Screens, Apps & Phones Who Needs What??

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey there. You're listening to Rooted at Home with Christian Lloyd, kids pastor at Edmonds First Baptist Church. Diving into real life topics that impact kids, parents and families today and discovering what God's word has to say about them. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Previous podcast that we did, if you haven't had a chance to listen, it was on specifically video games and how video games interact with kids and how kids interact with video games and potential dangers, but also just the, the joy that some kids have playing video games and the fact that while video games are fun and engaging, that they also need to be given boundaries over games of what they should play, how they should play, all those things. And really as I was getting into it, I just kind of noticed that technology in general is a big, big conversation starter. It's something that we as parents always, I always have questions about. It seems like I know that I am a big techie kind of guy. Just in general I enjoy technology and all the things that are with it. And I, I think as a parent it's easy for me to want my kids to also be engaged with technology as far as using computers and apps and iPads and video games and all those things. But I think the we really have to make sure that first and foremost we're protecting our kids with boundaries and giving them a guide that they stay inside of, but also letting them understand not just the dangers that come with technology, but the pros that there is a lot of good things that come with technology. There's good ways that they can apply it to their life. For instance, of course we have the YouVersion Bible app that a lot of people have, or there's a bunch of other Bible apps that you could use. But youversion is a really popular one and it sends Bible verses. Every morning you get a little pop up notification that says, hey, here's your verse of the day. And you can go then and watch a small devotion that comes with it, which I usually don't do those to be quite honest. Sometimes they don't have people on there that I feel like are the best theologically. But the Bible verse is great because it helps just be a reminder to start your day. And so there's good things that come with technology. It's just all about helping them kind of put boundaries up. But a few things that we wanted to talk about, I kind of just want to recap a little bit of last episode's information, if you will. On technology. We talked a little bit about the amount of time that someone should be on an iPad or should be On a screen, which screen time includes, it's supposed to, at least according to the Pediatric Association. And I mean, in my opinion just common sense is anything with a screen. So if your child has an iPad, that counts towards screen time. If you decide to let them watch a TV show in the morning before they go to school, that counts as screen time. If you say, hey, I need you to go do your homework on your iPad. Because now schools are using technology more and more. Well, that counts as screen time, even if it is educational. And so they recommend that you have elementary age kids, especially no more than two hours a day for screen time. And for younger kids, pardon me, for younger kids that are 18 months and below, they say no screen time at all. And then for those in between that 18 months to school age, they recommend an hour of screen time at most a day. And I would even recommend even further than that that we make sure and show the shows that they are watching are educational and are appropriate for their age. For instance, there are shows out there for those younger toddler ages that have shapes and colors and things like that. Something that kind of helps grasp your kids attention for a while and helps them learn not only numbers but the shapes and colors and things like that. Yeah, so there's many apps. I know Parker has an app called Hoopla which is a audiobook kind of. You can put audiobooks and things and download kids books and audiobooks and things like that, which is really great. But you have to be careful with that because even then they have access to music as well through that app. And I mean there's no limitation on they can listen to Taylor Swift or they can listen to T Pain or some other artists that you may not want your kids listening to. And so just be careful. And they can also show up books that aren't just specifically kids. But my daughter really likes to listen to the Wings of Fire books. They're pretty good up until a certain book. But generally she listens like the first three books and she'll just turn on the audiobook and then she'll fall asleep. And so that's been beneficial for her to have that. She can, you know, use that. But Hoopla is another good one. You just have to be very careful making sure that the apps that you use and the technology that you use is engaging and make sure it's an appropriate for each age. There is also some videos online that honestly get my attention. So they do their job really well. But it's more geared towards like infants and babies, which again, the American Pediatric association doesn't recommend screen time at all for those 18 and below. However, we know. I know I certainly didn't listen to that completely. Um, and so there's sometimes that you just need a moment of peace as a parent. And screens are not inherently evil. It's how you use them. And so this. You can look at videos. I can't remember the exact name, but if you go on YouTube and type like dancing fruit, kids videos or something like that, it'll play songs and then it'll have fruit that kind of just bounces and dances and twirls and things. And