How Should We Think about Kids and Technology: A Conversation with David Eaton

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I am joined today by my co-host Maggie Hubbard and our special guest, David Eaton, who is the co-founder and CEO of Axis. And David, I'm going to ask you just to give us a little overview of what Axis does and what resources you have. Yeah, do either of you have kids? Both of us do. Yeah, yeah. All right, James, tell me about your kids. So I've got four kids. I have an 18-year-old son who's about to go to college. I have two twin daughters. They're 15, so they're learning to drive. They're roaming around and doing sports all over the place. And then we're adopting a three-year-old, a three-year-old daughter. So she'll officially be my youngest here probably in another month, maybe two. All right, well, we are your research assistant. That's what I call it. Very cool. We do two things. We call it one conversation and culture translation. And those two things go together to be a parent's research assistant. One conversation is just a story. It's a story from, you know, have you ever had one of those stories where it, like, changes everything? It's one of those changes everything stories. So we had a young lady say to us, she said, I've only had one real conversation with my dad. So you can imagine if your 18-year-old or your 15-year-old said that about you or your three-year-old. That'd be a problem, right? That would be painful. That would be catastrophic. As I said, parenting is the only job you care about on your deathbed. So it is one of those things that's really important. The guy, the young lady was talking about her dad. Her dad was a Christian university president for two decades and a pastor. And he is also a board member at Axis. So it's like, oh, that's not good. But then she said it again with a smile on her face, because this is a really sweet heart story. She said, I've only had one real conversation with my dad and we've never stopped having that one conversation. So Axis is all about the one conversation that a parent has with their kid over 50 years, a Deuteronomy 6 conversation. And then the second thing is culture translation. It's just like how we help parents have that conversation. And culture translation just means if C.S. Lewis and MTV, if they made a baby, they would name her baby Axis. That's a great way to explain it. Those are my punchlines right there. That's what Axis does. So we create a lot of resources to help parents with 15 year olds and 18 year olds and 13 year olds and 11 year olds know how to, you know, move through and understand TikTok, to know what the new teen slang is, to know how to think Christianly about the new Taylor Swift album, to figure out what is the right screen time balance. How do I have mental health conversations with a culture that self-diagnoses based off of, you know, short videos online? How do I how do I live in that space? And we want a parent to move from some of the primary emotions, maybe of silence. So that's just fear, frustration or violence, which would be anger, yelling at your kids to confidence. And so that's there it is. Axis.org. We have free resources. Sign up for the Culture Translator on Axis.org. Well, I got to say, you know, as a tongue in cheek comment, it sounds like you guys have a lot of riz and that your ministry really slaps and all the other Gen Z terms that I have learned from my children or not learned from my children. Right. That they would be super embarrassed that I'm saying right now. But I think it's really important to understand, like how to translate some of these things. I can remember my kids saying they call this guy the Rizzler at school for a while. And I was like, I have no idea what's happening right now. I don't I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. At what point did awesome and rad go out of style and Rizzler came into the equation. But it's a really interesting cultural gap that you have to do with kids and and trying to figure out what to pay attention to, what not to pay attention to. And honestly, what you don't even know to pay attention to. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we have a parent's guide to teen slang at Axis.org. And if you read through it with your kids, you would laugh a lot and probably feel understood depending on, like, the depth of relationship. They might feel a little threatened that you know about their world. But at the same time. I mean, I don't know for all the parents out there who are driving around or listening to this or on a jog. Like, do you want to be a teenager right now? Do you want to take your 48 year old self and go back to 16 years old and have, you know, a smartphone in your pocket? No. With so many ways to be bullied and all the naked people you could ever want to see on there and all the temptation from that and it never shutting down and then not even realizing that you might be losing one to two to three hours of sleep a night when your beautiful brain just needs to, you know, grow and develop and connect synapses and do all that stuff. Do you want to go back and trust yourself with that kind of pocket rectangle? Yeah, I don't. I wouldn't. No. That's tough. That's tough. Yeah. And I love the resources that you provide, because even though I have younger kids, like I have a two and four year old, this is still crucial for me to learn because it's only going to continue to grow and get worse. So it's still beneficial to me with young kids. And, you know, on your website, you can download those parent guides right then and there. And I love that, that you guys have that option. Yeah, I would say it, yeah, everything gets worse, right? But there's a lot of things getting better, too. And so we try to, we try to hold that tension and actually one of our kind of core values of how we think about any cultural artifact or anything that we create at Axis and what you're going to find from us because we're, you know, deeply Christian and followers of Jesus is we call it good, bad Bible. And so to have that ability to differentiate from like any cultural artifact that comes out and say, is this redeemable? But to really say, how is it good? Can I start off from a position, a tone, a standpoint of appreciating and celebrating what's good about it and the beauty that's in