of today's technology and the parental options into five spheres: nutrition, screen time, disposable income, family responsibility, and, finally, a balance of extracurricular activities, academics, and unstructured play. osphere, "morphing old-world skills into a new-world career," he says. His homegrown blog, "DocSmo.com," started as an experiment in "Studio 1E"--his son's old bedroom. Draw- ing on the diverse expertise of his family, Dr. Smolen developed a high- ly successful series of podcasts in wide variety of subjects with a global audience. He has researched, written, and recorded 350 "portable, practi- cal, pediatric `pedcasts.'" By the spring of 2015, DocSmo.com was log- ging 40,000 visitors a month (many returning regularly), with an average viewing time of six minutes per visit. questions, including "Straight Talk about Sleep in Infancy," "The Potty Refuser," and "The Tired Teen." "Every morning I get up and add new topics," he says. "The list is endless." Dr. Smolen, who also serves as an adjunct associate professor of pedi- atrics at the University of North casts give me the opportunity to teach both parents about a lot of things that there just isn't time for during a rou- tine office visit. Extending the con- versation beyond the office was my original concept, and it worked!" School) was an excellent choice for him, says Dr. Smolen. He originally planned to practice family medicine. Then, during his clinical rotations, he worked with Paul Winokur, MD, a Counsels Thousands of Parents |