Can Kids Grow Up Whole in a Digital World?

What if the answer to digital parenting concerns isn't about screen time limits or monitoring apps, but about understanding human development itself? In this eye-opening conversation, Diana Graber, author of "Raising Humans in a Digital World" and creator of the Cyber Civics curriculum, reveals why developmental psychology holds the key to healthy technology relationships.

Graber's perspective is refreshingly different. Rather than focusing solely on devices, she examines what makes us human in the first place. She explains why children can't fully engage in ethical thinking until around age 12-13 and how this biological reality should guide when we introduce social media and connected devices. "If we did one simple thing as parents and held off social media until the child's brain was ready for it," Graber notes, "it would solve 99% of our problems."

The conversation explores why empathy emerges as the essential "digital superpower" children need most. Face-to-face interactions in early childhood build empathy muscles that later transfer to online spaces. Sandbox conflicts where children witness the immediate emotional impact of taking a toy teach lessons no screen can replicate. These foundational human experiences must precede digital engagement.

Parents will appreciate Graber's practical guidance on teaching digital literacy at home. Her Cyber Civics curriculum offers over 140 developmentally appropriate lessons covering everything from basic safety to combating misinformation and deepfakes. Each lesson includes activities parents and children can complete together, creating what Graber calls the "trickle-up theory" where adults learn alongside their kids.

Ready to raise humans rather than just digital consumers? Email podcast@wokehomeschooling.com to share your thoughts on maintaining humanity in our increasingly digital world.

We’d be thrilled to offer any homeschoolers in your community 25% off a homeschool curriculum package: https://www.cybercivics.com/home-school

If you'd like to take advantage of this offer, feel free to contact Beverly at beverly@cybercivics.com and let her know you are a Woke Homeschooling community member.

For links and the transcript, visit wokehomeschooling.com/podcast

Transcript

Digital Worlds vs Human Development

Delina McPhaull 0:00

Are digital worlds making us less human? How can we honor human development while raising kids up in a digital world? Welcome to Homeschool Yourself. I'm your host, delina. Two things I wish about in my homeschooling years I wish I would have had a community of like-minded homeschooling families and I wish I would have waited longer for my kids to get their phones. Now my children would probably disagree, but I think the worst thing I ever did as a parent was get them phones when they were in middle school.

Delina McPhaull 0:26

Seriously, digital literacy is so important and media seems to come at you faster than you can teach lessons about how to handle all the messages. My favorite topic in college was learning about media messaging and media ethics, and though I tried to incorporate some of that in my homeschool, it was haphazard at best. I didn't know about my guest and I didn't know about her book, and I didn't know about her curriculum called Cyber Civics. I hadn't read her book Raising Humans in a Digital World, and this book is so amazing. It distills everything that we learn about human development and behavior, and it helps parents to apply it to their child's digital life. In this episode I'm talking to Diana Graber, who wrote the book Raising Humans in a Digital World. I think you'll find it helpful. Take a listen. Hi, welcome Diana to Woke Homeschooling's podcast, homeschool Yourself. I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself.

Diana Graber 1:27

Sure, Well, first of all, thanks for having me. I'm Diana Graber. I'm the author of Raising Humans in a Digital World Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology, and also the founder of a curriculum called Cyber Civics, which I'm sure we'll talk about, and a site for parents called CyberWise, which is full of resources to help parents of digital kids. Beautiful.

Delina McPhaull 1:51

I wanted to talk to you because I love your book, your book is completely.

Delina McPhaull 1:57

It's so full of information.

Delina McPhaull 1:59

We're only going to talk about a couple of things about the book, but I definitely want to ask our listeners to check your book out Raising Humans in a Digital World.

Introducing Diana Graber & Cyber Civics

Delina McPhaull 2:08

So the reason I wanted to talk to you is because I think your approach resonates a lot with homeschooling parents in particular, because we're really invested in our child's development as a whole person Not that other parents aren't, but we just have really part of the homeschooling thing is to say, okay, I'm going to do this, I am going to, I'm going to be intentional about this. So we recognize this desire and I really appreciate your approach because you get outside of the usual questions about digital, digital media. You get outside of the questions about devices like you know, how much time should my child spend online, or when is it an appropriate age to give them a connected device, or how can I control my teen social media use? You get outside of that. You step back and you say, well, what are we really after, like, how do we raise a whole human? So can you talk to me about what you mean when you say, like, what it means to be human?

