TIME
Protect Time
Make room for conversation, reading, play, sleep, meals, and face-to-face relationships.
Choose one predictable screen-free family routine, such as meals or bedtime.
The Third Gift
Build a Digital Shield
Help families protect the time, spaces, relationships, and attention children need to learn and thrive—in a world increasingly shaped by digital technology.
Technology can connect, teach, and inspire. But families also need practical ways to protect meaningful relationships, focused learning, healthy routines, and time away from screens.
Why It Matters
Why a Digital Shield Matters
Children grow through everyday experiences.
Relationships, conversation, reading, play, exploration, rest, and focused attention are the foundations of healthy development.
Technology can support—or compete.
Digital devices can support learning and connection, but poorly managed use can compete with these important experiences.
The goal is intention, not elimination.
We do not ask families to remove technology. We help them use it intentionally while protecting the experiences children need.
The Five Digital Shield Principles
Five Principles. One Stronger Family Environment.
A Digital Shield begins with simple, everyday choices. These five principles help families create an environment where technology supports rather than displaces learning, relationships, and well-being.
SPACE
Protect Space
Create environments that support focused learning, rest, and meaningful connection.
Establish a shared charging location outside bedrooms or designate a device-free reading and homework area.
PURPOSE
Protect Purpose
Help children understand why they are using a device before they begin.
Ask, “What are you going to do, learn, or create with this device?”
CONTENT
Protect Content
Help children access age-appropriate, trustworthy, constructive material and recognize content that is unsafe or unsuitable.
Review apps, games, videos, and websites together. Encourage children to ask a trusted adult when something online makes them uncomfortable.
MIND
Protect Mind
Encourage awareness of attention, emotions, online interactions, and the effects of digital habits.
Teach children to pause and notice how they feel during and after screen use, and to seek help when online experiences are upsetting.
Family Digital Shield Guide
Bring the Digital Shield Into Your Home
Get a practical guide to help your family protect time, space, purpose, content, and mind through simple everyday habits.
The Family Digital Shield Guide is being prepared and is not available for download yet. When it is ready, you will be able to request it here with your full name and email address, with an optional, separate newsletter signup. No personal information is collected on this page at this time.
Family Guide Coming Soon
Community Participation
A Digital Shield Is Stronger When Families Work Together
Parents, caregivers, educators, and community organizations can work together to reinforce healthy digital habits and make room for learning, relationships, and human connection.
Help Other Families
Volunteer to support families as they build healthier digital habits.
Volunteer With UsExplore Mothers as First Teachers
Strengthen the everyday learning moments a digital shield protects.
Visit MAFTSupport Our Mission
Help fund family learning, books in homes, and digital wellbeing.
Support the MissionProtect What Helps Children Thrive
A digital shield is built through everyday choices, supportive relationships, and shared responsibility. By protecting time, space, purpose, content, and mind, families can help children benefit from technology while preserving the human experiences that make learning and growth possible.
Unwrap the Three Gifts