Emily

“As it turns out, I needn't be more engaging for my kids. I need only to be engaged with them.”
― Erin Loechner, The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't

“As I often tell my students, the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“It's not about fearfully shooing our children away from screens, slamming laptops shut in fits of despair. It is, simply, opening the door wide to something better. It's the quiet recognition that every time we opt out of technology, we opt in to life. . . . After all, the opposite of opting in is not opting out. It's living free.”
― Erin Loechner, The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't

“But we know the truth, you and I. There are many, many tasks in our very human lives that we don't want to carry out. . . . But somewhere along the way, these mundane tasks stack up to a life. Your favorite song comes on in the grocery store and you can't help busting out your karaoke moves with the cashier, and your son laughs and rolls his eyes and you remember what he looked like at every age that has passed--his dimples at three, the tousled hair at six, the tiny chip in his front tooth you never fixed because everyone grew to love it. You forget the cilantro, but my gosh, the sunrise looks so beautiful in the parking lot.”
― Erin Loechner, The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't