Understanding Your Teen's Digital World

My favorite thing about BRIO is that you can actually absorb stuff from it and learn. Reaching teen girls right where they're at with encouragement to grow in their faith. The stories in the BRIO magazine about other people that have gone through things way worse than I have is really inspiring and uplifting. Help your teen invite God into her everyday experience with BRIO magazine. Learn more at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash BRIO radio. And if we can get kids to, you know, if we can start talking about who God is and their identity in Christ and have those conversations with them regularly, they're going to be able to come to these, you know, when they're at TikTok going, I don't have enough followers.

They're going to have that foundation of the Word of God that their identity is built on. Jonathan McKee is joining us today on Focus on the Family. And your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly.

Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller. You know, John, technology is all around us.

There's no way to hide from it. I lost my phone a couple of days ago. I haven't retrieved it yet. I have found it. But it feels odd not having that technology right there. I'm thinking, what calls am I missing? What emails?

The whole bit. But our children have grown up in this environment. They're called digital natives.

That's their name for that generation that was born into the technology world. And I think it probably is one of the main concerns that parents contact Focus on the Family for advice and help. And we're going to cover this topic today. Yeah. And there's good reason that parents contact us.

There's so much in these devices and on screens. We've invited Jonathan McKee, as I said, to join us. He's back again. He's a social researcher, a popular speaker and author. And you can hear him on our Plugged-In show, the podcast and the radio reviews. He's got a terrific new book. It's called Parenting Generations Screen, Guiding Your Kids to be Wise in a Digital World. And we've got copies of that book here for you at Focus on the Family.

Call 800-A-FAMILY or check the episode notes for all the details. Jonathan, welcome back to Focus. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. It's always good to have you here because you remind me of what I'm not doing correctly with my digital assets with my kids. So thank you very much.

Good. Well, yeah, I'm glad you do these parenting workshops. You're interacting with parents on this very specific topic of the digital age and what their kids are into. What is that most common question that you hear from parents who have that worried face? Oh, man, you know, there are so many of those questions that you get as a as a mom comes up with that frantic look on her face after the workshop. And I think probably the biggest one is, you know, how much screen time is too much. Yeah. But the question is varied.

Sometimes it's how do I get my son to stop playing video games all day or and what do you say to that question? Oh, man. Yeah, exactly.

Since you raised it. Yeah. Well, and that's one of those things where I think we really start to talk. I think most of my conversations probably start with connection before correction. And we're going to get to that. I want to save that at the end. Because it's just a great concept.

But I'll tease that out a little bit. You know, one of the common questions we receive here, I'm sure you do as well need you touched on it is what is the best age or what's the right age or what's the average age, however, a parent is couching that, that I should get him the phone? What's your answer to that question? It's tough, because even if we say here's what the experts say, and we could definitely talk about that it, the pressure is still on. Because literally, it feels like every single one of their friends at school already has a phone because so many parents are caving and given their kids phone. So your fifth grader, your sixth grader feels like they're the only kid out there without that phone when that pressure is mounting more and more, you know, my boys are now you know, moving through teenager Trent's 20 and Troy's 18.

But the truth of the matter is, I mean, we tried to delay it just as long as possible. Somebody gave me that great advice and said, you know, just delay it as long as you can. And so you know, when they came to me and said, Hey, Dad, when do I get my phone? It's Oh, you know, mom and I will talk about that. And six months later, they'd go, What did you guys talk about that? Oh, man, you know, I haven't talked about it yet.

But let me you know, in six months, but they weren't they weren't terribly nagging about it. But it was 17 and 15 for Trent and Troy and of course, Troy being a 15 year old benefited from transplant. But it was late and I'm grateful for it. Well, and you're not alone. I mean, a lot of the experts out there who are studying this stuff all the time.

It's amazing. Their kids, they're delaying that age as long as possible people in the business. Absolutely. You look at like Jim Steyer, you know, president of common sense media. He waited till his kids were in high school. Bill Gates, this guy who knows a little bit about technology wait till his kids were in high school. A lot of the people who for you know, their job is technology and they see the effects of technology go to Silicon Valley, the instruction that you know, parents are leaving as they leave the house during the day is to the nannies. Hey, take them to the park, take them outside, play with the kids, no screens because they realize the effect of screen. So it's good to not just hand your eight year old a screen and say, good luck. Now you've framed this in your book, a parenting generation screen.

