Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Podcast 17 - Social Media - Are you ready for this
41 Plays10 days ago
Join us as we discuss some ways to determine when it's time to introduce social media
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Grove Hill Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey, guys. Welcome back. Good to have you with the Grove Hill Podcast. We love doing this because we're learning all kinds of stuff ourselves. That's right. About each other. Yeah. Very much so. But we're glad you're joining us. I hope it's been beneficial for you. You continue to
Is Your Child Ready for Social Media?
00:00:23
Speaker
listen. We are on week four of our series regarding social media. Today, we want to talk specifically about...
00:00:29
Speaker
How to know whether or not your kid, your teen, maybe your spouse is ready for social media, ready for the use of a phone. Important questions. It's not about age. It's about maturity. We know that. It's not about your status in life. It's about whether or not your kid has the decision-making skills they need and the discipline they need. So I want to start right off the bat. Let's talk about some things, some signs. We've got a few we've listed here ahead of time. Some signs and when you know your kid is not ready.
00:01:01
Speaker
Impulse control. like Impulse control, yeah. If they have a hard time dealing with grabbing candy when they shouldn't and all that kind of stuff, they're going to have a hard time not going places on their phone that they shouldn't. and so Okay, that's good one.
00:01:12
Speaker
What's some other ones? Well, if they have a habit of not telling you the truth, they're probably not going to share the truth with you their Absolutely. Right. Yeah, open communication between you and your kids is essential in all areas of their life, but especially in this one.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yeah. so Yeah, that little to no patience, if they don't have any patience, then they just... Oh, that's true, yeah. um I'm not going to give you a platform to where you can say something that... would ruin the name of Jesus, ruin the name of the family that you live in the house of. like There's plenty of things that if you don't have patience with your words, like you no.
Impact of Social Media on Anxiety
00:01:46
Speaker
if they're struggling with their identity, do not keep him social media. absolutely Absolutely. I don't know if it's appropriate for a pastor to say this grates my backside, but this this one just drives me crazy. We have more kids under the age of 12 today than any point in my life who are struggling with anxiety. yeah
00:02:05
Speaker
And so we hand them a phone. yes And now, because they've got a phone, not only can they compare themselves to everybody else in their class and what's going on there, but they're also reading about some terrorist attack in Australia. But they don't need any business. And it's all over their phones. And so all we're doing is increasing the level of anxiety for our kids. Not in an age where they're ready to handle that kind stuff. 90% of the student life saw the video of the bullet going through Charlie Kirk's neck, and 90% of them they hadn't.
00:02:30
Speaker
yeahp so yeah Yeah, I think some of these things, to your point, um think about the level of anxiety, depression that's risen as media has become accessible. ah our Our capability, our weight-bearing capability, as far as our emotions yeah and all those things, it just wasn't meant to be inundated with this and that. And all these kids are just being filled with plenty of weight enough in their own life.
00:03:00
Speaker
They don't need any the other thing you know, that's being inundated with the world and oh, hey, let's introduce this garbage, this garbage. So yeah, yeah, it's a lot. Poor time management.
00:03:11
Speaker
If they already have trouble getting their homework done, if they're already having trouble balancing sports or extracurricular activities, yeah then you don't want to hand them a phone where they're going to kill hours a day. Behavior. If they're disrespectful, if maybe you don't have that under control, phone's only gonna amplify that. yeah It's only going to cause more issue. It's only going to cause more outrage. And so if if they have poor behavior at an age that you're thinking of giving them phone, hold off. um There's a little bit of where your kid can be overexposed, but on the other hand... If your child is pretty naive, they're gullible is probably even a better word. They're not to know how to spot the dangers of their health. you're just kind of You're kind of throwing them out there. It's like wrapping bacon around your child and throwing them in the jungle and see what comes after them. Yeah.
