John Early has one of the most expressive faces of any actor working today. You’ve almost certainly seen it. The 38-year-old comedian, born and raised in Nashville, has had many small breaks into the zeitgeist over the past decade or so. His voice might also be familiar to you: He’s worked on a gamut of animated shows including Bob’s Burgers, Tuca & Bertie, The Great North, and Summer Camp Island (a personal favorite). He appeared most recently and prominently in the A24 comedy Eternity, but also in Tim Robinson’s I Think You Should Leave, Julio Torres’ Los Espookys, and the wildly underrated HBO series Search Party. It’s this latter show where I first saw Early, not by actually watching an episode, but from clips circulating on Twitter.
Indeed, this is how I came to be familiar with several of Early’s peers, alt comedians like Jo Firestone, Patti Harrison, and Conner O’Malley, whose brilliant, keenly observed work seems to live timelessly on the internet. But Early has always communicated an old soul, duly inspired by his friends and colleagues, but also the movement and spectacle of Bob Fosse, the melodrama of cult classics like Showgirls, and, as evidenced by his directorial debut masterpiece, ’80s TV movies like Kate’s Secret.
Early’s film, Maddie’s Secret, is not a retelling of that 1986 film, which follows a bulimic woman as she faces pressures both familial and psychological, though there are commonalities: a blonde lead, an eating disorder, the anxiety of a life lived under scrutiny. But Maddie’s Secret is something entirely unique and surprisingly moving, a melodrama following the eponymous Maddie (Early), a dishwasher at the fictional Conde Nast magazine Gourmaybe, who is one day thrown into the spotlight when a video of one of her homemade dishes goes viral. As her fame increases, so does the burden of keeping Maddie’s harrowing past trauma, and the eating disorder that manifests because of it, at bay. In Maddie’s Secret, comedy and severity go hand in hand. Humor lives alongside and within the very real drama performed and staged by Early and his longtime professional partner, Kate Berlant. Maddie’s Secret showcases not only Early’s many talents as a performer, but his instincts as a filmmaker, one deeply attuned to the inner lives of women in friendship and in crisis.
I talked to Early over the phone about his new film. Among other things, we discussed sincerity, the line between vulgarity and crudeness, what it means to commit to a performance, a concept, a way of going about one’s life, and, of course, Showgirls. Our conversation has been lightly edited.
Congrats on making the movie of the year.
It’s official?!
It’s official, yeah. I just got a text about it.
Oh my god.
There was an element in this movie that I was … it’s not that I was worried about it, but I was curious as to how you would frame the bulimia. But you never show Maddie actually vomiting; it’s always before or after. Can you talk a bit about that? It’s a dignifying choice.
There was never any question for me. When I came up with this premise, I came up with it very quickly. This movie was made very, very quickly. That was by design. I wanted to make something kind of crude, not disgusting, but elementally kind of crude and blunt and direct and expressive. I figured if I just made it very quickly, that would be a good way for something exciting to happen that I maybe didn’t have that much control over.
But it was a strange thing where I was like, Oh, I’ve chosen this premise that, on paper, seems provocative. And it of course is, and there’s clearly some part of me that needs to be provocative. But I also think that’s part of what gives this movie a special kind of charge. There’s always this potential to be provocative. At every point in the movie, it could tip over into something that’s mocking or kind of suffocatingly ironic or even grotesque. I personally don’t think we tip over into that side. I mean, it’s not for me to be the judge of, but that was what I was trying to do, and instead to always protect it and keep it sincere. I don’t think the emotion would be felt if that potential wasn’t right next to it.
I think this is a perfect example: You read the logline, you see the trailer, you know it’s about bulimia, you’re expecting there to be some sort of scene where you see her vomiting. But I think it’s more interesting to not do that. Also, I couldn’t be less interested. I wasn’t holding back some sick desire to show it: I did not want to see that at all on screen. I would rather die than people describe this movie as like, queer body horror. I can’t take another queer body horror movie!
[laughs] Me neither.
I can’t take it. Bulimia interested me on a symbolic level. It interested me on a genre level. I just immediately, within like four seconds of writing this movie, felt a very intense protectiveness over Maddie, and I wanted to preserve her dignity. I didn’t want to see her in that situation.
