Latest / Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland / Parenting School Tech

Transcript

Parenting School Tech · Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland

0:01
Speaker 1: Purposely, your life, God's purpose. More podcasts at purposely.com. Hello
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Speaker 1: everyone and welcome to the Gospel Tech Podcast. My name
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Speaker 1: is Nathan Sutherland and this podcast is dedicated to helping
0:20
Speaker 1: families love God and use tech. Today we are talking
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Speaker 1: about when we're back to school and our district or
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Speaker 1: our school has given our child a personal device. This
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Speaker 1: might be a Chromebook, it might be a tablet, it
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Speaker 1: might be an iPad, it might be a MacBook, but
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Speaker 1: like whatever the thing might be, it can access the internet,
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Speaker 1: it has technology that you did not put on it,
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Speaker 1: and we need to talk through what that looks like.
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Speaker 1: So we're First, we're gonna talk about what healthy boundaries
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Speaker 1: look like, then how we can make this thing safe
0:48
Speaker 1: at home. And finally, what the bigger conversation looks like
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Speaker 1: with our child, because yes, there's some parenting that involves
0:55
Speaker 1: keeping harmful things away. And this is an opportunity for
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Speaker 1: us to train our children, really to practice raising them
1:02
Speaker 1: up in the way they should go with their tech. No,
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Speaker 1: it's not always voluntary when we put our children into
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Speaker 1: school districts that do this. And there are steps we
1:09
Speaker 1: can take to both make it safe and then to
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Speaker 1: push back if this tech is vividly, if it is
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Speaker 1: proving repeatedly and very clearly to not be safe for
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Speaker 1: our children, then we can push back and tell the
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Speaker 1: district or even get doctor's notes saying, this is not
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Speaker 1: a safe choice for my child based on this behavior
1:27
Speaker 1: and these resources either. Change the boundaries because oftentimes we
1:31
Speaker 1: don't have that choice or we need to change the
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Speaker 1: media my child is learning through. Okay. The first thing
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Speaker 1: we're going to do. So this actually just happened in ours.
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Speaker 1: So I'm talking from first person experience here. My son
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Speaker 1: went to junior high this year here in Washington state.
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Speaker 1: That is still junior high. It's not middle school per se. Anyway,
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Speaker 1: it's confusing. We're one of the last districts holding onto this,
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Speaker 1: but he is a seventh grader. He's now the youngest
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Speaker 1: person in a seven through 12 kind of campus. And
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Speaker 1: then seven, eighth graders in his building, but like he
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Speaker 1: started band in the high school building. So big kids
2:02
Speaker 1: walking around, doing that stuff. In addition to that, he
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Speaker 1: gets a laptop handed to him. Now, this is super awesome.
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Speaker 1: It's a great device. You've heard me talk about this before,
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Speaker 1: the MacBook Neo is the new Mac product that operates
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Speaker 1: at a really high level that has onboard storage. So
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Speaker 1: it's not requiring the internet for everything. It has ample
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Speaker 1: processing power. You can go watch YouTube tutorials on this.
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Speaker 1: Like it can do video editing and audio editing, and
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Speaker 1: it can multitask a reasonable amount. It can do some
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Speaker 1: game development. It is really built with the tools to create.
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Speaker 1: and it's a mac so on a network level they
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Speaker 1: can blacklist basically everything and not just try to play
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Speaker 1: whack-a-mole with bad websites but be like no no you
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Speaker 1: can't use the browser except for this one website now
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Speaker 1: if they put youtube on there that's different but if
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Speaker 1: they say con academy there's no vpn or anything else
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Speaker 1: that can get you around the fact that the operating
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Speaker 1: system at a network level does not allow other websites.
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Speaker 1: So it's not blocking these 150 bad websites. It's only
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Speaker 1: allowing this one. And I love that feature. So from
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Speaker 1: a school level, I just gold star right off the bat.
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Speaker 1: That was a huge investment because these are like $ 500
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Speaker 1: more a pop than a Chromebook. So I understand that
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Speaker 1: on a district level, this was an expensive choice and
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Speaker 1: battery life, screen brightness, like overall productivity, the touchpad, the
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Speaker 1: touchpad will be such a boon for students. to not
3:24
Speaker 1: need external mouse or mice, meese? Anyway, we'll not need
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Speaker 1: external digital interfaces. Digital. There was a pun there that
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Speaker 1: I didn't mean to do, but they will have to
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Speaker 1: use other things to make your mouse move. So we're
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Speaker 1: going to talk about what does it look like to
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Speaker 1: have healthy boundaries. And the first thing we do is
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Speaker 1: we set up a hedge around our family when we
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Speaker 1: talk about tech and we just make sure our students know, hey,
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Speaker 1: what does it look like to be healthy with our tech?
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Speaker 1: They're like, I don't know. It's just tech, mom and dad.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter. This is a good time for
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Speaker 1: us to talk about tool and drool. Say, hey, you
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Speaker 1: know what? Some tech makes you more awesome. It helps
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Speaker 1: you build on your goals and things you want to accomplish.