it? Because God didn't make a neutral world. He made a good, good, good, good, very good world that then became twisted and upside down and broken. And so then you enter into some of the brokenness of it and then say, hey, you know, how can I understand this from a biblical standpoint? Like how, how would Jesus speak into this? Like one of the things I love, I mean, we're recording this for those of you who want to know right around the time that Taylor Swift dropped a new album. And she talks about the tortured poet that she is. And, you know, to really take that at face value and even under the surface as well to be like, is she tortured? Is the world's sweetheart tortured? And what does that mean to actually look at some of the pain that's in that album and the team even like drew a correlation between the woman at the well that Jesus meets with and Taylor Swift. And like, that's, that's kind of a bold move because there's a lot of things that we want to celebrate about what she stands for. But there's a lot of things that we suffer through. So, you know, as you have younger kids, that's the, we're talking about this with the team this morning. And we look at these, look at these parents who have like 25 year olds or whoever had the first round of smartphones. And, you know, I'm, I'm 41. And so I have an 11 year old and I'm like, I am never going to do what that generation did. And I'm not saying that in a shamey way. It's just, I'm saying it because I've had like 10 years of watching and learning, but then I'm like, there's, there's going to be something new. And so even, you know, one of the conversations we used to have about smartphones with parents, when we travel and speak is like, Hey, you got to talk to your kids about sexting. And that was like a new thing. Like why would anybody ever do that? But that was like a new thing back in the day. And I mean, James, I bet you had to talk to your kids about that. We, yeah, I mean, we discovered very early that particularly Instagram was going to be a a prohibited app for a very long time. We really decided that we had released our kids into the wild a little too early and had to sort of pull all that back. That's hard. Yeah. I mean, as our, as our kids sort of matured, we've allowed it back in under certain, you know, sort of parameters. We need to have access to their accounts and those kinds of things just so we can make sure

appropriate and kosher, but I mean, I think it was probably one of the best things that we could have possibly done, was to just sit back and say, hey, we've made a mistake here. This is not what we want you to see. This is not what we want you to hear. This is not what we want you to be interacting on. We want you all to be out in the world and doing things. And so we really stepped away, not from the smartphones 100%, but some of the fun features of a smartphone, right? That can sort of captivate a kid. We pulled that back pretty early and said, no, let's go, let's go, like one of my daughters is in gymnastics, they both play lacrosse. Let's get you active, right? Let's get you down in the gym. I love working out, so I've had my girls working out with me for a very long time. My son has been an oddity. For those people who don't know, like Dr. Spencer here, he looks pretty strong. He looks pretty jacked in this video. So I mean. It's an optical illusion, but no, I mean, my son is interesting. He doesn't have like Snapchat. He has no tolerance for Facebook. He has no tolerance for Instagram. Like he wouldn't be on those at all. He doesn't have any of them on his phone. It's a really interesting sort of attitude that he's developed. But yeah, I think with all of our kids, we've kind of sat back and said, no, there's a world out there that we don't want you to be exposed to just now. And so we wanna make sure, not that you're, not that we're trying to be sort of, I don't know, prudish about it, but just the reality is there's so many more interesting aspects of the world that we want you to see. We'd much prefer you to be exposed to that than to this. And so, yeah, we definitely had that experience, man. And I think sexting was, it hasn't been part of that yet. I will say that. We've talked about it. We've looked at it. My wife has a wonderful threefold, you know, sort of dating strategy for my kids that involves, you know, making sure that they date somebody who's Christian, but then also making sure that there's no naked pictures sent out, that they're, you know, all these different things. She's got these, you know, different rules for them. So we've addressed it in a variety of different ways. And by God's grace, we haven't had too much trouble with it. So. And where I was, yeah, that's what's, so what's the third fold of the wife's dating? It's sort of a tongue in cheek one. Marry somebody with money. Make sure you, you know, make sure. And so there's really only two, but she adds the third in as sort of a, you know, it's a joke. I'm, I got my PhD in theology. And so, you know, the joke about theologians is what's the difference between a theologian and a pizza? Pizza can feed a family of five. And so, and so it's sort of a running joke in our household. But yeah, I like the money one. I like the idea of like someone who can create value. That's right. You create, create value, create value and serve other people with it. And what I want to loop back around is like the arrogance that I was pointing to of like my perspective of like, oh, well, the sexting talk, I'll never do that. But let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty? More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Yeah, like that is overdone, but it's still important, but there are new challenges with, you know, going to a school and a very conservative classical school that I spoke at in the middle of nowhere, and yet they had some kids use an AI filter to turn pictures of eighth grade girls into nude photos. And like, okay, well, I guess I probably should, you know, if I was to hand my daughter a phone, which I will at some point, didn't know how to talk about that. And so there's just, I would just say those are landmines, but there's grace for that. And there's a great opportunity to enter into that with your kids, to do it non-anxiously, like there's going to be surprise of this, but that's what you're there