That’s of a piece with how you’ve previously talked about irony, sincerity, camp, the line between these things. Maddie’s Secret is a movie where there is no line. I feel like a crucial part of that is the fact that you start with Maddie as a character, as a woman, first. Everything spirals outward from there. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about performance, acting, embodiment of character. I forgot it was you playing her about 10 minutes into the movie. Ironically, I was thinking of your “Rock the Boat” video during this film. Obviously for the dancing, but also your total commitment to movement and persona. It’s where the humor comes from.
I’ve played women before. I’ve done a lot of characters for a long time where the goal was a certain kind of realism, a kind of lace-front realism. I love broad sketch comedy, and I do it and I don’t bring it up pejoratively.
It’s more that I’ve always been compelled by doing something that could be seen as sketch comedy, but filming it in a way that actually allows for a certain kind of cinematic feeling, of emotion and nuance. I really believed that we could achieve that. I really believed that if you just gave me five minutes, that people will buy into this illusion, and that if they buy into this illusion, if their hearts are open to me as Maddie, then their hearts will be open to the rest of the stylistic extremes of this movie.
People have said to me that they forget that it’s me, and that’s so exciting. Because, who cares about me? That’s the problem too. I’m so sick of seeing the same fucking actors in everything, the same actors who are on the very, very short list of people who can get things financed. I want to see new faces. It’s also, like—I really love fully transforming, you know. Something like dance or something like playing a woman, these are very extreme things physically. They require you to fully commit. I deliberately am drawn to things like that because they don’t let you off the hook. In order to pull them off, you have to fully dance. And in order to play Maddie, I couldn’t send it up. If I were playing someone who looked like me, I can see it kind of deflating the tension. I need the gunpoint, for some reason.
Was Maddie always a woman?
No. Once I was writing the script, she was a woman. When I first thought of the premise, I was like, It’s a gay food influencer. He was bulimic too, but I was being pulled by these women’s pictures, these eating movies, these melodramas.
The archetype came first. First it was just: ingenue. So there was a certain rhythm of speaking, a certain attitude. And when I was trying to put that in a gay man’s body, as in my own, it just wasn’t working. I would love to change that, or I would love to try to push through it, but I wasn’t ready to do that, I guess. It felt too ironic.
That feels fair, though.
It felt more ironic to play a gay guy who had this kind of sunny disposition. It felt like I was doing something caustic, and I can’t explain why. The character being a girl was just pounding at the door and I was like, Yeah. That seemed kind of scary, but the second I opened the door, all of this color and emotion and expressiveness just rushed in. It was beautiful. The second I allowed myself to do what I actually wanted to do, it went from being this kind of ratty, angry movie to being something full of feeling.
There’s obviously the Showgirls element. I’m based in and from Vegas, where there’s that line between irony and commitment. Maybe what gets lost in certain reappraisals of Showgirls is the fact that Paul Verhoeven is, like, not joking. [laughs]
There’s footage of Paul Verhoeven directing those actors where he’s like … [mimes pulling exaggerated faces] He’s really encouraging them to be very stylistically kind of operatic and orgasmic, you know? Obviously Elizabeth Berkeley is taking that direction and is going there. It makes people laugh, I think, out of discomfort, and I think the laugh after is the reaction that you have right before you cross the threshold.
Absolutely.
That, to me, is almost the whole point of this movie. I wanted there to be something very moving that I was holding up in front of the audience, that they have time to approach with laughter. They might be kicking and screaming but a good portion of them, I felt in screenings, do cross the threshold and yield to the emotion in the movie. If people don’t cross the threshold and want to keep laughing the whole time, that is totally OK, and there’s certainly things to laugh at through the very end.
But I do think that my experience is, often when I’m cracking up at something, it’s because I’m uncomfortable.
Well, especially in the case of Maddie’s Secret, laughter feels good after you let yourself cry.
And crying feels a little bit better after you’ve kind of opened your lungs from laughing.

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Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo’s split may have shocked fans, but signs of trouble had reportedly been surfacing for months. Bunnie went into detail about her side of the story during a June 18 episode of her podcast, “Dumb Blonde,” in which she cleared up rumors, shed some light on their relationship and revealed some surprising future plans.