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Speaker 1: You want to connect with friends? Things like FaceTime can
4:00
Speaker 1: be great for that. You want to write something? Word processing.
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Speaker 1: You want a 3D design, be it an image or
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Speaker 1: a video game or a video? or something you want
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Speaker 1: to print. Computers can be great for that, but all
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Speaker 1: those wait for you to drive them. Then there's drool tech,
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Speaker 1: and they will still help you do things, but they're
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Speaker 1: going to help you consume. They want to take your time, focus,
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Speaker 1: and money. And this can be as simple as the
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Speaker 1: chat at the bottom of YouTube. That is an engagement design.
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Speaker 1: Or it might be Duolingo, which is going to help
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Speaker 1: you learn a language, but also hold XP and points
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Speaker 1: over your head to try to motivate you or send
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Speaker 1: you little sad emails like, you don't love me anymore.
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Speaker 1: Or it might be something as, you know, steroid driven
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Speaker 1: in the technology world is like TikTok, where this thing
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Speaker 1: is so good at just keeping engagement because it can
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Speaker 1: give you 18 second little scraps of reality and just
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Speaker 1: see what sticks and keep you for that extra 1, 2, 3,
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Speaker 1: 20 little videos. This is what we need to set out.
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Speaker 1: Like you will not get overstimulated on Microsoft Word. You
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Speaker 1: will get overstimulated on TikTok. It's just a matter of
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Speaker 1: how bad and when. But that is its goal because
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Speaker 1: sometimes when we get overstimulated, it makes us feel anxious.
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Speaker 1: And to get rid of our anxiousness, we love to
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Speaker 1: just disappear into the void of an endless scroll that
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Speaker 1: makes us feel good. There's a trick in that. So
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Speaker 1: make sure we talk about that. Make sure we talk
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Speaker 1: about our children's hearts. It's the why am I using this?
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Speaker 1: So video games are not inherently bad. And if you're
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Speaker 1: using them to be okay, we want to think through that.
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Speaker 1: Is there something, should we go on a walk? Should
5:30
Speaker 1: we pray? Should we eat food? Should we take a nap?
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Speaker 1: Should we talk to someone who cares about us? Like,
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Speaker 1: is there another thing we need to be doing right
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Speaker 1: now to feel better? The way we can tell is
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Speaker 1: what's the outcome. When I use it, what happens next?
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Speaker 1: Not just how do I feel about it? Sometimes I'm like, no,
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Speaker 1: that was awesome. But do I like who I'm becoming afterwards?
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Speaker 1: Do I like the outcome? Is it easier to study?
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Speaker 1: Once I do this, my own personal life, full grown
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Speaker 1: adult with children talking to you about tech, I get
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Speaker 1: stressed writing. I feel different if I go on a
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Speaker 1: walk than if I watch 10 minutes of YouTube. They
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Speaker 1: can take the exact same amount of time, but how
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Speaker 1: do I feel when I come back? What's my ability
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Speaker 1: to invest in what I know I need to do?
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Speaker 1: If I'm less capable of doing the stuff I know
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Speaker 1: I should be doing, I should ring a bell and go,
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Speaker 1: you know what? Maybe this is just the wrong time.
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Speaker 1: I'm the wrong person. This is the wrong input. It's
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Speaker 1: the wrong amount, quantity, whatever. Um, So when we talk
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Speaker 1: about tech with our kids, first, we want to talk about,
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Speaker 1: is it safe by design? Is it tool or drool tech?
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Speaker 1: Then are you ready? Is this the right season of
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Speaker 1: life for you to use this technology? This is certainly
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Speaker 1: with their tablet they're going to be taking to school,
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Speaker 1: but also when they're at home, when they're using devices
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Speaker 1: you have here, whether it be a TV or a
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Speaker 1: kid's tablet or a laptop or whatever, is it safe?
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Speaker 1: The safest tech is tool tech because it's going to
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Speaker 1: operate at the pace of real life follow your goals,
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Speaker 1: and does not have any goals of its own. No
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Speaker 1: retention built into it. Then, are you ready? Are you
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Speaker 1: mature enough? We, for ready, we use a reset. Relationships, emotions, sleep, enjoyment, time.
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Speaker 1: This is how we can tell, are you ready? Not
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Speaker 1: just do I feel like I want it really bad,
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Speaker 1: but are your relationships in real life healthy? Are your emotions,
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Speaker 1: are you stable emotionally? And are you able to handle
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Speaker 1: a range of emotions? Can you function when you feel angry,
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Speaker 1: when you feel sad, when you're disappointed, when you're exhilarated?
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Speaker 1: How are you handling that diverse range? This is really hard,
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Speaker 1: especially when you're in junior high. Lots of emotions hit
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Speaker 1: you and you're not always ready for all of them
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Speaker 1: all at the same time. So let's figure that out
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Speaker 1: at the pace of real life before TikTok is machine
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Speaker 1: gunning scraps of reality at you. It's very overstimulating and
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Speaker 1: we don't always know what to do with it. Are
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Speaker 1: you ready for this? It's not that I'm judging you.