So you've tagged them as the screen generation. In that context, you have a story in there about Christine's mom. What was her story? You know, it's interesting when you think about this because as I was thinking, if I tell that story, there's probably several dozen moms who will listen to be like, Oh, that's my story because that's how common this story is. Christine's mom, I remember her. She came up and she waited till everybody else is kind of gone and away from the table because I think I don't know if she was embarrassed or just scared.

And she came up and she started to tell me the story of her daughter who she had given a phone when she was 12 years old. And this is a pretty conservative family. They were homeschooled kids, but the pressure was on.

Sure enough. I mean, Christine was in sports, she was at church, all her friends had phones. So mom delayed as long as possible. Only 12 years old, gave her a phone and her instructions were, okay, no social media or any of that bad stuff. Because like a lot of parents, you know, I don't really know what that bad stuff is. I just know it's out there.

So please, none of that bad stuff. And those were the instructions she left. And a year later, she got a phone call from one of her friends. And Christine's had been over at her friend's house and, and, and basically everything came apart. And it was through the parents calling that she found out Christine had met a guy on social media because she's 13. Yeah.

Yeah. Despite the instructions of no social media or any of that bad stuff immediately, she jumped on a social media account. She met a guy who was claiming he was a teenager, you know, and this guy said all the right things and, you know, affirmed Christine, you know, and, and everything. And, and Christine, you know, started talking to this guy, had no idea that really she was talking to a guy that was 40 something years old. And as this happened, and the story unveiled, the guy asked for a sexy pic, she obliged, sent it, as so many young girls do, because they're kind of under that pressure. And they feel like, he gets me, he understands me, this is what he wants.

This is what will keep him. And she was about ready to go meet the guy. And that's when she told her friend who friend told mom, mom told Christine's mom, boom, this is how it all blew up. And in fact, he said, in that text to her, you know, my uncle's gonna come and pick you up.

Yeah. And that's the scary thing. But it was him what happens. And you know what, every school I do an assembly at has a Christine story.

And it's not like some legend that's out there. It's like, see that girl over there? You know, this is what happened to her. Because this is so common.

This is gender. Let's dissect this because that is so common. What is the right parental approach, particularly from a Christian perspective? You know, let's say that it was 12 or 13. And there's not dozens, there's thousands listening that may be the Christine mom story. And what is the right way for those moms and dads who haven't experienced this yet to handle this?

Well, I think a lot of parents because we don't know what to do. Our tendency is to just hand them this device and say, Well, you know more about this device than me anyway. So please be smart with it.

Good luck. And that's kind of like the speech. It's like, please don't do anything stupid. But we don't train them because we don't know what to train them. And it's so funny because when you look at like driving a car, or driving a car, if we're going to hand them something that demands such responsibility, you know, well, they have to wait till a certain age. And then when it comes to that age, what do they have to do? They have to research about it, they have to take tests about it, they have to sit next to us for six months, and actually practice using that vehicle with us saying, be careful as you merge there.

Be careful as you do this. Yeah, with no friends in the car, we give them these instructions. But yet with a phone, it's just as if they go kind of a car shirt, and we throw them the keys when they're 10.

You know, we don't need to just throw our kids the keys. And we need to start realizing that there's a lot of responsibility that comes with owning a phone. And we need to start sitting next to them for six months and dialoguing about this.

Well, and this brings us back to what you mentioned a moment ago, connection before correction. So speak to that, I like the concept. How do we do that? Well, you know, it's one of those things that I don't think parents like to hear. But we need to hear it. Because what we really want is we want to find out exactly what you know, blocks are out there, what filters are out there, just give me the stuff, you know, how many hours should my kid be on the phone, so I could set their phone on that, and magically, it'll all be okay. But sadly, it takes something much more than that. It takes us teaching them how to become screen wise. It takes conversations like so much of parenting does. And connection before correction is saying, guess what, if you just apply a bunch of rules, without a relationship, for sure, they're going to rebel, you cannot just slap down a bunch of rules, we got to sit down and talk with them about this. So connection before correction is really a principle where if our kids do mess up, or if they're coming to us every day and going, please grab a screen, please grab a screen, instead of just saying, Okay, here it is.

And here's the rules, fill out this phone contract. It's actually sitting down and connecting with them, and dialoguing about some of these important things, talking about stories about the Christine at their school, because there is one, you know, and saying, Hey, how could she avoided this situation? What are some predatory behaviors we need to look out for? You know, what do you think about screen limits? Well, let me let me pitch this as well. One of the difficulties is to have that kind of relationship to have that connection, as you called it, you've got to refrain from, I think, penalizing their honesty, you want to foster your child being able to be honest with you. And then discussing ways to, you know, build a hedge of protection for that child and get them to participate in that.