Jelly Roll filed for divorce on May 18 in Williamson County, Tennessee, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital. The 41-year-old country star listed the date of separation as May 9 and cited irreconcilable differences.
During her podcast, Bunnie shared details about what had transpired ahead of Jelly’s filing, explaining the couple had a fight on Mother’s Day which led to her telling him, “Well, then file the f—ing divorce papers.”
JELLY ROLL’S DAUGHTER CALLS FANS OUT OVER DIVORCE CHATTER AS BUNNIE XO POSTS CRYPTIC SONG LYRICS
“I packed a bag and I left and I didn’t talk to my husband for, I don’t know, weeks after that. And during that, you know, he was so mad, and we were so emotional that he ended up doing exactly what I told him to do, and filing the divorce papers,” she said.
“Was I blindsided and was this divorce mutual? No, I was not. It was not mutual. Even though I told him to file the divorce papers, I was speaking out of anger and just frustration,” she added.
Bunnie spoke about what led to the distance between them on her podcast, revealing the two were trying to have a baby through IVF, which turned her into “a shell of the person I was.”
She revealed that the two underwent three transfers and ultimately lost four embryos, which led to a breakdown in their communication and put a strain on their marriage.
WATCH: JELLY ROLL REVEALS SECRET TO HIS STRONG MARRIAGE TO BUNNIE XO
“We stopped communicating together in the past year and a half,” she shared on the podcast. “And I think that it’s safe for me to say that I always loved my husband a little bit more than he loved me. I was like always protecting him and always making sure he was okay and like always chasing him and I literally was the glue that held us together.”
Despite the divorce, Bunnie said the pair are “still having a baby together.”
“So, we have been the most unconventional couple that you guys have ever encountered,” Bunnie shared. “We’re going to co-parent together. J is my best friend. Like, this isn’t what you guys think this is. Nobody cheated on the other person. It’s literally just we served our purpose for each other.”
During his show in Saratoga Springs, NY on Thursday, Jelly spoke of the “liars” on the internet spreading false rumors about his relationship.
“Me and my wife are best friends. We will always be best friends,” he told the crowd. “We just got off the phone earlier today. Nobody cheated on nobody. She just did a whole podcast about it. You can go watch it. Every word of it is the truth.”
“That will be my best friend forever,” he continued. “This is the only time I will ever speak about it. Bunnie, I love you, baby. Thank you for those ten years. They were incredible. Thank you for the next 10 years of friendship and 20 beyond that.”
The pair, who wed in 2016, have reportedly “always had a complicated dynamic” throughout their relationship.
“When they first got together, they were both in a very different place in their lives,” a source told People. “There was a lot of chaos, ups and downs, and they built a life together through all of that.”
JELLY ROLL’S WIFE SLAMS TROLLS WHO CRITICIZED HER FOR TRASHING COUNTRY MUSIC SCENE
The source noted that Jelly — who has been on a weight-loss journey — has “changed a lot.”
“He’s very focused on his future, his health and being around for a long time,” the source said, adding that “there wasn’t a moment where everything fell apart.”
Other sources claimed that the divorce had been building for years.
JELLY ROLL’S WIFE BLASTS TROLLS WHO QUESTION HER FAITH AFTER RECEIVING BACKLASH FOR SKIMPY HALLOWEEN COSTUME
“A lot of people want to point to one thing, but it was really a combination of issues that had been building for years,” a source told Page Six. “They came from similar worlds when they met and bonded over surviving difficult circumstances, but over time their lives started moving in different directions.”
“Jelly has changed tremendously over the last few years. His focus shifted to his health, faith, family and the long-term legacy he wants to leave behind,” the source added.
WATCH: JELLY ROLL CONFESSES BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF LOSING WEIGHT
Prior to the announcement of the split, fans noticed they’d both seemingly sent subtle messages via social media. From cryptic song lyrics to ditched wedding rings, the signs were there — they just went largely unnoticed.
BUNNIE XO CONFRONTS HER TROUBLED PAST IN RAW MUGSHOT REVEAL ON SOCIAL MEDIA
On May 20, two days after Jelly Roll’s filing, Bunnie took to TikTok to share some intuitive thoughts.
“Women’s intuition when that s— don’t add up” she captioned the video.
