MFP 284: Is Your Child Addicted to Screens?

Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

Mike and Alicia Hernon : Catholic Marriage Parent and Family

Parenting, Parent, Podcast, Marriage, Religion & Spirituality, Catholic, Christianity, Kids & Family, Family

5 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The destructive effects of video games are not on boys' cognitive abilities or their reaction times, but on their motivation and their connectedness with the real world.

~Dr. Leonard Sax

Technology can be a blessing or a curse. It can be used for great good and yet it can expose people to grave evil. Helping our children learn how to responsibly navigate the use of technology, especially social media, is one of the immense parenting challenges of our age. In this podcast, we look at the unique challenges that technology presents to parents and why parents must meet this challenge head-on! We talk about how to discern your tech use as a family and why just locking down every device is simply not enough. Like most areas of parenting, we need to first train ourselves and then take the time to train our children.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Don’t be naive. Stay on top of what your kids are watching and what they are engaging with. It is our responsibility to prepare and guide them.
Discern your tech use as a person and as a family. Walk them through the seven keys to empower them to make good choices because tech is a powerful gift of God and should be used for good.
Seven keys the church gives us to guide us in using technology

Does it communicate a balanced worldview?
How is the creator's attitude oriented towards the subject?
Does it dignify the human person?
Does it speak the Truth?
Is it inspirational?
Is it done with skill?
Is it motivated by experience?

Train your children to use it as they grow. Like driving a car, prepare them to use it as they mature and are old enough to use it wisely and virtuously

COUPLE DISCUSSION

In what ways have we been blessed by media and technolgy? How has it helped us?
How can we discern our media use as a family?
If our goal is to form our children to become adults who can make good media choices, how and when can we give our children appropriate freedom? What does that look like for our kids today?

Resources:

Infinite Bandwidth: Encountering Christ in the Media. By Dr. Eugene Gan

https://www.afterbabel.com/p/algorithms-hijacked-my-generation

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2799042

https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/are-video-games-and-screens-another-addiction

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects/677722/?gift=9xPqLPcwLfFbf_nnCRecvKJ-3gklcv6nZX-Hliug6W4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

https://ifstudies.org/blog/is-your-son-addicted-to-video-games

Transcript

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0:00.0	Family, all in this together.
0:08.2	Family, we're taking a chance.
0:10.8	Family, like birds of a feather.
0:13.3	Family, get off my shoes and dance.
0:15.4	Hey, we are Mike and Alicia Hernin.
0:17.4	We have 10 kids and grandkids too, and we are here for every parent. Because we are on a mission
0:22.4	to empower moms and dads to embrace their sacred calling. So join the conversation.
0:28.0	Hello, messy families. We are so glad you tuned in today. This is actually going to be a very important topic.
0:38.8	I was going to say a very messy topic.
0:40.2	Very messy. And we're just going to go for it because we need to go where no other
0:44.8	podcasts would go. You know, before we do announcements and stuff, I think we should just talk
0:48.8	about the topic really quick. And I just want to give a couple examples that I had thought of. Of, all right. So screens and technology, this is the third time we talked about this.
0:57.0	But I feel like there's-
0:58.0	We've talked about it in other like instances, I think.
1:00.7	Yes, yes, yeah.
1:01.8	Yeah, but I think that it is a topic that constantly needs to be revisited
1:07.3	because it is constantly evolving.
1:09.1	And our understanding of technology is
1:11.1	constantly evolving. And I just like when Mike was saying, you know, welcome to the neighborhood,
1:15.9	welcome messy families. I just want you guys to know, we are totally a messy family too.
1:19.5	We are with you 100%. I just want to share us a little bit of inspiration. But before I, I've just really come to realize that our guardian
1:31.2	angels are so good to us. And I want to challenge every parent as we go into this topic,
	...

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