And the reason why. And so, again, I think one of the things for parents, and I'm only saying this because Jean and I experienced it, is that you need to engage your children. And you've got to probably say more than you would want to say about that subject of predatory activity. And you've got to, you've got to be honest with your kids and what those tools can do, because the tools themselves are not evil.

It's what people do with those tools. I call it creating a climate of comfortable conversation. It's, it's becoming that safe source, that they know that if I come to mom, or if I come to dad, I can bring up what I just saw on my screen without them freaking out. And these are some of the issues that you know, we talk about in this book, you know, a lot of people are thinking it's going to be just a bunch of rules you have. Really, this book is so much about how do you talk with your kids about this? How do you begin those conversations? How do you not freak out?

And what are some actual tips you can use? Because I know that's where I blew it so big as a dad very often they think, you know, I know dad's just going to get mad with this. How do we become that safe source that they can come and talk to? Exactly. Jonathan, I want to go to the idea that, okay, now your kids have screen capability, that decisions made whatever age it is, we don't have to be too frantic about that, as I said, and I think you would agree, delay it as long as you can. And high school is a good time, especially for phones, but they've also got iPads and, you know, screen accessibility at home. Where do you go once they have that screen time? There's many dangers for them to navigate. In fact, you talk about your son's friend Bodhi.

What happened in Bodhi circumstance? Well, it's one of those situations that happens so often as we try to control screens. And we think maybe we even, you know, are one of the minority of parents who actually say no screens in the bedroom, because we live in a country where 79% of teenagers bring to the bedroom. Just do it. Yeah, I'm sorry.

They're going to complain. Just do that boundary. And honestly, you know, if you want to walk away with just one thing from this show today, because parents simply go, I'm overwhelmed loss.

If there's one thing, let me tell you how you could just solve a world of hurt. If you are overwhelmed and you don't want to have a bunch of rules, have one rule, no screens in the bedroom, no screens in the bathroom. Yeah, no screen. And I say we charge everything in the kitchen.

Yeah, charge it somewhere else. And because that is just I'd say probably almost every question I get after a workshop has the words through the night, my kid is gaming through the night, my girl met a boyfriend in the middle of the night, you know, I can't get them to stop. They're on social media, and they're constantly looking at how many followers they have through the night.

It's keeping them awake and is leading the depression through that. I mean, and that one simple thing. Well, that that was what happened. But his dad, but his dad said, Hey, no screens in the bedroom took away the phone. But guess what?

He has a laptop, you know, and he didn't really think about it until he saw a glow under the door, you know, like at two in the morning, you know, and this happens all the time. As I was writing this book, one of the things I do is I always send it out to a bunch of parents to read. And I say, Hey, give me feedback.

You know, I usually send out to like 50 to 100 parents. And I say, Come on, tell me what happened in your house, what didn't. And I all these moms tell me, Well, here's what happened with my daughter.

And I remember a mom reacting to that story and saying, Oh, exact same thing happened with me with my daughter. I said no screens, and she ends up pulling up this old thing we forgot she even has like an old itouch or something. It's basically like a phone without cell service, you know? Well, there's Wi Fi in the house. Boom, immediately jumped on, you know, and then other parents will say, Oh, well, we shut down the Wi Fi. You wouldn't believe how kids are good at jumping on hotspots, the neighbors Wi Fi, right? Exactly.

I mean, there's so many different ways. And it's just one of those things where, you know, where, and again, that shows we need to dialogue with our kids about this and talk with them about this. Talk with them about no screens in the bedroom.

And why? Listen to their opinion on it. Hear them out on that. We need to create conversation about these issues. Because you know what, honestly, they're going to be, you know, 17 and 20 someday, right, Jim?

Yeah. And they're going to be out on their own, and they're going to be in a college dorm and army barracks, they're going to be making these decisions. And you aren't gonna be able to take their screen away, have they made those decisions for themselves. And that's the right parenting goal is you need to equip your kids to make these good decisions. And there's no guarantee.

There's no formula. But if you do that, it's more likely your kids will make those better decisions. And when they're 18 1920, and I can attest to that, let's go to how screen time can affect sleep impact people.