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Speaker 1: I am judging. I'm not judging you as valuable or
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Speaker 1: less valuable based on your ability. I'm judging you as
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Speaker 1: ready or not ready. And if you're not ready, then
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Speaker 1: it's unloving. You've asked me for an egg, something that's
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Speaker 1: going to help you grow, and I'm giving you a scorpion,
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Speaker 1: something that is going to hurt you. So I'm a
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Speaker 1: good parent. I want to give you an egg. Parents,
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Speaker 1: remember this. We are not withholding our children from a
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Speaker 1: digital world that will make them blossom and become amazing.
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Speaker 1: We're withholding from them parts of the digital space that
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Speaker 1: either they're not ready for because they haven't experienced this
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Speaker 1: yet at the pace of real life or are inherently
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Speaker 1: unsafe and unhealthy for young minds. Things like the biggest
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Speaker 1: of the social medias, which we're now seeing, and there
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Speaker 1: was a $ 16 billion settlement on this, trying as these
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Speaker 1: tech companies begin to start to figure out what does
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Speaker 1: it look like? What's our cost of entry? By the way,
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Speaker 1: $ 16 billion, fully worth it if all of those lawsuits
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Speaker 1: are off the table for them. Yes, that's encouraging from
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Speaker 1: our end because that is at least beginning to have
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Speaker 1: some accountability, but $ 16 billion for a trillion-dollar company to
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Speaker 1: keep its product running? We'll see what the changes are.
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Speaker 1: But keep in mind, we now know social media writ large,
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Speaker 1: just social media in the hand of a developing mind,
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Speaker 1: is not a good fit. There's ways to make it healthier.
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Speaker 1: There's ways to keep our child safer. And there's kids
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Speaker 1: who are ready. But we don't know until we've asked.
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Speaker 1: We don't know. We don't know what to ask until
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Speaker 1: we've seen it in real life. Relationships, emotions, sleep. Can
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Speaker 1: you go to bed on time and stay asleep? And
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Speaker 1: if you're not, the last thing you need to be
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Speaker 1: doing is scrolling social media. Enjoyment. Do you stay diverse
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Speaker 1: or does it all get fixated on the singular thing
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Speaker 1: that you can't move past because it's just so much
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Speaker 1: more exciting than real life? And time. Can you be content?
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Speaker 1: Can we give you an amount of time? I've now
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Speaker 1: landed on a specific amount of time to use. No
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Speaker 1: more than half of your discretionary time a day. So
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Speaker 1: for kids that are going to school, maximum, you have
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Speaker 1: four hours a day of discretionary time. So maximum a
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Speaker 1: day is two hours of drool tech a day. No more.
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Speaker 1: And that is absolute max. And again, if you're playing
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Speaker 1: sports and you only have two and a half hours,
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Speaker 1: you're going a max of one hour, 15 minutes. And
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Speaker 1: I would encourage you to do actually half of that number.
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Speaker 1: So maximum of an hour a day or whatever, 37
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Speaker 1: and a half a in the other case. But like,
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Speaker 1: this is what we're thinking through with our kids is, hey,
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Speaker 1: we're going to put our technology in a box and
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Speaker 1: we're going to go and we're going to play with it.
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Speaker 1: And we're putting it back in the box. Maybe this
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Speaker 1: is a literal box. We use a drawer, but maybe
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Speaker 1: we're just talking to metaphorical box of we can use
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Speaker 1: it and then we can leave it. Okay. So safe
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Speaker 1: and Are you ready? Because I'm going to know based
10:20
Speaker 1: on how you're doing in real life. And if you're not,
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Speaker 1: those are the words I'm going to use. Hey, I've
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Speaker 1: noticed your real-world relationships seem to have a lot of drama.
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Speaker 1: How is social media going to improve this? Because what
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Speaker 1: I have seen personally and what I've seen from research
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Speaker 1: is there's a lot more drama coming through the interwebs.
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Speaker 1: What I've heard from talking with school resource officers, SROs,
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Speaker 1: and officers in multiple cities around my city where I
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Speaker 1: go and do talks in public schools, they say they
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Speaker 1: do not have... man, they do not have an in-school
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Speaker 1: issue that did not start online. And in fact, in
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Speaker 1: talking about gang violence in our era here in Washington State,
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Speaker 1: they said there's not a single bit of gang violence
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Speaker 1: that does not originate on the internet. The turf wars
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Speaker 1: of the 90s and early aughts are now taking place
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Speaker 1: through social media. And it's a lot of people standing
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Speaker 1: up for their friends and standing up for their significant
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Speaker 1: others and people standing up for their particular group against
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Speaker 1: another group. And that's why they're going and committing acts
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Speaker 1: of violence and committing crimes against groups is because of
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Speaker 1: what they would call beef that starts online. I share
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Speaker 1: that because the real world realities are extending from social media.
