The number one concern of our time for parents is the excessive and damaging tech use or screen time or social media that their kids are experiencing. While there are great educational options available, the toxic and dark side of the internet is a real issue. Dr. Thayne helps parents learn to talk about, manage, and prepare their teens to be safe and competent online.
The number one concern of our time for parents is the excessive and damaging tech use or screen time or social media that their kids are experiencing. While there are great educational options available, the toxic and dark side of the internet is a real issue. Dr. Thayne helps parents learn to talk about, manage, and prepare their teens to be safe and competent online.
and go at it in a soft way, don't approach an abrupt kind of fashion, start off soft and say, Hey, you live in a challenging time. This is a difficult world, I didn't have this growing up. And a lot of kids are really struggling because of COVID. And going online and, you know, what's it been like for you what's happening for you? Can you share with me, you know, approach it in a way that hopefully they can tell you a little bit more. There are as many ways to parent as there are parents in this world. But there is one way to parent that wins every time. And that's doing it intentionally. This show is about helping things go right before they can go wrong. Each episode is chosen to help parents like you who may be overwhelmed or uninspired, find the ideas and motivation to give their best efforts to the people and place that matters the most. I'm Dr. Tim, Thayne, author of the book and host of the podcast, not by chance, I believe that a family success and happiness is not by chance. So welcome to the podcast built especially for intentional families. Let's jump in. I everyone, thank you for joining me for this podcast. today. The topic I'm going to cover today is on actions we should take in our family regarding technology. What this to be an active kind of participation on your part, even though you're wherever you're sitting right now, maybe in the car, wherever you might be, I want you to take mental note and kind of do an assessment of the technology use inside your family, and what actions you as the parent may need to take based on what you come to understand. Okay. Well, the other day, Roxanne reached over to me and she plucked out a an eyelash eyebrow just to one hair off me. And she says I've been going to tell you about that for a long time. And it was a really long hair. And I said why didn't you tell me about that sooner? She said, Well, you know, you're with other people when I noticed it. And I didn't want to embarrass you. So I put it off. And it's been weeks, I guess that this hair has been there. So this is not a big deal. Really, once I get over the embarrassment of that it's really not a big deal, right? And so it wasn't urgent, it wasn't that important. And so everything was fine. Well, but what about the things that we put off, that really are urgent, that we maybe or an uncomfortable, we're uncomfortable to address the issue. Or maybe it's something that we don't think is urgent, but really, truly is urgent. And later on, we find out that we should have took taken action long ago. And I believe that technology falls into that category inside families all the time. As as parents, we if we have some anxiety around the use of technology in our home with our children, we are our instincts are probably on track, they're probably right. The digital universe out there is very, very scary when we think about it. But maybe we don't think about it, maybe we are mainly just trying to think that hey, everything's okay. Our kids are our only staying in those parts of the universe that are safe and appropriate. Because if I've tried to impose anything on my child around this thing, we might have conflict, and that's uncomfortable. So for a lot of reasons we might delay the kinds of things that we should be addressing, as it relates to this. You know, back a generation ago, if our kids were involved in risky behavior, we usually found out about it pretty quickly. We might find that they have been speeding because a neighbor tells us they were or we might find out that like my parents did that we were playing practical jokes on people because we I lived in a small town and my neighbors told my parents these things. And back to the fast car, I had a fast car and of course in a small town and you're driving around orange trans-am, everybody knows who that was that was going way past the speed limit. And because of small town, they knew my family. So for all these reasons, my parents, I think, kind of had their finger on what risky behaviors we might be involved in. Today, it's a little different from that. The outwardly risky behaviors, actually in the research seems to have gone down in this generation than a generation before. But what's really going on Is they might be in the house, and it seems like everything's just fine. And they're over there on the couch, you know, looking at the Internet and maybe on YouTube, but we might be thinking, okay, they're, they're having some good entertainment, it's, it's okay to let them stay there for three hours doing that. We it's easy for us to get busy and lose track of time, for example. But I want you to, to realize that in most cases, we are probably unaware of the kinds of things that our kids are encountering online, whether it be by