How to Help Parents in a Tech World

[Tom Pounder] Today we're going to talk about how you can encourage parents to parent in a very tech and online world. Are you ready? Because it's time. [Announcer/Intro Voice] You're listening to the Church Digital Sidekick Podcast, part of the TCD Podcast Network. [Tom Pounder] Hey heroes, my name is Tom Pounder and this is the Church Digital Psychic Podcast. This is the podcast where I bring on ministry leaders and we talk about how you can do ministry more effectively in this very digital and online world. And let's just be honest, parenting is really hard. I have four of my own and parenting is very hard. When they're very little, they're hard. When they're older, it's hard. It just looks different older than it does younger. And one of the things that makes it look a little bit different is technology. know again parenting is hard technology makes it a little bit harder so how do you parent in this very tech world and how can you as a minister whether you're an online minister family minister children's minister student minister how can you encourage parents to parent in this very digital and online world. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today because I have my friend Matt McKeon. Matt's been on the podcast before, but a number of years ago. He is an entrepreneur and he is a guy who loves helping people with technology, in particular with parents with technology. He's got a great Facebook group that I'm going to highlight in the show notes and that we're going to talk about actually in the interview. But he also has lots of different resources that will help parents parent in a very tech and digital world. So how can you do it? That's what Matt and I talk about in today's interview. But before we do that, I just want to highlight thechurch.digital. At the Church Digital, we've got lots of different resources, blogs, podcasts. We've got coaching and cohorts, all the different tools that will help you in your ministry minister to those in this very digital and online world. So I really encourage you to check out thechurch.digital. I've got the links in the show notes about different coaching, different podcasts that you can check out. all designed to help you in your ministry world. And so we would love for you to check out thechurch.digital today. All right, so now let's get an interview right now with Matt McKee and learn how we can equip and help parents parent in this very digital and online world. right with me right now is matt mckee matt how are you i'm good tom thanks so much for having me today i uh i love being able to hang out with you and uh and yeah and talk about tech because you know that's what we do these days that's right that's right we're on tech right now and that's you know kind of what we do you know when i even first met you i'll ask people to i'll ask you to introduce yourself for anybody who may not know who you are but when i first met you it was through orange and you know but you were always very tech guy like i think i the first time i met you you were all in the tech and everything and i just i looked at you and i was like oh like you're you're awesome [Matt McKee] so oh that's funny you know back i i stood in uh in line for the very first iphone uh back in 2007 and you know i i hacked it i was running an app store on it before the app store ever opened up i used to run a app company where we built thousands of apps in a very short amount of time. And so, yeah, I've been in the intersection of ministry and technology and really just trying to think through the question of how do you leverage innovation for the sake of good? and that question really has driven me in a bunch of different directions uh you know not only helping churches and non-profits but also helping parents i try to deal with technology and and you know uh anybody else that's like hey i've helped a bunch of different corporations and stuff too but the you know at the heart of it all it really is how do you leverage innovation for the sake of good And I think if more people are trying to answer that question, like yourself, because Tom, you are as well, I think our world would be a much better place. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, I think a lot of times people tend to be a little bit afraid of technology and look for all the bad things. And what I like is to look for the good things. But you're actually doing some really awesome things. And you've been doing awesome things for a while. So why don't you tell people a little bit about what you do right now? [Matt McKee] yeah so uh i work with a company called bark bark is an artificial intelligence company that does parental controls and parental intelligence and what i mean by that is not only can it block and filter and put time limits on stuff but it really is giving you insights into a bunch of different things that your kids could be doing online or experiencing online such as you know here's an alert around cyber bullying or suicidal ideation or even drug use or all of these different things that could be objectionable or could be even obscene like adult material that your kid could be you know just curious they come along and they find it and then you're sending an alert that says hey here's what they saw and here's the conversation to have after it so it's been a journey to say the least because you know that product is for families but then there's also a product for you know schools and uh and for education and it now covers over six million kids uh throughout the us uh which is you know something that uh