Preparing vs. Prohibiting: Using Guideposts to Introduce Your Children to Age-Appropriate Technology

Preparing vs. Prohibiting: Using Guideposts to Introduce Your Children to Age-Appropriate Technology

NOTE: This article is transcribed from a workshop originally taught at the CHBC Parenting Seminar in 2020.

by Jonathan Davis

I’m a technologist and pastor. How’s that for an introduction? “Technologist” is a fancy word meaning – I dig technology. Audio, video, networking, internet – all things I enjoy working on. But I also have a graduate degree from Bethlehem Seminary and served as a pastor of a local church. So bringing those two realms together in this article is a joy for me.

I’m also a parent. I have 6 kids ranging from 3 to 20. I’ve spent some time helping my own kids learn how to use technology in a God-honoring way. I’m not a perfect parent and my wife and I are still figuring things out – especially as our younger children encounter technology in ways my older kids never had to at their age. But I want to share a few guideposts that have been helpful to our family and hopefully will be helpful to yours. 

As we begin it’s important to remember that technology is agnostic. It doesn’t believe good or bad. It’s just a tool. We can either use it for good or for evil. So we must ask the question: “What technological tools should we use and when?” and “What content should we consume and when?”. 

A Defective Approach
Think with me for a minute about the story of Sleeping Beauty. The princess is cursed by a wicked fairy who prophecies that the princess will prick her finger on a spinning wheel on her 16th birthday and fall into a deep sleep. The king, desperate to prevent this prophecy from coming true, orders that all the spinning wheels in the kingdom be burned. But it didn’t work. On her 16th birthday, the princess still pricks her finger on a spinning wheel. Attempting to hide the perceived threat didn’t work. 

This can happen when we try to protect our kids from the dangers of technology. We can’t protect from everything. There are even some good tools to help protect our kids, but the tools themselves don’t solve the problem. We also need discernment.

Discernment
Hebrews 5:12-14
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”

Spiritual maturity is something we’re all seeking after. And our spiritual maturity and discernment is observed by our kids. Our kids are learning what we believe by how we live. When we act one way at church and another way at home, our kids see that inconsistency. We are modeling to them what it looks like (or doesn’t look like) to be mature and discerning. 

Discernment is the practice of distinguishing good from evil. If we want our kids to be able to do that, then we need to be able to model it to them. Discernment with technology only comes after growing in spiritual maturity and discernment in other areas. One thing we’ve found helpful in our house is a tool from Truth 78. They’ve made a list of 10 Basic Truths. 

10 Basic Truths (adapted from Truth78)

God Is Good
God Is Big
God Is Strong
Jesus Loves You
God Made Everything
God is With Us
God Knows Everything
Jesus is My Friend
We Can Thank Jesus
We Need God

These help ground us in what we know is right. When we come into a situation where we don’t know what’s going on, we can go back to these basic truth statements. We teach these to our kids in the first years so they can use them as they’re learning how to be discerning. When we do this, discernment leads to discipleship.

Discipleship
Deuteronomy 6:7
“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Proverbs 22:6
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

James 1:3
“for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

We teach our kids about discernment and then disciple them on how to use that discernment. I don’t want my 20 year old daughter to call me up and say “Hey dad, there’s this new show on do you think it’s okay to watch it?” I want her to know how to make that decision herself. So I want to disciple my kids how to use discernment so when they go out they are prepared. What does that look like?

For starters it means modeling and practicing using discernment with every little thing that comes up. What happens when I’m watching a movie with my kids and a married man pursues an affair? What should I do? Ignore it and move on and hope they didn’t pick up on it? No. Pause the movie and discuss it. What just happened (a man kissed someone who wasn’t his wife). Why is that wrong? (look at Scripture’s teachings on adultery) What should that man do? (confess his sin and reconcile with his wife). Will this be easy? No. Could it be awkward? Yes. But if you are consistently practicing this, you will be modeling to your kids how to be discerning. You will show them where your faith is and how to integrate faith in every day life. 

Objectionable content in movies and shows might not be a problem to avoid but an opportunity to engage. 