accident or on purpose. And in many cases, kids are just naive. And if we haven't had a real serious set of conversations with them, before they have access to the internet, they are going to run into things accidentally, that will probably shock them, that will probably really make them wonder about life and question values and everything else. And so there's a lot of prep work that we need to do. So if you have a child that's, let's say, eight or nine years old, it's probably not too early to start talking about the internet, and what the digital universe includes. Because it's not just this nice, safe library of information and education that they can go into and start reading and looking and seeing things. It's filled with all kinds of things, right. So teaching our children that age, if our kids are, are starting to, let's say exhibit some different kinds of behavior, maybe they're starting to look more depressed, they're, they're isolating more in the rooms with their technology, it's getting harder and harder to get them to turn in the phone at night, or whatever those those yellow flags or red flags might be pay attention to those. Notice what they are. In some cases, parents have told me and I've heard this actually many times in the last year or so since COVID, that everything was going pretty well, then COVID hit. And what happened was that many many kids went online far more than they ever had before. So of course, the more time online, the more risky that possibly is, certainly the more isolating that is. And if you're a parent during COVID, you might have easily justified all this is their social outlet. This is how they're going to stay connected now that they're, you know, all these lockdowns and schools have been been put online and everything else this is their only way of connecting. So if you had a child that was struggling with friends before, and now that that's been taken away the live in person time at school, you might have been really okay with more time online. And it's only now or a few months later that you realize that was the beginning of the spiraling that began to happen in their mental health and in their personality. I've had parents tell me that my child never seemed to think about self harm until they found certain chat rooms. And then that became an issue. My child never questioned their gender identity until they found a certain chat room. And then they started to question it, my child started to change their personality right before me and that wasn't the happy, bright, open girl that she was before. And now she's, she's not talking to us as parents. So these are the things at this point, it becomes very, very clear that there needs to be something done to potentially help and intervene. It's it's not okay for us parents to to sit by the on the sidelines and hope that they can work this out, in and without our help, because the reality is, in most cases, they really do need our help whether they want it or not. And you know, there's There are the obvious things with social media where it's it's shown that those who spend more time on social media have more anxiety, especially teenagers, and especially girls who are comparing themselves to what everybody else is putting out there the fear of missing out the feeling that I My life isn't as as wonderful and happy as other people. So those are obvious things that I think we're aware of, at this point, the dangers of social media. So let's go back and say what are the things that's keeping us from maybe addressing the concerns we have with our kids around technology? In some cases, I know that teens have upped the ante and every time there's a boundary put around a technology they they will escalate emotionally, or in some extreme cases, they they let their parents know if you take this away from Me, then I'm going to hurt myself because there's nothing to live for after that. And so they've got their parents in a state of fear. So those are some of the more extreme situations. But here's what I really want to invite you to do as parents, I want you to talk to each other as parents, and kind of assess the relationship with the teen, where does it stand today? What and and recognize that you can't just go in guns blazing about technology, you really need to try and, and work with them, because there's some part of them that knows that they're lost or the struggling or that they don't have real control over their life right now. And you want to access that part of them, that wise part of them, that would be a partner to you as their parent. And that can only be accessed I think, after you've received you've gotten a good relationship. Now, this is tricky, because what if you have a bad relationship and you know that they're in trouble? Online, they're struggling with some things there, you still should address the issue, right? But do it in the very best possible way you can, there's timing here, you know, maybe, maybe there is a, you know, better time than others where you you have the condition set where there can be a greater openness to discussion, and go at it in a soft way, don't approach it in a abrupt kind of fashion, start off soft and say, Hey, you live in a challenging time, this is this a difficult world, I didn't have this growing up. And a lot of kids are really struggling because of COVID. And going online, and and some of the things are going on, you know, what's been like for you what's happening for you? Can you share with