Reset Your Child's Brain: A Four-Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades, and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen-Time

If you are reading reviews on this book, “Reset Your Child’s Brain”, then you are probably wondering why your kids are acting like aliens who have come down and invaded your child brain and turned them into difficult, moody, and depressed shells of themselves. PLEASE, do yourself and your child a favor by reading this book. You will have to put some work in as a parent and help guide your child through this process, but the end result will be beyond worth it. I have 3 boys. Each effected differently by screen time. My youngest, was most effected. He is 11 and has always struggled with a pinch of depression, a pinch of OCD, and a little anxiety. Over the last year of so, it has gotten worse. I was ready to medicate him. After years of therapy and searching for the right tools to give him to help him with these issues, I found myself exhausted and out of ideas. He was so scattered at school. He wasn’t organized and had trouble concentrating in school, yet had no true symptoms of ADHD. His meltdowns were taxing on me and I would hold my breath every morning until I could get him to school. He often would try to stay home, crying, saying was having anxiety about school because he felt so behind and lost. When he would go to school, I would often have calls from the nurse. It was exhausting. While waiting to see a doctor who could prescribe, I came across an article by Victoria Dunckley. It was like she wrote it for us. I decided to give the book a read. IT CHANGED OUR LIFE. My boys use to spend their weekends yelling and fighting over a certain popular video game that was literally RUINING OUR FAMILY. All they cared about was spending money on worthless online virtual weapons and skins… they would relentlessly ask me for money for this BS! I was hoping it was a fad and go away, but it doesn’t. After reading this book, my husband and immediately did the reset. The consoles will NEVER be back in our home. The YouTube watching of video games, GONE. The phone (Gone for the little one), iPad, computers are now heavily monitored. YES, it was hard for the first 3 weeks, then it gets easier. You have to do this when you can dedicate time and energy to your child. YOU are the one who can help your child “detox” and it will be worth EVERYTHING you go through to get there. We are 3 months into this now and my kids don’t even ask for video games. They could care less. My youngest no longer has meltdowns. He is noticeably happier and reading books like crazy. He plays outside unprompted. His teacher told me he has made a “vast improvement”. He will tell you himself how good he feels. The “depression” has vanished. He is sleeping like he has never slept before, waking up rested, no more night terrors. I could go on and on. The science behind this book is ASTONISHING and something that every parent, counselor and educator should read.You will get results from this book in one way or another. Find a friend to do this with, it could help you and your child to have someone else doing this at the same time. You will no longer have to yell at your kids to “finish your turn” or “put your phone away at dinner” or “20 more minutes”! In fact, if you don’t do the reset you will spend more energy policing these games and screen time than you will if you just put the time in to do the reset.Thank you Dr. Dunckley. My family is forever grateful for this book and your message. I feel like I have the best version of my boys back and I never ended up medicating. The answer was right there. MOOD DISORDERS ARE EXACERBATED BY SCREEN TIME!Ok, I’ll stop now. Buy the book, or listen to the audio, or both!

Seldom does a book come along that is so comprehensive in terms of the brain science and so thorough in its practical applications. The last book I read that moved me to tell EVERYONE I know about it was Jane Healy's Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think And What We Can Do About It. Rest Your Child's Brain is such a book--one that maybe comes along every decade or so if we are lucky.Dr. Dunckley writes clearly about highly specialized brain functions and structures and how they are impacted by over-use and mis-use of screen technologies. Often folks think a one week or 10-day screen-free time period will help youngsters gain more control over their video/digital habits--but the fact is most children and teens need more time than that. Dr. Dunckley explains why a 4-week minimum is necessary to "reset" developing brain patterns and neural connections. PLUS she gives families a very detailed program to follow, giving many hopeful real-life examples of just how profound the positive changes can be for both kids and their parents.Having spent my professional career since 1987 helping parents navigate media/digital issues successfully, I have studied the impact of too much screen-time on cognitive, emotional/social well being of youngsters and youth. And while media/digial literacy education in our homes and schools can help, I don't think media/digital literacy (or any form of literacy for that matter) can be taught to or learned effectively by kids who consume 8-10 hours of digital/screen entertainment daily. Developing brains need a variety of different types of activities, including less 2-D activities and more 3-D ones. Experts know this and brain science is clear on what developing brains need to grow optimally. Now, with this book, parents know this as well. No more confusion. These are indisputable facts, no matter how inconvenient, as Dunkley points out time and time again. With this book, parents can protect their children with accurate information and guide them wisely.I am particularly horrified that violent video games are now normalized as an OK form of entertainment. In my book, (with Dave Grossman), Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie & Video Game Violence, I compiled the research on why video games are so harmful, particularly on children's self-identity. In this book, Dr. Dunckley clearly lays out the addiction pathways created by both violent and even so-called "educational" video games. She takes the popular notion that gaming is fine, even good for our kids, and shreds it with her deep understanding and precise articulation of the brain science.In addition, the book is the best I have seen on how the "gestalt" of what Dunckley calls, Electronic Screen Syndrome. dis-regulates the brain (and therefore the child) on various levels causing stress, even traumatic stress, on an on-going basis--until the brain and central nervous system are cleansed and reset.I have great respect for Dr. Dunckley, an integrative psychiatrist, who is helping thousands of families come back to life. When children and teens use screen technologies as purposeful tools, rather than as mindless tethers, they flourish and everyone in society benefits. I am recommending this book to all the parents and the family support professionals I work with. I hope you can tell, I can't recommend it highly enough!

This book had some good ideas for reducing screen usage in children. My family did the reset she suggested and I saw many positive changes in my children and in our family in general (more interactions, more fun family time, more communication). I agree with the author that too much screen time can be harmful. I've seen the negative impact I my own children. Many of the assertions in the book, however, just weren't backed up by real peer-reviewed research. I think the author may be a bit too negative about screens. She lumps all screens together as bad and asserts that interactive screen time (even educational) is worse than passive viewing. I'm not sure the evidence and research supports that view. I think the jury is still out as to the impact of various types of screens. I think that screen time impacts various children in different ways. I agree with her statement that you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing the fast and setting screen limits, though. Overall, a good book that inspired us to make positive changes in our screen usage.