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Speaker 1: And I have yet to find someone who is unhealthy
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Speaker 1: in real life, but goes into digital spaces and somehow
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Speaker 1: that pivots. Parents, as we strive to raise kids who
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Speaker 1: love God and use tech, it's intimidating to look at
11:40
Speaker 1: this next stage of life and think about what academics
11:43
Speaker 1: may look like for them. When you're thinking about college,
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Speaker 1: consider George Fox University for your children because of three things. First,
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Speaker 1: it's going to give you a more intimate, known environment
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Speaker 1: where they have a focus on being known personally, academically,
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Speaker 1: and spiritually. Your child will grow in their faith. 93%
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Speaker 1: of undergrad students at George Fox last year through the
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Speaker 1: 2025 academic year said that being at George Fox has
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Speaker 1: helped them grow in their relationship with Jesus. We also
12:10
Speaker 1: want them to grow academically, which means being a part
12:14
Speaker 1: of university with rigorous academic standards and opportunities to be engaged.
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Speaker 1: They have a nationally recognized engineering, nursing, and education programs,
12:23
Speaker 1: as well as chances to study abroad here within the U.S.
12:25
Speaker 1: and then internationally. And finally, personally, to be part of
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Speaker 1: a vibrant campus atmosphere where you can play intramural sports
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Speaker 1: or part of their NCAA Division III athletic programs with
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Speaker 1: 23 sports available. The goal here is to go to
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Speaker 1: a place that's going to support your goals, not try
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Speaker 1: to make you support theirs. To have that goal be
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Speaker 1: to raise you up to be all God's called you
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Speaker 1: to be and to truly equip your young person with my,
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Speaker 1: in my case, my son's or my daughter's to love
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Speaker 1: God and then from their love of God to go
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Speaker 1: wherever God has called them. And that includes being equipped
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Speaker 1: with a degree that will help them do that, to
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Speaker 1: be missionally equipped to love and serve others, to lead
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Speaker 1: where God has planted them in, to know the gospel
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Speaker 1: for themselves and be able to share it with others.
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Speaker 1: So George Fox University is an amazing resource for our kids,
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Speaker 1: for our community here in the Northwest, and for anyone
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Speaker 1: who's looking to raise up a young person who can
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Speaker 1: love God and from that love others. Finally, we're going
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Speaker 1: to look at, is this good? I spend all of
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Speaker 1: this time to setting this up of, is the text safe?
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Speaker 1: Are you ready? Is the fruit good? Does it produce love, joy,
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Speaker 1: and self-control in you or the rest of Galatians 5.22?
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Speaker 1: Because when we have that now, we have a footing
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Speaker 1: to talk about, okay, let's put a hedge on this.
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Speaker 1: Let's make this most likely to support you. When I
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Speaker 1: put a hedge on this device, I'm expecting my district
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Speaker 1: to give me something to help parent because that device
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Speaker 1: comes home and I want to make sure that device
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Speaker 1: is following rules. I will say I've not used it yet.
13:52
Speaker 1: Our district uses securely. That's fairly common. It's a big
13:54
Speaker 1: national brand. What I'm excited to see is Securely allows
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Speaker 1: me to set parental settings. So you download an app,
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Speaker 1: you bind it to that computer, and now I can
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Speaker 1: set on that computer, I can set certain expectations for, hey,
14:09
Speaker 1: when this thing is not during school hours, it can
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Speaker 1: only do A, B, or C, and I can see
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Speaker 1: that from my app. I love, love, love this feature
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Speaker 1: for Securely. They did not have this seven years ago
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Speaker 1: when I was in the classroom. So this has come
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Speaker 1: along in the last three quarters of a decade, and
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Speaker 1: that is such a powerful parenting tool. to allow parents
14:25
Speaker 1: to download an app and now set parental expectations for, okay,
14:28
Speaker 1: so you're going to go to a coffee shop that
14:30
Speaker 1: now follows family rules. You're going to go to a
14:32
Speaker 1: friend's house. It follows family rules because it used to
14:34
Speaker 1: be followed school rules. And then you went to the
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Speaker 1: library and this thing's just wide open internet now. I love, love,
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Speaker 1: love that parents are brought in as part of this conversation,
14:43
Speaker 1: even though the district is initiating the technology. And I
14:46
Speaker 1: understand the arguments for why they want some technology in
14:48
Speaker 1: the classroom. And they're allowing parents to still parent. 10
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Speaker 1: out of 10 love this. I'll let you know how
14:54
Speaker 1: the experience actually is. But parents, we cannot install software
14:57
Speaker 1: on these things. And I understand enterprise-wise. So the district
15:01
Speaker 1: that I live in, the public school district, has something
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Speaker 1: like 12,000 devices. You cannot have 12,000 independently managed devices
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Speaker 1: brought into one network and expect no viruses to enter
15:11
Speaker 1: your network. Like, it's going to happen. So you have
15:14
Speaker 1: to manage what's allowed to be installed and what kind
15:17
Speaker 1: of supervision is happening. And I get all that. I
15:19
Speaker 1: love this securely as this option. I don't know what
15:21
Speaker 1: other options there are, but make sure you have boundaries
15:24
Speaker 1: around that device. Make sure your district has boundaries on
15:27
Speaker 1: that device. If your district, like one district I visited,
15:30
Speaker 1: not in the state, is allowing every student to bring
15:34
Speaker 1: a personal device from home, make us think about that.