for as a parent. And then Maggie, with your two and your four-year-old, it's going to be awesome. You're going to do such a good job and they're going to depend on you and look to you. And there's going to be plenty of times where you say, I don't know, let me figure it out. And it's going to be okay. And that's what parents need to know. There's, there is a tendency to want to outsource everything because we can. And you can hire a baseball coach and math tutor and a youth pastor, but there is one person that can't be outsourced. You can't outsource a parent. And so, and that's what James, Maggie, and I are dedicated to is resourcing you as a parent, as that primary discipler in the life of your kids, that they look to, that they depend upon. And you don't have to be right all the time. You don't have to be perfect all the time. You're going to mess up a lot. I know I mess up a lot, but there's no one more influential than you and you're irreplaceable and unstoppable in the life of your kid. So, and that, but yeah, who knows? Who knows what the next thing is going to be and who knows what the next crisis is going to be? There's going to be, there are kids are going to solve problems that we've never been able to dream about solving. And it's going to be cool. And they're going to make lots of money and then they're going to be able to marry one of the Spencer kids. That's right. That's right. Oh, that's so funny. David, I mean, when people come to your, when people come to your ministry, do you find that they come because they've noticed a problem? I mean, I, I took a look through the Access website and you have a ton of great content on there. Like I really appreciated a lot of the things that you've got up there, but I can envision, you know, as I'm sort of scrolling through them, I am woefully under-resourced with regard to, let's say TikTok, right? I don't, I'm not on it. It's completely foreign platform for me. I don't understand why you put yourself out on there. They're on video, you know, all those kind of things, right? And so I, I sort of gravitated toward that one. So I'm like, oh, okay, here's a, a sort of an easy resource for me to get a little bit familiar with what TikTok is and understand sort of the phenomenon of it in a very short form. Do you find that parents are coming to you with a crisis already in mind or do you find that they come to you sort of just to peruse and understand how to go about, um, you know, sort of shepherding their kids through this more digital and cultural environment that we're in? Yeah. I mean, two thirds of the parents that we serve come to us from a proactive standpoint, a little bit on their toes saying, hey, like, and I'll say, so my favorite resource at Access is called the Culture Translator. Go to Access, A-X-I-S dot org and sign up for it. It's an email that comes out every Friday and says, here are three things going on in the life of your kid. So on some level, like that's just gonna help you maybe avoid embarrassment sometime or just have something funny to talk about or just have those connections with your kids. So you can kind of face the temptation that says, oh, I'm irrelevant. Sure you are. Everyone's irrelevant in some way, but who cares? You will always be relevant as a dad. You will always be relevant as a mom or a grandma in the life of your kid. But then the other third is a little bit more on the heels and not on the toes. Like, hey, you know, I found my kid was vaping. It wasn't marijuana or it was marijuana or it was nicotine. Or what's the what are these Zen pouches? Like, how has how has nicotine culture changed from the smell of a cigarette? You know, when I was a kid and now you have this thing you don't have to light that you can just and there's like, is it tobacco? Is it just chemicals? Is it synthetic nicotine? What's going on? How does this impact my kid's brain? Well, we have a parents guide to that. And so I say we have a lot of resources that are searchable and like 95% of them are irrelevant to you at this moment. 5% of them are exactly what you need with your kid right now. And every kid

from a decade ago or a couple decades ago. Right. Uh, but then, in answering those, there's also some of those timeless ideas of like, okay, I probably should talk to my kid about dating or we have seven-minute videos on YouTube. We just did one on bullying. And so bullying has changed. Uh, back in the day, it was like, I'll meet you at the flagpole, give me your lunch money, you dork. Yep. You know? Yep. And now bullying is like, you might call someone a racist or you might just leave them out of a photo that you post or you might post a photo that's mean of them or you might just ignore them completely. And so we create a video about bullying looking at Mean Girls, the original Mean Girls DVD versus the Mean Girls musical that just came out. And so different themes that are represented there and the power of words. So, you know, these are the kind of fun, and you can throw that on for seven minutes and have a great conversation with your kid because it validates their world and That's relatable. Yeah, you know, and that if it was just like, here's an idea, a philosophical idea, that might work for 10% of kids, but it's nice to have that philosophical idea interwoven with, like, this is my world now. Mm-hmm. Do you see that, like, so when I think about that, that sort of new sort of bullying, I'm familiar with the old sort of bullying, right? Probably on both sides of it, sadly. Yeah, right. But I'm, I guess, you know, again, from my sort of framework, does that new sort of bullying affect girls more than boys, or is it a both and these days? You know, do we see that in, you know, because obviously Mean Girls is about girls and girls tend to be a little bit more, they tend to bully by social ostracization, you know, social ostracization, whereas boys tend to be a little bit more physical, but has that shifted? Has that changed? Am I just sort of behind the times? Well, ask your 15-year-old daughters. I would say there is the stats about the smartphone being negative towards the mental health of the rising generation and everyone, but especially the rising generation, is especially negative towards women. Yeah, so it still skews that way a little bit. Heavily. Yeah, heavily. But it isn't exclusive. It's, it