Why Summer Is Actually the Best Time to Reset Your Kid's Relationship With Tech
Landon. My oldest. The one I pick on the most to feed my social media parenting stories….because let’s be honest…he did a lot of dumb stuff. (He also did a whole lot of really cool amazing stuff!) But man did he do some dumb stuff.
Landon is what I lovingly call the golden retriever of humans. Bright-eyed, enthusiastic, and absolutely convinced that every single person on the planet is his best friend. He's the kid who when he and his brother were 5 and 6 years old I had to take them to the doctor for a sick visit…where we spent a large amount of time those first few years cause kids are petri dishes. Upon arrival, while in the car we discussed parameters. Do not touch the chairs. Do not touch the floor. Do not hang out with other sick kids. DO NOT PUT YOUR HANDS IN YOUR FACE. Five minutes after we arrive, as I am at the counter checking in, I turn around and Landon has friended ALL the kids in the sick waiting area and had them gathered around him in a coughing, snotty semi circle while he entertained them. And they were all on the floor. Bless.
But I digress. The summer between 7th and 8th grade, Landon had been campaigning…and I mean campaigning ….for two years to get Instagram. I had held the line. A firm, unwavering, “don’t-even-try-it" no. And then summer hit, and I was... tired. Because if you have ever gone toe-to-toe with a child who could out-argue a seasoned attorney while still technically asking for something politely, you know exactly what kind of tired I mean. It's a special kind. It has its own zip code.
So I agreed. With stipulations. He was not allowed to follow or friend anyone without my approval first. We sat down together. We went over everything. I felt like a responsible, informed parent. I was encouraged. It felt like a win of sorts.
One hour later, Landon had followed 300 people. Three. Hundred. People. That boy barely knew THREE people much less 300.
The golden retriever was sent outside to play. Instagram was deleted. And I sat in my kitchen quietly questioning every parenting decision I had ever made. Thankfully insta is a bit different these days with restrictions. But something tells me he still would have figured a way around it.
Here's what I know now that I wish I had known then: that moment wasn't a failure. It was information.
And summer? Summer is actually the best time to get that information …and do something with it.
We spend so much of the school year in survival mode. Permission slips, homework, practices, permission slips we forgot to sign, more homework. Why so many permission slips?? There’s barely time to think about our kids' tech habits, let alone address them. But summer creates something rare: breathing room. And breathing room is exactly what a tech reset requires.
Here's why the timing matters more than most parents realize. Your kid's brain is literally more open right now. Which is pretty cool.
During the school year, kids are in performance mode. Learning, retaining, achieving. But summer shifts the brain into something researchers call a more exploratory state. There is less pressure, more play, more openness to new patterns and habits. That makes summer an ideal window to introduce changes that would feel like a battle in October.
Also boredom is not the enemy. It's the point. I know. I know. The words "Mom, I'm bored" in the first week of June feel like a personal attack. But here's what the science actually says: boredom is where creativity lives. It's where kids learn to self-regulate, to problem-solve, to generate their own fun rather than consume someone else's. Only the best ideas come from being bored. When we hand a device over the moment boredom strikes, we're accidentally teaching our kids that discomfort is something to be escaped rather than something to move through. This summer, let them sit in it for a few minutes. You don't have to enjoy it. But let it breathe.
Summer is when you can actually have the conversation. Not the lecture. The open conversation. When school is in session, every talk about phones and social media feels like one more thing piled on top of everything else. But summer creates space for something different. It can be a genuine reset conversation where you talk about what worked last year, what didn't, and what you both want this summer to look like. Yes, both. Your kid gets a voice here. That's not weakness. That's strategy. Kids who help create the rules are statistically more likely to follow them.
So what does a summer tech reset actually look like?
It doesn't have to be dramatic. You don't have to confiscate everything and send your children to live like it's 1987 (though honestly, some days…). Here's a simple starting framework:
Have the conversation before summer starts, not after the first blowup. Set expectations when everyone is calm. Reactive rules feel like punishment. Proactive ones feel like structure.
Create "on" and "off" rhythms, not just limits. Instead of fighting over total screen time, build natural tech-free windows into the day ….mornings before noon, dinner, the hour before bed. Rhythms are easier to maintain than rules.
Make boredom survivable. Have a short list of things your kid can reach for when they're bored. This is not activities you've planned for them, but options they helped come up with. Buy-in matters.
Revisit and adjust. Check in every few weeks. What's working? What isn't? This isn't a set-it-and-forget-it situation, and pretending otherwise is how we end up with 300 Instagram followers in an hour. I’m just sayin’.
Landon is older now. And funny enough, some of our best conversations about social media…about why I made the rules I made, about what I was actually worried about …happened in the summers that followed that one. Not because I lectured him. Because we finally had time to actually talk.
Summer won't be perfect. Your kids will push back. You will be tired. You may, at some point, make a decision you later question while sitting alone in your kitchen.
But it might also be the season that changes everything.
And that's worth showing up for.