So we've gotten to the decision point, you get a phone, you get a screen, what have you. Now, how much time that can be a little out of control and a little more difficult to control for the reasons you're saying. But what with all the studies that you read, what should parents be alerted to when it comes to the amount of time? The thing I think I just really want to really emphasize is that most of research out there, what researchers are agreeing on is not the amount of total screen time, what most researchers are agreeing on is that not all screen time is created equal. There's a lot of positive screen time, you know, I mean, and we learned, you know, when the country was shut down, that screens were kids only access to education, it was their only access to socialization.

So that made it of course, more difficult because now wait, our screens a good thing, are they but you know, it's hard to say good or bad. Let me tell you something, there's certain activities we should really watch. And the biggest one is the amount of social media that young people are gleaning each day. And we've talked about this in other broadcasts. But the research that I think is the most clear cut is the research that Dr. Jean Twenge and Dr. Jonathan hate came together and they basically grabbed all the researchers and said, Okay, we disagree on so much about screen time, what do we agree on? And they did an open source document where they said, everybody contribute your research, and then they observed and said, What do we agree on? They agreed on two things. One, there was a mental health crisis going on right now, literally pre COVID, there was a mental health crisis that had to do with screens. The second thing they agreed on is it didn't have to do with how much video game time didn't have to do with total screen time. It had to do with how much social media young people were soaking in each day, especially young girls.

Yeah, so that's huge. That's for us to be thinking about, hey, how much time specifically are kids putting themselves out there and posting stuff, hoping to get likes, hoping to get followers, eight out of 10 young people right now want to be some sort of social media influencer, they want to have their own YouTube channel, maybe in an innocent way. Maybe they want to have their own channel, you know, doing a Bible study, it, you know, it could be completely innocent. But when they're putting themselves out there, and they need likes, they need followers, that starts to do something to your psyche.

Am I good enough? How come I don't have as many followers as them, and it's affecting them. And that's where researchers are saying, watch that kind of screen time limit that Jonathan, you're raising such a good point here.

And let me connect the dots for the Christian community listening. When we look at teen girls and teen boys too, but differently. They're both trying to figure out what's my identity. And I think social media is where that understanding of your identity can get so twisted. It's how many people like me. And that idea that somebody likes you because they've pressed a button is not what human relationship is built on. That's not like you know me. It's just, Hey, I like what you posted.

I like you. And then we, we need to address that. Where do children, how do they develop a good identity in Christ as their core, not social media, not, you know, Snapchat.

That's not their identity. I think one of the biggest mistakes I made as a dad was I put so much focus on what things to block so much focus on which things I was saying no to that I didn't spend enough time affirming the behaviors, the good stuff, you know, it was like, okay, here's the stuff to not do. You know, I was so focused on blocking out the lies that I didn't spend enough time talking about the truth. And this is where we need to, as we create these conversations with our kids, we need to talk about the truth. Some of the biggest questions in life are who is God?

And who am I? Almost every issue a kid is dealing with falls in between those two questions. And if we can get kids to, you know, if we can start talking about who God is and their identity in Christ and have those conversations with them regularly, they're going to be able to come to these, you know, when they're at Tik TOK going, I don't have enough followers.

They're going to have that foundation of the word of God that their identity is built on. Jonathan, let's move to the parental control discussion because that's something Jean and I did that. Sometimes I was having to calm Jean down. I mean, that's one of the problems with parental controls.

They do provide a service, but they also provide, you know, some fear, depending upon what the kids are looking at, etc. You have a story in the book about Don and Brian. What happened with Don and Brian with parental control? Yeah, they're the two extremes and I changed their names to protect them.

Although if they listened to this, they'd be like, he's talking about me. You know, it's just two dads. I knew it. It was as funny because they were the polar opposites. You know, the one was the dad who just pretty much allowed it all. I mean, just, you know, his kids could watch anything, listen to anything, do anything.

They had phones before anybody else. And you know that if your kid saw something bad, it was at their house, you know, because they're allowed to watch everything at every cable channel. You know, we all know someone like that, right?

Well, then there was the opposite extreme, you know, so there's no rules over there at all. But the opposite extreme was this other friend I had who literally monitored his kids so much. Like he had like these apps that followed them through. I mean, he would literally know what aisle they are in at Walmart and what foods they were shopping for.

You know, he had every item. And it was interesting to see those two extremes. And I feel like a lot of parents kind of feel like, oh, I've either got to let my kids, you know, let them go and do their own thing. And a lot of parents do just, hey, good luck. And they hand them the device and others feel like, no, I've got to, you know, I've got to have all this software and I've got to do all this different stuff. And really, I don't think there needs to be a pressure to be either extreme.