would still be, there'd still be aspects of it that are relevant to boys. I'm speaking in generalizations and stereotypes, but there are still like, I mean, do girls not like video games? Well, they do, but are boys drawn into that more and potentially, you know, not contributing as much as they could, or wasting some time or using it as a coping self-medication or a coping mechanism more than girls? Yeah, they are. Death is a good sides. It does, but yeah, there's, there's a lot of unforeseen consequences of the smartphone. And I will say, if you're a parent or grandparent and you're listening to this, like smartphone is the greatest opportunity to disciple your kid and have great conversations, but it's a, it's an amazing device. It's an amazing device and it will show you the best and the worst of humans all, all right there, all right there. And learning, and I think, you know, some, once the cat's out of the bag, once Instagram is out of the bag, it's hard to put it back in the bag. You did that, James, and you probably had to spend a lot more energy than you anticipated. But yeah, go ahead. No, it was, I think in our experience, what we saw was, yeah, we opened up Pandora's box and quickly closed it. I think that's the way we would describe it. And there was, that was a very hard thing to do, not from a time perspective, but just from an emotional perspective. We opened up this world for our kids that we didn't understand was there and then we had to close it off from them. And I think ultimately it was, you know, God redeems all things. And so even the idiot mistakes we made, God can turn into into goodness. But I think for us, it ended up being a really positive thing. And I will say my biggest concern at this point, you know, my kids are getting ready to drive. I get to spend a lot of time with my girls because they need rides. You know, that's just reality of it. I mean, I spend probably a good seven hours a week with my daughters in the car, right? Just, I mean, they're both 15. Neither one of them can drive. They're both active in sports. And so we spend a lot of time together driving. And my biggest concern at this point is, you know, how much of that going away once they can drive, am I going to have to shift my strategies in, you know, figuring out how to deal with everything else that is inputting into their lives because I'm losing that much time with them in any given week? You know, what does that look like? And so, yeah, I agree with you. I think parents can be this huge influence in their kids' lives, but that influence, you know, we've got to, in my, at least in my experience at this point, I'm struggling with how do I retain that influence when our relationship changes? You know, when they're dependent on me in different ways, but not in the same ways as they were before. Is everybody ready for me to depress Dr. Spencer right now? Go for it, yeah. I'm ready. So 91% of the total time you'll spend with your kids happens from 0 to 18. Yeah. So, you know, your son, if he moves out, goes to college somewhere or something like that, like you only have 9% left. Yeah. It's all gone. It's all gone. Yeah. But you're still there and you're the constant force for good in their life. And I mean, I just want to hammer away at this. Like I'm not just saying this. This is sociologically true. So when it comes to parents, they're the number one influence on their kid, period. There's a 20-year longitudinal study, Christian Smith, Notre Dame, came out of a book called Handing on the Faith. Lillian Delman paid for it. I mean, looking at youth groups and church camps and Christian schools and mission trips and all of these things, the number one influence in the life of the kid is a parent, period. And the best types of parents have great emotional connection and warmth. The term is actually literally warmth with high expectations. That is the cocktail. So you're like, hey, my boundaries. Hey, I care about you. Hey, this is too far. Hey, this is not far enough. But then I have so much love and I'm going to miss those seven hours of just being with you in the car and hearing about what's going on and feeding you Chick-fil-A on the way to the volleyball game and all the, like, I love that time. And I'm going to find it. I'm going to pursue you. I will hunt you down. I'm your dad. I love you. We got to find time. But then even looking at the top three indicators for faith transmission once your kids leave home a decade after that, it was like, okay, going to religious services, important, not the most important thing. Modeling the faith and not being a hypocrite, important, but not the most important thing. The most important thing is talking to your kids about God. Here and there, just having the one conversation that lasts a lifetime. Yeah. And then USC, University of Southern California, did a longitudinal 35-year study looking at a bunch of parents and found out the number one indicator for faith transmission in the life of a kid, the number one influence is a parent. And if you happen to be lucky enough to be around your grandparents or aunts and uncles or other community members, then that's powerful second. And, you know, sometimes grandmas are raising kids. Grandpas are raising kids. So that's so important. And then they said warmth is also really important, and it's even more important for the dad. The dad has a higher, if the dads have warmth, it's not saying that moms are crucial and dads are crucial. There is no such thing as parenting. There is only mothering and fathering because mothers have something different to bring than fathers have to bring to that equation to make and nurture and care for a child. So, yeah. And yeah, so they just, there's some like big studies that are out there. And so it's going to be tempting to feel like, ah, this is just so much work and I'm behind, or this is scary, little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems. Right. What's going to happen. And it's good that you feel that way because that's how you're supposed to feel because you love this child more than your own life itself in many situations. Yeah. That's great. So, but yeah, it's kind of, once they turn 16, it's over, James. Okay, James, I'd be more than happy to share my 14-year-old with you. So just kidding. No, I get that too. Like we're in that place where.

