Book

The Mediatrician's Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World

Feb 2024 🇺🇸 Harper Horizon (HarperCollins Focus)

The Mediatrician's Guide is Michael Rich's 2024 book distilling years running Boston Children's Hospital's screen-use clinic and Digital Wellness Lab into practical guidance for parents, educators, and pediatricians. Organized around a 'What / So What / Now What / Ages and Stages' structure, it covers what researchers currently know about how screen media affects child development, health concerns associated with heavy or poorly-fit media use, and how context — when, where, and with whom a child uses a device — shapes whether that use is healthy or harmful. The book includes recurring 'Ask the Mediatrician' Q&A sections and age-banded suggestions rather than one-size-fits-all rules, plus a customizable planning tool for household media agreements. TechKids Foundation cites it as Rich's flagship public-facing synthesis of the lab's clinical and research work, aimed at giving parents workable next steps rather than a diagnosis or a ban.

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CITATION

Rich, Michael. The Mediatrician's Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World. Nashville: Harper Horizon, February 2024.

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