very proud of to say that we're keeping that many kids safe but also uh you know as it grows and as it expands it's uh it's pretty exciting yeah see that's that's awesome and you were actually for part of the first circle launch right i mean so yeah yeah i've been in this space for quite some time uh yeah there was a product called circle with disney um at that time i was helping run uh basically a shark tank event and i went out to go see if i could find a company that was doing something innovative in in terms of parental controls Circle had had a failed Kickstarter. It looked like they were going to die on the vine like many other startups. And I brought them to Atlanta, helped them raise their first round of funding, and then joined the founding team to then launch and do a deal with Disney and a bunch of other stuff. So yeah, you know, that one, that company put me in 18 different countries in like two years. It was, my hair was on fire and helping people all over the world, you know, just try to keep their kids safe. And it's been very missional for me. [Tom Pounder] and it's not just you know just something that you know i happen to do today it's something that i've been doing for years yeah that's that's awesome well every time i saw a circle for the longest time i just thought immediately of you and so it was just kind of neat okay well let's talk about uh keeping kids safe and uh parents again you've been in this space for a really long time you have a book with called parent chat and you went around for different churches uh sharing about that but i think a lot of times right now you know getting a phone is a rite of passage for students um i know that every every parent's different i give my kids i gave my kids they're older now their first phone when they went into middle school and i felt like okay elementary school you didn't need one but middle school you need one but but just giving them a phone like me giving them a phone is probably not the best thing to do what should you be aware of as a parent thinking about internet security and giving a phone to your kid [Matt McKee] yeah so i'm gonna um i'm gonna go back on you just a little bit and uh look at something that you said earlier which was you know most people see technology as bad and in reality technology is just a mirror like by itself it's just gonna hang there it's not gonna do much of anything and then when you engage with it you're going to see a reflection and you're going to see a reflection of your humanity and too often we look into the mirror and we see all the things that are bad we see the freckles we don't like we see you know the hair that's out of place like we see all of the bad which is why when we look at tech we go man can you believe all of this bad that's happening in technology and i hope that we can change the mindset to look it's not all bad what you do with the mural mirror is you don't take it off the wall and throw it away instead you look in the mirror and you say okay what's out of place and what do i need to change and anytime uh you know we look at tech as a parent i think that's one of the biggest things is not only are we looking to our kids to say what do we need to change or what's out of place but we also need to have that reflection on ourselves and what we model is what our kids are going to do and we know this we've known this for quite some time like modeling matters more so before you ever give your kid a device even if they're three years old they've noticed what you've done like they've noticed how much you've been on your phone at the dinner table they've noticed like all the different ways that you've used tech and how much you value tech so much so that you have a relationship with it like if i was to take away your phone for two weeks you'd be like oh like you're addicted and you don't even know it and that's fine so before you hand a device to your kid the first thing you have to do is go okay i need to do a reflection on myself and see really how i am dealing with technology on my own Then we can ask the question of, hey, what does this look like to give it to my child? And here's what I advocate for. And it's very similar to the whole driver's permits. And maybe you've heard this analogy before, but at age 15, my oldest son, he went and took a test and they didn't even ask him if he had a car. They didn't ask him anything. they asked him hey do you know what these road signs are and you know he took this test and then they handed him a piece of plastic and said congratulations for the next year your parents are responsible for you So much so that in my state, I didn't even have to get special insurance. They're like, no, if he makes any mistakes, it's on you as a parent. Now, can you imagine if the phone companies, all the wireless companies did the same exact thing? Hey, look, your kid, before we're going to give them this device, they have to take a test. You know, here's how you plug it in. Here's all the warning signs that they have to be able to do. and when we hand them this device for the first year that they have that device we expect you to not only be engaged to sit alongside with them to make sure you're scared to death to to go along with them just like you were in a car and you know if anything bad happens it's on you as the parents I think it makes a lot more sense, and I think it makes a lot, not for wireless companies to do that, don't get me wrong, but that analogy of having to sit alongside, going with your kid for the first year to say, here's what we're going to do as a family, here's the