JELLY ROLL’S WIFE BODY SLAMS HIM IN PLAYFUL TIKTOK VIDEO AFTER SINGER SHEDS 200 POUNDS
“She been dropping hints this whole time and we missed it lol,” one fan commented, after the divorce news broke.
“Bunnie was dropping the tea in real time and we all did not clock it,” another added.
On June 4, Jelly Roll performed at CMA Fest in Nashville without his wedding ring.
One day later, Bunnie shared a video of herself riding a horse in the countryside. She accompanied the video with Aerosmith’s “What It Takes” and a caption that read, “Wild hearts can’t be broken.”
The lyrics from the portion of the song she chose were, “There goes my old girlfriend / There’s another diamond ring / And all those late night promises I guess they don’t mean a thing / So baby, what’s the story? Did you find another man?”
WATCH: JELLY ROLL AND BUNNIE XO WALK THE RED CARPET TOGETHER AT THE 2025 ACM AWARDS
JELLY ROLL ADMITS TO CHEATING ON WIFE BUNNIE XO IN RARE PUBLIC CONFESSION
On June 6, Bunnie posted another video of herself enjoying the serene outdoors with some girlfriends. She paired the video with lyrics from the Goo Goo Dolls’ hit “Name.”
“Did you lose yourself somewhere out there / Did you get to be a star? / And don’t it make you sad to know that life / Is more than who we are?”
Hours before the divorce news went public on Monday, Bunnie posted a video of herself lip-syncing the lyrics to Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me.” Bunnie’s wedding ring was visibly missing.
“It’s not like you didn’t know that / I said, ‘I love you,’ and I swear, I still do / And it must have been so bad / ‘Cause living with me must have damn near killed you.”
Fans quickly added meaning to Bunnie’s post, with rumors swirling online that she was having an affair with Nickelback founding member, Chad Kroeger, a claim she denied on the podcast.
“I post a Nickelback song because Nickelback is like one of my favorite bands…I post this Nickelback song, not thinking anything of it. Not a shot at J in any sort of way, not even realizing that it’s a breakup song. It’s trending on TikTok,” she said, also acknowledging the other videos she posted involving the band.
“So there’s three f—ing videos…which it does look like overkill, and I get where people are trying to put puzzle pieces together, but you’re putting a puzzle together with missing pieces, and it’s not even like that. I am not with Daddy Chaddy. There’s no f—ing way in hell that that would even be a thing. And no, I did not cheat on my husband and leave him for Chad. Like none of that.”
Representatives for Jelly Roll and Bunnie Xo have not responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
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This isn’t the first time the pair have weathered tough times. In her memoir, “Stripped Down: Unfiltered and Unapologetic,” Bunnie detailed her husband’s 2018 affair and explained how it impacted their relationship.
“When I found out about [Jelly’s affair], I was devastated,” she told Fox News Digital in February. “I was hurt because I didn’t think he would be the one person to do that. I thought he was different. And at that moment, my heart was broken. But instead of getting mad at him, I asked myself, ‘Why do I keep attracting these kinds of men?’”
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Bunnie admitted she hadn’t envisioned a conventional marriage.
“I think a lot of people need to realize that coming into this marriage, we weren’t a traditional bride and groom,” she explained. “I was a working girl, and he was an ex-drug dealer — a gangster-turned-struggling artist. There’s a different set of rules on the street than there are in what I’d call traditional marriages. If you’ve never lived that lifestyle, you’re not going to understand. But of course, cheating is wrong across the board — it doesn’t matter.”
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In 2018, Bunnie shared her vulnerability on social media amid the breakup.
“I’m sure by now you guys know that J and I have separated,” she said in a YouTube video. “It’s been hard and for the best. I’m not going to talk about why we separated. He has his version, I have my version and hopefully one day we’ll be able to be friends.”
“My whole point of doing this vlog is to have a little bit of therapeutic release,” she added. “Everybody goes through heartbreak at some point in their life … I’m a f—ing hot mess. I literally can’t make it through the day with wanting to cry… break ups f—ing suck.”
While Bunnie isn’t quite ready to date yet, she shared on her podcast that Jelly Roll has already started seeing other people.
