Granger Smith PodcastIn this episode, we dive into the challenges of parenting in today's tech-driven world. From morning routines and Puritan prayers to navigating kids’ exposure to technology, social media, and influencers like Taylor Swift—this is a heartfelt conversation every parent can relate to. We explore questions about setting boundaries for YouTube, deciding the right age for cell phones, and managing social media pressures with young kids.
Plus, we share personal insights and tips on balancing screen time with education, hobbies, and family values. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach, but an ongoing journey to guide our kids through these tricky waters. Tune in for practical advice, real-life experiences, and a bit of humor as we figure this out together.
Don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments and if you got a question email podcast@grangersmith.com !
All right, welcome back to the podcast. I got ant Man with me and we've been talking for probably forty five minutes, I know, right, and we do this a lot, and we said, man, we should have been recording. But I'm glad you're with me. If you want to email me a question for this podcast, will answer it for you, and the email is podcast at grangersmith dot com. We'll walk through it. Ant Man actually checks them.
Do you do.
You have a pretty good handle on what people will ask you on any given day.
No, really, it's all over the place, and some of them are some of them are questions that you answer quite frequently, and even you know one I think that if it's all right with you to start this podcast with, is that people want to know how to find a good church? Okay all the time? Yeah, I'm like, could we just like could take and read podcasts, just be a sponsor. That's where we always point, right, Yeah.
Yeah, And I haven't looked at a single question that we have q today, And so that one, how to find a good church? Really is it is a difficult one, and so it's a good question to ask because it's not I can't say, well, here's here's what you look for. But I could say this because Marshall and I kind of started that series. I don't I don't know what we're calling it. What is a good church or something like that. We did two of those episodes, and we should probably do more.
You answered emails and then you answered people's comments.
Yeah, yeah, which people could do now that we post all of these podcasts on YouTube as well, So if you're not watching on YouTube, if you're watching on any other platform, you can go to YouTube at some point and comment on that video of this episode and we'll double down on your questions there, and then we're going to continue this idea Marshall and I on on what makes a good church. That's great because if you know what makes a good church, then you'll know what is a good church. And when you know what is a good church, you'll know how to find it. You'll know what to look for when you're asking the question where do I find it? And it is difficult.
It does.
For some people. It could be easy because it's right down the road from you. For other people, it might require a pretty significant sacrifice for you and your family, uprooting, even moving to another town, which I think you and I would both say is worth it. If you don't have a healthy church in your town and you're not being fed, you're not being nourished, then I think it would be a wise move for a father to move his family to a town that has one in order to make a drive.
And not a church that makes you feel good, but a church that you know is feeding you the word. You're being led by the word. I mean, and I would personal opinion and experience is start with the one closest. If you know what a good godly church looks like, start with the one closest to you, because that's going to be in the community then every day. But if you can't it's not there, continue to move out.
Yeah, because you also want it to be a place that's you could drive to it with with ease for the for different things that are going on exactly including Sunday morning.
Be a part of it every you know, in some form or fashion. A few times a week at my church, I go and help them with some video stuff throughout the week and social media and we shoot some of that video during the week. And I love that that it's just down the road from me, so it doesn't take very long to get to and I think involved and and work with them, you know, a couple of times during the week every week.
Yes, absolutely, And our churches are kind of sister church.
That's right.
So I want everyone to check this out and this will just this will answer your question. Write this down, check this out. Pause the podcast right now. If this is a question you're actually having, where do I find a good church? If that's actually a question you're having, pause the podcast real quick and write this down. A book called What is a Healthy Church? What is a Healthy Church? And if you're not a reader, it's a very very short book, easy to read. If you're not a reader, then get the audiobook. The audiobook is really good and super easy. Just takes a couple hours to listen to this pretty short audiobook. So and twice the time that you would listen to one of these podcasts, you could finish this book and we can continue this conversation. That's written by a man named Mark Dever, a pastor who's also a dear friend of mine. And I'm gonna be with him tomorrow.
You talked about him. Yeah, sometimes, I'll.
Be with him tomorrow. He's in Washington, d C. And so after some stuff I have to do tomorrow here in Texas, I'm gonna fly out there to spend the night with him and his wife and then spend the day with them and then.
Come home nice. So that's really cool.