the different colors and the patterns that are on the screen. It's a black screen with these different bright colors and patterns. And that really helps to get attention of those younger kids again, especially those 18 and below. And so that can help if you're like, you know, I just need five minutes. I need five minutes. Well, you can turn this on. And that could probably give you five minutes, maybe a little more. It's kind of reminds me of that bluey episode that the mom's like, I just need a little bit of time. I just need a few minutes. Give me some minutes. And so sometimes as a parent, that's just exactly what we need. But let's dive into some of these specifics. When it comes to technology now, kids are getting devices younger than ever. I know. I've noticed, especially up in the kids area, that some kids are having phones in the elementary school age. But I think that also is because we have kids doing more active things now, like sports teams are traveling and things like that. And so kids are getting phones at a much earlier age than we used to. I still remember that one of my first phones, well, I had a Nokia, you know, the bricks, of course. And then I had a slide sliding phone, you know, that you slid up and the keyboard kind of stuck out. And I had a BlackBerry at one point. And my favorite phone was the Razr, if you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. That phone was legit, but we have those different phones. Well, now kids are getting. They're skipping all that. Most of the time they're skipping that and they're getting right iPhone right in the hands. It's because, you know, as a parent, you're like, well, I don't want to buy a new phone. Plus these things are thousands of dollars, so of course I'm not going to go, here, just take this one and then you give your kid that phone. But what you have to remember is when giving your kid that phone, you're opening them up to a entire world in the palm of their hands. They now have access to literally the world. All they have to do is open that Safari or that whatever is on Android, I honestly don't know whatever that is for Android, Firefox or whatever it is used to be Internet Explorer, but that's not a thing. But you open that up and they have access to the world. And so you have to be prepared for that. So that's the first thing as kids are getting them younger and younger, but we also have to understand the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. And so they did this study and this one was mind boggling because I, I personally, I just didn't think it was that much, to be honest. But they say that on average now kids are spending four to six hours daily on a screen. Four to six hours daily. And so that includes them going to school. Maybe they have computer, computer Science or computer Lab. They're getting it there, they're getting it on TVs, they're getting it on their iPads at home, their Nintendo's, their Xboxes, their PlayStations or hey, we're at a restaurant, here's my phone so I can eat my dinner in peace. They're getting their phones and they're getting their screens, I mean, everywhere. And so they're saying four to six hours. And it got me thinking, on average, the average person who's at work, average working parent, I mean, they're at work between 8 to 10 hours generally, maybe sometimes less. 6 to 8, 8 to 10. Well, almost your entire workday is, that would be like your entire workday spent on a computer, which I know some of you do spend that much time watching or on a computer watching on a screen. It can be, it can hurt your eyes and give you headaches, all those things. Well, kids are doing the same thing. And so because they're on technology all the time, you have to be careful because technology can be a very, very, very good tool. But then on the flip side, technology can be a very, very, very big trap. It's an easy time suck especially. I mean, come on, parents, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You go home and you're tired, it's been kind of a long day. And so next thing you know, you pull out that phone, you open Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Well, X, but it's, it's still Twitter in my heart. Okay, you open Twitter. You don't have MySpace now, but you know Those are the good old days. You open these apps and the next thing you know, you're scrolling, you're scrolling. Then you look, oh, wow, it's been 30 minutes. What do you mean it's been 30 minutes? I just got on my phone, oh, what in the world? It's been an hour. It immediately just sucks you in. And the next thing you know, you spent this time on your phone or technology that you haven't expected to. And especially when you've got young kids, you've got toddlers or elementary or even teenagers and middle schoolers and high schoolers, I mean, they deserve our attention. Not only just deserve our attention, they need our attention. And so it can be such a time suck. So you have to be careful that you're not letting technology become a trap. So a few things I want to talk about kids are right now. This is a term that is interesting to me. So if you don't know, I'm a 90s baby. I was born in 93. And so in that way, even myself, whether I know it was a dial up at the time, but especially these kids nowadays, they've never lived in a world without the Internet. Never lived in a world without the Internet. So these kids, all they've ever known is the ability to pull something up and look up the answer online or to go to Google for a homework question. That's all they've ever known. They have lived. They live in a digital world. They are digital natives. And so that's the first thing we have to understand is we, as parents, we may have grown up a certain, in a different way. I personally