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Children of military families sign screen time pledge ahead of Fenway softball game
In an effort to build healthy digital habits, a group of military kids took a pledge to cut their screen time by half.
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In an effort to cut screen time by 50 percent and build healthy digital habits, the Red Sox partnered with the cybersecurity company Aura and Blue Star Families, an organization to empower military families, for a softball game for children with family members in the military.
In order to participate in the game at Fenway Park on April 25, the kids made a pledge to build healthy digital habits.
“Part of what happens is that when you’re a military family and you move a lot, the way you stay connected to family and friends is through online, through gaming, through social media, through a lot of digital means,” said Jeff Chin, current Lieutenant Commander in the Navy and Blue Star Families New England chapter Executive Director. “One of the things that we didn’t want to do was take that away, but make it safer for kids to be able to stay connected with their family and friends online.”
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Victoria Parris is one of the parents involved with the Blue Star Families organization. Her husband is a technical sergeant in the Air Force.
As their four children have grown older, her and her husband’s view on giving her kids screen time has changed.
“We’ve been very ‘no’ driven because of the safety and all of the crazy things that happen on the internet, and so being able to have a program that I can feel more secure in monitoring what’s being said, not just ‘are we playing appropriate games?’ but the people they’re playing with,” said Parris. “So it’s nice to really turn a lot of those ‘no’s’ to ‘yes and,’ and letting them know these are the expectations. These are the things that are being monitored, and we’re doing this to keep you safe. But also giving them a little bit of that freedom and privacy.”
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Lieutenant General and Deputy Commander at U.S. Cyber Security in Air Force Charlie Moore expressed how the internet consumes society, and so parents cannot avoid it forever.
“Modern parenting has to involve digital parenthood, which is, of course, what these tools that we’ve developed in conjunction with the pledge are all about,” said Moore.
Parris and her husband try to lead by example in their digital habits, including cutting down their screen time by different rules such as not allowing screens at the dinner table.
“If they do [their chores], then it’s that reward where they’re able to play, but it’s also something we do as a family. So my husband will sit down and play with the kids, or they’ll play together while I’m cooking dinner, but it’s finding that balance,” said Parris.
This balance includes activities that don’t include electronics.
“I think that we all know that reducing screen time will only encourage kids in particular, but adults too, that encourage them to seek genuine relationships with people by doing things outside, by engaging in more outdoors activities,” said Chin.
The Fenway softball game on April 25 featured about 20 children and their families. Each child got a chance to hit the ball and run the bases, as well as play defense in the field.
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“I would say that it’s really a once-in-a-lifetime experience for these kids,” said Chin. “A lot of them, because they move so much, because their parents are often away for long stretches of time, if they’re deployed, they don’t get to do a lot of family activities like this that are special, that are really focused on doing something fun as a family outside.”
However, this opportunity does not overlook the underlying foundation of the reason they are here.
“Anytime you get to come to an iconic place like Fenway Park and actually not just get a tour, but play on the field, that’s pretty cool,” said Moore. “And I could see how excited they were waiting to come into the stadium. But when you tie that to something that’s really important, I think they understand [it].”
This focus on children of military families comes after the amount of targets those with family members in the military with cybercrime. According to a 2021 AARP, survey, active-duty service members and their families are 40 percent more likely to lose money in schemes and scams.
“We know that there’s a significant problem with fraud and cyber crime,” said Moore. “… it affects me being a former military member, but I also have kids of age that are really involved in the digital space. An eleven and a 14-year-old. So to see the tools that they’re developing and actually even provide some input on those tools has been really important.”
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