Yeah, So that's that's that's a quick way to answer that question. But then we have the questions you guys have asked to podcast at Granger's. And I haven't touched these.
Right, you haven't even looked at them. I just saw you open it up.
I've not even looked at them. Sometimes I actually do scan and see what I'm getting into. I have not even scanned these, So I'm gonna read them and you're gonna hear them on this podcast for the first time. The first one is from Kaylin says, Hey, Grade, your name is Kaylin. I was wondering what you thought about age differences in relationships, Specifically, is it weird to date someone a year or two younger than you in high school? I would obviously want to make sure the guy is mature and not going to bring me down, but rather build me up in my walk with the Lord, but I wanted to know your thoughts. Also, what about where one person is older and goes to college, and the other one is in high school. Now these are very specific questions, but I just want to know your thoughts, okay, Kaylin. So Caylen's got some stuff in mind here, he's obviously objective here. Now, okay, this is all over the map. Typically what you see is actually is younger than you.
She's younger than me.
How many years?
Six? Okay? Six six years.
Typically you just see girls being younger than guys, including young dating. Uh, and that usually starts young because of maturity, right, you know, and London is not dating. She's twelve, she's not dating. But when I look at her class right now, in seventh grade, she's like two grades ahead of the boys in maturity. Yeah, all the boys in a class, I'm like, they're like still playing with g I. Joe's pretty much you know, like Joe boys. You know, they're little boys in seventh grade. But the girls are like young ladies. Right, So there's a big there is a big discrepancy. So no, the short answer, Kaylin, is that I don't have a problem at all about age differences and relationships. But but maybe the more important thing to think about is life differences. You got a guy in college, a man in college, and he's he's twenty one, and he's legal drinking age, he's been living away from his family, independent from his hometown. Maybe he's in college, and then he's dating a seventeen year old junior in high school and she's in a completely different life situation. I think I would have a problem with that. I think I we'd have to really look at the details of what's going on with this particular relationship. I wouldn't encourage it. For London, We'll put.
It that way. It's only four years difference when you think about that. One's twenty one, someone's seventeen, and life is different then. But the older you get, the more that difference shrinks. Yeah, So like here, I'm forty seven, my wife getting ready to be forty one. There's I mean, we're kind of on the on the same And also maturity wise, I think still applies when you're an adult. Sometimes she's way more mature than I am, you know, being six years younger than me. But I think that difference shrinks when you get into your twenties thirties.
Yes, yeah, and even just a few years later. So seventeen and twenty one changes drastically when it's twenty one, twenty five exactly, Like that's not a big deal at all. You don't even think twice about twenty to twenty four. You don't even think twice about it. She's in college, he's in college. And once again, I think that's more more to do with the life situation.
Sure, and you don't even get into legality legal life exactly, there's a lot you know, just what may be implied that's at twenty one and seventeen. There's a pretty significant legal hurdle there, or you know, just imply like I said, just implied, you know, if you're alone at night, you know, in a car, there's a there's some things there that could could get you in some as the one that's older, get you in some real trouble. Yeah.
So, Caitlyn, here's here's the second thing I'm going to say, and that kind of goes to what Antman was just saying. You said, let me let me pick apart your since read. I obviously want to make sure my guy is the guy is mature and not going to bring me down, but rather build me up in my walk with the Lord. But I wanted to know your thoughts. My thoughts are, if you're asking my opinion, I don't think you should be dating right now. I don't think you're looking for a boy a boyfriend to be the one to lift you up. Using the language of the apostle Paul and using that in terms of this boyfriend, I think is a wrong application for Hey, I'm looking for a boyfriend that's going to build me up and not tear me down. You know, I don't think. I don't think you should be dating. And if you were, if you're in my household, I would discourage it. I would say you're going to be dating with the intention to marry. And I don't think from this email that sounds like this is the deal. It's more like, Hey, I just want to check a box. Have a boyfriend, and I want to make sure he's in the right age bracket for me, and I want to make sure he's building me up in the lord. But I didn't hear any kind of language of I want to marry one day, and so in order to seek the man that I want to marry, I want to be looking for this or that. It doesn't sound like the language that she's using. Well, and I have why I'm gonna look up another book where you're.
