86: Tech Boundaries with Jean-Marie Piini

A teen with a smartphone is not just holding a device, they’re holding a doorway. I invited Jean-Marie to share how her family approaches technology with two teenagers, and the conversation gets real fast: addiction-like design, online grooming risks, and the quiet ways algorithms shape what our kids believe about themselves. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re being “too strict” or not strict enough, you’ll hear a framework that’s bigger than rules and more practical than vague advice.

We talk through what it looks like to treat tech as discipleship and not merely behavior management. Jean-Marie explains why discernment is a core skill, how a first phone can be framed as a partnership, and why simple boundaries still matter: no phones at the table, no devices behind closed doors, no screens in bedrooms at night, and gaming only in public spaces. We also dig into tactics parents rarely mention out loud, like paying to remove ads and actively curating a teen’s Pinterest feed when the algorithm starts pushing appearance-driven content or sneaky pathways into other platforms.

The heart of the conversation is connection. We unpack how to build a home where kids can say, “Something weird happened online” without fear, and why the “golden hour” before bedtime can become your best window into what your teen is carrying. We close with encouragement for overwhelmed parents: delay when you can, cultivate offline interests, consider a digital detox, get professional help when reactions look like addiction, and cover it all in prayer.

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a parent friend, and leave a review so more families can find practical, hope-filled guidance. What boundary or habit has made the biggest difference in your home?

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Transcript

Leanne Tuggle 0:50

Friends, I am so excited for this conversation. I have invited Jean Marie to come on the show today. And Jean-Marie and I met at church. And the first thing I noticed about her was how intentional she is with her teenagers. I am always looking up to the women who are in the next season of life from me. And I knew that she would be someone great to talk to, especially about technology and how she has approached it with her teens. Not as the only way to handle technology, but as a way. And so before we jump into that conversation today, Jean-Marie, thank you so much for joining me here today. Can you tell us just a little bit about yourself?

Jean-Marie Piini 1:32

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's obviously an honor and a privilege and a little bit scary to talking about our talent technology. I'm

Meet Jean Marie And Her Teens

Jean-Marie Piini 1:40

just a mom like other moms. I started out with toddlers and now I have teenagers, and we've been learning what works and what doesn't work, what honors the Lord and what doesn't honor the Lord. And it's been a learning curve for sure. So excited to be here today and talk about how we interact with technology in our household, but also how we hopefully are shaping our kids to follow hard after the Lord and to really know him and be known by him.

Leanne Tuggle 2:03

Yes. I love that. And can you tell us just like how many kids you have, just for a little bit of background?

Jean-Marie Piini 2:10

Yep. I have two teenagers. My daughter is 16 and my son is 14. So we're in prime in the in the right until the teenage years.

Leanne Tuggle 2:19

I love this. Okay, that's so good. So just to kind of kick off this conversation on technology, how would you describe your overall like philosophy or your approach to parenting teens in this very technology saturated world? Yeah, that's a tricky question, actually, trickier than it sounds like.

Jean-Marie Piini 2:39

I feel like our goal as parents on the whole is to raise children who deeply, deeply know the Lord, who know that they're loved by him, they're created in his image, that they are co-heirs with Christ, that that there's nothing that can separate them from the love of God. And that's an overarching principle, obviously, for all of life. And then so when you drill down into technology, we obviously look at scriptures that are focused on things like do not be conformed to

Discernment As The Family Framework

Jean-Marie Piini 3:11

the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The interesting part that comes next is so that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God and what is acceptable and perfect. And so discernment is a huge part of our parenting. We want to equip our kids with the ability to differentiate between truth and lies and what comes from the Lord and what comes from the world. What is said over you that has value and what is said over you that can be dismissed? So it's really a truth training exercise, I suppose, related to technology. Totally.

Leanne Tuggle 3:42

Yeah, that's amazing. So you kind of did touch on some scripture and biblical principles that have kind of shaped your the way that you think about technology and influence and discipleship. With are there any other like basic principles that have kind of shaped your view on this?

