Our children are growing up in a world of notifications, scrolling, YouTube, gaming, AI and endless streams of information. And alongside their digital world is ours, the phone that is often right there in our hands.

So perhaps mindful parenting today isn't only about setting boundaries around our children's screens. It is also about gently noticing where our own attention goes.

This beautiful 2-minute film, “Dear Parent”, offers a simple invitation to pause and reflect on what our children experience when we are together. Rather than telling parents what not to do, it asks us to consider the precious things that can happen when we put down our devices and make space for connection, curiosity, play and presence.

Take two minutes. Watch it with your heart. And perhaps, afterwards, ask yourself: What is one small moment today when I can be completely here? [watch video]

Title: Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again
By: Johann Hari
Ages: Adults

"In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions—even abandoning his phone for three months—but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention—and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers’ productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus—as individuals, and as a society—if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back." - Publishers

Inspired by the featured video, try a “phone-free 10 minutes” today. Put your phone away, connect with your child, and simply follow their lead, listen, play, notice. No teaching, fixing or multitasking. Just be there.