“He is ready, rearing and ready to go,” she said. “He’s all hopped up on testosterone, let me tell you. Um, and he’s ready to go. So, he’s even started dating, which is great. I love that. Um, so his DMs are open. Go to freaking his Instagram, uh, JellyRoll615 if you don’t know, and go send that mother f—er a DM. Like, you guys don’t be scared. Everybody go hit him up. Shoot your mother f—ing shot.”

Luca Guadagnino‘s nearly finished Sam Altman movie, “Artificial,” has been dropped by Amazon MGM Studios, Variety has confirmed.
The film, starring Andrew Garfield as the controversial OpenAI CEO, will be shopped to other studios. The move notably comes after Amazon struck a massive partnership with the tech company in February to expand OpenAI’s use of Amazon Web Services and develop custom AI models, which included a $50 billion investment on Amazon’s part.
“We have the utmost respect and admiration for Luca Guadagnino as an award-winning filmmaker — not to mention a longstanding relationship that we hope to continue,” a spokesperson for Amazon said. “We believe that ‘Artificial’ will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home.”
A representative for Guadagnino did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.
Besides Garfield, “Artificial” has a hugely starry cast including Monica Barbaro as former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Yura Borisov as former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk. Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet, Angus Imrie, Chris O’Dowd and Mark Rylance also feature. The film was written by “SNL” alum Simon Rich and focuses on the brief period Altman was fired from his position at OpenAI in 2023 and then rehired.
Variety understands that, prior to being dropped by Amazon, “Artificial” already had several test screenings, which went down very positively, and screened for other studios on Thursday. According to an insider who has seen the movie, the characters of Altman and Musk are the least sympathetic and the ones audiences would “like the least.” It’s also understood that Amazon had seen all the early iterations of the script, before Guadagnino boarded the project.
It’s known that Altman and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos have a relationship and Altman even attended Bezos’ wedding in Italy last year.
Puck was the first to report the news of Amazon dropping the film.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could be heading back to the United Kingdom with their children. As per a report, King Charles has helped address the security concerns that have complicated such a trip for years. Sources allege the monarch stepped in privately to support arrangements for the family’s visit. If the claims are accurate, it would mark the first U.K. trip for Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet in several years.
A new report claims King Charles stepped in behind the scenes
Security has remained one of the most sensitive issues surrounding Prince Harry’s relationship with the U.K. The concern followed his and Meghan Markle’s stepping back from royal duties and relocating to California. The Duke of Sussex has repeatedly argued that protection concerns made it difficult for him to bring his wife and children back to Britain. Now, a new report suggests that the hurdle may have been eased.
According to claims published by The Sun, King Charles has offered support behind the scenes to help cover security arrangements for Harry, Meghan, Prince Archie, and Princess Lilibet during a proposed visit next month. Sources cited by the outlet alleged that the King’s involvement could make a family trip possible. It comes after years of uncertainty over safety measures.
The reported breakthrough comes despite no apparent change in the government’s official position. Sources told the publication that a review of the threat level facing the Sussexes has been ongoing. However, it has allegedly not resulted in any upgrade to their publicly funded protection. Instead, the report claims the King’s personal resources could help bridge the gap and enable a “safe return” for the family.
If the plans move forward, the Sussexes are expected to travel to the U.K. for celebrations linked to the Invictus Games. The event, founded by Harry in 2014, remains one of the projects closest to his heart. Reports suggest the family could attend a “one-year countdown party” ahead of the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham.
Such a visit would carry significance beyond the sporting event itself. Meghan has rarely returned to Britain since the couple’s departure from royal life. She has not made a major visit in four years. Archie and Lilibet have spent even less time in the country. In fact, King Charles has reportedly seen his grandchildren in person only once since Harry and Meghan moved to the United States in 2020.
Originally reported by Zahrah Patel on Reality Tea.

The much anticipated summer movie Toy Story 5 features a battle between toys and tech — a plot likely to resonate with parents who see the pull of digital devices in their kids’ lives, especially during the summer.
And that’s not just a parental perception: Research clearly shows that screen time goes up dramatically during the summer.
