Hold the Phone: How Parents Can Rescue Their Kids from Too Much Screen Time

What if your family could have less screen time--and more real life?

Whether you're setting screen limits from the start or changing course with older kids and teens, Hold the Phone shows you how to create healthier boundaries around technology and a richer life beyond it.

Smartphones and screens are reshaping childhood, but parents have more power than they may realize. In Hold the Phone, author and speaker Katherine Martinko offers a practical, encouraging guide to reducing screen time, setting healthier boundaries around smartphones and devices, and creating a family life that gives kids more reasons to look up from their screens.

This isn't advice only for parents of young children. Martinko is raising teenagers herself, and Hold the Phone tackles the harder questions that come when technology is already part of family life. How do you walk back access that was given too soon? Set phone limits with older kids and teens? Reduce scrolling and gaming without turning every day into a battle? And help young people rediscover independence, play, friendships, and life in the real world?

In this book, you'll learn how to:

• Set firm, realistic screen-time and smartphone limits
• Reduce device dependence and change established tech habits
• Walk back technology that was introduced too early
• Handle battles over gaming, scrolling, phones, and other screens
• Model healthier technology habits as a parent
• Replace screen time with play, independence, and real-world connection
• Build family and community support for a more engaging offline childhood.

Drawing on research, conversations with hundreds of families across the U.S. and Canada, and her own experience raising children through different stages, Martinko moves beyond simply describing the problems associated with excessive screen use. She focuses on what parents can actually do about it.

The answer isn't a perfect digital detox or waiting for schools, lawmakers, and tech companies to fix the problem. It starts with parents, expands into household life, and reaches outward into communities and schools that make real-world life more compelling--and give children and teenagers the boundaries they still need.

Katherine Martinko is the author of Childhood Unplugged and an international speaker on behalf of Jonathan Haidt's Anxious Generation campaign. Through her Substack newsletter, The Analog Family, and her writing for The Globe and Mail, she helps families navigate questions around smartphones, screen time, FOMO, parental modeling, and raising kids in a digital world.

Whether you're setting screen limits for the first time or trying to regain control after technology has already taken hold, Hold the Phone offers a realistic path toward less screen time, stronger family connection, and a childhood rooted in the real world.