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Posted by Categories: Inspirational Videos and Stories | Christian Living | Be Blessed

Video Transcript

so how do parents guide their children in the age of technology screens are everywhere you know there’s a lot of negative aspects of this – there’s cyber bullying because of the apps and social media sleep deprivation social isolation and those are just some of the things that a result of living in this technological world of course there’s lots of advantages as well we appreciate the technology so we’re gonna see if we can help parents guide their children through some of this and maybe even ourselves we have on our distinguished panel youth expert Jonathan McKee Jonathan has written 20 books including the teens guide to social media good to have you back distinguished distinguished guests home and gardening host Paul LaFrance more importantly for daughters less distinguished for teenage daughters yeah please pray for me on that yes we have a gray who certainly will Paul and Brody haight works with young people all around the world including here in Canada Brody good to have you back on the panel and he is the most colorful man I know I’m gonna attend your level in about two years lots of stuff there’s lots of these surveys Jonathan that come out and one recent one says 50 percent of teens say they are addicted to their devices including social media and apps and those are the ones that admit the addiction even if it’s higher than that it’s clearly large so how as you as we start this conversation do we even you know broach it with our kids yeah no it’s good and and that would be cool as if we were actually engaging our kids in conversation about it sometimes our tendency as parents is to overreact when really what we need to do is interact because overreacting is like hey I just want to look for all the perfect filters and the perfect blocks and the perfect screen time limits that will raise my kid those won’t raise their kids as helpful as those are as helpful as boundaries are we need to also be bonding with our kids so we need to talk with them about this stuff and and honestly young people are open to conversations about it not the hate just don’t because I said so but the you know ask them questions about hey you know that works yeah exactly you know hey there was a survey where 68 percent of teenagers actually said that they wish they could spend more – more face-to-face conversation than you know screen the screen conversation what do you think about that about your friends wouldn’t you know we could talk and engage with them about that and the more we dialogue about that kind of stuff and maybe model it ourselves maybe turn off our own devices at the tape dinner table and engage in conversation maybe we get some conversation started cuz it’s how it looks it’s like alright the girls I just want you to stop just one second the it’s bad it’s very bad you’re spending too much time on your on your oak room you know you know that’s what we’re looking at and as far as I’m concerned the that interaction factor is absolutely necessary but kids I mean I have four teenage daughters as has been you know stated through myth and legend kids particularly teenagers can smell BS from a mile away they can you know they can they have a high sense for hypocrisy so the whole old-school methodology are being like you know as you were saying like well this is what we’re saying as adults do you that’s just not gonna work or they may like you do it so we’re gonna do it too it is an addiction it’s getting worse I have I have daughters who are have been diagnosed with things I didn’t even think existed I won’t go into the names of them but I’m looking at this and saying well yeah the world has never had an age where we have not only been affected by having a a light screen this close to our face like when I grew up it was like my dad go I don’t see too close to the TV you know but the wires are going in the back of TV I’m looking and the wires are going through my body into this phone that’s gonna have a physiological effect and that’s not even getting into the content and what we’re taking in and what we’re comparing ourselves to with social media but a lot of parents are acting out of fear and when we act out of fear we act in a harsh way yeah absolutely and the the tendency to overreact just doesn’t do good when it comes to talking to our kids about any of these issues and when we freak out we don’t become safe anymore and you’re starting to hear that word safe a lot in parenting circles right now because sadly you know parents think about this I talk with kids when it comes to especially when it comes to temptation of you know sexual images and that kind of stuff I say well once you talk with your parents about that the number one reaction I get from young people is laugh – that they’re the last people I would tell because I know that if I told my dad hey I was tempted I looked at an image I shouldn’t I looked at I know my dad’s gonna absolutely take away all my screens limit screen time do all this different stuff you know and we need to start thinking about that you know how do we respond are we someone that our kids feel safe talking to not like we should let them do whatever they want but are we safe we might want to think about our response and maybe even it’s like repeat after me parents say this say I’m so glad you told me thank you for trusting me with this hey let’s sit down and let’s dialogue about this so Paul how do you handle I mean the four teenage daughters do limit for time Oh girls do for in the home right now home right now four of them Wow I know I should have a cape I recommend this now that I’m married yeah be careful be careful yeah do you limit them or do discussions work Oh discount economist out in the end it’s a constant discussion if there’s one thing that I have learned as a parent particularly of teenagers and then particularly of teenage girls it’s take all of your natural instincts and ignore them because the natural instinct is to kill that thing well yeah chloroform something no but it’s not recommended yeah I guess then there’s like legal trouble anyway so but for the girls to be able exactly as you said to be to know that they can come and talk to dad I mean all I know is that there was one evening where my daughter handed me the phone and she was talking to a boy and she said dad I don’t know what to say can you tell me what to say and then she said dad can you just go ahead and write this for me and I ended up having a conversation Sophie and sent it to him one day he’s gonna if he’s watching this I’m like I’m really sorry you were actually talking to