15:37
Speaker 1: You are better to go tech-free than have every kid
15:40
Speaker 1: in that school bring a home-brewed device, which may not
15:44
Speaker 1: even be their own. It's like an older brother or sister's.
15:46
Speaker 1: that they now bring with whatever happens to be on
15:48
Speaker 1: that device, you're never gonna get proper network security. You're
15:52
Speaker 1: never going to get proper levels of accountability for the
15:55
Speaker 1: teacher who has to manage the 25 to 33 kids
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Speaker 1: they now have in a room. And you are going
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Speaker 1: to be fully responsible for whatever happens across that device
16:04
Speaker 1: to that student and to whomever else that student decides
16:07
Speaker 1: to inflict digital damage upon. Don't do that, please. So
16:13
Speaker 1: from a district level, have security. Push back against your
16:16
Speaker 1: district if it's not safe. On a parenting level, when
16:18
Speaker 1: that device comes home, it needs to have parental controls.
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Speaker 1: It is not impossible. Securely is a major company that
16:25
Speaker 1: your district definitely has heard of. Push back on that.
16:28
Speaker 1: Get some security. Then build hedges within your home. Make
16:31
Speaker 1: sure your Wi-Fi has some boundaries around it so that
16:34
Speaker 1: your student can do the schoolwork and can still be
16:38
Speaker 1: lovingly parented. If he or she disappears into a room...
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Speaker 1: and it's been X amount of time that they get
16:43
Speaker 1: for their schooling, the internet goes off for that device.
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Speaker 1: You have from 3.30 to 5 to finish this. And
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Speaker 1: then it's just done. And you can tell your teacher tomorrow,
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Speaker 1: my parents are super mean, they shut off my internet.
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Speaker 1: Or you can do it right here at the counter
16:57
Speaker 1: because it seems like focus isn't going great right now.
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Speaker 1: You'll be able to see what's happening on that device,
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Speaker 1: trust them to the extent that they deserve to be trust,
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Speaker 1: and not be ignorant in the way that we throw
17:08
Speaker 1: really high octane technology that is capable of accessing all
17:13
Speaker 1: parts of the internet to some extent, and instead give
17:17
Speaker 1: them something that is accountable, something that develops them as
17:20
Speaker 1: a student and learner, and has boundaries. We're not just
17:23
Speaker 1: trusting the internet to make them good people. I think
17:26
Speaker 1: the 1990s have shown us it wasn't a great choice.
17:29
Speaker 1: So our tech optimism has a threshold. We build boundaries
17:34
Speaker 1: because we believe in this tech to a point, and
17:37
Speaker 1: we believe more in our childs. We believe that our
17:39
Speaker 1: child's potential is worth stepping away from some technology at
17:42
Speaker 1: some point. And then we're going to make sure that
17:45
Speaker 1: the rest of our devices in our home have deliberate boundaries.
17:49
Speaker 1: So this is boundaries around the school device, boundaries around
17:53
Speaker 1: our network. When they come home, there's a hedge that says,
17:56
Speaker 1: here's the websites you can visit. Here's the ones you can't.
17:58
Speaker 1: Here's the time you can use it for. And we
18:01
Speaker 1: have expectations for when I say it's dinner time, it's
18:03
Speaker 1: dinner time. I don't know if it's your video game
18:06
Speaker 1: or your music or your friends or your schoolwork, But
18:09
Speaker 1: it finishes, we're going to eat this meal because meals
18:12
Speaker 1: together prioritize one another. And now we are going to
18:16
Speaker 1: jump back into whatever we have for the rest of
18:18
Speaker 1: our day. Use the tech and put it back in
18:20
Speaker 1: its box. Always in the background of this conversation is
18:22
Speaker 1: that reset. Because if at any point engaging this technology,
18:26
Speaker 1: I mentioned this at the intro and I want to
18:27
Speaker 1: come back to it. If engaging that technology harms our childhood.
18:31
Speaker 1: In terms of their health, their relationships, emotion, sleep, enjoyment, time,
18:35
Speaker 1: that tech just became expendable. So with my son, when
18:38
Speaker 1: he brings home his laptop tonight, we're going to be
18:40
Speaker 1: getting Schoology set up. We had a whole thing. Of course,
18:42
Speaker 1: this happened to my child. It didn't load up. They
18:45
Speaker 1: were like, follow this process, get your new laptop loaded up. It'll,
18:48
Speaker 1: you know, bring all the school files onto it. So
18:51
Speaker 1: we went to go do that. It didn't work. That
18:52
Speaker 1: was odd. Emailed them. They're like, bring it in. Took
18:54
Speaker 1: it in this morning. And they were like, yeah, we
18:57
Speaker 1: don't know. This is the only computer that's done this.