A few years ago I decided I wanted to watch The Goonies with my kids and show them a classic from my childhood. But because memories fade over time and because I mostly watched The Goonies when it aired on TV (edited for TV), I forgot how much language was in it. We started watching and it contained more language than I wanted my family to be listening to. I had a choice to make. I chose to pause the movie and say, “Kids, have you ever forgotten something? I forgot something. I thought that this movie would be fun to watch but I forgot that there’s some harmful stuff in this movie. I think the best thing to do would be to stop watching it.” I was bummed. I wanted to watch that movie. Turning it off was a sacrifice. But my sacrifice exhibits adherence to standards for my family and my kids. See, we are joy seekers. But when we sacrifice what we thought would cause us joy, it points us to a greater joy. When we model this, and sacrifice our own idols, it shows our kids how to pursue a greater joy.

Some great tools to help with this are Common Sense Media or Plugged in. You can be prepared for the content so you can remember what is in a movie and be ready to discuss it. Personally, I prefer Common Sense Media. Plugged in is a little more narrow in what they deem appropriate. I’m a little more broad with what I’m willing to expose my kids to for a teaching opportunity. But both are great resources. If I had used Common Sense media, I would have been reminded of the language in The Goonies. 

Let me give you three illustrations of how discipleship and modeling paved the way to discernment in my kids. 

The Handgun
I’m not a gun connoisseur but I own a few guns. And I chose to teach my kids about guns rather than shield them from them. From a young age I showed my kids my guns and explained, “This is what a gun looks like. If you ever find a gun, don’t touch it. Leave it and go find a grown up.” I didn’t want them to be afraid of guns. I wanted them to enjoy them like I do, but if they ever found one around the house or anywhere else, I wanted them to know what to do. Well, a few years ago, while living in Northern Minneapolis, my son was playing outside in the spring, right about the time of year the snow was melting. And there, in my backyard, he found a handgun. He didn’t pick it up, but went and told my wife, who then called me. We called the police and had it taken care of. The gun was likely used in a crime and tossed in our yard to hide the evidence. The gun was loaded with a bullet in the chamber. But I had discipled my son with the truths of what to do when he saw a gun. So in the moment he was able to discern what to do and what not to do. 

Victoria’s Secret 
While we lived in Minneapolis, we would often shop at the mall near our home. The mall had a Victoria’s Secret shop. Whenever I was with my son walking through the mall, I would direct his attention the other direction while walking past Victoria Secret. Then after he was passed the store, I would stop and explain what I just did and why. “We just walked by a store with pictures that aren’t helpful or pure for you to look at. I wanted to protect you from that so I had you look over there.” 

Years later, I was walking through a mall with my son, who was a teenager at the time. We walked by a Victoria’s Secret shop but my son noticed before I did. He quickly pointed something else out in the opposite direction. He used my trick! I didn’t even realize we were passing that store and my son helped keep me pure. 

Nintendo Wii
In 2009 we bought a Nintendo Wii. Everyone loved it. But my one of my kids started showing signs of addiction. We’d turn it off and they would throw a fit. So we had a family meeting about it. We used the terminology the Bible uses. “This is idolatry taking place. You see how you’ve made this the most important thing in your life at this moment? What does the Bible say we’re supposed to do with idols? Destroy them. We can’t have an idol in our house. What should we do?” 

The kids decided the best option was to get rid of the Wii. I have a friend who works in a youth shelter in Chicago. My family realized that they could use the Wii in their shelter and what was an idol for us could be a tool for the kingdom for them. So we gave our Wii to my friend and his shelter. 

Kids will show how much of your discipleship they are comprehending by the way they live. Watch for what I like to call “keys to understanding” – moments when they express or show that they are using discernment. Celebrate these signs of spiritual maturity with them. 

Development
As I conclude, I want to remind you that every chid is different. Every kid comes with their own pre-conceptions, their own outlook at life, their own experiences for how they perceive the world. When I think about my kids leaving the house I don’t want them to look up to me as the one who did things right, I want them to look to their Savior. The standard I want to set for them isn’t “Do things how I did them” but instead “Do things like He calls us to do them”. And my kids are all going to process those things differently than each other and they’ll all process them differently than my wife and I will process them.

So I can’t expect my son to behave like my daughter. If I did, you’d rightly think I was being unfair and unrealistic. We want to disciple our kids in truth and model discernment. But part of that is discerning how each of our kids learn and teaching them in unique ways that are most helpful to them. The amount of content (and type of content) we expose them to might vary based on their personality and age. It also might vary from family to family – so the standards you hold might not work for the next family. Pursue this with a lot of grace and patience.

I love technology, and I love sharing what I love with my kids. But I want to teach them how to do that in a discerning way. I hope you do too.