Diana Graber 3:28

Sure, well, first of all, thank you for the kind words about the book and I'm going to back up just a little bit because I laughed when you said it resonates with homeschoolers, because the program was actually founded at a public charter Walder school that my children attended and we always joke that the school was homeschooling for lazy people because we were very involved but we didn't do the actual teaching. So that's where it found its roots and today, even though our curriculum is sold primarily to schools, we have a ton of homeschoolers that subscribe to it because it really speaks to them, I think because of those roots, and we are very focused and intentional about looking at the whole child, and so the curriculum is very developmentally oriented. We meet kids where they are and all of the skills that we're teaching them hopefully apply online and offline, because it's not really about the tools, it's about how you treat the tools and how you treat each other.

Delina McPhaull 4:19

I love that. I love that, so how do you that? I love that, so how do you? How do you? Why did you approach it that way?

Diana Graber 4:34

Well, it's really because of my training about gosh. 15 years ago now, I went back to school and got a master's in media psychology and social change. A lot of developmental psychology was woven into the program and so when learning about digital devices and developmental psychology, I thought, gosh, you know we're doing this all wrong. Instead of like teaching the kids, don't do this, don't do that, we need to see where they are developmentally and what they're, what they like to do at that age. Here's an example. So we're teaching a lot of really young kids, you know, don't cyber bully, don't be mean, blah, blah, blah. And the thing is, you know, kids do not develop the ability to engage in ethical thinking until they're about 12 or 13 years of life. So they can't understand what someone else is feeling, they can't fully understand the implications of what they do, so you can't really have them think through the consequences of their online actions until they're old enough to get there. So you're teaching black and white thinking to the younger kids and more ethical thinking to the older kids.

Diana Graber 5:33

So that's a really long-winded no that we have to meet kids where they are. When it comes to the digital world, it's very complex I love that.

Delina McPhaull 5:42

I wanted to talk to you about two topics in particular, and one of those things is ethical thinking and empathy. So talk to me more about the stages of children's moral development.

Diana Graber 5:54

Oh boy, I love this. I wish I could remember as much as I knew 10 years ago. But basically, when kids are very young, everything is about seeing the world through their own lens. When kids are very young, everything is about seeing the world through their own lens and they don't understand. They can't put somebody in their self, into somebody else's shoes, so it's really hard for them to be empathetic in that manner.

Diana Graber 6:13

That's a really important thing when it comes to digital technology. So when they approach that 12 to 13 year age range, they start being able to do abstract thinking, which is, you know, thinking about the consequences of their actions, what someone else might be feeling, and that's a prerequisite for ethical thinking. What's really interesting is that if you do the research there's, some people never reach that higher realm of you know. Go online and you'll have great examples, right, so you know. But that's what we want our kids to achieve is to be able to be an ethical thinker and to be kind and thoughtful about the things they do and say I love that because that is part of being human right.

Delina McPhaull 6:55

So I I love this quote that you have in your book. While technology has altered the world, it hasn't altered the time it takes a child's brain to develop the ability to use technology well.

Diana Graber 7:05

So true yeah. I understand why those words today, because it kills me when I read articles about kids that are on social media networks and they're not 13 yet. So they've lied about their age and they've been cyber bullied. In some cases they've killed themselves because of things they've done or seen online. And I'm thinking, you know, if we did one simple thing as parents and we held off social media or any connected devices until the child's brain was ready for it, it would solve 99% of our problems. Wow.

Delina McPhaull 7:39

Wow. So what do you think are some of the ways that technology short circuits this quest to be human?

Diana Graber 7:47

Yeah, Like what does it do? I mean that's a great. I'm going to turn that around a little bit because I think it can augment it too. I think that if we learn the time and place to use our devices to connect with each other and the time and place not to need a device to do that, I think of that in terms of our lessons, and I was just going through the lessons yesterday and I was reminded by one that I really love.