grew up with Internet. Of course I remember being a kid and having Internet, but I remember the dial up. You know, you'd sit there and you'd wait and you'd listen for a while for it to connect. And then when it finally connected, you were so, so excited. And then next thing you know, your mom's yelling at you because you missed a phone call, or she missed a phone call because the Internet was going and. Or you're yelling back at mom and complaining because she's on the phone and you want to get online and play some game. Backyard baseball was one of my favorites. That was my favorite games to play on the computer. Don't know if you've ever played it, but if you have, let me know in the comments on Facebook or something because that was a fun game. Anyways, I digress. The point is we, we grew up in a different age, as these kids have. And so we have to know that Internet and technology, it's normalized for them. For me, I was just super excited to get a brick of a phone, Nokia or I could play Snake on it or something. These kids, I mean, iPhones are all they've known. You've got two year olds or sometimes younger that they know how to swipe on an iPad, they know how to swipe on a phone. It's not necessarily inherently because they are on it too much. It's because they see you do it. They see you and they mimic your, your actions and so they just know how to do it. Technology is here, it's here to stay, and if anything, it's here to get continue growing. There's something called AI and we weren't gonna, we're not gonna get into it today during this episode. But again, technology is just changing and growing and growing and it's always going to grow and change and we need to be ready for that. So we do need to know though too, that there are some major concerns for us as parents to look out for when it comes to technology. Major concerns. The biggest, of course, being exposure. Exposure to just the world we know. Scripture says it's clear that we live in a sinful, broken, fallen world. Well, what we're doing is we're taking this mini supercomputer that can do tons of things, amazing things, and we're handing it to a child. And if we're not careful, we're saying, here is the world. I know you're only in second grade, but let me expose you to the entirety of the world at the palm of your hands. Here's the phone. Run with it. And if you're not careful, you're giving them access to tons of things they don't need to see. Obviously there's big ones, of course, like pornography. It's easy to type something wrong and the next thing you know, you're on some site that you shouldn't be. Or for a kid to be curious. Of course, eventually we're going to get to episodes where we talk about body positivity, we talk about the sexuality of our world and how we've been sexualized. And every piece of media, it seems like they're always trying to shove something down our throats. Well, in that same way, if a kid is curious and they don't have a good, they're not comfortable, if you will, talking to you about that thing. Well, they have a supercomputer at their hands, right at their fingertips, so they potentially Google something instead of asking you. They Have a question, will they go to that? And the next thing you know, the world is answering a question that God has told us that we need to have providence over with our children. And so it's very important to be careful about what they see. Not only that, certain chat rooms and games and things like that. Roblox is a game. And I didn't talk about it last week. I absolutely should have. If your child plays Roblox, my best advice I can give you is to stop it. Roblox is an absolute horrible game for not just because of the activities and games. Some of the games are okay, but the problem is it is full of predators. It's full of people trying to exploit children. And so I can't. I can't tell you enough how much I could should say to stay away from Roblox before I let my child play it. Before she's played it once or twice, a few times. But after finding out all the terrible things about that, no, there's no way that I'll let my child play. And so I try my best to engage you with conversations that we can. You can listen and have conversations and kind of thought provoke, not necessarily just preach at you, but for this moment, if you don't mind, let me preach at you a little bit and say that Roblox is just not a good game for your child to be on. So there's predators, unsafe ads even. I mean, shoot. We try to download some ads and apps. Sorry. We try to download some apps for. For our kids on iPad. And for some reason, kids, especially kids apps are full of unnecessary ads and not. They're not necessarily, not appropriate, but they're still being bombarded with ads and things. Buy this. Do this. You need to have this. Download this app. Download this app. It's obnoxious, to be honest. I know sometimes if I let my child download one app and she will take that one app and then it'll pop up an ad, and the next thing you know, she's 12 games deep trying to ask for me to download new games. And I'm like, no. So we just kind of had a rule that we have where I'll talk about in a little bit about iPhones, but. And iPads, but they have some awesome parental safety things. And so we've made it where she can't download any apps at all. She has to ask us if she wants to download something. And so that actually helps quite a bit because it says we're not going to download all those apps with ads and things. We're going to give you these certain apps, and that's what you're going to use. So just to say tech in itself isn't evil, you can't look at technology and just assume that it's evil. It doesn't work like that. Technology isn't evil. It's neutral. If anything, it's neutral. Technology is here. It's no different than if I have my hat sitting right next to me on the table. My hat itself is just an object. It's not good or bad. It's just. That's there. Well, technology is kind of the same way. It's here. Technology is here. It's right in front of you. How you utilize it is what makes technology bad or it makes technology good or useful for you as a family. Um, and so last week I talked about this again. But just to mention it, 95% of teens. 