As the holiday season draws near and winter break approaches, many kids will soon unwrap new digital devices or tablets and may spend extra time on gaming consoles. The holiday break from work and school is an ideal moment for families to pause, reflect, and refresh their screen-time habits together.

For many children, the magic of camp provides a technology-lite environment where connection, play, and discovery thrive without digital distractions. Camp also shows kids how to build friendships face-to-face and allows them to thrive with structure, routines, and shared expectations. Those same routines can be carried home and implemented, especially during the holidays. By embracing intentional digital safety strategies at home to prevent online exploitation, parents, guardians, and other trusted adults can help teach kids to carry that same spirit of balance and engagement into daily activities, during holidays and beyond.

This winter break — and throughout the year — use this internet safety checklist for practical tips to start a family conversation and help build lasting, healthy digital habits:

• Set all apps, games, and devices to private.
• Turn off location data services on social media and nonessential apps.
• Make sure you and your children know who they’re interacting with online.
• Limit followers to only friends and family they know in real life.
• Preview and research the apps your child wants to download.
• Password-protect or control access to the places your child downloads or purchases apps and games.
• Have a device check-in time or consider random spot checks of activity and apps.

Consider accessing our Family Online Safety Agreement to start this important family conversation and commit to ensuring the kids in your life have positive and safe online experiences.

Why Digital Balance Matters

Digital wellness is an important part of teaching children essential life skills.  Putting healthy boundaries around digital use doesn’t mean eliminating technology — it means guiding kids and teens toward habits that preserve connection, exploration, and well-being. Recent data reinforces why this matters. According to a recent study, more than half of US teens (50.4 percent) report spending four or more hours of daily screen time outside of schoolwork. Among this group, rates of emotional strain increase significantly: 25.9 percent report symptoms of depression while 27.1 percent report symptoms of anxiety. These patterns underscore why reinforcing digital boundaries year-round is essential, especially as screen use naturally rises during the school breaks and winter downtime (Zablotsky et al., 2025).

Resources to Help

Know2Protect offers a comprehensive Digital Boundaries Resource Hub designed for parents, educators, and youth-program professionals. Our resources, like Understanding Online Addiction in Kids and Teens, serve as a suite of tools that include guides on setting healthy tech habits, conversation starters for families and staff and best practices for supporting the digital wellbeing of children and teens everywhere.

Check out our Digital Boundaries page for more ways to create safer online connections.

As we enter the holiday season and look ahead to the rest of the school year, let’s empower kids and teens with the tools and confidence they need to practice safe online habits. Find year-round support on our website at know2protect.gov. 

Reference

Zablotsky, B., Ng, A. E., Black, L. I., Haile, G., Bose, J., Jones, J. R., & Blumberg, S. J. (2025). Associations between screen time use and health outcomes among US teenagers. Preventing Chronic Disease, 22, Article E38. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12249308/

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