Risks of Unrestricted Phone Access
00:03:56
Speaker
And I think I said this is the first episode, but when you hand your kid the phone with no restrictions, it's handing them the darkest part of the world, the darkest part of sin and that they have full access to. I can't handle that as an adult. yeah And so to be considering 12 and 11 year old to be handling that is impossible. And I would, I'm going to take this a little bit further. I think it's a great conversation for you guys to have as parents with your children. I think it's a great conversation for you to have with each other about, okay, is our child ready? I think it's a great conversation to have with teachers and Sunday school teachers yeah other leaders to go, okay, help me see some things in my kids that yeah I may not see. yes Because let's be honest, we're all a little blind to our children. yes Our sweet little darling angels that never do anything wrong. We sometimes are just blind to it. And so we need a friend who loves us enough to say, you know what, your kid's a little impulsive. Yeah.
00:04:46
Speaker
Or when you turn your back in the hallway, your kid is really rebellious. So you might, I mean, it's worth it to me. I mean, it may hurt your feelings to hear those things, but man, I'd much rather somebody hurt my feelings about my child than me. had to pick my child up on street corners. Allow the investment of other people. And I would say this too, as a parent, evaluate the investment of what other people are putting into your kid's life. So get on the same page with them. I think we are so like defensive, like, don't you talk to my baby? Well, guess what?
00:05:14
Speaker
some employer is going to be talking to your baby when they're 18 years old. yeah They're going to apply for a job. yeah So let your baby experience that with people that
Community Role in Child Protection
00:05:23
Speaker
love them. The world the world is talking to your baby right now. Exactly. there' There's yeah plenty of people inputting things. So whether it's your church, school teachers, all these different avenues. Yes, coaches. Make sure that you're on the same page because, man, if you have a team effort,
00:05:40
Speaker
You're in a better better situation if you're doing that. i I just had lunch with someone who moved to town, and he intentionally took me out to lunch because he's trying to find people that could speak into his teenager's life so that he has a community already. And so um that right there shows a man of God saying, i want to surround my family with people that can take care of them. Seek godly counsel. Yes. yep Well, and yeah you've all heard the expression, it takes a village to raise a child. I would adapt that these days to say it takes a village to protect your child from the village. Yes. yeah Because the village is out there and it's gunning for your child. yeah Some of them for bad reasons, most of them for bad reasons, some for good. But yeah the village wants to take advantage of your child. we We earlier episodes talked about it. They can hook your child and make them addicted to social media. They have free advertising dollars for the rest of their life because that child's going to hooked on. Yep.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah. All great things consider. child will be not under your care in the blink of an eye. yeah Yeah. Make every second count. Absolutely. Absolutely. Good word. So flip that for me. What are some signs that your kid might be ready? You know, 14, 15, 17, 38. You know, somewhere around there where your child starts to show the maturity they need to do this. What do you think are some signs you'd be looking for?
00:06:51
Speaker
think some good things are ah the initiating part of the things around the household. If you know that you tried to build this um person that's growing up to be a man or a woman, things like as simple as taking out the trash, doing whatever it is in the household, if they're doing those things without you asking or without you prodding, Man, I think those are good indicators. I think you have to see a string of those things. yeah yeah ah Because it's not just, oh oh, they did that one time. And here's another thing. I think we have to be careful as parents to set the markers out there that we're not sure of that says, hey, once you meet this, you get that. I think we have to be very careful to not let' give them the awareness yeah that, hey, once you do this, because we almost kind of set ourselves up for, oh, well, I committed to them. but then they've done these things. So we just really, there's no cookie cutter thing. We have to evaluate our kids. like that. That's good advice because many kids can fake things for a long enough time if they've got to a good incentive at the end of it I think you also have to look at how your child communicates with you. Yes. Because if they're going to come home and tell you everything that happened at school from the very beginning to the end, they're probably going to be open and honest with you about what's going on on their phone. Yeah. for sure So make sure that, and and not every kid is like that. Not every kid's a chatty Cathy. I get that. But if your kid, if you ask them something and they're to tell you the truth, and they're... And I think that goes back to whether or not you have established a yeah household of grace. yeah yeah yeah you know If you make a mistake, come confess to me. There's going
Introducing Communication Devices
00:08:21
Speaker
to lot of grace for you because we want to work through those things. If I catch you, then there's a different kind of story going on. But if you come to me and confess, yeah you know. yeah so Our daughter, I mean, kindergarten day one would tell us her whole day Our son's not like that, but if we ask him, he'll tell us. yeah So I think you have to establish that very early because then when they do have opportunities for other ways to communicate, they're going be able to have control of it and tell you what's going on. yeah Yeah. I had a parent one time tell me this, and I thought this was a pretty good idea. He said, ah one of the things we used to do is we built up towards that day when we thought, yeah, we're going to give him a phone is we would set aside times and go, this is a family time when we're going to turn off the TV. Yeah. Yeah. If your child can handle turning off the TV for four hours and reading a book or going outside or whatever, that's a pretty good sign they're not addicted to those things. yeah And there's some discipline there. yeah I thought that was a pretty good little, I wouldn't call it a test, but some way of just a marker of knowing whether or not they can do those kinds of things. yep um
00:09:18
Speaker
I think any any child who's ready and willing to be criticized by their parents, and I don't mean that like a negative criticism. No, know what you mean, yeah. Yeah, that's a good sign too, that if a kid's going, okay, I'll listen to mom and dad. I want to hear their wisdom. Yeah. Don't get all fired up and...