18:59
Speaker 1: It's completely wiped. Like we have to re-image a new laptop.
19:03
Speaker 1: So that was humbling. You like talk about safe tech
19:07
Speaker 1: for a living and then you're the one with the
19:09
Speaker 1: only broken laptop. I don't know. Just feels like I
19:12
Speaker 1: should have been capable of following basic instructions and I
19:14
Speaker 1: broke it. What I'm going to look for when my
19:16
Speaker 1: son brings home that laptop is does this pivot who
19:19
Speaker 1: he is as a person? I've seen him all summer
19:21
Speaker 1: as a healthy, wonderful young person. I've seen his energy.
19:24
Speaker 1: I've seen his joy. I've seen his struggles. I've seen
19:27
Speaker 1: his ability to wrestle through big concepts, be they parenting
19:31
Speaker 1: concepts or life concepts, and then apply them. I kind
19:34
Speaker 1: of know how he works as a person. So I'm
19:36
Speaker 1: going to make sure that as a flawed young person,
19:38
Speaker 1: this technology doesn't negatively pivot that. And if it starts
19:42
Speaker 1: to become the only thing he wants to go back to,
19:44
Speaker 1: and if he starts sneaking it, or if he wakes
19:46
Speaker 1: up earlier, stays up late, or if he just can't
19:48
Speaker 1: get past and he keeps asking to get it back,
19:51
Speaker 1: because let's say it shut off, like I said, at 530.
19:55
Speaker 1: And now he just wants a little more time and
19:56
Speaker 1: a little more time. We're gonna have to have a
19:58
Speaker 1: conversation about that. I'm going to be watching his reset
20:00
Speaker 1: and say, what part of this tech is actually helping
20:02
Speaker 1: him learn? And is there anything that's distracting him or
20:05
Speaker 1: harming him or building negative habits? Because there is absolutely
20:07
Speaker 1: a place to go back to your district and say, listen,
20:10
Speaker 1: my child, this is not a healthy choice. Now, I'm
20:14
Speaker 1: using little simple examples, but I have had young people
20:18
Speaker 1: where they have made such poor choices online for so
20:21
Speaker 1: long that the presence of that screen and opening a
20:23
Speaker 1: browser to do schoolwork is triggering to them. Like it
20:26
Speaker 1: puts them into negative thought patterns or to harmful thought patterns,
20:32
Speaker 1: both of them and others. It is entirely reasonable. Maybe
20:34
Speaker 1: you need a doctor's note for this. I mentioned that
20:36
Speaker 1: as well earlier. Maybe you need a doctor's note and
20:39
Speaker 1: go to the doctor and say, listen, here's what we've experienced.
20:41
Speaker 1: Here's what my child is working through. He or she
20:44
Speaker 1: cannot simply be handed a device and the district can't
20:48
Speaker 1: provide the level of supervision on this device my child needs.
20:51
Speaker 1: Write me a note. Tell me they need analog education.
20:54
Speaker 1: This is coming. Districts will begin to prepare for this. Yes,
20:58
Speaker 1: it is overwhelming. I'm telling you, I was a teacher
20:59
Speaker 1: two months ago in a classroom. This is overwhelming. If
21:02
Speaker 1: you're trying to do a fully digital class and have
21:05
Speaker 1: an analog counterpart, but it's perfectly reasonable. The districts need
21:09
Speaker 1: to pivot. We need to be prepared for this. We
21:11
Speaker 1: need to not be shocked when a kid comes and says,
21:13
Speaker 1: I have such bad habits that I simply can't focus
21:16
Speaker 1: on an entertainment device that's been co-opted for school purposes. Now,
21:20
Speaker 1: if you get a MacBook Neo and you use it
21:22
Speaker 1: from the district level to only lock in six apps
21:25
Speaker 1: that allow learning and there is no browser and there
21:27
Speaker 1: is no YouTube and there is no distraction, there is
21:29
Speaker 1: no TikTok, there's no VPN portals, there's no way to
21:32
Speaker 1: bring in fake apps that look like calculators because there's
21:35
Speaker 1: no app store. There's only the six apps you can
21:38
Speaker 1: use and the five websites you have access to, and
21:41
Speaker 1: that's the learning box you've been placed in? Phenomenal. Praise
21:45
Speaker 1: the Lord. May we all be in that situation. But
21:49
Speaker 1: until that's true, we do not have actual learning platforms.
21:53
Speaker 1: We have entertainment platforms that are designed for gaming and
21:56
Speaker 1: streaming and social media, and we're co-opting them for educational purposes.
22:01
Speaker 1: We happen to have files on there that allow us to,
22:04
Speaker 1: you know, read a PDF of the story or to
22:06
Speaker 1: share our essay with our teacher or to check our grades.
