8 Rules for Families in a Digital World
The Intentional Parents Podcast
Intentional
4.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we’re talking about one of the biggest parenting challenges today — raising kids in a digital world. Many of us have overprotected our children in the physical world but underprotected them in the digital world. To help you add some guardrails, we share the practical tools and boundaries our family uses around technology — from phones and iPads to TV — and the eight foundational rules that guide us. We’re not speaking as experts, just practitioners learning through trial and error.
We start with the “why.” The data is clear about what technology is doing to us — especially our kids — and now it takes courage to respond wisely. Parenting in this area isn’t black and white, but it’s possible to approach it with grace and hope. In our home, that looks like saving smartphones for older teens, starting with basic phones, keeping devices out of bedrooms overnight, and using contracts and monitoring tools to stay accountable.
Technology is always changing, which means our family’s digital rules should too. In fact, it’s okay to adjust your strategy along the way. Above all, we want our kids to grow into freedom — not be thrown into it. As parents, we can lead with empathy, stay connected, and offer a safe place for our kids to learn how to navigate the digital world with maturity and wisdom.
Books + Resources Mentioned:
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
Refurbished Phones: Back Market
Parental Controls: Life360, Bark, Canopy, Screen Time + iPhone settings like locking apps and setting up downtime
10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World by Jean M. Twenge, PhD
The Opt-Out Family by Erin Loechner
Submit Questions: Send a voice recording to hello@intentionalparents.org, mentioning your name and where you’re from.
Intentional Fatherhood: Website, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Podcasts + YouTube
Motherhood Retreat 2025: More Info + Purchase Tickets
Follow Us on Instagram:
FREE Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Parenting PDF
FREE Text Message Daily Devotional
Grab a Copy of Our Book:
Raising Passionate Jesus Followers (Now available in audiobook!)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey friends, before we dive in, my new book, Soing a Hidden Seed, Daily Prayers for Your Child's Spiritual Growth is out now available on IntentionalParendes.org exclusively. So go check that out. Christmas is coming. What a great Christmas present to get your family praying. And don't miss our upcoming retreats. The intentional fatherhood retreat February 19 through 21, 2026, in Costa Mesa, California,, the Intentional Fatherhood Retreat, February 19 through 21, |
| 0:21.1 | 2026 in Coast of Mesa, California, and the intentional motherhood retreat. We announced this April |
| 0:27.7 | 23rd through 25th, 2026 in Franklin, Tennessee. Please come out and know that early bird |
| 0:33.8 | pricing is on both of those events, check that out these retreats are spaces to |
| 0:38.1 | pause breathe and invest in your spiritual formation as a parent so learn more get your tickets now at |
| 0:44.4 | intentional parents.org and let's get into this week's episode you're listening to the intentional parents |
| 0:53.8 | podcast brought to by by Intentional. |
| 0:56.8 | Intentional is all about spiritual formation in the family. |
| 1:00.6 | We desire to bring biblical hope and practical hope. |
| 1:04.1 | Enjoy this week's conversation. |
| 1:13.9 | Welcome back to the intentional parents podcast. |
| 1:20.3 | We have overprotected our kids in the real world and underprotected them in the digital one. |
| 1:30.3 | There's a phrase and a quote we used on a recent podcast, and we want to talk about the highly practical tools and things that we have done in our family situation around technology, phones, iPads, TVs, the whole nine. So Elizabeth and I are |
| 1:37.2 | here today and we're really excited to talk about this as a topic. And we had said in an episode |
| 1:43.8 | kind of recently, I think the title is Raising Kids in a clickbait culture, we said, hey, if you would like an episode that's like hyper practical, would you email in? Would you text in? Or, oh my goodness, we should have not said that because the army of people that were like, yes, yes, yes, yes, please, please, I raised my hand for that. So that was really |
| 2:01.4 | helpful, by the way. You know, I was so encouraged by that too, because I would say most of the |
| 2:06.1 | emails that came in were parents of young kids who are not navigating technology yet. They |
| 2:12.1 | really want to understand it now before they get there. That was super encouraging to me because I think that's the best time to kind of understand |
| 2:22.4 | and build a vision for your family and what you want it to look like and to talk |
| 2:28.6 | husband and wife of what do we want for our kids, what's important to us. |
| 2:33.1 | Instead, what we see so often and we all fall |
| 2:35.4 | prey to it because we're buried in raising kids and providing for them is that we think about it |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Intentional, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Intentional and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.