Latest / Growing Disciples: Faith at Home with Chatham Families / Real Life, Real Relationships: Parenting in a Digital World
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- Riverside Episode 4 Rebalanced New Pink: Welcome to Growing Disciples Faith at Home with Chatham Families, a podcast for families who want to follow Jesus faithfully and nurture faith at home with confidence and joy. My name is Elizabeth Lindbergh, the Director of Family Ministries at Chatham Community Church and host of the Growing Disciples Podcast. And if this is your first time joining us, we want you to know our heart behind this podcast. We're here to encourage families to see the ordinary moments of life, even the messy ones. As opportunities to point the people we love to Jesus. And as a feature of this podcast, we're going to talk about books and movies that we think are relevant to the work you do raising children day in and day out. And today we're going to combine a couple of these as we reference Jonathan Heidt's book, The Anxious Generation, and Toy Story 5, The Latest in the Pixar franchise, and how these two intersect and are relevant to you. But first, I want to introduce my guest to you. I'm joined today by Amanda Kendrick. Amanda serves as the deacon of Front of House at Shadow Community Church, and you may recognize her voice as she often shares announcements on Sundays and is one of the many people who warmly greet you on Sunday mornings. Amanda, thanks for being here with us today. Thank you so much for having me. This is very exciting. So a little bit about me is that my degrees in human development, family studies, and I have a concentration in child adolescent development. I spent the better half of two decades putting that into practice. And I have an incredible husband, Todd, and together we are raising our 16-year-old young man, Nathan. So as you can see, Amanda is much more than a warm smile and a cheerful greeting. She's got a great background and she's uniquely suited for this conversation. So back in 2024, Amanda and myself and our friend Harry Bullbrook, we began hosting workshops called Tech Healthy Families here at CCC, where we discussed smartphones and social media, computers, replacing books in schools, and and how this shift created unique challenges for parents as we raise children. To be responsible, caring people who love and follow Jesus. And we've presented different strategies of modeling healthy technology use in our homes, and we offered ways to mitigate some of the dangers that come from exposing our kids to too much technology too soon. And I just want to remark about how much technology has changed. In just the two short years that we started doing the Tech Healthy Families workshops, would you agree, Amanda? What what are some of the things that you observed that have changed? for sure. technology in the last two years has definitely changed. I'm also seeing it awareness in our youth. And as well as society. Children of all ages are now aware more of technology, but also some of the pitfalls. And that's really exciting to have conversations with our youth about their awareness of how technology impacts their life. But seeing society kind of opening their eyes as well and how it's affecting some of our laws for sure, but even some of our schools. In what in what way are you seeing changes in schools addressing, you know, the ubiquitous of technology? Mm-hmm. one of the things that w we've seen, at least in our side of Chatham County, is the implementation of this very strict cell phone policy where children are not allowed to have and not just children's students. I have a high schooler, so I can speak definitely for what's happening in in his high school that They were not allowed to have their cell phones out whatsoever. When Nathan was transitioning into high school, there was a lot of conversation about this. And parents had a lot of feels on this. And some parents were for it. Some parents were against it. But some of the kids were for it. And some of the kids were against it, of course. But the kids that were for it actually were pretty excited. So they were going from middle school where they still had recess to high school where they didn't have recess. And there was a lot of conversation generated about the fact that now they're not going to lose that that. face-to-face time, at least in the cafeteria while they're eating and they have a little bit of a break that they'll still engage in conversation rather than being behind their phones. I love the that you brought up recess, right? So middle school, they're outside, they're playing, and then you go up to high school and sorry, we're at behind the desk much of no more recess. Yeah. So that segues I think into we mentioned Jonathan Heid's book, The Anxious Generation, just a minute ago and it had a huge impact when it was released in 2024. And He's for those of you who don't know, he's a social psychologist, professor at NYU, and he studies the effects of technological changes on mental health and childhood. And so, and he's written extensively on this topic. He does TED Talks and all kinds of advocacy when he began seeing the effects in his own children's lives when cell phones started to becoming more prevalent. And one of the main pre premises of his book is that we've well two things. One, We've overprotected our kids in the outside world and and then underprotected them in the online world. And so then as a result, we've then replaced that play-based childhood with a phone based one. As a parent raising kids, you know, we worry for them. We want them to be healthy and safe. And, you know, we are aware that there are dangers in the world, right? And so we we try to protect them. That's our job. is to protect and and raise our children to become healthy adults. But then when we these devices came along, it was almost like a way to to keep them safe from outside. we could be watching them. I we're talking about what Jonathan Heights' premise is. So Amanda was raising a teenage boy. Does this ring true to you? yeah. I think one of the the challenges that parents have today for the first time is the competition even in social media and and who's posting what. Todd and I have chosen