“For kids, 7 to 12, they are using and spending more time on their screens, about 30% more, which is equivalent to about four more hours per week compared to school time,” says Lauren Lee, a psychologist at Aura, an online safety company that compiled a very detailed report about kids’ online lives based on data from nearly 30,000 devices.
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Aura gathered information through its parental control app that accesses children’s and parents’ devices and through surveys with parents and children around the country. It found that 75% of children ages 7 to 11 years old said that they would rather watch videos than play with toys.
It’s a statistic at the heart of the Toy Story 5 plot, where 8-year-old Bonnie starts to ignore her beloved toys after her parents give her a “Lilypad” tablet that’s the new social capital.
“Summer is a particularly vulnerable period for higher screen use,” says pediatrician Dr. Jason Nagata, who was not involved in the Aura study. Nagata, who researches online behaviors of children and teens at the University of California, San Francisco, says the Aura research jibes with what previous studies have shown. In the absence of the structure and routine of school days, it is easy to reach for devices.
Higher screen time during summers is the norm now
The new study gives a degree of granularity, not just on the time children and teens are spending online, but on what they are doing — scrolling, playing video games and socializing virtually. (A virtual social group is a big part of the Toy Story 5 plot — but no spoilers here!) .
For teens, screen time goes up by 15% during the summer compared to the school year, the report finds. While younger kids are spending much of their time on devices watching YouTube videos or playing on the video gaming platform Roblox, teens are spending more time on social media apps, according to the new report.
Nearly 70% of children are on their devices by mid-afternoon, and 1 in 10 remain active on their devices at midnight.
“We are seeing nighttime messaging rates more than doubling across all age groups compared to the fall,” says Lee.
The new Toy Story movie also portrays this, with Bonnie, staying up late on her new tablet, and reaching for it first thing in the morning.
More screens, worse sleep and mood
Studies also illustrate the negative health impacts of such high screen time during summers. The Aura report finds that as the summer wears on, one in three children score low on Aura’s Digital Wellbeing Index, which correlates digital behaviors with a range of health parameters, including sleep, mood, isolation and their ability to regulate emotions. The company scores children on this index based on surveys of kids and parents as well as their screen habits.
“Time that is generally spent on screens is often displacing sleep, physical activity or outdoor time,” says Nagata.
And those factors — adequate sleep, time outdoors, physical activity, in-person socializing with friends and family — are really important for the health and wellbeing of children, he says, especially during the summer when they aren’t at school being engaged, active and interacting with others.
Kids don’t want to be stuck to their screens all summer
There’s some good news, too. The Aura report shows that kids have some self-awareness around tech: More than half of the children and teens surveyed recognize that too much time on screens isn’t good for them, and more ranked spending time with friends (36%) and going outside (24%) higher than using a tablet (20%).
That’s been shown in other studies, too, says Nagata. “Many children and teens themselves report that they actually don’t want to be glued to their phones over the summer,” he says. “It’s just oftentimes, they’re a little bit bored.”
Screens are easy to reach for when bored, and many apps are designed to keep people hooked for extended periods, with constant notifications and alerts.
So, as kids around the country start their summer vacations, how can parents ensure that they don’t spend their days sucked into their devices?
1. Give them something else to do. Fun and structure are the buzzwords.
Parents should try to provide fun alternatives to screens, Nagata suggests. “If you’re just saying, ‘Oh, you have to limit your screen use to 1 or 2 hours a day without providing fun alternatives, it can be really hard if the kid is still stuck at home and kind of bored,” he says.
Nagata suggests activities that offer a “physical barrier” to devices, like swimming.
“I try to take my daughter swimming every weekend over the summers, and the pool has become our special father-daughter place,” he says. “And it’s also screen free. You cannot physically bring phones or devices into the pool.”
He also recommends summer camps. A 2023 survey by the American Camp Association found that 90% of summer camps banned cell phones and tablets.
“Camps that especially provide opportunities for physical activity, outdoor play and opportunities for stronger relationships and social interactions may be especially beneficial for kids,” he says.
For kids less interested in sports or physical activities, there are art, music and cooking camps, too. Niki Cordell runs a summer camp in Chicago called Junior Chefs Kitchen. Kids get hands-on experience cooking two recipes every day, and go to the park for about an hour. Once a week, they visit various restaurants in the city.