You know, like our oldest is a daughter, and like she can kind of watch the other two boys. And like we have like a one-mile radius right now where we're like, I don't think anyone's going to be permanently harmed. Right. If we're five minutes away, it's going to be fine. Yeah. You're buried with a four-year-old Maggie. It's so much good work, but oh, it's so hard. Yeah, I can't leave the room. So it's... Because you're so important. You're so loved. Yeah. How could you ever be in, yeah, that bond that you're teaching their brain how to wire as they watch you emotionally respond to things and as you teach them what attachment is and how to feel their feelings and how to make wise decisions. Yep, we are. That's the hard part right now where our four-year-old has big emotions. And so we're now beginning through that. And our two-year-old, she's a girl. And so she's starting to feel that as well. And so, yeah, that's, that's a hard one to navigate, but we're, we are getting through it. God's grace, God's help and God's grace. So that is, send all the prayers. But yeah. Well, David, like when you think about access, I mean, obviously I don't think there's a particular place to start necessarily, although you mentioned your sort of weekly newsletter. But is there something that parents tend to be gravitating toward now, you know, uh, predominantly that's kind of a hot topic that, um, yeah, that just moms and dads seem to be, uh, reaching for at access more than anything else? Yes. We did just do a big survey. So the top thing that parents want help with are cultural trends. Then followed by social media, screen time, mental health, sexuality, and gender identity. Yeah. And so cultural trends, what does that mean? Like, what did they like flesh that out a little bit. I don't know if we should have asked a different question because it can't cultural trends encapsulate social media. It can't encapsulate screen time. Can't it? Aren't the cultural trends in regard to mental health. Um, yeah, we asked, you know, they had a list of 12 different things they could rank and they ranked that as the top and that actually, it used to be social media at the top, but, and then cultural trends. So, I mean, as we've done this over a couple of years, but yeah, I mean, what's really exciting at, at access right now is that we made all of our resources free about a year ago. We leaned into this idea of radical generosity and we had a handful of families help us bridge that gap. And then we need more families and who really believe that parents are the best way to reach kids. And so we're in a fun place where we just get to give it all away. And I mean, you know, we're, we're creating three different big resources this year around the smartphone. And so I'm thrilled about that because I wrote a book about it in the past and now it's kind of like, cool, we need to, that's just a conversation that changes all the time. And it's the greatest sleep deprivation that your kid's going to have. And like, it is one of those, it just brings a lot of, and there's a lot, there's a lot of like different products out there now. So you have to start with an Apple watch or a gab phone or a pinwheel phone or a bark phone or a bark app on your Android phone or what about covenant eyes? So there's a lot of kind of like navigating there, but in reality, um, you know, something that's most important is building trust and really treating the phone like driver's ed. And maybe someday the government will step in and say, Hey, you know, like we've got to institutionalize this. We can't just give 15 year olds the keys to a car and let them drive on the road. They're going to harm themselves and others and people's property. So we need to like shape this up and have some guidance for that. But in the meantime, it's just in the hands of the parents. And I will say we were talking to a young lady and she was having a battle with her mom over the phone and Mom was, I mean, the mom took the phone away, which feels very natural as a parent. But that comes with other social consequences as a kid and a lot of resentment and bitterness if there's not clear communication, a lot of management on that side. So the mom took it away and said, If you ask me for it again, I'm going to keep it longer. And then this mom was divorced. So then the dad was like, well, you know, if you're going to be all uptight about it, I'm going to be the cool dad and I'm going to go buy the kid another phone. So this, so this daughter had, you know, two iPhones, one at her dad's house and one at her mom's house that she got to manage and she effectively triangulated her parents. And then she said, she said to me, because I was her youth pastor at the time, she said, David, the stricter the parent, the sneakier the teenager. And I was like, oh man. So, and actually, so I have a question for Maggie and James. Do you think that's true or false? Stricter the parent, the sneakier the teenager. That's so hard. That's such a tough question because like, I feel that's what society has taught us, right? Like you, you crack down on your kids, the harder they're going to rebel. The kids need healthy boundaries. They thrive with boundaries. And so it's trying to find that, I feel like it's me trying to find that delicate balance, right? Where like we have the boundaries when we say something, we mean it, right? Like, no, you're not going to do this. It's not safe. I'm your parent. I'm protecting you. But at the same time, you know, I've seen cases like that. So it's like, it's, it's so hard. It's, it's so hard. I'd