Biblically grounded insight for today’s early childhood professionals.
Brought to you by the Early Childhood Christian Network, Reimagine Childhood delivers practical strategies, expert advice, and faith-filled encouragement for teaching and caring for young children.
Each episode features conversations with trusted voices in early education, offering tools you can use right away—whether you’re in the classroom, leading a team, or supporting families.
Welcome to Reimagine Childhood brought to you by Early Childhood Christian Network—where we equip you with the tools you need so you can confidently care for and teach young children.
We know early childhood is prime time for all development and, yet, we often overlook our critical role in providing optimal learning experiences. In every episode, you’ll find seasoned experts sharing their passion and expertise in a way that is easily applied to everyday experiences in the classroom and anywhere else you’re involved with young children. We want to protect and celebrate early childhood in all its wonder and imagination, rather than rushing through it to get “prepared” for the next stage.
So….how will you reimagine your approach to early childhood? We’d love to invite you on this journey with us!
In this episode of Reimagine Childhood from the Early Childhood Christian Network, host Monica Healer interviews Dr. Kayla Abshire, director of innovation and learning at San Marcos Academy, about developmentally appropriate technology education for young children. They distinguish passive screen time from intentionally teaching technology as a productivity tool, addressing concerns such as delayed language development, reduced social-emotional skills, sleep disruption, and physical impacts. Dr. Abshire shares practical, mostly hands-on strategies for pre-K, including mouse and keyboard skill-building, letter recognition, unplugged coding with movement-based sequencing games, early robotics with Bee-Bots and coding mice, and scaled-down digital citizenship focused on device care, safe clicking, and kind communication. The conversation also covers parent and teacher pushback, the need for professional development, and the goal of helping children create with technology rather than only consume it.
00:00 Welcome to Reimagine Childhood
00:50 Meet Dr Kayla Abshire
03:02 Screen Time Risks Explained
07:07 Teaching Tech Without Screens
14:12 Unplugged Coding and Robotics
20:46 Digital Citizenship and Parents
28:43 Creators Not Consumers Wrap Up