Diana Graber 8:10

It's our lesson about email etiquette. Reminded by one that I really love. It's our lesson about email etiquette. And the activity in that lesson is we say, okay, just think of instances in which it would be better to text than to call, or think of instances that would be better to be face-to-face rather than text, and have the children think of all the different ways there are to communicate and what kind of things are appropriate to each method. And so I think that's the way we need to look at it now, because connected devices are such a part of our life. They serve a time and purpose, but in some places they get in the way and we need to help our kids discover what those places are.

Meeting Kids Where They Are Developmentally

Delina McPhaull 8:47

Oh, wow, I love that you write that from all the experts you talk to for your book. Most of them said that if they could equip kids with one digital superpower, it would be empathy. Will you talk to me about that?

Diana Graber 9:02

Yeah, I mean gosh. So much of what we see online and so many of the problems, especially between teens, I think is just a problem of not really thinking through how the other person is feeling from what you say or do, whether it's just simple digital drama or an unkind comment or a picture that might be hurtful If we start to have and kids are generally pretty empathetic in the real world. That's why I love to do activities related to digital media education in the real world first. First, because they start to see the consequences of your actions. They see how a mean comment hurts somebody by the expression on the face. So developing that empathetic muscle I think is really important before kids go online so that they might think twice how something might feel to the person on the other end of the screen.

Delina McPhaull 9:54

That's interesting. So because they're interacting online and they don't see or feel that other person, it's hard for them to put themselves in another person's shoes. Right, and I?

Diana Graber 10:11

think something that teens love to do is sarcasm. Sarcasm, yeah, and in the real world we use it, we laugh, we know we're being sarcastic. That just does not read well online and there's been so many you know problems that have emanated from that, and so that goes hand in hand with empathy. To think about gosh, how might how might that read, I wonder if that's why they developed emojis, exactly yeah.

Diana Graber 10:36

There was a study about emojis and how it's impossible to create enough emojis to replicate what the human face can do. Wow, isn't that crazy? Wow, yeah, we can relate so much more with our own human face than an emoji ever could.

Diana Graber 10:58

How do you think we can help our child's capacity for empathy? Well, I think, oh gosh, I mean, there's so many ways. We, you know that's a face-to-face human thing that you just have to practice. You know, I mean from the minute a child's in a sandbox and they take their friend's toy and the friend starts crying, you know that's a lesson in empathy, right? So think about that. You know a five-year-old, four-year-olds, are spending time in front of a screen when they should be spending time in the sandbox watching that interaction happen. That kids used to do. They should keep doing those as much as possible, as often as possible, because that's what's building empathy and a lot more of these human traits that we want our kids to have before they go online.

Delina McPhaull 11:42

So you, you, you, encourage parents to develop these things before they go online, but when is it? Ever before In the womb.

Diana Graber 11:56

These days pretty much right. I know and I think you know that brings us to the point that you know, I know it's really hard for parents of infants and young children because we're busy and there's time and all that, but as much as possible to remember that the skills kids need most are face-to-face. You know, being read to, talked to, played with All of those basic skills builds a strong foundation of being a human and those skills will become so important when the child finally does go online. So as much as you can build that into the day, it will pay off later yeah.

Delina McPhaull 12:33

And, as homeschooling parents know, there's definitely enough hours in the day to do all of it. Yeah, those days get long, okay. So how do you, how do you advise parents to teach media literacy skills to their children, homeschooling or not?

Empathy: The Essential Digital Superpower

Diana Graber 12:51

Yeah, so that's a tough one because, you know and I like to call it digital literacy because we kind of think it's built of a lot of different things we break it down to digital citizenship, information literacy and media literacy and, honestly, it's a little bit hard for parents to teach these skills themselves because there's so many, you know, and that's why we developed a curriculum to make it super easy for parents to know what to teach. So what the best thing a parent can do is model wise use of technology, and what I mean by that is, you know, be mindful about, when you pick up the device, what you use it for. You know, with a young child, if you do have to look at your cell phone, say, I'm using my cell phone to call grandma, do you want to do it with me? Or I'm using cell phone to look up a recipe that we're going to cook together at dinner. So modeling, explaining all of that, is teaching media or digital literacy.

Delina McPhaull 13:44

Okay, what? Tell me more about the curriculum and how a parent can use it?