Saying the same feelings that you do. And I think a lot of that is because we're both girl dads. You're going to have that that opinion and that thought definitely from girl dads. No wait, you know, And that's it's great advice because you know, father is your is the daughter's a leader and guide and and you're directing them towards Christ in what you're doing and how you're living and not having another guy come in and inject, you know, his his thoughts and it's just me as a father. That's kind of what I think, you know. And I have a twenty two year old daughter who's been dating a guy for a while now, love him, love them, but it's still there's a little part of going nobody's really good enough for her. Yeah, you know, and even though he is great.
This is one of the reasons I love having you on this podcast is because you could talk and I could look up another book you.
So.
Another friend of mine, Jonathan mccluda, has a book called Outdated, So Caitlin, I would highly recommend this book. Once again, if you're not a reader, there's an audio book to this that's excellent. Once again it's called out dated. One word outdated. I think it would be great. Have you read this one chance? Yeah? Maybe grab this one for you too, for you know, future, yes, future things that might be happening with your girls. Okay, maybe the next question will bring up another book as well. Comes from Kyle sos hegre and German. Name is Kyle. Just recently got into your podcast and I read your book like a river, and although I haven't experienced that kind of loss, it was still eye opening. I have picked up my Bible reading every day since I heard John fourteen twenty two to twenty four. Thank you for putting that out there for all of us to hear what God wants. I wasn't reading it at all before, and I'm super and I'm excited to dive deeper into God's word. But I still have some things that I need to change, like my productiveness. So I started reading Miracle Mourning, since self help isn't necessarily bad, but we have to be careful with it. As a follower of Christ. I noticed how quickly he doesn't I noticed quickly how he doesn't mention God but brings up prayer and faith. He never says who he prays to or what his faith is in. Instead, he says, we have the power to do what we want. I know that God is the only one in control. The routine is still a solid idea, but I wanted to know what your miracle morning looks like with God being a part of it. I can't make these drastic changes from laziness to being productive and exercising without him. All your advices appreciated. Thanks Kyle. All Right, Kyle, Hey, great question. And and yet it's funny a book came up again, and I think I think it's great that we get that we get to talk about We get to talk about books like this because if anyone listens to the podcast and wants to kind of hear more about it and answer, I have so much of what I answer is based on books, most of which being the Bible. But how how L Rod, He's another friend of mine that wrote them Miracle Morning, and I became friends with how after I became a Christian, and I became friends with how after I wrote Like a River, and Like a River references Miracle Morning.
That's right.
Miracle Morning is self help book that Basically, it kind of designs and lays out a systematic, practical way to organize your mourning so that you get more.
Done, Okay productive.
Yes, And How I've been on his podcast, We've we spoke numerous times, and he tells me that he is a Christian. But it's but it's obvious when he writes and when he posts on social media that he tries to stay neutral, not to make anybody mad. I personally strongly disagree with that that kind of approach, and and How understands that I feel that way. It's interesting if you go to how El Rod's social media and I'll just gad to put this out there because because I love How and if he listens to this, I think you would understand where I'm coming from. But it's interesting when he puts out very kind of a uni versalist material, just kind of talking about the higher power, we all, you know, whatever you're looking for, I hope you hope you find it. I noticed that that doesn't really get great engagement in.
Yeah, because it's neutral. There's not a lot of cuture.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's not a lot to engage with when it's neutral.
And I think if he would come out and just claim Christ and exclusivity of Christ. Then he would see higher engagement, a lot more hate, but he would also you would just see higher engagement.
In general. A lot of people see and this is not a social media question, but a lot of people see negative social media interaction as being negative. And it's not necessarily right. It's right. It's engagement if you just strip away spirituality, any of this stuff, just your actual engagement with people. It doesn't read what they wrote, it read it read that they interacted with it. So on the on the surface, that right there is just great. I mean, so if you were saying something that's in the middle of neutral, there's nothing for me to attach to. There's nothing for me to agree with, there's nothing for me to disagree with, you know, And just just having having that stance again, take take your beliefs out of it. Just that stance in the social media world is just kind of in limbo. You're just floating. And if you have whether it be political, spiritual, whatever it is, you have much more, much bigger chance of that being a successful post or interaction there, regardless of what the comments are. Yeah, it's so true.
I have to learn that every day because I see things and I'm like, oh, man, they hate me.