Jean-Marie Piini 3:59

Sure. Well, it was interesting. In today's world, this would be considered outdated. There was a book published in 2016, I think, 10 years ago, and it's called Glow Kids. And it's by but Nicholas Cardares. And I don't actually consume a lot of podcasts or a lot of uh self-help books, but someone had sent me a link to Ali Beth Stuckey's podcast. And she was interviewing this guy who had just published this book, and it was the first of its kind that really gathered together statistics. First of its kind that really drilled down on the research, right? Understanding the consequences of technology that was just starting to become evident. So when he had written the book, he even comments we haven't even seen a full generation of adults and what they look like after having been exposed to incessant technology as children. And in it, he sort of goes over the idea that technology

Addiction Science And Online Risk

Jean-Marie Piini 4:49

is extraordinarily addicting, that it produces a dopamine response that's equivalent to drug addiction, that the military at the time was testing the use of immersive video games for pain management in extreme burn victims and having tried to success. They were responding better than morphine. So you're talking about talking about the addiction. Yeah, it's absolutely wild. And he talks about the development of myelination in the brain and white matter. You know, we always think about gray matter, that stuff that makes our brains gray and pink and needs development, but we were discovering more and more that certain activities inhibit the development of myelination of the brain. And so we're seeing things like verbal processing disorders, cognitive disorders, inability to process long-term thinking and analytics. And then there's obviously the entirely frightening area of grooming and wrapped around it. At the time, Genome was pushing through some legislation. And in that, she had cited a statistic that said that 76% of all sex trafficking that occurs in the country occurs over the internet. Have over 5,000 different websites that sell children and women for sex every day. I mean, those are absolutely wild statistics. So as a parent sitting on the front end of this technology that is such an incredible window on the world, but also comes with such high risk as it relates to your parents. We really grappled with what to introduce and when and how. And what we landed on was less is more. And she was staying at people's homes by herself. And I thought, well, gosh, this is puts us in a pickle, doesn't it? Yeah. Uh and so we actually ended up giving her a phone a little bit earlier than we had hoped to. But within that, we had hopefully not too many parameters, but enough to keep her safe, right? So initially we approached the idea of a partnership, right? This is our phone. It's not your phone, it's our phone together. I love that. And giving her a sense of responsibility around it, a little tiny bit of the awareness of the dangers. Because obviously, you don't want to overload your kid with the Lord says to be innocent about what is evil and persist in what's doing good. So I wanted to protect the battlefield of her mind as long as possible. And so we gave her a phone with a lot of limitations

The First Phone As A Partnership

Jean-Marie Piini 7:33

on it, and a lot of limitations around the way that she would use it. Like I said, perhaps a little bit earlier than we wanted to. Sure. But it was for a purpose. And then with our son, we held out much, much longer. Technology for him was introduced ironically during COVID. Okay. And this was really interesting because obviously during lockdown, people are creating connection, right? These kids need to be with each other, they need to be interacting with each other. And so they had started gaming online together.

Leanne Tuggle 8:05

Right.

Jean-Marie Piini 8:06

Oh my here's the world. We we need to prepare a girdle noise. We're going at the time. Oh my goodness. And so actually, my husband and I worked on a situation where we would allow him to play video games only if my husband was on with him. Okay. And so he was involved in the conversations that were happening. We shut down all of the exterior, external chat features. Yes. He was only able to chat with friends. And then we had to teach him that he couldn't just accept friends, right? That my husband had to be on there and approve accepting. And then my husband just purposely was on there together, listening to the conversation, sort of shaping and guiding. If things would get a little unruly, he could bring it back in. And then it was really critical to limit the amount of time. Right. Because of the addictive nature of these games, the kids want to be on constantly. So, so anyway, that's just like kind of a sort of surface introduction to how technology wormed its way into our household. Right. And without doing a laundry list of rules, just because people might be interested, some of the things that we do related to phones. We we obvious have the basic rules like no phones at the table, phones or devices in closed bedrooms, no phones or devices in the bedrooms at night. Video games are only played on the family room television out where everybody can see it. And then these are things that I have developed along the way that I thought, gosh, I wish somebody had told me these things a little bit earlier on. We set protections on the devices. You know, we use all of the parent features and all the notifications that everyone has. But but what we did that was one step further was we ended up paying for anything

Gaming Guardrails With A Parent Present

Jean-Marie Piini 9:47

that we could to remove ads. If there was a game they were playing, if if, for example, YouTube, my son, both my children actually are musicians. And my son in particular taught himself a lot of piano using these scrolling tablature videos that he found on YouTube, which are wonderful, right? Fantastic use of technology. However, that video would end and this horrific ad would come up. We learned really quickly that we could control that a little bit by just paying for the subscription. My daughter doesn't have any social media, and that's another topic that we can get into. But I did allow her to have Pinterest because she's really artistic and she wants to create and she wants to bake and she wants to paint, and she had all these great ideas that she was finding on Pinterest. And so what we did initially was we shared an account. This was really fascinating, actually, because I had my own account for a little while. And then as she got on it, the feed changed. The more that she was pinning things or showing interest in certain things or just watching uh certain things, the feed began to be to be skewed a little bit. Pinterest is a gateway to TikTok and Instagram. I mean, it's filled with people posting TikTok videos and Instagram videos and click this, and it takes you right through to those sites that you haven't actually given your kid permission to be on, right? But by proxy,