not to give Nathan social media yet. So he is aware of it though. And he comes home and he'll he'll share stories about how many likes they have on a picture. And it used to be that we would go to the mall and that's how we found out what latest fashion was, or that's where we f how we found out, you know, who was hanging out with who. And now They're finding these things out instantly. And there's so much more speculation of, you know, so and so was seen in a picture with so and so. And and what does that mean? Are they friends? Are they dating? and there's there's so much more pressure that has been introduced with social media now that that kids have never faced before, which means parents are are facing for the first time too and navigating through these challenges for the first time. So, what are some ways that you and your husband have worked with your teenage son to to shift that tendency to turn to a phone for entertainment or a phone for you know, connection. What are some what are some strategies that you guys have used in your home that has worked? That's a good question. So Nathan has not always been on board with this. I will admit that. It has been a challenge because of course we talk about it a lot. one of the things that we do is that we we really reflect on how technology plays a role in our lives as well. And We have a time in in our evening where we have dedicated that there are just no phones, not just for him, but for us as well. And we have developed a sense of culture in our home that even guests, we invite them to turn up their phones and be present with us. And we have a lot of board games that we play with them. And we've had a lot of conversation in our home about the difference between what you get from playing a board game with a friend versus an online game. And the importance of eye contact and things like that. So it was just a lot of talking things through. And sometimes I feel like Nathan agrees with us. And sometimes we just agree to disagree. And I have to, you know, pull the parent card. I'm sorry, Nate. The answer is no. And we don't always get it right. Mm-hmm. Actually, my husband's birthday was on Sunday and we were all engaging in a in a conversation. And it was during one of our no screen times. And we were sitting there talking and twice in the conversation when we did not have screens, I ended up you know, going to my phone to answer a question. I was like, that's a good question. Let's find out the answer. And I immediately went to pick up my phone. So we make mistakes and the important part is I called it out and I like, my gosh, guys, no phones, no phones right now. Like don't let me don't let me be on the phone. And it's kind of admitting how easy it is to pick up that phone, even as adults. So we try and do a lot of modeling behavior for Nathan. that's probably one of the the biggest things I would say that we do is conversation and modeling. Yeah. And I'm I'm glad you say that too, because sometimes can feel overwhelming. But having that conversation with our with our child, giving them some agency, I just I personally have seen that work in our family when the kids are engaged and are and are part of finding the solution to the problem that we're trying to solve, there's a lot more buy-in. So if the if the problem that we're trying to solve is we want to find time to be be with our friends in an embodied way before we started recording. You gave me an example of Nathan reaching out to a friend. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wanna share a little bit about that? Sure. Yep. So he will want to get together with friends and he's very specific. So instead of just saying like, hey, do you want to get together? And maybe that friend is implying that they're gonna be sitting there playing video games, he'll he'll play, Hey do you want to go meet up at the sports court? Mm-hmm. Or, Hey, do you want to go to Pittsburgh? They have a new skate park. That's awesome. That's that's so great. Yeah, because another thing that Jonathan Haidt talks about is just how th like that physical play, it teaches kids, you know, to handle fear, like going to a new skateboard. Yeah. Or handling conflict or d uncertainty and it builds social skills and independence and play where they learn to cope with failure and recover. So again, as parents, sometimes we w we you know, our inclination is naturally to to protect our kids, but also giving them those Those opportunities to do things in the real world that are age appropriate. I was listening to a TED talk that Jonathan Height was giving and he talked about an example of this was a mother wanted to try this. And so she said to her, I think you have seven-year-old son, nine-year-old son, what's something that you feel like you want to try to to do to be independent? And he said, I think I could go to Chick-fil-A and order our lunch. And so She drove him to Chick-fil-A. She waited in the car. The boy went in, ordered the lunch, came back, got in the car. And he's like, that was so cool. Mm-hmm. Not because he did it on the mobile app, right? But he actually went in and spoke to somebody and and it had that sense of accomplishment. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So those little victories that we can easily overlook are just so thrilling to watch. That's just very exciting. That's a great example. Okay. So speaking about being physical in our world and technology and how those intersect, that segues into the movie Toy Story Five. So I found this movie absolutely fascinating. And I don't know it's been out for I don't know, a month or so, a couple of months. And so for those who who haven't s yet had a chance to see it, Amanda, do you want to give folks a sort of high level summary of it? Yeah, absolutely. So it is about our classic. Toy Story characters and they are introduced to a new character, Lillipad, and you get to see their real life reactions to technology and their responses, which are very similar to our responses, I think, is like, what the heck is this and how does this fit in our child's life? For sure. For somebody they care about, right? So these characters care about They are kids just as much as we care about our kids. Right. Yeah. And