expectations, here's all the different things that we're going to look at when it comes to tech. uh and when it comes to platforms and and look there's a there's a bunch of different things that i talk about you know you you said something about my book parent chat i've actually written another book since then called parenting in a tech world and i did that book with my co-author her name's titania jordan because i thought it was really important to get a mom's perspective and not just my wife's right because my wife's like we have a very similar perspective i mean you know we've been married now for over 22 years but to get someone else's perspective to say hey here's what you know i'm seeing and here's how i parent so it has a lot of nuggets in there for parents as well. So just to kind of bring us up to speed, look at technology as you would a mirror. And then also when you introduce it, be ready to walk alongside and ride alongside your kids for at least that first year so that you can build trust to then move on. So there you go. [Tom Pounder] You see, I like what you were talking about just there that in a sense, it was a very proactive form of parenting with technology. The parent is taking a proactive approach. I've seen a lot and I can say this in my own instance as well. I'm often reactionary. Like when I see my kid do something with technology, I'm like, OK, I'm just I'm deleting Instagram. I'm deleting Snapchat. I'm doing this. We're going to be doing screen time limits. It. So it's very proactive versus very reactionary. How would you coach parents as they're struggling with that? Again, I like what you said. Before you give them the smartphone, make sure you go over certain things. What else would you encourage parents to do? [Matt McKee] Well, you have to know that parents and kids look at technology in two totally different ways and they ask actually ask different questions. We as parents, we look at tech and we ask the question, what will this do for me? Like, it's very effective, very efficient. It's one of those questions that actually has a purpose. like we look at technology with a purpose and we want that purpose to help us be more effective and to be more efficient and if it if it really wasn't doing that then we wouldn't pay the bill every month like we wouldn't pay for the connection we wouldn't pay for all the things that we pay for to interact with technology but because of the promise of tech we can learn anything at any time we can connect to anyone at any time all of these different things we're willing to give all of those purposes not only our time and our energy but also you know our money now think about kids our question as adults were was um hey what will this do for me kids have the question what will this do There is no purpose, like there is nothing there that says, OK, I need to be more efficient or more effective. Like you hand a 15 year old some device. They're not going to go, well, I'm really hoping that this has some purpose for me. Like, no, they're going to go explore because that's what kids do. Their question is much more curious. So when I coach parents to look at tech, I have you know, I have to get them to ask the question that their kids are asking. And I have to help parents identify the purpose behind why they want their kids on that device and communicate that to them. So. as a parent i need you to be more curious and also as a kid if you're helping coach kids you're trying to coach them on the purpose behind this you know one of the things that parents get way caught up on is this idea of screen time and how much time should my kid be on a screen and how much you know at this age versus that age and i really wish we'd stop asking that question And the reason I say that is because if we can get to the what is the purpose behind that screen or what's the purpose behind that app, it will totally change the way you look at screen time. I mean, it could be that your kid, because of its purpose, needs to be on, well, a video game for two hours, which is nuts to even think through. But. my son who is a freshman in high school today uh looks and plays this video game called rocket league he's on our high school team and yes he had to get a physical to be a part of as an e-athlete to be a part of the team for rocket league which is hilarious to me right like why did we have to go get a physical like yay thumbs there you go so anyway he's he's an athlete in the school we had to pay for a uniform like he got warm-ups and you know they went to state uh this past semester they his team ended up eighth in the state the number one team at a school ended up first in the state so these kids are getting scholarship opportunities and scholarships to play a video game called rocket league and i'm not talking about like you know small schools i'm talking d1 schools you've heard of which is pretty nutty so i could make the case that my son should be spending more screen time than any other kid not because you know of anything else except we're looking at him in terms of training in terms of review in terms of getting better and like all of these different aspects because it's a purpose so again uh you have to look at it in a different way and that's one of the very first things in terms of coaching parents and helping parents understand that it's not all just uh hey they're they're not you know doing or it's not all kids doing bad things on technology uh and if they are then it means that you've given them a lack of purpose and that's one of the first things that you need to do as a parent [Tom Pounder] Guys, you