House Rules And Removing Ads

Jean-Marie Piini 11:11

it's sort of gotten in there through through an app that you didn't realize. So one of the things that I did for her was we shared an account for a long time and I'm constantly going and tweak the feed. Okay. Behind the scenes, I was deleting views on things. I was saying, hide this ad, hide this ad, hide this pin. If I saw that things were getting a little a little too superficial, might be the right word. Okay. How to make your eyelashes look longer, how to exercise, blah, blah, blah. You know, they started to be really geared toward physical appearance and right other people in a really subtle way, which was which was interesting. And so kind of hiding behind the scenes and tweaking the feeds and the advertising that comes up, show me less of ads like this. And so that was that's actually a little pro tip for you guys. That's that's a good tip. Yeah, and so then eventually, and I would talk through it with her. So after a season, I said, Do you know that I've been hiding behind the scenes, curating your feed for you? And she's like, here's why, and here's what was happening. And she was absolutely shocked. And so as we as she got a little bit older, she's 16 now, right? She just finished her sophomore year of high school. So college is on the horizon for us. It's a very scary thought to send your child off without equipping them for this world. Right. World where you're gonna be alone with your phone with no restrictions, whatever you want. So, what have we built into our kids that protects them against going down the rabbit hole? So, a couple of things. We try to really have open and honest conversations. Again, I mentioned that technology as a partnership sort of thing, like, hey, we're in this together. What did you see? Did you see anything weird online this week? Was there anything that upset you or was alarming or that you were concerned about? Is there anything you want me to help you with? The idea of creating a safe space for our kids where if they do make a mistake, it's approached with so much love and grace. My fear is they make a mistake, I attack, and now I'm no longer safe. I'm at a place where they can come when they've gotten themselves into a terrible predicament that have life-ending consequences. Let's be real. The statistics on suicide from exploitation online are really scary. So I have to say that those are kind of the places of concern for me that I

Curating Feeds And Keeping Kids Safe

Jean-Marie Piini 13:36

want my kids to always be able to say, I made a mistake. Or I didn't know, and now I'm someone's trying to blackmail or exploit me, and they might not recognize it in those words. I want them to be able to say to me, This weird thing is happening and I don't like it. Or I did this thing, I sent these images, or I sent these things, and now I'm terrified, right? I never want to find that out too late. Build an environment where the conversation can happen, where there's always a way out. Okay, there's always a way out. There's nothing that you can ever do that that will make me love you less or be less proud of you, or not want to protect you and shelter you. I tell my kids all the time, I said, you know, when your little toddler wanders out in the street, you're not like, well, let them get bought hit by a car. We'll see you, they'll never go on the street again. You're like, God, save you, let me rescue you. Save you of that. I don't want to there are no lessons that I want them to be taught by wallowing in their sin or or being out there experiencing the consequences that the world has to offer. So drawing them into those safe places. And then it's it's really interesting because uh we can fixate on the technology itself and lose the bigger picture. So a couple of things that we do, obviously we limit screen time. That's I think a no-brainer for people who are stepping into technology. We limit screen time and I think it's really important to understand any emotional or psychiatric vulnerabilities your child might have. So, for example, if you have a child who struggles a little bit with anxiety or depression, if you have somebody who, one of your kids who struggles with identity or self-worth, you have to be hyper in tune with the technology that they're consuming. There's a great quote. Let me see if I can find it in this book. Here we go. This is Cardaris's Glow Kids, and he said, social media, social media can act as an accelerant on a psychiatric fire. Okay. Yeah. That's great. That's a great quote because it really does. Whatever was simmering is just gonna burst into flames and and and burn like a bonfire. And so being in tune with how am I meeting the spiritual needs of my child who is struggling with identity, who is struggling with