say for me, it's varied from child to child. You know, a lot of people have asked me why we didn't send our kids to private Christian school. Like we left our kids in public school. And part of the rationale with my son was, I said, he's obstinate, right? He, he wants to go against whatever he's being taught. It's part of how he learns, part of how he thinks. And so I said, my concern of putting him in Christian school is that he was going to resist the wrong things. Whereas if I put him in public school and let him think critically the way his mind just naturally sort of works and operates, he may very well come to the right conclusions. Now that's proven itself out. But I think with my daughters, they've been much more compliant and much more docile in, in certain ways than my son ever was. And so I would say, yeah, I think for certain kids, it's probably true. In my experience, um, as long as we didn't simply prohibit it, as long as we gave them something else to replace what we were prohibiting, that seems to have worked out well for us so far. Right. We, we wanted them. We didn't frame it as we're keeping this away from you. We framed it as, we want to give you a broader experience than this is capable of providing. And so here's what we're going to do instead. And that really seemed to, in the moment, it still hurt, but long-term, I think that actually has paid off fairly well. Um, it's kept them involved in things that they could never experience on a smartphone. Right. Um, you know, whether it's trips as a family, whether it's, um, you know, just, you know, going out and doing things in our local area, whether it's sports, whatever that is, that became sort of the, um, experience we could have together as opposed to having our faces in a phone and just staring at the glowing rectangle. So I'll, I'll throw that out there. Yeah. I mean, I think you're getting at, so this one has like kind of a fun punchline to it. Cool. So stay tuned after this next commercial break. Exactly. Uh, but yeah, I mean, you're getting back to the motive behind the whole thing. And, and that's, that's really, that's really important. So when she said the stricter the parent, the sneakier the teenager, I thought you got me. Like, of course that's true. Yeah. Control gets control and like, you know, but I started asking people this question and it was a great question to ask because they normally started talking about their high school years. And they're like, Oh, I was sneaky. Or, Oh, my parents weren't strict and I was sneaky. Or my parents were super strict and I didn't, you know, it was, it was fine. Right. You know, I was the golden child or, but then I had other problems later on in my life because I didn't learn, you know, so it's kind of a fun conversation. People are usually pretty open to sharing about it. But I started just feeling like it was a little bit of like a, let me ask you a serious question. 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He went Jesus ninja on me on that one. Are you raising a sin concealer or are you raising a sin confessor? And so, and the only way you know is if you're modeling it, you know, confession and that connection, which is really like you're modeling the ability to mend a ruptured relationship. And so that is probably the heart of the gospel, right? It's that forgiveness piece, the grace, the grace component there. So yeah, I would say that's really strong. Yeah. And trying to figure out how to navigate that. And that's what it comes back to on the smartphone is like, yeah, there's a lot of third-party apps. And honestly, there's the first movers to market were Mormon companies. And there's a Jewish one right now. And so you still can't solve an issue of the heart with a law, even though laws aren't bad. So you've got to figure out how to do that and then they break every 18 months because something comes out, some new app comes out or kids find a way around it. So what can maintain be true during that time is the trust, saying we're working on a trusting relationship here. Yeah. That's, I think, a really good word. And I think there's, you know, just the question your grandpa asked, like, you know, are you raising a trust or a truth concealer versus a truth confessor, I think was the question. Am I getting that right? Sin concealer or sin confessor. Sin concealer or sin confessor, you know. Yeah, sorry. Sin concealer or sin confessor. I think that does involve a level of accountability. You know, when I've talked with I had another guest on who talked a little bit about the internet pornography epidemic. And one of the things that he sort of highlighted was the anonymity of the ability to access pornography is a big part of the problem. In other words, concealing what you're doing online has become fairly simple. Right. Compared to maybe when I was a kid, you know, you'd see the adult section in a video store. Right. If anybody remembers of VHS or a blockbuster or whatever. Right. And it's this screened off curtain. But you still had to walk in. You know, there's always this potential that you're in public and you're revealing to others that you're walking into this room. And for people with scruples, that's a harder thing to do than just pulling it up on your smartphone in a in a private area and looking at these images. And so I think that his question is really crucial. But I would also say, I think a corollary to it is just to say, there still has to be that level of accountability, which is often difficult to pull off as a parent. I mean, I would admit that I don't know what all