00:09:38
Speaker
pout about it. I translate that to, and I go back to the, you know, employee, employer relationship, father, ah mother to a son, daughter. We have to see coachability in our kids. We have teachability. You have to see that. And honestly, there's sometimes where I'm like, I'll see kids and not anything that I've experienced, you know, and the people that I'm close with, but i'll go out to the grocery store and i'm like man what is wrong like you not going to address this and people they let the child be the determiner of you know what their life is not the parent being the determiner for the child i think something we haven't looked at is are you ready um because because when you hand them that device it's not like okay they've got the phone now now how they're going handle it um that's when you kick into high gear we looked up beforehand Facebook and Instagram, there's regulations that you can't have an account until 13. And then you discovered that there's different time, 13, 16, 17, 21, that they can start pushing things on you as far as advertisements, sexual, and things like that. So if the world has a standard of what they can push at your kid at different ages...
00:10:44
Speaker
A Christian needs to have an even heavier standard to say, okay they're going to push these things at 16. They're going to push these things at 17. And to be honest, if they're on there at 12 or 13, they're getting the same garbage. And so are you ready as a parent to say,
00:10:59
Speaker
ah I'm ready to be engaged, involved. This is my phone, not your phone. Are you ready to pull it back when they when they're disrespectful and and put those restrictions on there? And to be heavily involved in that, it's going to take some time. So truthfully, kind of what you're saying, I think, is, at least at this point,
00:11:22
Speaker
Your child may start out early and you may be okay with it, but your involvement with them is going to have to be even more engaged as they get If you think about it, like say your kid, heaven forbid, is on three travel teams and they're being traveling around and they need some way of communicating and it's just logical for them to have a phone and it makes sense at 12, 13, 14, or 21.
00:11:41
Speaker
twelve thirteen fourteen or twenty one um It's logical that that they need something to communicate. yeah a communication device is all they need. right A Bark phone, a Gab phone, something that they can send you a text or send you a call, you alone, put that in their hands first, not an iPhone 17 where they have access to everything. And so at that young age, you might be introducing them just to the communication aspect of a phone right and having those those conversations. And then a few years down the road, opening it up to more.
00:12:10
Speaker
A few years down the road, opening up to more. It's a training merging process, not a, hey, you're on the interstate right away. You like how I said interstate? You did good. Good job. Something that I've had to learn is when they do come to me with things,
00:12:24
Speaker
I know y'a are going shocked at this, but I tend to overreact. I know. So I have to get that under control so they will keep coming to me. That's a great point. Because if i if we overreact and we freak out, they're not going to keep coming to us. So I've had to like...
