May 2025 {View as Webpage}

Welcome to Our First Newsletter!

We can hardly believe that we're sending you our first Unplugged Bialik Newsletter! It's been an intense year, organizing the Unplugged Bialik initiative together with our parent ambassadors and Bialik's administration. But it feels as if we've achieved a lot already and that many parents are coming on board, looking for alternatives to giving their kids smartphones and social media before they have the maturity to handle what they'll see. Our parents have already signed the pledge for 425 Bialik students. This is incredible and shows that Bialik parents are committed to making changes for their children's digital well-being.

But it's not just about numbers. It’s about creating dialogue and opening up conversations amongst our parents — conversations that are not always easy because this is a challenging topic. There is no one-size-fits-all answer and every family needs to make the decisions that are right for them. Our goal is not to dictate or judge — it’s to equip, to provide facts, strategies, support, and a community where no parent feels alone in navigating what is probably the single most important parenting issue of our time.

Tackling this challenge requires a community-wide effort. In this and future issues of our newsletter, we'll share resources and ideas that will inform, start conversations, and help build a like-minded community. Because we're all united in trying to do the best for our kids.

Thanks go to Viewmount Principal, Jake Gallinger, and the Bialik administrators who provide so much support for this initiative. Jake has just written a blog (first published on Bialik parent and Board member, Adam Hummel's, Catch Substack, entitled What "Adolescence" Gets Right: On Launching "Unplugged Bialik," which is well worth a read.

Please enjoy this newsletter and share your feedback with us.

Co-Chairs Brie and Jeffrey Kimel and the Unplugged Bialik Parent Ambassadors

What's Right for Your Family

We were very fortunate to have Katy Albert present very stimulating sessions on technology use at home to parents at both our branches. Katy is an educator and registered behaviour analyst (RBA) and a well-known expert in talking to educators and parents about navigating the use of technology within our families. Parents were able to ask a lot of questions and were very engaged with Katy's non-judgmental, practical and reflective approach to both parenting and the use of online media within the family.

Katy encouraged our parent audiences to identify what their family values are and to use these as a guide to how they use technology. By knowing what you value as a family, you will more easily be able to make choices around what you allow your children to do and where you set boundaries.

While many parents may think it is "too late to make changes" around smartphones and social media, Katy advised that "you don't have to make it perfect to make it worthwhile."

In response to parents' requests, we hope to be able to bring Katy back in the fall to speak to our students.

Our Website

Our website is the central hub for sharing information, resources and upcoming events with our community, as well as giving a public face to our initiative. We have a growing number of useful reading materials, podcasts and videos, as well as a list of FAQ.

There's also a password-protected Bialik Parents Only site where you can see which families have signed the pledge by branch and grade, numbers of pledges, and the contact details for the parent ambassadors.

Smartphone Alternatives

As parents, we have many reasons for giving our children smartphones, such as safety, enabling them to be in contact with their friends, and because we don't know about alternatives to the full power of a smartphone. Our parent ambassadors have been researching smartphone alternatives and are beginning to gather resources to share with our community.

Pinwheel phones, for example, provide parental controls and a curated App Library of more than 1,200 apps, including popular ones like Google, Spotify and DuoLingo.

Pinwheel phones not only look like smartphones but they can also:

• Allow you to locate your child
• Enable them to send texts
• Block web browsing
• Block social media and adult apps
• Block strangers and spam.

The Brick, is a small physical device that temporarily removes apps and notifications from your phone. This can block distractions, for example, when your child is doing their homework.

Head to our website to find out more about smartphone alternatives and suppliers.

Bialik Hebrew Day School | T: 416-783-3346| F: 416-785-8287 | communications@bialik.ca | bialik.ca

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