95%, almost all of teens, have access to a smartphone. And 46%, 46 say that they're online almost constantly. Not that they're online a little bit. Not that they're online. Every so often. They're online constantly. I mean, if you have. If you're a parent of a teenager, I'm sure if you're listening right now, you can think, well, yeah, my kid's on their phone all the time. I'm always having to tell them, hey, get off the phone. It's dinner time. Focus up. Focus. Pay attention. Maybe you need to tell yourself that. I know. Sometimes I need to tell myself, like, hey, ooh. You need to make sure and stay off your phone. Well, teenagers are online constantly. Constantly. 46% say they're online consistently constantly all day. And so that's staggering to me. It's absolutely staggering. So let's say, okay, technology is a tool. It's a resource. You can use it. Whether good or bad technology is here. So let's talk about some apps that are there to help keep kids safe. These are apps that will help help you track what they're doing, help you block things. Pardon me? Help you just keep your child safe online. So there's a few different examples here. One is called Bark. An app called Bark, they monitor text, email, social media for harmful content, not just like predators or anything that they shouldn't see, pornography, but it also detects things like bullying. It helps to steer them away from bullying. So Bark is one that's out there. It will send an alert to you as a parent if, for, say your. Say your child looks up something they shouldn't on Internet. Well, you'll get an alert. Say, um, they text somebody and the text is inappropriate in some way. You'll get an alert. Um, and so that's a really good one just to help monitor things. Um, there's another one, Custodio. This one tracks time. Uh, so it shows how much time you've been on. Your technology can block sites as things shows usage reports. So you get a report regularly that shows, oh, your child was on this site for this long. Your child was on this activity for this long. It's pretty cool. I will say the iPhone, if you go into your screen time settings, and so if you have a iPhone, iPad, anything like that, be onto your settings and then you go to your screen time settings with like in your app, then you can actually go and set the different settings that. Whatever you want to do. And so like, I know that app works, but this one, it shows, this is how much daily you're averaging like on. So it doesn't track app usage on this screen. It kind of just shows you, hey, your iPad has been used seven hours for today, six hours, whatever it may be. But then you can go into downtime where you can limit the usage of your screen. So we have this set up to where, uh, Parker's iPad shuts off at 7 o' clock and it doesn't reopen until the next day. You can set exact times for what you want that to do. There's app limits. You can specifically limit app categories. Um, so you click on it and it shows creativity, production, education, entertainment, games. You can click on specifics and shut down those exact any apps that are in that category. Or you can just shut down specific apps. You can say, hey, you, you are nine years old. You don't need to have Facebook on your iPad, something like that. Um, but you can also go in and choose always allowed apps. So these are apps that even if time is shut off, even if the iPads or phone or whatever is shut off for the day, you can then allow a certain app to work, for instance, messaging or something like that. So that way they're always, they always have access to that. They even have a screen distance portion where you can make sure that your child is regularly engaging with the screen at an appropriate kind of level where it doesn't look like you're. They're burning their eyes because they're holding it up right to their face or something like that. I know I, as a kid, I was always told like, hey, back away from the tv. You don't need to stand with your nose Touching the TV don't need to be that close. But then there's also, if you go into restrictions, there's content and privacy restrictions. So you can turn off the app store, you can make sure media you can put it to where you can only download apps that are four plus or nine plus or teen or whatever. You can make sure explicit content is limited on all the music sites and things like that. You can turn off location services, you can turn off photos and reminders and all these things. And make sure you don't accidentally spend money on things your child doesn't actually buy something. The iPhone especially. And I don't know as much about Android just because I don't have an Android. I do know they have parental restrictions, but the iPhone is such a great, they have so such a great parental restrictions settings for your child's phone. Now, I will say they're not perfect. They're not perfect. There's been a few things that I've been unhappy with, especially when it comes to messaging and some apps where Parker, my daughter, she does not, she doesn't need messaging on her iPhone or her iPad. She doesn't need it on her iPad. She has, she can come talk to us, she can do something like that, but she doesn't need to be able to text people. Well, I can't go in and just delete the messaging