Episode 134
Tech Talks: Equipping Parents to Guide Their Digital Natives
January 30th, 2025
10 mins 17 secs
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DESCRIPTION
🎙️ Tech Talks: Equipping Parents to Guide Their Digital Natives is your ultimate resource for navigating the wild world of screens and social media! Designed to spark meaningful conversations, this episode drops 5 practical questions to help parents and teens tackle digital habits together. Bonus: there's a downloadable worksheet, perfect for your next workshop or family night. 🚀
📓 SHOWNOTES
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//DETOX WORKSHEET
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//3 MONITORING TOOLS
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/DWYvsn2Kglk?si=wayQHd1zQC09I6qg
TRY COVENANT EYES: https://covenanteyes.sjv.io/g1zVZA
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⌚TIMECODES
00:00 Tech Talks: Equipping Parents to Talk to their Digital Natives
01:52 Parenting Teens Philosophy
04:10 Question #1
04:44 Question #2
05:34 Question #3
06:36 Question #4
07:16 Question #5
07:51 My Recommended Parenting Apps
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00:17 - 00:00:26:20
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Let me guess. If you're a parent trying to talk to your teens about tech and screens and social, you feel like when you're doing so, you're speaking a completely foreign language. If that's you, go ahead and subscribe to this channel. And let me guess, if you're a teenager, having a parent try to relate to you in that tech space and it feels totally cringe.
00:00:26:22 - 00:00:46:18
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Go ahead and give me a like on this video. And if you're a youth pastor, just simply trying to bring the two sides together, well then you're in the right spot. Go ahead and turn the bell on. Because here in this video on the Hybrid Ministry show, what we're going to do is we are going to share. I'm going to share with you my parent and tech philosophy.
00:00:46:25 - 00:01:10:21
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
I'm also going to share with you five great questions that you can use to start with a family, to open up good discussion around technology. If you're a parent, I'm going to share with you my top three monitoring resources. And finally, stick around to the very end of the video because I'm going to share with you a worksheet that has not only those five good questions shared in this video, but some bonus questions that you can hop over and that you can download.
00:01:10:21 - 00:01:28:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
My patrons get it for free. If you're a youth pastor, it's only $4 per month. You'll get all the worksheets that are included in this current playlist that's linked right here that we're in. We're now in part three of four of this parent tech and screens worksheet and playlist, where I'm sharing a worksheet in every single video. The patron.
00:01:28:18 - 00:01:50:09
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
The Patreon subscription is only $4 per month. And so that would cover all of these worksheets. And then some. Along with if you subscribe, you get a bonus podcast where I'm going to talk about what I'm doing weekly in my youth ministry, helping promote creativity, screen safety, hive and hybrid ministry. Welcome my friends to the show that's named after what I call it.
00:01:50:12 - 00:02:28:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Welcome to the Hybrid Ministry show. All right, so here's my philosophy around technology and screens, okay. The philosophy is very simply this. You just have to start having conversations around it, especially if you are concerned about your teens usage or you might be concerned down the road about it. Start the conversation earlier than you might want. Because here's the thing if you've downloaded either of my last two worksheets or the Digital Detox worksheet or the Feed Audit worksheet, well, you've got to come to understand is that both of those are set to help open up and promote a conversation between parents and between teenagers.
00:02:28:18 - 00:03:03:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But if you're concerned about it, the way we as parents often handle it is we have some big, explosive sort of like come to Jesus reckoning moment where we think we did the job. But but the change often best happens, and the transformation takes place most naturally through ongoing conversations where the conversations feel less threatening, which is one of the reasons, especially in the last worksheet, where I encourage you as a parent to offer immunity because you may, as you're auditing some your son or daughter's feed, you may find things that you don't want, but because you're saying, hey, listen, it's going to be okay.
00:03:03:11 - 00:03:30:26
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
We're going to work through this together. You're offering them the ability to actually open up and have that conversation, which is ultimately what you're hoping. You're hoping that the conversation will lead to heart and life change and transformation over time, as opposed to just like adjusting and changing the behavior. That's just simply behavior modification. That's white knuckling it as opposed to genuine true heart change.
00:03:30:26 - 00:03:58:03
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
That's the goal of all pastors of of should be of all churches is definitely the goal of Jesus. And so lead with grace and understanding versus annoyance and constant frustration. And when you start with that, it hopefully will start to crack open the door towards honest conversations. And so with that philosophy as the foundation, as the backdrop of all of this, let's walk in to these five questions.
00:03:58:03 - 00:04:19:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And if you're here in a workshop, I want to encourage you after each question to just pause it and stop and let parents and teens have these conversations in rows, around tables or wherever, whatever your setting looks like. So the first question is this how does technology make our life better? I want you to I want to encourage you to think about things like perhaps like 360, right?
00:04:19:06 - 00:04:45:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Like G.P.S. type tracking things, or even just GPS navigation in general. Being able to get from point A to point B, especially if you're in an unfamiliar place, maybe things like banking or keeping a shared calendar or grocery list, like, all right, think those types of things. In what ways do those things make technology better? If you're watching here in a workshop, go ahead, pause this video and I'll let you have a chance to discuss.