00:12:42
Speaker
turn my head or take a deep breath or look at my husband. You know, when they come to us with these things, it's like, what do you mean? So-and-so did that, you know, it's like, I tend to, so when you calm down and just like, let's list the facts, let's whatever, they're going to keep coming to you. when they see more things or you made me think of something else too that i think is important in recognizing your children is their their own self-awareness yes if your kid has a proclivity for coming up and going you know what i'm having a problem of this this this or this then that's a good sign your child's got a little bit of maturity that your kids don't have yeah uh if they're not aware yeah yeah yeah that's that's gonna be a problem So let's do this in the balance of time.
Delaying Phone and Social Media Access
00:13:20
Speaker
We've got four things here, four tips of advice. going to throw one at each one of you, and y'all just kind of bounce that off of each other for a second, and let's let's wrap up that way. First of all, let's start with you, John. It's wiser to delay this decision than to rush to put your kids on the phone. What do you think about that?
00:13:36
Speaker
ah Because you're in that battle right now I am in that battle. I thought, you know, my kids are probably still a couple of years away by some people's standards. You know, but that's not my standard is what everybody else is doing. And I'm all right with delaying, you know, and I would say even if you wait too long,
00:13:55
Speaker
I think you'll be all right. Even if it maybe is a little bit longer than the standard, everybody else is doing it. ah It's okay that they're not exposed to that because they're still going to get to know the concept of life and the concept of what it is to be ah sociable. We're talking about social media, right like to be sociable in the original form. right yeah It'll be okay if you delay that. And and if you don't get the timing right,
00:14:23
Speaker
you'll be okay. One of the things I love that you do with your kids, at least you've done it around me, is you will tell them, young man, speak to him. He just spoke to you. yeah You know, you don't just let that slide. And I really appreciate that because there's too many kids that don't do that these days. Lori, my kid will be left out if they don't have a phone. That's great. thought bad thing is We're called to be set apart. oh yeah It is okay to be left out. Most things that you're left out of are really a blessing to be left out of. They'll be alright. They'll figure it out. scarring from no there' is no permanent scarring from that. They will be okay. They will learn that very good the scriptures have called us to be set apart. Yep. right, Kyle, social media is not a rite of passage, but discipleship is. Yeah, so ah with all this spoken, you are never required to give your kids social media. Right. not something that you have to do. Right. Is it wise to kind of help them merge into it if they're going to when they're 18?
00:15:21
Speaker
Yeah, you could have that conversation, but it's not something that that has to be done. What has to be done in your household, what is a requirement of of Scripture, saying yeah if you have been entrusted with children, um you're going to disciple them, right? And you're discipling your child right now, whether you know it or not. Are you discipling them away from Christ? Are you discipling them towards Christ? And so this ongoing like involvement conversation with your your student and kid is absolutely necessary, and it starts at like the womb. i mean oh yeah yeah It doesn't start at 16 and go, oh, you know, I should start communicating with my kid. No, it starts as soon as you have that baby.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, several months ago we had somebody at our church come to me and say, I'm not really sure when I should start talking to my kid about sex. And I said yesterday. Yes. I don't care what their age is. You should have already started having this conversation because... First of all, and I'll say it this way, public school, but it happens in private school too. But in public schools, i guarantee your child, if they've hit middle school, yes they've heard it.
00:16:20
Speaker
They've seen it. I went to private school and I did. Oh yeah. And and and I wouldn't even argue there's homeschoolers nowadays who are exposed to this. Because they go to church with the other kids and and those kinds of things. So you cannot... you cannot shelter your kids from these things. You can prepare them for the storm they'll go through yeah when they get to that point.
Balancing Parent-Child Relationships
00:16:39
Speaker
Last point, keep the conversation ongoing. We've we've kind of have alluded to that several ways, but man...
00:16:46
Speaker
You are not meant to be your child's best friend. You're meant to be their parent. There's a difference in that relationship. But being a parent includes being their friend. Yes. You know, it gives you the ability to have those sweet conversations, to cut up with them, have a good time with them. But man, you you're not meant to be their best buddy.
00:17:05
Speaker
because there comes a time where as a parent, you're gonna have to have some really difficult conversations with them, draw some firm lines and those kinds of things. Yeah, real quick, while you're training your kids and you get the resistance, because I said so is not is no longer an acceptable answer. That works for a three-year-old or four-year-old because you're establishing the authority in their life.