app. And I've tried to turn it off and I haven't been able to figure that out either. So if you know how, feel free to give me a call or shoot me a text and you can let me know. So that's some, just a couple apps I know. Google Family Link, that's the one for Androids, they can manage screen time, app installs, track device location, stuff like that. Same thing as Apple, their screen time, it's kind of their version of screen time, but it kind of does the similar thing. There's also an app called Canopy. It filters explicit content in real time images that this, this one even will block images that aren't exact or aren't necessarily blocked by other, not necessarily blocked by other, um, apps. You know, sometimes, sometimes apps, we know technology is not perfect and so sometimes apps will miss an image or something like that. And this one helps by trying to block things in real time. Canopy and if you go on the app store you can look it up and you can see that it filters out explicit content. It sets limits, it does a lot of good things, but it helps manage explicit content specifically. But then there is another one. This one actually was Told by Aaron, our preschool director. It's Life360. I don't know if some of y' all use it. If you don't, especially if you have teenagers, it's a really good one. So we have it where it will show. I mean, my wife and I use it, but because Parker isn't driving and neither is my 2 year old, they obviously don't need it. But it shows in real time, will show location, it'll show if the person's walking or running. It will show where they're going. It will track trips. So if your child, say your kid's just starting to drive, well, you get this Life360 app and you get them in the car and then they drive and it tracks their drive. And so it shows the exact route they took. It shows the turns they took. It shows, oh, did my child pick up their phone four times while they were in the car instead of paying attention into the road, did my child drive safely? It'll show potentially dangerous trip detected. And it'll show like, oh, they hard braked four times. They, you know, whatever. They. It keeps track of that. Keeps track of speeding. Oh, my child sped 67 times in the last week. It keeps track of that stuff. And so there's also some other cool features on it that I haven't used. It's mainly specifically for location. This one isn't as much for if you're trying to block content, but they, you can connect tiles to it, you can connect pets. And so if you have a pet and you put a tile on their collar, then it can track their location too. And it all kind of shows up. You, everybody gets a little picture in there or picks an icon and you know exactly where this person is and you can see it in real time and. Or you can get directions sent to you. It's a really good app. It really helps for those teens and parents that need to know where your child is or if you're a husband and a wife and you want to know where your husband or wife is again, just to make sure they're safe and whatnot. And we'll just do that. The life360 is great. I will say that it is free for a very small. I think there's maybe four places that you can tag where it'll show. Like, hey, your wife arrived at home or your wife arrived at work or your child arrived at school. You can tag locations and save them and then you'll get a notification if they arrive at that location or if they leave. So It's a really good app, but I will say it is pricier. Ish. If you start wanting, like all the unlimited services, I know that there's a. The middle ground option, I think is 1499amonth, which allows you unlimited stops, locations, things, people to add on all that good stuff. And so it is a little costly, but it absolutely is worth it in my opinion. It's absolutely worth it. So let's also. We know some things to do. Let's talk about some things to avoid. Um, there's some apps that I just think should be avoided, just in general. One of them, and this one is older by now. I don't even know if it's a thing too much anymore. But Snapchat. Snapchat, of course, is the. Well, you take a picture and you send it to someone, they only have 10 seconds to view it and then it's gone forever. Because that's how the Internet works. It's gone forever. No, it's not gone forever, first off, but secondly, it's very. It's a very bad app, especially for teenagers. And as you get into high school and those things, because they think that, oh, well, it's fine, I can take a picture, an indecent picture of something and I can send it to someone else and it'll disappear in 10 seconds. No, well, no, no, it'll be fin. No, that's not how that works. It's not safe and it's not a good app. And so I would again encourage, if you're a parent, that to be highly careful with an app like that. It also has a Snap Map. Snap Map. And that is where you can track other people's location too, kind of see where they're at, where your location is shared. And so it's just an app that, again, I would say that I would encourage you to avoid. But if you are going to use it, make sure you set up very safe boundaries on who they can add and that sort of thing. Uh, another one that parents and even myself, I find myself on occasionally. And by occasionally, I mean a lot is TikTok. TikTok is out there. Um, and so it is highly, highly engaging, but also very. It. It gives you that dopamine hit that you want, especially with technology and social media. And so you'll sit there and you'll scroll a video, you'll scroll 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and you just kind of keep flipping through your videos and the next thing you know, you've wasted, you know, an hour plus of your life. And so TikTok can be very. It can be a trap that you want to