22:09
Speaker 1: But that isn't what it's built to do. It's built
22:11
Speaker 1: to do this other stuff and it happens to do
22:13
Speaker 1: this educational stuff. It is very reasonable to go and
22:15
Speaker 1: say that environment is not a safe spot for my kid.
22:18
Speaker 1: My child cannot be given one of these devices, cannot
22:20
Speaker 1: be expected to run and manage his or her own
22:23
Speaker 1: choices right now because they simply do not have the
22:26
Speaker 1: experience of doing it well. It's like a halfway house
22:29
Speaker 1: for technology. We have a history of poor behavior. We've
22:33
Speaker 1: gotten to a good, healthy spot. And now I need
22:36
Speaker 1: to learn how to function in a digital society again.
22:38
Speaker 1: But don't just throw me back to the wolves. Don't
22:41
Speaker 1: throw me back to where my old friends are, my
22:42
Speaker 1: old games are, my old websites are, my old music is. Like,
22:46
Speaker 1: I can't handle all those choices at once. I need
22:48
Speaker 1: something pared down. And guess what's really pared down? A packet.
22:52
Speaker 1: of printed documents that's stapled in the top left corner.
22:55
Speaker 1: It's high res, there's no ads, it's got zero latency.
22:59
Speaker 1: You'll never have to worry about something loading slowly. Like
23:02
Speaker 1: this baby keeps your spot every single time. It never
23:07
Speaker 1: runs out of memory. Which, paper's great. By the way,
23:12
Speaker 1: it's eco-friendly. You know what's not eco-friendly? The heavy metals
23:14
Speaker 1: that run in our processors and LED screens. Like, it's
23:19
Speaker 1: beautiful to run some pulp wood that grows full size,
23:23
Speaker 1: and I don't remember, they got it down to like
23:24
Speaker 1: 10 years now, where they can farm this wood and
23:28
Speaker 1: churn it very, very quickly, much more quickly than the
23:31
Speaker 1: planet can replace those heavy metals, and do that at
23:35
Speaker 1: scale really, really well. We've been doing it for hundreds
23:38
Speaker 1: of years, and they can do it now in a
23:39
Speaker 1: modern era extremely well. Paper is a very ecologically friendly
23:43
Speaker 1: and economically friendly option. Maybe it's a textbook. Maybe it's
23:47
Speaker 1: a packet. But that ability, I will just say, speaking
23:49
Speaker 1: from a teacher, again, last school year, the ability to
23:52
Speaker 1: have a kid miss two days because the ones with
23:54
Speaker 1: the worst habits tend to miss the most school. I
23:57
Speaker 1: don't know if that's corollary or causal, but just note,
24:00
Speaker 1: if I got a kid who typically misses two days
24:01
Speaker 1: of school a week, that kid generally is the one
24:04
Speaker 1: who's going to be worse on a device if I
24:05
Speaker 1: hand it to him or her. So I started just
24:09
Speaker 1: stapling these packets, handing it to the child. And then
24:11
Speaker 1: if he or she gets distracted, I can just be like, hey,
24:13
Speaker 1: where are you at? And they can point right of
24:15
Speaker 1: the page, and they don't have 10 tabs open with
24:17
Speaker 1: like memes and GIFs and PowerPoints they're emailing to friends
24:21
Speaker 1: at school. They just have this one. And maybe they
24:23
Speaker 1: still get distracted and they have a hard time finishing
24:26
Speaker 1: the task, but they have a chance and there's no
24:29
Speaker 1: distraction from the packet itself. So I just would encourage
24:34
Speaker 1: us to think through when it becomes unsafe for our
24:36
Speaker 1: kids and we keep that reset in mind and go,
24:37
Speaker 1: you know what, this is hurting your emotions. This is
24:39
Speaker 1: hurting your sleep. This is hurting your time management. I'm
24:42
Speaker 1: going to help you set up boundaries. But when the
24:44
Speaker 1: device itself given by the district becomes the problem, that's
24:47
Speaker 1: the thing they're using to access unsafe images. That's the
24:49
Speaker 1: thing they're using to bully or get bullied. This is
24:52
Speaker 1: the way they're staying up too late or getting up
24:54
Speaker 1: too early. This is the way that they are managing
24:57
Speaker 1: their emotions. Then we go to the district, maybe again
25:01
Speaker 1: to a professional and say, hey, this isn't working for
25:03
Speaker 1: my child. I need another option. The IEP side, the
25:06
Speaker 1: professional advice with a written document allows you to get
25:09
Speaker 1: an individual education plan. They would say the technology itself
25:13
Speaker 1: is the unacceptable medium for my child. This is hard
25:16
Speaker 1: on teachers. Buy them a nice gift card. Give them
25:19
Speaker 1: 50 bucks to Starbucks. I'm not saying punish teachers. I'm
25:23
Speaker 1: saying recognize your child is worth fighting for and don't
25:26
Speaker 1: simply take the device when you watch it torpedoing your
25:28
Speaker 1: child's health. Step in the middle of that. Put yourself
25:32
Speaker 1: between your child and the district and say, I understand
25:34
Speaker 1: why you have technology. I'm not mad about there being
25:36
Speaker 1: a screen. I believe you're doing proper safety. By the way,
25:39
Speaker 1: if they're not, say that. This isn't properly safe for
25:42
Speaker 1: my child. But if they are, like my district is,
25:44
Speaker 1: and they've got a great device, and they have a
25:45
Speaker 1: good backup, and they have securely, which allows me to
25:47
Speaker 1: parent it, I'm excited to see how that works. And
25:50
Speaker 1: if this specific device added to my child's life makes
25:52
Speaker 1: my child worse, I'm pushing back on that. I'm going
25:56
Speaker 1: to ask for accommodations to make sure my child remains
25:59
Speaker 1: healthy and that school becomes about learning, not about distraction
26:03
Speaker 1: and belonging. And having technology just for the sake of
26:06
Speaker 1: having technology. Technology is supposed to support learning. If I
26:08
Speaker 1: can show that this is not supporting my child and
26:11
Speaker 1: that non-tech supports learning better, we're going to be doing that.