me, you know, approach it in a way that hopefully they can tell you a little bit more. I was I was talking to a young man the other night, actually, who I really knew there were things going on in his life that that he was keeping to himself that he probably hadn't shared with any other adult. And I asked him how he was doing. We were in a private room, by the way able to have a more confidential conversation. I said, How you doing? His first response was a big smile. And he just made himself smile. And he said, I'm doing good. And that was kind of the end of it. I said, you know, good, that's a, that's a really effective word isn't it's like, I'm doing so good that there's really nothing else to say, right? And I kind of laughed, and he kind of laughed, and I said, you know, the reality is, that's probably the average maybe in your life. But I imagine there's some extremes on both sides, maybe some really good and some maybe not good things happening. And I said, I'd really like to know, what are the tough things going on. And that may be hard for you to tell me but and I tried to make a joke out of it. I said, Hey, can we gamify this and it's like an onion. And that outer shell the the crusty part, that's like worth one point and and the next layer down that's worth like, 10 points. And the second real layer down is let's say that's 30 points and and that that third one that's deep deeper down, not the core, but it's like three down. How about that's 50 points. And I said, if you will, if you can score 80 points with our conversation today, I'm going to take you to dinner, you and a friend and we'll we'll have some fun and eat some good food. And he kind of laughed, and it shares something I'd say that's that's like, that's like three points. And eventually, he started to go deeper. And it was part of partially because we made it a little lighter. And partially because I was really listening and interested. And I knew he could I knew that he knew I cared about him. And eventually he scored 80 points, so I owe him a dinner. And we feel closer as a result of that. There was no judgment. It was just listening and, and trying to understand where he's coming from. I wonder if you can have some kind of conversation like that with your child around technology. In the end, as parents, you're going to need to make some decisions to help them whether that be some kind of restrictions with with software that monitors the technology, whether it be time limits, screen time on iPhones where you can, you can do some parental controls there. And if you haven't access those parental controls I'd highly recommend you get get to that right away. Because that, at the very least there ought to be some, some controls over that. You don't want to just have them have to deal with, with whatever happens to be online for as long as they might want to access that online. By themselves, you want to give them the tools to do that. So I wish you luck. This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest issue in family life today is the use of technology. In the very near future, I hope to bring to you a technology, they think that will help with some of this. But I did a survey Market Research survey of families, and how they had all of these certain concerns. And guess which one was at the top it was excessive technology use. So you're in for a challenge you have if you have a teenager these days, with the technology and access they have to information and chat rooms and everything else. And I don't need to go into all of the thing, the horrors of stories that are there, happening around this with predators and other things that they can get into, please do some of that, looking into that to yourself so that you're really well aware of that. And so you're equipped to go into those conversations with your teen and, and for warn them about things before they get into the internet. And do your due diligence around the tools that can help you to manage things the way you want. The other the other thing I'd say just in closing here, recognize that the values you have in your family need to be proactively and intentionally taught and modeled and reinforced constantly. Because what they will find on the internet will be in many cases in direct opposition to to the value that you have. So you have to be strong in that and be regular and, and in helping them to to internalize these values and understand the purpose behind them. Believe me, the people on the internet, they do not have the best interest of your child at heart. They have money and power and other things in at heart and has nothing to do with the well being of your child. Now there are those good people with good, good content. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the other things that that can really destroy and hurt our youth. So I don't want to scare you too bad. But I think you all know this is this is the challenge of our time as parents, and I wish you the very best in what you're doing there. And if you have ideas, or how you can help. Please add that to the comments below. In the comment section. I know others would love to hear what you're doing. That would make a difference. Thanks for joining me. Parents. Your time is valuable and I'm grateful you spent some of it with us. What you're intentionally doing in your home life is inspiring and unmatched in its importance and long term effects. Ask yourself, What am I going to do because of what I've learned today?