How Do I Connect with My Smartphone Obsessed Kid with Jonathan McKee [Podcast]

These days, it’s just so hard for parents to compete against today’s addictive nature of being constantly connected to the world wide web. Our guest today, Jonathan McKee will provide practical steps you can take to connect with your smartphone obsessed kid.

Jonathan McKee is the author of 52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid. Jonathan has over 20 years of youth ministry experience and speaks to parents and leaders worldwide. He provides free resources for youth workers and parents. Also you can follow Jonathan on his blog, getting a regular dose of youth culture and parenting help.

How to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid

Sometimes things arrive in our cultural scene so hard and fast; that, as a people, we get blindsided. Then our reaction becomes nothing more than a failure to respond. I believe that this is what has happened in the case of today’s smartphone situation with our kids. We’re such a hustle-bustle society that we never paused to think through the ramifications of putting this kind of access in the hands of kids. Before parents could blink; virtually every kid in America had a phone with information, ideas, entertainment, voice, power and smut at their fingertips 24/7. The technology moved faster than our wisdom could increase, as well as our ability to make and/or amend laws.

Think about it. We still have laws for where, how and what time and days smut and vice for adults can be found and displayed in certain neighborhoods or inside the four walls of certain retail outlets; yet, our kids too often have none of these same safety measures. This makes the privacy of their own bedrooms virtually as dangerous as the seedy side of town! They have access to some of the vilest sexual images that no previous generation of adults ever had. But, not only that, today’s kids can personally connect with others from anywhere around the world to share, embellish and even participate in this smut in a virtual Sodom and Gomorrah any time day or night.

I think if we had time to do it all over again, we might realize that smartphones are actually adult toys! And, so, I say that Christians ought to look at a complete paradigm shift when it comes to carte blanche giving some of these things to our kids—just for the sake of being culturally relevant. There are just some things we can’t trust kids to possess till they’ve reached a certain maturity level like voting and drinking. As I see it, this one slipped by us. We discuss this point and the following:

• The truth behind the laws and the experts stance on social media.
• What is the “Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act” (COPPA)?
• The role that the book of Deuteronomy plays in addressing the smartphone phenomenon.
• The two extremes of the parenting continuum; either too strict or not involved.
• Family engagement seems to be lacking due to our culture’s obsession with smartphones.
• How to filter the content on your kid’s phone.
• How to set your child up for success.
• The importance of giving your kid the keys.

Picture provided by pixabay.com.