Diana Graber 13:56

So. So this is exactly why we developed the curriculum and and just as a little backstory, so when my kids were attending this um homeschool for lazy parents, I had just finished my program and, um, there was a little cyber bullying incidents, which really wasn't cyber bullying, it was digital drama, but it's still. It just like blew everything up, like parents are like, oh, oh, my gosh, there's going to be more of this. Feelings are hurt, what do we do? What's Facebook? All of this? So I was able to use what I had learned in my program to start teaching these lessons to kids.

Diana Graber 14:23

So we started out with a year of digital citizenship in sixth grade, which is the safe and responsible use of digital tools, and it was really powerful. When we finished that first year, we realized, okay, we've taught the kids how to be safe, but that is just dropping the bucket. There's so much more you need to know. So we added on another year of information literacy, which is knowing how to find, analyze, use and retrieve or something like that information online. So it's basically about you know how to use Google, now that we have chat, gpt, how to use that ethically and safely, how to maintain your privacy basically, how to use the internet to learn to research. And then the final year that we added was media literacy, and that's using critical thinking skills to analyze media messages. So that includes everything from visual literacy to misinformation, to deep fakes, et cetera. So that includes everything from visual literacy to misinformation, to deep fakes, et cetera. So that's our middle school curriculum. It's really comprehensive. There's less than a week throughout the entirety of middle school.

Diana Graber 15:22

And then people were saying, well, what do you do for fourth and fifth grade? Because kids are going online so young, and so we maintain that kids should wait until 12 or 13, 13 before they, you know, join social media. But we decided to do lessons for the younger kids that are based on values, and I really love it and it's so great for homeschoolers because it's basically turnkey. There's a video and then there's a little activity, but basically we cover all the values you know kindness, honesty, responsibility, self-discipline and we talk about what does the value look like in the real world? Now, what does it look like online? And so we go through all of those and then there's just basic lessons on how to search, work, what is the internet, you know? How do you stay safe? How do you make a good password, just basic things that a younger child might need to know. So it's really. I think we're like up to 140 lessons now.

Delina McPhaull 16:21

Oh, wow, I love that. I love that Because so many of them have grown up with this just being part of their life. You know, you don't usually teach kids like what is water? You just, it's just water.

Diana Graber 16:32

And you know there's a great. You know the great media theorist, marshall McLuhan, way back when, said you know, at first all new technology shakes up our world and then it becomes invisible.

Delina McPhaull 16:44

And.

Diana Graber 16:45

I think that's so true, but before it becomes invisible, we should really take a hard look at it and see what we like about it and what we don't like about it. And it's perfectly applicable to AI. Right now, you know AI is going to be invisible really quick if it's not, and kids right now should be taking a good hard look at it to see what it is they like and what they don't like and how it works and all of that.

Delina McPhaull 17:06

Yes, and that ties in perfectly to your notion of becoming human, because it's more important to be human now that AI can do everything else. Yeah, exactly.

Diana Graber 17:20

So we have a lot of what we call AI literacy lessons woven into the curriculum now.

Delina McPhaull 17:24

Oh, you do, you do. What kind of conversations do you think that are important to have with teens? Oh, boy. About. What About digital life?

Diana Graber 17:36

Yes, I mean, how long do you have? I know, I mean we try to do this right as they enter teenagehood because there's so much I'm going to bore you right now, but they should know about their digital reputation, about cyberbullying, digital drama, sexting, sextortion, revenge, porn, misinformation, disinformation, fake nudes, deep fakes, visual literacy, stereotypes, privacy, personal information filter bubbles, so much.

Diana Graber 18:09

I mean, I'll go on for the hour if you like, but that's what I mean. There's a lot there, and that's why it's hard for a parent to know what to cover, and so we try to piece these together in a way that's really developmentally appropriate and builds upon skills that mean in the online world. Well, when you're a citizen, what does your online presence look like and what is your digital reputation? And then building, building, building, building, until you finally get to the really tough stuff, you know.

Delina McPhaull 18:39

Wow, wow. I feel, like you need to do some some adult, some lessons for adults, yeah.