the movie sort of opens with the Bonnie, the the girl, the human girl in the movie, and she's playing with her toys. And the the actual play comes from her, her initiation. She's making it do all the different things. And then and then it contrasts later in the movie with the Lillipad, who is the one who initiates what goes on in their play. One of the things I appreciated about the movie was that it didn't make technology out to be evil. It it it talked about tech and and how it has its place. It's not going away. I just I just loved it. You know, they all sort of the the different levels of tech and toys kind of all work together to problem solve a situation in the movie. But it just demonstrated that, you know, that that all screens are bad all the time. Right. But the question that we want to ask ourselves as parents and caregivers are what experiences do we want children to have and to be able to thrive? Or where we are allowing a device to replace a human interaction, is that necessary for what that child needs to develop, or do we need to make a different choice? That actually reminds me of when we did our tech healthy family workshop. And one of the things that we do is we ask families a two-part question. We ask them, and I am encouraging the listeners to ask this question to themselves as well, is what kind of a relationship do you want your child to have with technology? And I think that that's such an important question for families to really think about because it really will become a relationship with your child. And when you think about the technology can be like a guest in your home and how long do you want that guest? Is this an overnight guest? Does this guest have to leave at eight o'clock? when does this when is this guest allowed just to come over? Is this a guest that maybe doesn't get to go on car rides with you? Is it a guest that only goes on car rides with you? Is it a guest that is allowed to be there only during the week? Maybe this is just a weekend guest. And I think it's such an important question to ask is what do you want? What kind of a relationship do you want technology to have with your child? So I said this is a two-part question, and we're very strategic on how we ask this question in the order that we ask it. The next part of that question is what kind of a relationship do you want with technology? And we ask in this order because as parents and those who just care about children, whether you're a grandparent or you're a teacher. We care about our kids usually a little bit more than we care about ourselves. One of the amazing things you say in that workshop is more is caught than taught. And so I think it's really important for parents to understand that we are modeling for our children. So in the Toy Story movie, there is a scene and I promise I'm not spoiling d I'm not giving any spoiler alerts. If you have if you haven't seen this movie, it's a very, very short scene, but it just really resonated with me and Actually, if you've already seen the movie, you may not even remember this or have picked up on it, but you see a family of four walking through the woods and they're it looks like they're maybe going on a hike and they have gotten turned around. And the mom and the dad are arguing about what direction to go. And the mom takes out her phone and she is following GPS. So In the Kendrick household, this would be a very appropriate time to use your technology. Being lost in the woods is not something I ever want to be either. So I could see how the parent was like, well, we've got the answer right in our pockets. Let's pull this out and go. And so the scene is very quick, and you see the parent walking, and they miss something very important as they're walking. And the there is three people in the family, three people miss this, and then the child who is not on technology catches it. So it is. a a really good example of how we have to just understand that whatever our we decide our relationship with technology will be, is that when we're engaging with technology, we may be displacing something else in our lives. And so it's not a matter of when is it a good time and when is it not a good time. We get we asked that question a lot when we're in our re workshop is what is the right amount of screen time? The good news is is that you already have that answer in in your family, right? You have to think about what your family values are. And it's not too late, right? You can still define these. If you don't even know this answer, like this is this is why we're having this podcast and why this is such a relevant topic is because these are questions you can start asking yourself now, whether you have young, young kids or whether you have teenagers is what values do we want to have in our house? What what would we like to begin doing? And helping those questions shape the decisions that you're gonna make because technology is still ever changing. So it's important that we keep evaluating these questions and that we keep asking ourselves, what kind of values do we have in our family? And what decisions are we making that support those values? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It was a a very very poignant scene. again, like you said, it's it was fine that the parents were using their GPS to find their way, but the little boy was just chucking along without a phone in his hand and he's like, Hey, look at this, everybody. Yeah. It was a great illustration. and then, you know, the the other thing that occurred to me as we were thinking about this podcast episode and the fact that God has created us as embodied people. so we're designed to to live and to learn and to worship and grow through real life face-to-face relationships, right? We come together and we have a cup of coffee we with a a friend and we can read their expressions on their face. We break bread and and have a meal and we're made for that physical community. And our bodies allow us to be present with one another. We show love and we learn through real life experiences. And yes, we can have alone time with God and have a time of prayer and worship. But when we engage with another person, As we go to the Lord in prayer or study the scripture, it's deep, it's