We’re excited to announce the launch of the Lab’s founder and director Dr. Michael Rich’s new book, The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World.
“Raising a child in an age of constant screens requires thoughtfulness navigating not only our own digital use but also our children’s. We didn’t know how to find a balance within it. Dr. Rich has taken his experiences and given us a roadmap to find that balance!”
HANK AZARIA, Father, actor, and more than thirty characters on The Simpsons
In his guide for parents, educators, pediatricians, and technologists, Dr. Rich offers clinically tested, practical strategies for readers looking for answers on how children’s screen media use can affect their physical, mental, and social wellbeing.
The Mediatrician’s Guide is divided into four areas, focused on understanding the impacts of media, addressing specific health issues, fostering healthy digital engagement in children, and providing tactical advice tailored to each child’s stage of development.
- What?: Details the effects, both positive and negative, of media exposure on a child’s health and wellbeing during various stages of development.
- So What?: Discusses specific health problems, including anxiety and depression, distorted body image, aggression, violence, alcohol, and other substance use, as well as positive examples of kids using media for good.
- Now What?: Examines the context — when, where, and with whom — in which kids use media and how that context is as important as the content of the media they consume.
- Ages and Stages: Offers specific, actionable strategies and tips organized by children’s developmental stages.
“When my wife and I were trying to navigate the digital world of devices and social media alongside our three teenage daughters, all roads led to the wonderful Dr. Michael Rich. Drawing on his experiences as a pediatrician and former filmmaker, he has the rare ability to offer seasoned and sensible guardrails as we all enter this brave new world together. This book is a must have, and will soon become your best friend, full of daily tips and long-lasting wisdom.”
SANJAY GUPTA, MD, Associate Professor Neurosurgery, Emory University; Chief Medical Correspondent, CNN, #1 NYT and WSJ bestselling author
Features Include:
- Ask the Mediatrician: Questions and answers based on Dr. Rich’s decades of clinical experience.
- Media Rx: Prescriptive content based on insights from the Digital Wellness Lab and the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders (CIMAID).
- Let’s Chat: Detailed discussions of special topics in media use and how to talk with your child about them.
- Digital Wellness Toolkit: A one-stop guide for actionable advice that you can customize for your family’s specific needs
“More than a simple prescription for limiting screen time, (this book) is a call to action for collaboration. Dr. Rich has created a framework, based on academic research and first-hand experience as a pediatrician and parent, for all grownups to work with their kids or students to create a plan for healthy use of media.”
CATHERINE TEITELBAUM, Head of Family Trust, Amazon Kids
Dr. Rich has spent more than 30 years researching the effects of screens and media on children and youth. As the founder of the Digital Wellness Lab and the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders (CIMAID) at Boston Children’s Hospital, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and a father of four, he has a first-hand understanding of the stress, confusion, and joy parents feel about raising their kids with screens — enabling him to give readers a solid, evidence-based overview of what happens between a growing child and the ever-evolving digital ecosystem.