents are used to hearing that their job is just to set limits and say no. And that's really,

really hard with the pandemic. We have so much else to do, and families are really struggling to sort out

what's best for everyone. What should the rules be? Can there even be rules right now?

So I thought this was a great time to sit down

with two researchers who I really relied on when I was writing my own book, The Art of Screen Time.

Sonia Livingstone, who's at the Linens School of Economics, and her co-author Alicia Blumross,

who now worked for Google as their first ever public policy lead for kids and families.

The two of them have a radically different idea when it comes to screen time that maybe instead of just thinking about setting

limits, you should choose what's right for your kid and for your family. And for many of the

families they've talked to, that actually includes listening to what your kids want.

Parents are trying to kind of live a different idea of family.

And often they are trying to live what is, you know, thought of as a more democratic family,

a family in which parents and children have more trust between each other

and can turn to each other when something goes wrong rather than feel they're going to be punished or criticized.

That's Sonia, and her new book with Alicia is based on several years of in-depth research

that they conducted with dozens of families.

It's called Parenting for a Digital Future.

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