know, up here in Virginia, we just started e-sports as well. And a lot of our high schools are getting into e-sports as well. And I'm seeing more and more of this stuff. And I think it's really cool. It provides these kids with different skill sets and opportunity to really participate in their high schools. And I think it's fantastic. Again, I like this whole idea of coaching parents and whatnot. Are there like resources out there? Are there things, you know, because I think a lot of times there becomes a lot of chatter between the parents and saying, oh, like back in the day, Snapchat, it's terrible. You should not get on Snapchat. And there was this big revolt against Snapchat. And then the kids wanted to get on Snapchat. The parents wanted it off. Like, are there resources out there where parents are legitimately looking to say, How do I know if this app is right? Or how do I know if this thing is right? Where could they go for that kind of information? [Matt McKee] Yeah. So we started this little group on Facebook called Parenting in a Tech World. Same name as our book. And we now have to pay full time community managers to help with this group because it's now over 170,000 parents. yeah yeah those parents uh yeah you wanna you wanna talk about being involved and uh and i will say this uh the reason why you know we uh hire all these you know community managers that do an unbelievable fabulous job is to make sure it's as positive as possible and without as much judgment as possible you know i've been in too many groups and too many settings where you know you go in and all it is is a bunch of ads for a bunch of different stuff we keep those out or it's a bunch you know hey i really have this issue like what do you think about this app or how did my kid do that with a ring camera like how in the world did they hack it and now they know everything that's happening in our house like all these different things that are happening that you really have a question about well you can go in there and 500 to you know 2 000 parents are going to answer your question like it's going to be like hey here's my perspective and you know all these different things but if you do get sideways just know this you will get kicked out and a lot of people have been kicked out even friends of mine have been kicked out and they're like hey what what did i do wrong and i'm like well i can point to you uh what you did wrong like you went too negative you got too judgmental uh so we try to make it as safe as possible uh and then you know it uh and then you can say you're sorry uh and you know get back in but there are uh there is a safe place and uh it's called parenting in the tech world it is a facebook group if you don't mind being on facebook and uh you know it is it's a great place um it's a great place for you facebook's a great place for groups i you know i'm a part of a lot of different groups that i i go and ask questions a whole bunch of times [Tom Pounder] and again you don't want to be a part of a group that goes sideways and starts getting all negative and everything so to have a place for parents to come and ask legitimate questions and really get some research uh done there is is fantastic okay well as we just continue kind of getting towards the wrap-up part what else would you do or how else would you coach parents uh right now in this tech world that we're living in [Matt McKee] Yeah, you know, when you look at technology, the best thing you're going to be able to do as a parent is ask better questions. And if I could just get parents to do this one question, I think it would change not only how they look at tech, but it really would change the relationship that they have with their kid. And that question is, can you teach me how? Can you teach me how that app works? Can you teach me how that device works? Can you teach me how you did that? Like, I have no clue. And what you're going to do is when you enter into that conversation with your child in that posture, in that manner, you will get to see how they look at technology through their eyes which is truly invaluable because then you'll be able to say okay this is their interest this is what they are really curious about this is really what they were looking for even though they may have ended up someplace that they didn't even want to end up so when you're able to do that can you teach me how then you're going to be able to be uncomfortable for a bit uh but you're going to learn a lot as a parent and it will teach you a lot about technology in ways that you never thought possible So that question along with, hey, if you could create anything in the world, what would you create? If they're not creators, if you could collect anything in the world, what would you collect? And you're going to start a Pinterest board with them and you're going to do things with your kid. Or if you could compete at anything in the world, what would you compete at? And don't be surprised if they do pick some game like Rocket League and or even Fortnite if they're old enough. and you know you look and you say okay i played the game i ended up in a bush the whole time somehow i ended up third i didn't even like the game but at least i saw it through my kids eyes and i understand why they like it now what what are the parameters we need uh because and here's the here's really the final thing for you the goal for you as a parent and your kid when it comes to tech is for when they leave your house yes they should leave your house when they leave your house that they have self-identified what needs to be filtered what needs to be