00:17:25
Speaker
um When you're dealing with a middle schooler above or even third and fourth grade, because I said so is not an appropriate answer. You need to give heart. You need to train them through that and walk them ah to a point of understanding. When you get into the 12, 13, 14, you need to start being very vulnerable and sharing your life experiences. Hey, the reason I'm doing this is because I failed hard yeah in yeah high school. yeah yes Tell them you had sex before marriage. Tell them you did these things and you're trying to protect them from it. If they hear your heart in it, they're going be way more likely to listen to the hard decisions than if you just say, because I said so. yeah absolutely So here's a little insider's tip.
00:18:02
Speaker
My kids are not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination. I have raised four kids, now blessed with five grandkids and the sixth went on the way. I would say one of the most valuable things that I learned from other people who were older than me that led the way for me was be preemptive in your conversations.
00:18:18
Speaker
Don't wait until they come home and go, i' spent the night at a friend's house and we watched porn. Have conversations ahead of time. yeah Two things. Number one, if you wait till they come to you, you're not mentally prepared and typically what you get is the parent overreaction.
00:18:32
Speaker
ah Go to your room or you know whatever. yeah But if you have that conversation preemptively, what you do is you set them up to be able to navigate that moment for themselves. yeah And they're going to love you and appreciate you for that. yeah They're going to go, oh, mom and dad didn't leave me hanging out to drive. they're not going to be scared to come and talk to you about it either because they already had that conversation. Yeah, and if you share information that they think is like a seeker, insider information, they're going to be way more likely to come to you for more Right. because you're revealing those things to them. They want to hear the truth. And if there's questions like, what does sex mean? i don't know what that means. And you as the parent are the one to introduce them to that.
00:19:08
Speaker
one way more healthy right than having them hear it from someone else uh two you're saying hey i love you enough that i'm going to bring you into this secret area right now to warn you about what's to come yeah yeah um i'll never forget the night that the six of us sat around the table lisa my kids myself having dinner and one of them brought up the conversation of masturbation I mean, you could have heard a pin drop. Nobody was ready for that moment. Like right now. Where do we go with this right now? Let me tell you about what happened to work today. um when that And it actually came up from one of my younger children. wasn't the two that were in high school. yeah um And so immediately I thought to myself, ooh, we've missed an opportunity here. We got to do better at getting ahead of these conversations and preparing our kids for that. so I would recommend, sorry, go ahead no you go ahead. I'd recommend just gauge, feel it.
Preemptive Discussions on Tough Topics
00:20:01
Speaker
Look at stats. If the majority of kids are seeing pornography by the age of 11, 11 is too late, right? Start introducing this conversation earlier, an idea, hear what other kids are hearing, what other parents are talking about, talk to your friends about it, and start introducing those things. Like I said before, the healthiest place for it to come from is you, not something else. Reach out to Lori if you need help with this because we've talked about this before. There are actually biblical curriculums, materials to help you with the conversation about sex. I've got them in the office. Yeah, and they're age appropriate.
00:20:34
Speaker
But yeah, i mean I'm going to say as young as five and six, you should begin to have introductory conversations about the body and what the body does, those kinds of things. Well, we always went at it when we would talk to our kids about this is why God was created here. So it's always got to come back to this yeah right here. and And some of you sitting out there today going, oh, this is common sense. I know this is how this is supposed to work. I still today, and I know you guys do too, I still have conversations with adults today who are scared to talk to their pastor about it because their parents never talked to them about it. And they don't know what's appropriate as far as a conversation is concerned. Correct. So, yeah. All right, we've got wrap this up. We'd love to sit here and talk all day, but guess what? We don't have to. We'll be back next week, and we'd love to have you come and join us.
00:21:17
Speaker
Click the like button, share, follow us. Come join us in the conversations. We'd love to to have you be a part of it. And again, we'd love to know where we could be most helpful in these conversations with you. If you don't know where to go or how to go or when to go, we'd we'd be happy to be part of that conversation for you. sir So we look forward to seeing you next week.