avoid, but not only that, you can publish your own videos and then it goes out there and you can do that. But TikTok is also notorious for having very lax censorship. And so, just in general, TikTok has been known for a place that you can see inappropriate things. There's been pornography posted on TikTok. There's been, unfortunately, back when Charlie Kirk was killed, before it kind of. TikTok got a hold of it. I mean, you could see Charlie Kirk be shot and killed on. The app is just. You're scrolling through. One second you're watching cooking videos about how to make an awesome breakfast burrito, and the next thing you know you're seeing that. And so TikTok has. You have to be careful with that one as well. TikTok does have a restricted mode, and that's supposed to help with mature content, just in general, language, mature topics, things like that. But I can tell you when I've used TikTok, I. I've tried restricted mode and regular mode, and there's not. There's not really much of a difference in my opinion. I haven't seen a whole lot of difference between that. It still shows videos that has. Have language in it and things. And so I would not. I would just be careful with TikTok for your teenagers now, just in general, just as rule of thumb, most of these apps and their terms of service, whether people agree to this or not, I mean, when's the last time you actually read an entire terms of service when opening an app or something? You know, probably never. But in those terms of service, a lot of them will say you should be at least 13 or older to use this app. And so I don't know if that's TikTok, but I. That's just a good rule of thumb. So there's Discord, which this one's really popular for gaming. A lot of people like, hey, hop on, Discord, and we can talk and chat and game and discuss our favorite video game. We have to be careful there too, because you can add friends and people that their username may say something and you may assume, oh, this sounds like a cool dude, once, that it's someone else that you don't even know that could be a predator. You have to be very careful with that technology again, is great, and these apps are awesome, but you have to be careful and put up these guides. Uh, you have used to be called Omegle. There used to be a website for that. And that was random video chatting, because that's super great. You, you go on Omegle, you'd start and then you pop up your video and it'd just be you. Then you click a button and you. Someone random, literally across the globe, boom. That you'd be video chatting with someone. And then you could hit a button to change to, to flip to a new person. But I mean, come on, that is just the most idiotic way of potentially exposing yourself to stuff you don't need to see by just video chatting random people and strangers. It's just not a good app to be on now. Thankfully, it's closed down, but there are clones is what they call it, which would be a. It's the same thing with just a different name. So be careful of something like that. Random video chatting, of course, is just a terrible idea. And then of course, Instagram. Now this one is interesting because Instagram, I mean, it's a tool that we use even as a church. However, one of the biggest dangers with Instagram isn't necessarily content, even though it is. You have to be careful with Instagram, like anything else, got people posting videos or pictures or things that nobody needs to see, or they're putting violent things or language and all the same junk because our world is sinful and we know that it is the biggest one for this one. I would say maybe not the biggest, but a very big concern is the comparison concern. Instagram especially, you've got comparison between, oh, well, my house doesn't look like that. Oh, this the man. My. I don't look like that. That person posted a picture, a dude of shirtless picture working out and oh man, I'm a guy, but I don't look like that. That. That makes me really depressed or, oh, I'm a woman and that girl has a picture of her in a swimsuit. And I don't. I don't look like that. I'm not worth anything. I'm not as good as that person. Oh, look at that pretty outfit that that influencer has on. Oh, I'm not very good. I'm not worth as much as that. My worth isn't that much the comparison. Keeping up with the Joneses is huge when it comes to Instagram, it's huge. That's where we see most of it. You see a perfectly edited picture of this steak and it looks amazing. Well, the person who posted it probably took the time out of their life to edit and make it look all pretty and post it just for engagement. And so you Just see this, there's a lot of comparison on Instagram and so you have to be careful of that. That is a trap. And so all I would say is if you have an elementary age child, you don't need to have any sort of social media. They don't need to have a social media. I know that may not be a cool kind of thought, especially with today's world that we live in, but they don't need it. Social media will cause more issues than it will cause benefits for you, especially in elementary age. Now as I get to middle school and high school, I'm all for, you have to protect your kids, but also you need to teach them how to live in the world. You can't canopy then and hover over them so much just to make sure that they don't aren't exposed to anything in the world. Then they're going to become adults and they're not going to know how to live. So you have to make sure to let them experience things. But again, if you put up those guardrails, that's going to help make sure that they are experiencing things in a safe and productive manner. So that is just some apps and social media things, things that I would avoid. And if you're not going to avoid