blocked and what needs to be limited You can't do that for them. So when they're eight, you're going to be very directive. When they're 16, you're going to be very influential in their lives. So that when they're going off, they are a good digital citizen that knows, yeah, there's certain things even as an adult, I'm going to need to limit, I'm going to need to block, and I'm going to need to filter in my life. [Tom Pounder] if that can happen then look i think we i think we've won as a parent yeah man this is awesome man you just gave us so much great stuff and i think it's funny too because i'm the online guy at my church i'm the tech guy i consider myself more pastoral than i do online and i love technology but i've asked my girls many different times hey how do you do this on here And I feel stupid in asking because I'm supposed to know that stuff. But in reality, it actually creates a good time for me to have a conversation with my daughters. And again, then it could create shared experience. I know that one of my daughters likes to play Xbox and she plays Madden football. And I will sit down and watch her play, and she really enjoys me watching her play. And I think we can become a part of those experiences, and it can really take our relationship to a whole different level. And they know that they can appreciate us a little bit more. yeah yeah for sure yeah well um matt this has been awesome i could probably talk to you for a really really really long time um but where where can people find you um uh coming up give me your social media stuff and also i know you're speaking at orange so give me a highlight about what you're gonna be talking about at orange [Matt McKee] yeah so uh you can find me matt mckean m-a-t-t-m-c-k-e-e uh on twitter on instagram i'm putting daily content out there uh for parents so they can uh you know kind of wrestle with this thing called parenting in the tech world you can look us up at parenting.tech You know, it's not dot com parenting dot tech. You can find out about our book and a bunch of other resources. We actually have a master course that Orange put out through their parent queue, you know, store. You can find that there and. look we did over two hours of video it's a 60 page workbook like if you're really like i want to i want to solve this that's for you like go get the master course again it's called parenting in a tech world i am going to be speaking in orange i'm actually going to be speaking at a bunch of different churches around uh so if your church is interested to tanya jordan and i my co-author uh we're going to different uh schools different churches uh coming up uh we're you know fairly booked uh over the next couple months and uh which is exciting i mean you never know where you're gonna find us and what's nuts uh this topic is so cool that uh to tanya is uh she's been on good morning america now i think three times this year uh the today show wall street journal like all these different places uh she takes all the press uh deals and i'll take a lot of the speaking gigs but it's been um no it's been fun to help as many parents as we can [Tom Pounder] Now that's awesome. And I will say this, I said this to you before as well, but the biggest parent meeting that I ever had come out was when we would do discussions on social media and we would bring in an expert to talk about social media or online stuff and parents just wanted to hear it. So I know that, yeah, if you want to have Matt share and his team share with you, I'll include all his links. in the show notes. So you'll be able to connect with him. And I mean, you'll have to book him up early since he's got all those gigs going. But that'd be awesome. And if you're at the Orange Conference, I know Matt's very personable. So definitely connect with him there. I'm going to miss it this year. And so I'll be bummed not to see you there. [Matt McKee] Well, I'll miss you there, Tom. But hey, it doesn't mean that we can't do more of this. Using technology to help build those relationships has been key. If we learn nothing else when the world shut down. [Tom Pounder] Yeah, that is 100% true. So, well, Matt, as always, it's great talking to you. So thanks so much for being with me today. Thanks, Tom. All right. So what do you think of the conversation? You know, again, I haven't talked to Matt in a number of years. We follow each other on social media and everything like that, but it was just awesome talking with him. He's so personal. He's so relatable. And again, he's got kids of his own, so he knows all the stuff that he's talking about and he loves technology. So what stood out to you from this conversation today? I would love to hear your thoughts on it. You can put it in the comment section below. or you can hit me up on Twitter at TAPounder. Matt's on Twitter as well, and I've got his Twitter links in the show notes. But we would love to hear from you. What did you learn from it? What questions do you have? Hit us up. We'd love to talk to you a little bit more and carry this conversation on a little bit more online. All right, heroes, well, that wraps it up for another Church Digital Psychic podcast. As always, if you enjoyed the podcast, definitely subscribe to it. It's on YouTube. It's on iTunes. It's on Spotify. Go to thechurch.digital. You can find all that content there, including some of my blogs. We would love for you to check that out and all the other resources and content there at thechurch.digital. All right, heroes, well, I hope you have a great rest of your day, a great rest of your week. Until next time, have a great one.