00:04:45:15 - 00:05:03:29
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But for the rest of us here on YouTube, I want you to now think and ask through this second question, which goes like this. How well do you think I and if you're a parent, I want to encourage you to ask this question. Being willing to be vulnerable, being willing to to, you know, put yourself out there in such a way.
00:05:04:03 - 00:05:29:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
How well do you feel like I balance my screen time, right. And again, this is going to cause you and have to ask you to be a little bit vulnerable and maybe even during this section here, when you're having this discussion with your teen, I want to encourage you to maybe look up your current screen time reports. And if you're if you're not happy with or you're unsatisfied with what that says, I want to encourage you then to maybe set a goal for something new.
00:05:29:10 - 00:05:49:06
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
So if you're watching this live, if you're having a discussion, go ahead, pause the video now. But for the rest of us, we're going to move on here to question number three, which is this. What is your most visited website or app and why? Right. And here's why. The and why part of this question helps you get a peek into their soul a little bit.
00:05:49:06 - 00:06:19:17
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
All right. Helps reveal their hobbies or their desires. Right. Like for me, what I would say one of the most like, visited things for me is, like Instagram. And the reason I like Instagram is because I have a heavy basketball algorithm and I'm a huge basketball fan. And so getting on there, I'm hoping that it will share with me, illuminate with me, give me interesting content around basketball and and doing that the and why part of that question right reveals to you that I enjoy watching basketball.
00:06:19:20 - 00:06:36:10
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so the and why part of that question hopefully will help reveal on both sides student and parent what it is that they're into, what it is that they're actually looking for, what it is that their phone is feeding them, that they are finding so interesting. So go ahead, pause the video and take a minute to discuss that.
00:06:36:13 - 00:06:56:02
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But for the rest of us, we're going to move on here to question number four, which is do you feel as a technology brings our family together or tears us apart? And again, I want to consider allowing this conversation to be a free flowing conversation. Let it have immunity, you know, don't get defensive regardless of what the answer is.
00:06:56:09 - 00:07:18:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Don't get defensive here. The other person side, right? I often use the phrase perception is reality. And so in this case allow their perception to be the reality. Don't argue it, don't fight it. But just let them say and speak their peace. So go ahead, take a minute. Have this discussion for the rest of us. We're going to move on here to question number five, which is this.
00:07:19:01 - 00:07:53:25
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Would you prefer more or less phone time personally? Would you prefer to have more or would you prefer to have less phone time again? Speak freely again. No judgment. Okay. But based on their answers, I want you to set a family goal to work on it together. Especially especially if you are saying you want to have less of it, then I want to encourage you to link down below my detox worksheet, which will give you five tips to work together better as a family to detox, you might have times that you're spending on screen, but once they're right now, link down.
00:07:53:25 - 00:08:16:13
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Below are the three tools is linked to a video. The three tools that I recommend you exploring for better screen usage, and perhaps even more restrictions on phones if that is something that you're looking to go towards. And so in that video, I debate between or a plus circle, I debate between the Bach, family of products, Bach phones and Bach monitoring.
00:08:16:20 - 00:08:40:16
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And then I also share with you my recommended resource called Covenant Eyes. And why I prefer to use Covenant Eyes is because it has constant screen monitoring. It is analyzing screenshots on a constant basis of every single thing that is being viewed on your screen. Right? Because the difference is, if it's just you URL based, you can sort of find workarounds to that look.
00:08:40:16 - 00:09:00:28
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Look at your teenager right now. If you're still in this workshop, they know that they can find workarounds to that. But if they want and you want to have a more holistic and a more robust monitoring system, Covenant Eyes will do that. And best yet, if you have an Android, it will do it on every single thing that is seen and is visible on your screen at any given time.
00:09:01:00 - 00:09:22:15
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
Where an apple, it's only showing you what you're using inside the Covenant Eyes browser that simply just said their technology and their API type settings. And so if your son does have an iPhone as much as, the social capital will go down because you have to get them away from the blue bubbles. And Android is better for their long term purity and for your, perhaps, peace of mind.
00:09:22:15 - 00:09:55:11
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
And so again, I want to thank you for watching this video. Listen, if you're a youth pastor, I want to encourage you to hop down the link on the show notes and grab this. This parent tech talks in this parent and teen tech talks worksheet and pass it out at a maybe a parent and tech workshop. Even go back and use this video to use it as a springboard for conversations where in this in this worksheet, it's going to allow both sides to kind of share their perspectives on technology usage, as well as offer a slew of other bonus questions.
00:09:55:11 - 00:10:14:01
Nick Clason | Hybrid Ministry
But linked right here in the fourth and final installment of this playlist is video. I'm titling from screen to scene, and we're going to talk about how to be more present in an always digital world. Thank you for sticking around for this entire video. And don't forget, my friends as always to stay hybrid.