Diana Graber 18:48

Well, what's nice about the curriculum is, with every lesson there's a home activity that parent and child can do together. So we call that the trickle up theory, so that the parents, by teaching this curriculum, they will learn so much. Yes, yes.

Delina McPhaull 19:06

I love that Now we see many adults being swayed by misinformation and being ugly to each other online, like you mentioned before, or choosing phones over the people around them. How do you, as an adult and as a parent, homeschool yourself and continue to stay human in a digital world?

Diana Graber 19:28

It's getting harder and harder, isn't it? I mean, that's such a good question, I think. More face-to-face time, you know, more human connection, all of that we need more. Walk away from the devices, take breaks, you know it's pretty toxic out there. Yeah, Be really mindful of what you decide to look at. Especially, be mindful of what you like and share. It's like a vote. We don't want to amplify misinformation or bad information or mean things, and and that's the problem with, I think, social media is that you know, as humans, we're primed to react to things that are inflammatory. Yes, and we have to know that and stop ourselves. You know, don't just read a headline. I mean, headlines are made to bait you and get you inside it. That's what they're designed to do to sell advertising. So, you know, do what we teach the kids to do Read the go to read the article. Open a second tab on your browser, look up the author.

Diana Graber 20:28

Is this like a real you know expert, or is it just some you know person somewhere tweeting or texting something they think? Number one. Number two look at their sources, like if someone's saying things, find out where they got their information. Is it a verifiable source? Yes, and then, third, see what other people are saying about the information. See if that information is being debunked somewhere else.

Announcer 20:55

So it's a lot of work it takes work?

Combating Misinformation & Staying Human

Diana Graber 20:57

Yep, it's work, but it's such important work because I mean misinformation. Disinformation is so rampant. We've got to. It's up to us to stop it. There's nothing else that's going to stop it.

Delina McPhaull 21:09

An outage, internet outage, an internet outage. The three things that you just mentioned are those related to that CRAAP acronym that you have in your book.

Diana Graber 21:25

You know what? The CRAAP acronym, which I thought was wonderful that's sort of been put out to pasture oh has it. And it's been replaced by some wonderful research that was done by the Stanford History Education Group. And the three things that I just described to you is the way that real fact checkers you know at reputable organizations that's how they check information, and so that's now what we're teaching kids to do.

Delina McPhaull 21:49

Okay, perfect kids to do. Okay, perfect. So how can people connect with you and maybe get a sample lesson for their digital literacy lessons at home?

Diana Graber 21:59

Oh boy, I mean, they're welcome to look at the website. It's cyber civicscom. They're welcome to email us support at cyber civicscom or call us. There's a phone number on the website. But I did want to say we offer a pretty great special for homeschoolers. Oh, it's a significant discount and it's like a three-year license so they can get through the entirety of the curriculum. So, um, and they'll find it on the website. We have a little page just for homeschoolers. So I love that and it's the same curriculum that schools use. But there's a guide in there that tells homeschoolers how to adapt it for one up to 10 kids and the way the license works. It's for up to 10 kids because we know a lot of times families teach their children together.

Delina McPhaull 22:41

Yes, I love that. Thank you so much, yeah, and it truly has been delightful to talk to you. I hope everyone picks up your book. Thank you for joining us on Homeschool Yourself. Thank you so much for having me. I love the advice Diana gave to take stock in our own digital consumption in order to stay human and model this for our kids. Most of us grew up in a less mediated environment. We know what it's like to be human and the importance of in-person connection. Let's not let devices strip us of our humanity in fundamental ways. I'm encouraged to be more deliberate and more intentional about putting people over devices and building in some intentional connection in my home. I would love to hear what nuggets you got from this conversation that I had with Diana. Would you email me? My email is podcast at wokehomeschoolingcom. Until next time, put the phone down and go homeschool yourself with a book.

Announcer 23:49

Homeschool Yourself is a production of Woke Homeschooling Inc. Homeschool Yourself is a production of Woke Homeschooling Inc. For show notes and links to things mentioned in the episode, visit wokehomeschoolingcom slash podcast. Woke Homeschooling empowers parents to teach their kids an inclusive, truthful history. We invite you to visit our website and download a sample of the history curriculum we offer for kids. Visit us at wokehomeschoolingcom.