Identity In Christ Against The Noise

Jean-Marie Piini 16:16

anxiety or depression or self-worth. And we know that that all of those things are rooted in Christ, right? I was at a church one time, a big church, about maybe six or seven hundred people in attendance. And there was a guest speaker who said to the audience, raise your hand if you, and this is all adults, if you feel like the Lord is just tolerating you, like you're gonna get into heaven, but by the skin of your teeth, and hopefully you can just hide in a corner and be like, I don't know how I got here, but thanks, Lord. I'll just be, I'll just be over here. Please don't don't look too closely at me because you might throw me out. It was shocking the number of people who raised their hands. I mean, hands being all over that auditorium. And I thought, oh my goodness, Lord, this is a problem. That we are not deeply rooted in the way that you love us, right? That you are passionate for us, that you lay down your life for us, that we're that we're a treasure, that you desire companionship and uh uh connection with us, that we're designed for this thing, and that all of our sin, all of it is covered by the blood of Jesus, right? And we're all in this justification process. And God does not just tolerate you, He loves you like profoundly and deeply. So this is the foundation we want to build in our kids, right? Because it's where they can withstand the attacks of the enemy, where they can withstand the attacks of depression, anxiety, self-worth, social value, bullying, or not even bullying. I mean, goodness gracious, I always joke. I need 10,000 compliments to everyone criticism, right? Yes, yes. So building them up in confidence, rooting them and grounding them in the love of Christ, so that when they're on their own with that technology and someone inevitably says the thing or they experience the thing, they know, they know that it's a lie. Oh, that and they can recognize that it's a lie. So teaching our kids also discernment to separate rightly divide the word of truth, right? So to be able to say, someone said this thing to me. And I'll say to my kids, but what is the truth? And so bringing them back to that identity in Christ and the deep sense of value. I will say to parents, this is an interesting observation that we've made over time. I call it the golden hour. There's this hour right before bedtime where no kid wants to go to bed.

Leanne Tuggle 18:42

Yes. Right.

Jean-Marie Piini 18:45

No child actually wants to go to sleep, but it is where like we solve all the problems of the world in the golden hour. Yes, yes. So fun. You're never gonna get deeper into your child's heart than in the golden hour. It's the time for us. I should say never, I shouldn't make a blanket generalization for everybody else, but that's the time for us where the deepest conversations happen. Really explore what's on their heart and their mind, what went well and what was difficult. And I never bring it up that way. Like, you know, a lot of people use the what's your rose and what's your thorn. I think my kids would walk out if I said that. They're like, I that way. Oh my goodness. Uh, but they love, love, love, and they'll do anything to get that time in the evening. Like, pick my room, stay, stay with, stay in there with me tonight for a little bit.

The Golden Hour For Real Talk

Jean-Marie Piini 19:33

Though it's connection, right? They just crave connection and they want to talk about the hard things and they want, they want to know the truth, right? So they do this today. What do you think that means, mom? You know, or I'm super worried about I've got soccer tryouts tomorrow, you know, and you're just talking through the anxieties and the cares and the worries and also the awesome things, right? Oh being calm today. There have been some cool things in my kids' lives lately that for us we knew they were coming, right? We're like, You're gonna, you're gonna do this thing and it's gonna be amazing. But for them, it was huge. And so they all have that time to just really lavish them with affirmation. It's interesting, I would say, a lot of the problems that we experience with social media or gaming or all these things. I I don't know, I don't know what the blanket term would be, but uh, it's the desire for connection, yes, right? And there's what is the guy? There's a guy, his name is Dora. He said that we can only handle 150 relationships out there. Oh, yes, I've heard this before. Yes, yeah, but but of those only five deep relationships, which is crazy. That's a crazy thought, right? And it's proven true in study after study and and in different microcosms and from different perspectives. But it always comes down to we need a really tight group, a really small and tight group of close friends. And so helping our kids develop real life relationships with close friends, building them up in confidence and affirmation, using that golden hour conversation time to sort of hone in on what's of value and help them shed the the burdens and just kind of the mistruths of the day that if we carry them with us and become insidious, right? They kind of creep into our hearts and nights and we haven't fully rooted them out. So just really making sure that that connected time with your child is prioritized, right? Yes, getting to bed early enough, right?