“Not all kids are super sporty, so this gives them the ability to build confidence and life skills in a different setting,” says Cordell. Kids in her camp often go home wanting to recreate the recipes they learned, she says.
Organizing days around trips to the library or park, and taking advantage of community organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs of America are lower cost ways to give summer days more structure.
2. Let the kids have a say. Try a “family bingo” approach.
Engage your kids in planning for days when they don’t have camp or other activities, says Merve Lapus, vice president of education, outreach and engagement for Common Sense Media, an advocacy organization.
“It’s actually really important to just have that discussion with the kids and recognize that it’s very easy to get lost in screens, but we want to really be in agreement that this is something we’re going to try and do together,” says Lapus. He also recommends that parents do activities with their children.
“For my own teenager, this is going to be the year that she learns about driving,” he says. “So we’re going to spend a lot of time on things that are going to be very practical for their next stage [of life].”
Cordell, who is also a mother of three, says she and her children create a “family bingo sheet,” with various activities. “It could be kayaking or water balloon fight day,” she says. “Then we put a bunch of different activities in a jar.”
When her kids get bored, they pick out an activity from the jar and do it. For this summer, one of her children suggested creating little characters out of shaving cream, says Cordell. “I was like, ‘I’ve never heard of that before, but let’s go for it!'”
Summer lists are also important to Simmons Hanson, a teacher and mother of three children, ages 8, 11 and 13.
“For years and years we have made a summer list,” says Hanson, who lives in Washington D.C. “Sometimes it’s big things on the list, like camps or vacations, trips to the beach. But it’s also little things like a double-ice-cream-day.”
Then there are activities that Hanson’s middle child thinks of when she’s bored that aren’t already on the family summer list. Instead of writing them down, the 11-year-old Sallie Chappell Hanson says she files away the ideas in her brain for later.
“I think that your brain is like a catalog,” she says. “Instead of saving files, it can save ideas.”
Some of her ideas include entrepreneurial endeavors like selling lemonade or handmade bracelets in her neighborhood. Other ideas involve arts and crafts projects, or playing imaginary games with her 8-year-old sister.
3. Set some rules for the whole family (and follow them!)
“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends implementing a family media plan,” says Nagata. That’s an “individualized set of guidelines for your household.”
That media plan should include times — like meal times and bedtimes — and places — like bedrooms — that are free of devices for the whole family.
“That means devices don’t need to be on the table when we’re having a meal together, if that’s something that families are able to do,” suggests Lapus. “It’s really just important to recognize what are your family values and how do you center those?”
“We started to have some rules around limiting screen time because the kids were getting really grumpy after hours and hours of screen time,” says Hanson.
And they revisit those rules at the beginning of the summer.
“Our family is sometimes managed by quirky rules, like you can have screen time when it rains,” she says. “And sometimes it’s determined by it’s a long day after soccer camp and everybody needs to cool off and I need to make dinner. And so then that becomes screen time.”
Her kids share an iPad and a Chrome Book, and each kid uses the devices for different things based on their stage of development. All her kids love listening to podcasts, she says, but they are often doing other things while listening to them.
4. Check your own screen use — and share your struggles.
Nagata also recommends modeling healthy screen use, especially as recent research suggests that children tend to mirror screen use by parents. Hanson agrees.
“We as parents, we have always modeled and narrated a lot of things around us,” she explains.
“Even from when the kids were very young, narrating and modeling things about our choices – about why we choose to go here or there, or why we choose to wear this. Tech choice is no different.”
It helps raise awareness in her children about the drawbacks of excessive technology use, and creates an ongoing conversation about it in her family.
Hanson used to regularly scroll through Instagram, she says. “And the kids love to look over my shoulder and look at Instagram,” she says. “We would get stuck scrolling.”
But recently, she realized such excessive scrolling through her feed was having a negative impact on her own mood.
“I could feel myself getting grumpy and getting short tempered with the kids, when I was trying to look at Instagram and parent at the same time,” explains Hanson. “It’s not a great combo.”
So, she took Instagram off of her phone, and explained to her kids why she did that.
“Those sorts of choices continue to be necessary to explain as they grow up and are paying attention to everything that we are doing as parents,” she says. “It feels really important to guide them in their choices with our own behavior.”