my kids are looking at online. I don't know what all my kids are looking at on their smartphone. We think that we have provided appropriate guidelines for them and that we have this level of trust with them. But I think the technology definitely creates an obstacle for us that's difficult to get over. We could put all the restrictions in place that we want, but the reality is, just like you're saying, every six months they're going to find a way around it. You know, it's a tough, it's a really tough scenario. And that's why, since we're talking about phones here, you want to have a goal. And this is a hard goal, is that while your kid's still in your home, that they have, eventually, they get to a point where they are calling the shots on their phone. Yeah. And it's the same thing, like those 15-year-olds you have right now and you're, you know, one of the greatest opportunities parents have is just driver's ed. Like, literally just spending time in the car with them. You get 40 hours with each other. But at some point, you're going to leave the driver's, the passenger seat, and you want them to drive on their own. And so, how do you help your kid understand that they're always under authority, whether it's the church or their employer or God or the government they're part of? How do they understand self-awareness and their triggers and then self-govern and live in community and have a moral compass? Like, how do you, how do you have those? Because that's when you realize, hey, yeah, you, you want your son coming back and saying, like, yeah, I don't want this app. Right. And, you know, you know, total abstinence or perfect moderation. Sometimes, sometimes you can't figure out the moderation piece for a while or for a long time. There's, there's like, I don't have email on my phone because I can't keep looking at the... Is that, I mean, I'm just a bad father if I'm thinking about some cool deal that I have going on. Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's part of that, that raising an adult, you know. And helping them get to that point where they're understanding that on their own. And that's the cool thing about with a mom with little kids. I mean, and I think a lot of parents are thinking this is like, all right, just because they're four and just because grandma gave us an iPad, does that mean that, you know, like we're going to have, even though she's only watching Bluey or Daniel Tiger, like, how are we figuring out that digital real life interaction now? It's hard. And I think, I think one of the interesting things you've noted, you know, so, so like I said, I'm, you know, my daughters are learning to drive right now. My son learned to drive three years ago, four years ago. And one of the, one of the first things I realized when I'm sitting in the passenger seat of a car that my children are driving is how little control I actually have even in that scenario. It's like a great analogy to give me your kid a smartphone because, you know, we often think it's like, well, you know, you can, you can construe that. And I understand what the way you're using it. It's like, yeah, there is something to being there in the car. Like I can tell them to slow down. I can tell them to brake. I can maybe sort of pull the wheel over if they're running off the road or something like that. But if I think about the actual minimal control I have over that car while they're driving, it's pretty astounding. I have sort of a myth of control in that moment. And yeah, and a lot of it has to do, I think, with the fact that because I'm there, they're, they're trying to drive in a way that they think I need them, that I want them to drive. Right. My very presence there is a controlling feature of the whole experience. Right. And so what we're trying to emphasize is, look, this is how you drive. And I just feel like it's the same way with that cell phone. It's like, yeah, you want them to be total autonomy in that cell phone. And so we're trying to use the handbrake as much as we need to, right, to make sure that the car, you know, the, the cell phone doesn't get out of control, but there's relatively little control. We shouldn't fool ourselves into how much control we can actually have over our kids and the way they use these technologies. Am I pulling that analogy too far? Nope, I love it. I've never thought of that before. And I've talked about this a lot. And I wrote in the chat that that is super good. And I'm going to, I'm going to borrow it. You can, you can have it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, my daughter ran over a curb the other day when I'm trying to teach her to drive. And I'm like, I, you know, the only recourse I had was just I could have reached over and kind of flipped the wheel, but I'm like, it's a coin toss whether that's more dangerous than her just hitting the curb or not, you know? It's an interesting experience to be sitting in this, in the passenger seat of that car, teaching someone else to drive, knowing that you don't have a brake, you don't have the gas. You basically have nothing, you know, other than your presence and just some proactive instruction. That's how you're managing that situation in the moment. And so I think just, you know, when I think about that and cell phone use, it's like, yeah, parents, that's essentially what you're doing. You're, you're just not fingers crossed a hundred percent, but there's a sense in which your proactive instruction on these matters is going to be as much as you can do to help them manage this, this powerful device that you're giving them.