Leanne Tuggle 21:40

I know you need to build in that time. That's so good. Yeah. Well, I love I love what you're saying here because what there's a few things that I'm picking out of it is that number one, really committing to teaching your children who they are in Christ, really establishing that with scripture, with your family values, with like everything, like the more they know who they are in Christ, the more firmly rooted they are for this world that is full of all kinds of crazy. And then the other thing is the intentionality that you've been sharing with like your husband having to sacrifice maybe what he would want to do with his day to play video games to ensure that his son is safe. That takes sacrifice and intentionality. Or you like going through Pinterest. I mean, that takes time to go and change a feed. That's a lot of time investment, but it's worth it to help your child. And so being able to kind of die to self a little bit in order to be intentional for our children. And then the last thing that I'm hearing you say too is that connection, just really prioritizing connection, that that parent-child relationship is so strong so that they are not going and asking their friends for advice on things that really they probably don't have good advice to but like you're taking the time to establish that connection with your children. And again, like sacrificing the time in the evening that maybe you could be spending with your husband or doing other things, you're choosing to help talk your children through those important things that they're going through. And I think that all of those, all of those aspects identity, intentionality, connection are all so important in how we approach. Not just technology, but just raising children to be prepared for this world. And so I think that is beautiful how you guys have been doing that and navigating that in a world where we're all just trying to figure it out together. Yeah, I think that's so, so good. Well, just kind of like to wrap it up, and you've kind of touched on this a little bit, but what like one little piece of advice or encouragement would you give to a parent who is feeling a little bit overwhelmed right now with teenagers coming up into or like preteens, they're starting to approach technology. What encouragement would you offer that parent?

Jean-Marie Piini 23:54

Sure. Yeah. Well, first, of course, I said it at the beginning delay, delay, delay, delay. Put it off as much as you can, as long as you can, and then cultivate their other interests, right? Yes. Look at your kid. Not every kid is an athlete, not every kid is an artist, but every kid has something, something that they enjoy doing outside of technology. And technology quickly saps our free time from us. A little bit of free time that we have. And also I think when we're tired, we just go to default technology. And so I'd say resist the urge to use technology as a default or as a stopgap or as a I'm so tired, I just can't. Here you go. I need some peace and quiet. Here you go. Resist! Resist! Yes. Find ways to connect, whether it is just being outside. And I mean being outside as in we're sitting outside together, or you're not an athlete, you know, you're you're outside and you're hiking or you're walking or you're you're doing something adventurous.

Delay Phones And Build Better Defaults

Jean-Marie Piini 24:52

I have to laugh. I joke with my children that I will read aloud to them until I'm 105.

Leanne Tuggle 24:58

Can't read anymore. Same, same. Yes.

Jean-Marie Piini 25:01

And when you're little, it's obviously picture books and little, you know, simple books. And as you get older and it's complex novels, my daughter and I did a tale of two cities together. Started it on our own and just like, I don't know, mom. I think I'm missing 90% of this. And I was like, oh, like some of the greatest literature of all time.

Leanne Tuggle 25:20

Come to me, child. Yes. I love it. You're speaking my language.

Jean-Marie Piini 25:26

And so it's a treasure to me that read aloud time. My son and I during the school year especially read aloud together every single day. And then we really try to preserve that tradition throughout the rest of the year as well. So I would say cultivate alternatives, right? Don't use technology as a default. When you're tired to gain space or time, I think it just never goes well. And then this next thing is a little more serious. I think if you've gone down the rabbit hole a little bit and your child is addicted to technology, I think it's important to note that there might there are certain individuals who might need a little external help to get to that addiction. Because it is an addiction. If you're trying to take a device away and your kid is violent, you know, your child is reactive, it's time for some intervention. You need to come up to a professional who can help you guys through that addiction process. But it's not too late. It's not late, and you need to uh to do it now, right? And if you're not at that point, which thank you, Lord, you're not at that point, do the digital detox, right? Say, hey, we're all gonna go hold turkey for a little while and we're going to develop better habits, we're gonna develop a better perspective on this. I don't like the hold it has on me. Um and so I'm gonna model for you how to put this thing away and go do something

Detox Plans Intervention And Prayer

Jean-Marie Piini 26:49

else because kids learn by example, right? They're they're learning how to speak and eat solid food and ride a bike and show integrity and and you know, grow into bigger and better and greater things from our example, and so be the example that can put the technology away for a little while and show them how to live life without it. So I love that. Yeah, and I would say the number one, obviously, most important thing is to blanket you, your child in prayer. Amen. Just power, blanket, intercede, they will have instances that are very, very upsetting. It just is gonna happen, right? So but if you're at their safe place and you're blanketing them in prayer and you've taught them how to come to you for for help and for a way out and for affirmation and value, if you've taught them how to seek the Lord and anchor themselves in Christ, then they'll have some tools to actually ward off the devil when he comes to calling like a roaring lion, you know, looking for someone to devour. So our goal is to raise kids who love the Lord and and know that they are deeply loved by kid.

Leanne Tuggle 28:00

I love that. Oh, thank you so much, Jean Marie. This has been so wonderful. This is so much great wisdom for us to kind of think about and process. So thank you so much for joining me here today.

Jean-Marie Piini 28:12

Thank you. It's been a it's been a treat.