As a matter of fact, I don't think either extreme is super healthy. I think, you know, it's kind of a balancing where we as parents, we really need to be doing, you know, that biblical model of Deuteronomy six, which is walking with our kids. And as they get up, as they walk along the road and as they go to bed at night having conversations and if our kids come and ask us about an app, maybe we go, I don't know, let's check it out together. And we look at it and we're not becoming, you know, mom and pop spyware. You know, we aren't becoming, you know, where we have to get all this. I do believe in parental controls.

I'm kind of a bad guy when I say, guess what? Moms and dads, I think you should wait to give your kids screens as long as possible. I think you should not have screens in the bedroom. I think it can be helpful to limit their social media by going onto their device and whether going onto TikTok itself or YouTube itself or on the device and having downtime, limiting the amount of social media. I think there's controls like that we can have, but those are only after we've had countless conversations where we've taken them through books where, you know, just like as if we were teaching them to draw. I want to restate this again, the goal in your parenting journey is to help your kids make good decisions and whatever tool you need to help train them in that way. It doesn't guarantee they're not gonna wander into some stuff that they shouldn't.

They probably will. But then how do you get them back on track? If you keep that as the high goal, I think you'll have a far better relationship with your child. And I think they'll learn the wisdom that you're talking about. Jonathan, we're coming in for a landing. You speak about seven tips for correcting without destroying that connection.

We'll list those at the website, John, but just pick a couple to give people an idea of what you're looking at. Well, and this is where I really speak from the heart, because as I look back at times where I feel like I just overreacted and we as parents, we need to change that overreaction into interaction. We really need to watch, you know, that freaking out because they're looking for someone safe. And sadly, when it comes to them seeking out predators, a lot of young people seek out predators because they don't feel love at home. They feel like there's nobody they could talk to affirmation.

Yeah, they're going in there seeking somebody else to talk to. So one of the things I really talk about is, is trying to create that climate of comfortable conversations. But if there's one piece of advice I can give the parents is don't ever, ever correct in the moment.

I don't care how good of a parent you are and how much time you're spending in your Bible. And, but just always use that delay because it's so awesome. And what that could look like is if you find out that your kid, you know, jumped on that website, you told them not to, or they snuck that device in the bedroom. I actually go as far as to say, rehearse a speech to where it doesn't sound rehearsed, where you literally say, Hey, let me have that device. And you look at them and you say, Hey, you know what, Jennifer, I love you.

I love you so much. And I messed up so many times as a kid. I don't want to overreact right now and I don't want to say anything stupid. Trust me, I've done this too. I've messed up. So I just want to walk away for a little bit. I want to go pray and I'm going to take the screen away. Let's talk tomorrow.

Just know that I love you and there is nothing you can do that would take that love away. Yeah, no, it's good. And you've packed it in there. Parenting Generation Screen, the do's and don'ts really for parenting this screen generation. This has been really insightful. Thank you for the vulnerability you've opened up about your life and about your own weaknesses in that area. And we all have them. Thank you for sharing that with us.

That really takes courage. And we have many great resources like Jonathan's book, Parenting Generation Screen, guiding your kids to be wise in a digital world. And I think we've given you a flavor, a taste of what it's like to apply biblical approaches and attitudes in your parenting.

This isn't about simple correction. This is about equipping your child to make better decisions in their digital choices. And I, you know, again, I just so appreciate the way Jonathan has approached this with his humility, etc. Let me say this is one of those resources that we want to get into your hands. And if you can make a gift of any amount today, we'll send it as our way of saying thank you for that support and helping other families do the same thing.

If you can't afford it, we're going to trust others will support focus, maybe instead of a latte today, send $5 to focus. And that'll help minister to a family who can't afford the book. I hope you can do that and be a part of the team to minister not only to your family, but to so many other families. Yeah, get in touch. Let us know how we can help donate as you can and request Jonathan's book parenting generation screen.

Our numbers 800 the letter A and the word family 800-232-6459. Or you can click the link in the episode notes. Jonathan, again, thanks for being with us. Thanks for your contribution to Plugged In. You do voice those radio spots and you do a lot with the team at Plugged In. Thank you for that contribution.

I always enjoyed the dialogue. Thank you. And again, we've got lots of resources including Plugged In for you. Just click the link in the episode notes or give us a call. And on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Hey, this is John Fuller and Focus on the Family is looking for talented writers and editors to help produce our audio programs and podcasts. Go to focusonthefamily.com slash jobs to learn more about these and other job opportunities here at Focus.