You got it. You said it. Well, anything else you want to talk about? I think sort of last question, and I'll sort of leave this to Maggie a little bit to kind of comment on, but, you know, my kids are almost grown. I have the three-year-old that we're adopting, but, you know, honestly, I don't feel like she's even aware of technology yet, right, aside from, you know, the occasional television show. Any advice for folks like Maggie who have young kids and are sort of easing them into a technological environment? Is this something that we should limit to the things that are sort of required for school, or, you know, or is this something we should introduce early and often and try to help them manage? Like, any advice on that? Any research that you've seen? Yeah, I would say follow your heart. Follow your redeemed heart. Yeah. I think there's a lot of times that we can know that, man, am I just handing them a phone because I just need a pacifier for this kid? I mean, really, at any phase, it's going to be modeled first. So to be modeled, examine life. It's hard to give your kid what you don't possess yourself. Do you want to be known as the parent who's always, like, looking down at their hand and looking at their phone? But that's honestly like a shame-based approach. I mean, I love what you said, James. Like, you want to pursue the better things, pursue the deeper life. There's only so far a two-dimensional device can get you on that screen. And so to spend more time scraping knees and discovering something new. And I will say there's some fun work that's been done by an atheist Jew named John Haight. And he just talks about, we're so scared that our kids are going to get kidnapped. They're not going to get kidnapped. You know, like, the way they build resilience is through interacting in this real world. And so, and we transfer fear onto our kids all the time. And there's a lot of things to be scared of. I get it. I get it. But there's also a lot of room to realize you've got to take those risks. So, yeah, as far as, like, any advice, like, I would just say trust yourself. Trust that God's working through you. If you're married, work with your spouse on it and just know that your kids need you to help, like, with some of that. You're flying the plane. Like, there is, what is AI going to do in the next year? I don't know. Is it going to be, you've got VR and AR and whatever was going to be big. And, you know, it is sort of now really. We're not walking around with VR headsets all the time. You know, AI, is it going to be huge or not? I mean, it's cool. There's a lot of kids like yours, James, who are just like, social media is dumb. I don't want to be a part of that world. Like, it's a chore for me. And so a lot of them will just be, it's a chore, so they'll maintain it or they don't want to be left out. But every now and then you have, like, a contrarian who's just like, this is too much work and it's bad for me. And so I'm going to just be a grownup and get a job and, like, learn a musical instrument or, you know, try to date a girl instead of just, like, hanging out and, like, play video games all the time. So there, I mean, there is room. And not all Gen Z is like, oh, I love TikTok all the time. They're like, it's fun and it's entertaining, but I know it's bad for them. And so sometimes they just need an out. So, yeah, that's, that's what I would say. Just trust yourself and be a part of a community. And you're not going to, you're going to be weird, too. Like, that's probably one of the hardest things right now for parents is other parents. Because other parents are like, here's, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like, my kid is only as safe as their friend's phone. Okay, well, their friend's phone isn't, they're not thinking about it like we are on the Thinking Christian podcast. So, yeah, that's, that's just some of the, God's going to use you in the life of your kid and you'll figure it out. Yeah. Maggie, any final thoughts before we, we close out the episode? Any questions? I mean, you, you asked the ultimate question, right? How can we as parents with younger kids really set those examples for them, right? And how do we, how do we moderate it, right? Because there's sometimes where a TV show does come in handy. And so I think like a delicate balance. And so we are always mindful of what's on and we limit it, right? Like we're, we limit screen time and my kids are always outside, like to see a bigger world, right? Like we go on scavenger hunts and something that Krista Bohan from Start in our other episode that actually connected David and myself. She said that she, she brought this up and I thought this was good. And she said, look, kids model what they see. So if you're always on your phone, right, you're always looking down. And I know we talked about, we don't want to shame anyone, but they modeled that. And so if, if you have to answer an email or you have to respond to something, just tell your kids, Hey, mommy's got to respond to this email real quick, right? So they know that you're using it for like work. And so I just thought that was a good reminder too, is they, they do model what they see. And, and David, you know, you touched on that. And so I think it's just a good reminder to be mindful and to just let God, you know, guide you. But yeah, I, I have been on Access. We actually are going to use some of their resources for the DL Moody center's Go Dark Shine Bright Fast. And it starts next week. It's a seven day social media fast. And so David and I connected on that and we're going to be pointing people to their resources and their free guides that they have. So those, those will come in handy during that fast. Well, David, anything, you know, Outside of access.com, which we'll put in the show notes so that people can find the resources there. What was the name of your book? It's called Smartphone Sanity. Smartphone Sanity. Okay. So we'll also provide a link to that. And I, I just encourage parents to check out access.com and David's book. This stuff is access.org. Access.com is surveillance cameras. So if you want surveillance cameras, it's your thing. Go to access.com. If you want the social media, just follow the link in the show notes. Access.org. But yeah, David, I really appreciate the resources you all are putting out and thanks for being on the podcast today, man. It was, it was fascinating to talk to you and just so appreciate the minutes that you're doing through access. Thanks. All right, everybody. Well, we will catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Thanks for being with us today and we'll see you all next time. Take care. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Hey friends and faithful listeners. My name is Jen, the host of the Bible explained. And I believe that reading the Bible shouldn't be a chore. It should be fun. Each weekday morning, you're going to hear me dive into scripture, sharing insights from cross-references, ancient history, and even Hebrew and Greek all in a simple, approachable way to help you see the Bible like never before. Grab your coffee and join me on the Bible Explained. Now available on lifeaudio.com and your favorite podcast app.