26:15
Speaker 1: So I say all of this because I want to
26:18
Speaker 1: encourage you that as those one-to-one devices come home, you
26:21
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to parent first in conversation by talking
26:23
Speaker 1: to your child, what's it look like to use tech well?
26:26
Speaker 1: What are the kinds of tech that support our best decisions?
26:29
Speaker 1: What are the kinds of tech that kind of fight it?
26:31
Speaker 1: What do you see with your friends? Always a great question,
26:33
Speaker 1: by the way. What do you see with your friends?
26:35
Speaker 1: The technology they use best that makes them better and
26:37
Speaker 1: what technology distracts them or even harms them? Your young
26:41
Speaker 1: people are very attentive to their friends and they see
26:44
Speaker 1: when their friends become better people and when their friends
26:47
Speaker 1: become distracted or hurt or begin to hurt others because
26:50
Speaker 1: of the technology around them. Is this technology safe? Are
26:53
Speaker 1: you ready? Is the outcome good? And keep that conversation going.
26:58
Speaker 1: And if it is deliberately unsafe and repeatedly unsafe. We
27:02
Speaker 1: go to professional care providers and we go to our
27:05
Speaker 1: district and we say, we need an alternative. This is
27:07
Speaker 1: an unacceptable match for my child because it is either
27:11
Speaker 1: causing poor choices that he or she has made previously
27:15
Speaker 1: to come back, or it is instigating those poor choices
27:18
Speaker 1: and exposing him or her to dangers that otherwise were
27:21
Speaker 1: not there. And the district is not doing enough or
27:24
Speaker 1: the parents are not provided with enough Or my child
27:26
Speaker 1: is simply not mature enough at this state. It's not
27:28
Speaker 1: healthy enough to be able to handle that level of
27:31
Speaker 1: digital freedom. Remove it so that my child can do
27:35
Speaker 1: what's most important. Learn to become a healthy, well-rounded adult
27:40
Speaker 1: who knows how to exist in a tech world. And
27:42
Speaker 1: he or she will never get there by just experiencing
27:44
Speaker 1: bad habits for long enough. So I get fired up
27:47
Speaker 1: about that. I hope you heard from that concern, not
27:51
Speaker 1: anger at anyone of you. I'm not blaming parents with
27:55
Speaker 1: kids with unhealthy tech habits. I'm acknowledging they exist. And
27:58
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, we can, as parents, lovingly step in
28:01
Speaker 1: and have a meaningful difference in this, a meaningful conversation,
28:04
Speaker 1: and train our kids to recognize when is this healthy
28:06
Speaker 1: and not healthy for us, and how do I act
28:09
Speaker 1: that out now in the life that I get to lead.
28:11
Speaker 1: Sometimes it means using tech differently. Sometimes it means using
28:14
Speaker 1: tech less. Sometimes it means adding more tech to make
28:17
Speaker 1: sure that the first tech is actually safe enough to
28:20
Speaker 1: employ in our situation. safe, ready, good, using a reset,
28:25
Speaker 1: and recognizing that when we use the best tech well,
28:28
Speaker 1: we will raise up young people who love God and
28:30
Speaker 1: use tech. It'll make our children look more like Jesus,
28:34
Speaker 1: and they will learn to live with love and joy
28:36
Speaker 1: and self-control and the beautiful fruit of the Spirit that
28:38
Speaker 1: God grows in them because it can be an extension
28:40
Speaker 1: of what God is already doing in our world and
28:43
Speaker 1: through us, seeing His kingdom come and His will be done.
28:45
Speaker 1: I hope this is encouraging. If it was, would you
28:48
Speaker 1: consider sharing it with a friend? Would you consider subscribing?
28:51
Speaker 1: so that we can continue to reach more people and
28:53
Speaker 1: more people can hear this message about how they can
28:55
Speaker 1: use the best tech well. And then we'll join us
28:57
Speaker 1: next week as we continue this conversation about how we
28:59
Speaker 1: can love God and use tech. Talk with you then.