me that entire evening that’s right I know and I and all I had to say about the whole situation whatever I did to have my daughter trusts me enough don’t screw that up just whatever you did don’t screw that up so the one way that you can easily screw that up he’s by coming down with an anvil on something like your phone time or your screen time how much time you’re spending whereas opposed to saying okay let’s talk about this as adults because if you talk to me when I was a teenager like I was like I’m here and you’re here I don’t know if I look a little rebellious to you but I am and and that and now picture me as a fifteen year old or a sixteen year old I would have been like yeah okay you know I wouldn’t that wouldn’t no work I would have not but if you spoke to me and said let’s have a conversation what do you think is the right thing to do here to protect you well how do you think I should I should I help me help you I would’ve been like all right okay everybody had a conversation when you have those conversations and actually have a relationship with your kid you put in that bonding time it’s okay to have helpful boundaries I mean most experts out there are saying yes probably good for phones not to go in the kids bedrooms at night it’s okay to say hey this is one of the things we’re not going to do not just because I said so not because you know you’re having these conversations you’re talking and hopefully that you even you know maybe they’re involved in that decision how do you think how do you think how do you handle it with your future kids the young people that because you deal with a lot of young people to Brody how you know are you able to have some of conversations with that and of course I know you’re taking notes from yeah I’m taking notes he’s like these guys are crazy but you know I try to practice some of these things in my own life also I know I try to spend some time during the day where I actually just put my phone away and I’ve even noticed when my phones away I’ll check my pockets to see it’s in me because see if it’s on me or and yeah just constantly practicing like we leave our phones now outside of our bedroom also when we go to bed at night and we take a break at a certain time so I think if the conversations like we’re talking about now it gets people thinking talking and then we can all just come to an agreement with how we should handle our devices yeah and I think we’re gonna you know I like what you guys are saying too is we need to model it in the last couple moments we have here how important because this is a program of faith where followers of Jesus where does prayer come into this wisdom that the Lord promises to give us in helping to navigate these things well I hope as we’re engaging in these dialogue you know this is one of those things where we’re gonna be you know in a world so full of explicit lies we need to be pointing our kids to explicit truth so I hope in these dialogues that a lot of these dialogues will lead to open up conversations about God not not because we’re forcing it like oh let’s see what the Bible says about this in Leviticus you know but maybe what we can do is as we’re talking about yeah yeah I mean we might find you know passages what we’re talking about this and being distracted gosh I want to connect with someone so bad that that you know here’s something that’s interfering with my connection you open up the mary and martha passage and start talking about hey Martha you’re so distracted but wait I was trying to connect with you Jesus but food gotten away you know hey maybe that’s gonna be something that you can use to talk about and and we should constantly point in the scripture mm-hmm it Paul you mean if you felt that the leading of the Lord in the middle of maybe a kind of a tense situation identical the practical the only practical thing that I can honestly throw out there is throwing yourself onto the ground on your face and going help me to know what the right thing is to do just today forget tomorrow forget yesterday we’ve got these four girls who are all different and all need to be like guided differently and all need to be also respected so it’s it’s a like I would love to be able to say there’s just one way to do it make make this rule for everybody make that rule for everybody or set these boundaries I would agree with you I’m telling it is a day-to-day process of just like literally going I am a kid myself if we’re jumping to reach the moon and I’m jumping seven inches and my daughter’s jumping five but the moon is three hundred and sixty five thousand kilometres away we’re all kids so I think that really helps as far as being able to just kind of laying yourself before cutting going just it’s your wisdom dude not mine and help me to know what to say and the right moves at the right time because any model I’ve ever seen as far as what you should do he’s a joke yeah so Brodie is a parent to be as you look forward to that I know that’s part of the your plan and desire does this intimidate you when you see all the technology and all the distractions oh that’s gonna be okay no it does it doesn’t intimidate me and when I think about our Lord Jesus I think about always going back to him and directing people to him I I know when I’m sitting in church when I first became a believer I was on my phone a lot being distracted but the Holy Spirit prompted me leave my phone in my car so now I go to church and I have my paper Bible where I’m less distracted so if we’re always pointing people towards Jesus the Holy Spirit is gonna prompt and do the guiding and teaching and I appreciate people bringing their Bibles the actual paper one to church because I I’ll be up there preaching and thing they’re all checking their email they’re not interested in me they might be and it’s so easy to get distracted you could have your Bible app but you’re distracted from the text messages emails the next thing you know you’re off somewhere else in fact checking how many kilometers the moon is from Earth hey guys this bigger the poem right it’s been great Avenue here on the panel and we look forward to the next time that we get together thank you Jonathan Paul and Brody Haight

Greg Musselman speaks with youth expert, Jonathan McKee, HGTV’S Paul LaFrance and E3’S Brody Haight about raising children in a digital age. They also discuss the importance of open communication and building trust with your kids.

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Cee Harmon is the founder of Elevate Christian Network and Elevate Your Potential Magazine. He enjoys helping people improve the quality of their lives - spirit, soul, and body.
 
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