HGTV Star’s Tech-Free Childhood Movement Gains Massive Momentum
By Movieguide® Contributor
HGTV stars Erin and Ben Napier launched Osprey Kids last year as a way to help “old school parents [raise] engaged youth.” Their movement is having a massive impact.
“We are parents committed to helping our kids achieve social media-free childhoods until they graduate high school. When adolescents have no access to social media, they gain access to deeper engagement with their families, interests and self assurance,” their website explains.
The couple started the organization out of a desire to set their kids up for success, enabling them to enjoy their childhood without social media. And Erin believes that’s something she should model for her daughters.
“I’ve been working harder at spending my time offline, ‘modeling’ behavior for our kids that we wish for them to mimic in an effort to slow down time,” she wrote in a Substack article for Osprey. “If we can be present and off these dang devices, we might not feel like we missed so much of their very fleeting little childhoods.”
Her message resonates with parents across the country. In the United States, over 27,000 families have committed to the Napiers’ movement.
“27,000 homes swimming against the current. But it’s not just us! Look at how the world is changing for the better regarding our kids and tech use this year alone. Be emboldened by this. You’re no longer the weird family, you’re becoming the louder, rational voice in an international conversation,” Erin added.
She highlighted five ways that awareness of and action against the dangers of technology are becoming mainstream:
- Jon Haidt’s The Anxious Generation has been a top 4 NYT Bestseller since its release in March 2024.
- Red and blue states agree on one thing: cell phones are being banned in schools all over the USA.
- Instagram is restricting teen accounts — and blocking sneaky workarounds to keep kids safer online.
- Two concerned mothers in the UK started their own grassroots movement much like Osprey!
- Parents are opting their kids OUT of digital education with overuse of tablets and Chromebooks in the classroom becoming a concern.
“I’m encouraged by these huge developments, and you should be too,” she concluded.
For parents who want their kids to live tech-free but aren’t sure how to get started, Erin encourages them to find a group of like-minded families, which is what Osprey is for.
“Forming a circle of families and friends who are in this together when your kids are little, linking arms and doing what it takes to give your kids the gift of a social media free adolescence is the only way we change the culture,” she said last year. “If we build a culture in our home and school now where she doesn’t expect access to the entire world in her pocket until she’s much older, we can set her up for success.
Movieguide® previously reported on Erin’s tips to keep kids tech-free during the school year:
HGTV Erin Napier is grateful for her older daughter’s school accommodating her and husband Ben’s wishes to keep their children social media and mobile device free.
“Our school is awesome and understands (I mean we’re the weird parents who started #ospreykids) and let us pick her up early on digital education days,” Erin said in an Instagram Story earlier this week. “[I] love that so much. we use that time to go to daddy’s woodshop or play on the farm or do art at home…”
The HOME TOWN star says that screen time for her two daughters — Helen, 6, and Mae, 3 — is limited to FaceTime with their grandparents. For Napier, “tablet use at school is in direct opposition to our family culture in a way that feels unhelpful.”
Napier also encourages other parents who are interested in their kids receiving a “low-tech education” to reach out to their school’s administration and “share the facts that are becoming increasingly apparent: it doesn’t benefit most students until they’re older, and then in limited amounts.”