them, at least think very, very carefully about what you're going to do with those. Just a couple more things here. Next thing is, I wanted to talk about a few safer options for phones. So if you have a elementary age kid or you have even a middle schooler and you're just not keen on the idea of a cell phone, especially a smartphone, like again, offering the entire world at their fingertips, if you're not keen on that, there are some different options. So some of these is, there's one called Gab Wireless. Gab Wireless. This one is a kid safe phone that doesn't have any Internet, doesn't have social media. So really what these phones are called these days are dumb phones. We have smartphones and we have dumb phones and this is a dumb phone. So it's one that is you. There's no Internet, no social media. It's literally, hey, you need to send a text. Great. If you need a call, send a call. Awesome. There you go. That's it. Sorry. Pinwheel is another. It's a smartphone, but it only allows pre approved apps. There's another one, this is a big one too. This is one that I've seen advertised a ton. It's called the Bark Phone. Bark Phone, if you remember that app that we talked About a little bit earlier on in the podcast, that that phone or that app, that company, if you will, created a phone and that phone uses that bark technology to make sure to keep kids safe. It is a pretty good option, I will say. They have a smartphone, but it's a very good option. However, it does cost money. And so it's kind of like a phone if you go to Verizon or some other place. But like this phone here, it says it's $10 a month for 24 months. So you pay $10 a month for the phone, but then you also have to pay for the plan and the subscription. And so you do have to be careful on that, that it could cost a little extra money. But in my opinion, what's an extra little. What's an extra bit of money for keeping your child safe? So your plan, if you would, with a bark phone, includes unlimited talk and text, the Bark premium family subscription free access to this talk space thing that they use. You can, if you have a phone number that you want to transfer, you can transfer that phone number to the bark phone. So it's $10 a month for the phone. And then there's another plan that's $29 a month, and so you're looking at $49 a month. Or there's an advanced plan that kind of gives you even more specific monitoring, and that's $39 a month. And so it is a little bit more of an investment. But again, if it's an option that you want to look at, it's a. It's a good option. It's a pretty good option. And then there's also one called Wise Phone. Wise Phone. And this one is a smartphone. I say smartphone, it's a dumb phone. But this one is also. Adults have used this, so this is a more expensive phone. This is like you're getting an iPhone. But the Wyze phone I really, really like because it has modern conveniences without all the other junk that potentially can come with it. And so you can access maps if you need directions. There's a camera if you want to take pictures. But then there's messages if you want to have messages. And then of course, there's the phone. That's it. That's all it is. There's no way for you to access the Internet and go look at something on Safari or some sort of Internet. There's no way to download a bunch of different apps. It's literally a dumb phone that just lets you be able to have a phone without all the Junk and to have some of those modern conveniences because let's be real, I am horrible with directions. And so you tell me to go, turn, go east for a mile, go west and then turn back south. I don't know what you're talking about. Just tell me. Go to the Walmart, take a left at the 7:11 and you'll stop right next to the CVS. That's just, that's just how I do directions. But this phone offers an ability to have those options if they need it. So again, really good for teenagers. However, you are going to spend a little bit of money. This, if you thought bark phone was expensive, this one is even more expensive. The phone itself you can buy. They have their own phone. It's $399, $400. It's expensive. Um, but you can bring your own carrier, which is also interesting. So like if you have Verizon and you want your all to be on the Verizon plan, then you can do that. And it's $14 a month, 14.99amonth for you to bring your own carrier. Now if you need carrier service, which they have a wise phone plan that includes, includes a subscription to whatever tools you need, data, your phone number saved, unlimited talk and texting, mobile hotspot, stuff like that, they have plans like that too, but there's certain amounts of data you can use. And so they have a one gig plan that's $24, a 5GB or a gig plan for 44, or an unlimited plan for 69.99. And so cool thing is, with this one, I would encourage you, if you're an adult and you say, you know what, I really need to get unplugged. I need to not be on my phone all the time, man. Well, wise phone may be a very good option for you. I know, I've looked into it. I use my phone way more than I should. I will be the first to admit it. Um, but it's a good option. But it's also a pretty expensive option. And so, yeah, you just have to be prepared to pay that if you're ready. Um, just to kind of wrap up things now, I know we've been going a little bit longer as a normal bit. We need to make sure that as a parent, we are talking with our children about what they're seeing online, what they're using their phones for, what they're seeing. Maybe they're seeing something at school that someone brought. It's important to have these conversations with our children so they feel comfortable coming to us and talking to us about these issues. If you are the first to just immediately get