meaningful, it's concrete. I'd gone for prayer in the prayer room one Sunday a couple of months ago, and the Lord really answered that prayer. And I found the woman who prayed for me. And I I wanted to let her know. I said, you know, I just want you to know that the the Lord really heard and answered and moved as a result of your prayer for me. And And she was so touched and was just so grateful that I I followed up and let her know. And you know, she said, Listen, I'm just a vessel. And then she had a prayer knee, so I got to pray for her. And and so it was just this beautiful exchange. The beauty of that story is that it's blending what God has given us and taught us about the importance of relationships in our lives. And that also has so much science. That has backed that up now in the development of our brains all the way up through age 25. That's why I say no matter how old your child is, like there is still time and you're still shaping them. Their brain is still developing. And there is so much science that is out there now that proves exactly what you're saying, how important and critical face-to-face relationships are. It's not just what technology can be displacing, but what isn't developing if you don't have that face to face. So it is so critical that children still have these experiences and that they are still seeing what it's like to take care of a friend who fell down. the importance of how it feels to have some an a peer help them get a band-aid and those moments of of true feeling can can only happen when you have a human to human interaction versus having technology in there. So in a world where digital connection often replaces physical presence, we just need to remember that like we need those real relationships, not just the virtual ones. And even, you know, having those conversations with our with our kids, with our families or as a family, saying, Okay, you know, if if if you're listening and you're feeling like, my gosh, I don't know where to start, like you know, I think it's 100% okay to just sit down as a family and say, you know what? I this is what I observe us doing and and how we're using our phones or iPads, whatever it might be. What are ways that we can have more embodied relationships or and even starting with one night a week? One night a week, we're not turning on the TV and we're gonna play a board game or we're gonna go for a walk, whatever it might be. Like you know, just deciding together and if the kids are are super little, like you know, obviously it's an age appropriate thing. You say we're, you know, gonna pull up play-doh, whatever it might be. But but just working together as as a family and just little bits at a time of making those changes and then it can just get contagious. I agree. I agree. And your monthly newsletter that you send out has great examples. So if any of our listeners are looking for ideas, that is an amazing resource if you don't already receive that newsletter. Please reach out to Elizabeth, make sure that you get that because it is soaked with such amazing information and resources for families. One of the things that I really want families to walk away from is knowing they are not alone in this, that you are not the only parent who is going through these struggles and who has some of these questions and is trying to shape what their family structure needs to look like and what that or their relationship as a family with technology needs to look like. You are not alone. There are so many. families there that have similar questions. It's why this was a a topic for discussion. And it's why Disney's Pixar has a whole movie dedicated to this. Right. And why we're seeing so much more conversation happening around this is because I think as a society, we are beginning to be like, whoa, wait a minute, like this is cool. And the and AI and technology and it it presents such an awesome enhancement to our lives, but it should truly be enhancement versus replacement. Yes. There's so much conversation happening. You're not alone. It is not too late. There is a lot of good starting points that you can start today. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And speaking of resources too, the Gospel Coalition has a an article. It has like 33, you know, ways to have embodied play as opposed to technology. So I'll link that article into the show notes and maybe something will spark some creativity or a a fun idea for you. so Amanda, as we wrap up, I know you want folks to sort of walk away from this with some positive, tangible things that are actionable, if you will. So what what do you have for us? One of the things that I hope that all of our listeners are feeling is that they can forgive anything that they've like are thinking about as they've been listening to this podcast, like, I should not have or I shouldn't be, like, forgive yourself. It is okay. We make mistakes. I do this every single day. I make mistakes every single day. Focus on the fact that you are recognizing what needs to change in your family and start reading. That's that's probably a really great resource. Is I say that Elizabeth has superpowers all the time, but she is a wealth of information. If you have any questions on a certain topic, she has a resource that she can give if she's not the resource herself. You have so many people here. You're more than welcome to come to me. I'm very happy to talk about this. especially if you just don't know where to start or you know, you want tips for one thing. I've said this before, but I'll I'll repeat it often. And that is if there is something that you want us to discuss or break down a topic, you can absolutely just email us at families at chathamchurch.org. We're happy to hear your suggestions and open up a conversation about something that would be really helpful to you. As you raise your children to follow Jesus. So, Amanda, thanks so much for joining us today on the podcast. thank you so much for having me, Elizabeth. Always a pleasure to do anything with you. This podcast is extra special to me. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. And if you haven't yet, go check out Toy Story Five. Okay. Well, until next time, may the Lord bless you as you nurture faith at home.