angry and mad because your child did this or did that, we have to understand that sometimes you need to take a step back, take a breather, and have a lightheaded, cool conversation with your child about something that's been going on so they feel comfortable coming to you to talk about technology and their questions and issues that they may have. Again, I'm not advocating saying there's no punishments because there's always consequences for our actions, but we need to make sure that we are a safe place for our kids to get to come talk to us about these issues and things that they're facing. As I said before at the beginning, kids follow what they see. A lot of times it's not just what they're told. And sometimes they don't do what they're told at all. Come on, we're parents, we know that. But kids follow what you do. If you're on your phone 24, 7, they're gonna be on their phones 24, 7. If you watch screens consistently, they're gonna wanna watch screens consistently. If you are in the middle of a conversation and you've got your phone held up to your face and you're clearly not interested in the conversation, well, that's communicating something. We're always communicating things. So we as parents have got to make sure that we have our technology under control and not controlling us. So that way our kids can see what a model, a healthy, modeled life is like with technology. So I would encourage you, encourage you to take a, take a moment this week as you, after you listen through this or whenever you do listen to it, take a moment and just say, how am I doing with technology? Do a self check, spend time in prayer, Lord, reveal to me where I can change for the better with technology. And then don't just hear those changes or hear those things or think about those things, but apply them, apply them to your life. I know it's hard. Believe me, I am. I'm a huge technology guy. I'm on my phone way more than I should. But maybe that means at dinner time, all the phones and electronics, they go up on the bar of your house and then you all sit and you have a dinner together. Maybe that's, hey, at 7:00, we're all putting our phones up and we're spending an hour of family time together with no technology. Well, just think about some way that you can do that. I would encourage myself to do the same thing. And I will. We'll follow. I'll do it with you. But it's important for us to be careful and to make sure that we as parents aren't the ones that are addicted to our technology and passing on knowledge without really realizing it to our own kids. Of course it's really good to share. Scripture is clear that we need to be wise with our anything that we've been given, we need to be good stewards of it. And of course we have the fruits of the spirit. If you're a believer and a lot of your kids are, they have the fruit of the spirit. And so they need to make sure that they are having self control over technology and the dangers and the things that it presents. They need to make sure that they are not spending too much time on things. But they need to understand too that we're not just saying it because we're mean. How often have you heard that? Oh you, you just hate me. You just don't understand, mom. You just don't get me. Well, we do get them. And we want them to learn from our mistakes and to know that this is what God tells us. Ultimately God teaches us that we are to be wise. And for us to be wise, we have to be in the know. And then we also don't just have to know it, but we have to apply it. And so we need to help teach our children that from an early age. But not only teach them that, but we ourselves need to make sure that we are careful and that we have self control and that we are being accountable for our actions when in regards to technology. So let's not just raise kids who know not just how to use the technology, but let's raise kids that know how to use technology. Well, lets raise kids that know and understand technology, but how to do it in a safe and productive manner. Now I would encourage you this week. This is just kind of a challenge I have for you. And my family will be doing the same thing. Pick one night this next week and have a no technology night. No screens. Maybe you, I say no technology. You turn on some music and you all play board games. Maybe you get down on the floor with your toddler and you build an awesome tower out of Magna Tiles. My daughter's been obsessed with those. So. But challenge you to do one night of no screens this week and just see how you feel as a family. It may be hard, but it would be highly encouraging for you all to spend time together without being sucked to a screen. And it would be a blessing to your family. I know it will be. I'm excited to do it with ours. I know it'll be a blessing to us as well. Well, if you have any questions or concerns, anything like that about technology, feel free to send me a text or phone call or post on the Facebook post or whatever you want to do. Feel free to reach out and I will gladly help you walk through some of those technology questions that you may have. And to end, of course, our podcast today. This episode, I have a couple computer jokes. So here's the first one. What did the spider do to the computer? He made a website. Yeah, that one's pretty lame. It's still a good one. Let's see here. What? Why? Why did the computer keep sneezing? Because it had a virus. Okay, that one's pretty good. I like that one. So we'll end on that one. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Rooted at Home, where faith and family take root together. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to, like, share and subscribe so you never miss a conversation that helps kids, parents and families grow in God's word.