It's so personal for so many people too, especially if you spend time and energy and it's something you really believe and somebody doesn't. Oh what, why are they trash?
Man?
That's not even what I meant. It was an interaction you just had with somebody.
Man. When it gets into theology, you get some very strong reactions. I remember one time, this is fun. This is a good example of this. I was in a systematic theology class and listening to my professor talking about a very specific topic, reading some early Church Fathers with a very specific idea. I honestly don't even remember exactly what it was, and I posted it me sitting at my desk, and I just went to the lecture and I was like, wow, this is this is really interesting. And I had my systematic theology book and I and I talked about the idea the professor brought up, and then I quoted the early Church father and said it on social media, and one of the comments on there was like, yikes, sounds like we need you need a little bit more systematic theology and a little less country music. It's like he just he just read it without even and I was thinking to myself, literally came out of a system.
I had no idea. No, he had no idea.
That was his reaction of hate. It's like, who's this country singer guy that thinks he knows anything? And it was I was actually just regurgitating an old idea. Oh interesting anyway, Okay, so not Kyle's question at All's question is actually perfect to have ant man with us because you and I kind of walked through our morning routines and we've kind of shared ideas from that, and I think lately I've thought that I should actually build some kind of ordered list that I could post, you can share, I could share, and then we could And I see all these self help guys that seem to have these followings of guys that will do what they do. So I've been thinking lately, like, why wouldn't I do what some of these other guys like Ed Milette has all these guys that follow his morning routine. Why wouldn't I put my morning routine out and then get people to kind of subscribe to that.
Jump in on.
Yeah, okay, so I am open the change. I'm open to rearranging some things. But this is where I am today, as of this morning. I will wake up and the time I wake up, I work hard to wake up seven hours from when I.
Go to sleep.
Okay, So if I'm going to bed at ten twenty, I set my alarm for five twenty.
Okay.
If I go to bed and I'm in bed at like, not like.
Going to bed or going to sleep, because for me, it's two very different things.
Yeah, that that's where the new ones got it. I could usually fall asleep in about five minutes on a normal day, okay, so I can go. So I look at my watch, say it's say it's ten twenty five, and I go, I'll five thirty because that gives me five minutes to go to sleep.
Wow.
And then I wear a garment. So the one of the first things I do when I wake up is see how much I got. It'll tell me, oh, vere you got seven hours and five minutes. I'm like okay. Sometimes it says you got six fifty one. I'm like, ah, okay, I kind of missed it on.
That one a little bit.
But I do my best to get up seven hours there and I try to let Amber get eight. That's an interesting thing.
So you've got your getting at least an hour just alone.
Well, yes, that's correct. But also Heith Evans, who's a dear brother of mine in Fort Worth. He's a former NFL player and he was a announcer on the NFL network for a long time. But Heath one time he called me out on this because I was talking about just the busyness of life and lacking sleep. We're all lacking sleep, we understand that. But Heath called me and he goes, brother, you need to be getting seven hours of sleep, no matter what. You need to make sure you get seven hours sleep, and you need to make sure Amber gets eight hours. And he's like, real regiment, and I was sure.
I was like, yes, sir, you got it. Changing tomorrow, he goes.
I've done a lot of research on this and biologically the girls need an hour more than we do. So you need, as a spiritual leader of your household, you need to be making sure that Amber gets her eight hours and you don't need any more or any less than seven. Like, yes, sir, and I do agree with the no more or less because if I get a solid seven two eight between seven and eight, my body functions the exact same as it does if I get.
Nine, right, but drastically different than if you get six.
Drastically different than six.
Yeah, I can see that.
So I don't need to get any more, but I need to get the minimum. So that's kind of off topic, but that's what I try to do. I try to try to set it up where I'm getting seven. And then the first thing I do is I go in, I make I make a hydrated drink. I've been using this stuff called relyte. It's like a packet, hydration packet. Put it in my water bottle, shake it up, and I start making my coffee. Drink a little bit of that.
So you drink all your water first and then you have your coffee.
About half and then I kind of work through the water while I'm drinking coffee. Let the dog out, get my iPad ready to go to my little chair. I got a little heater next to my hair. This time of year, Yeah, started to get cool. Yeah, coffee, coffee is ready by now. And go into my McShane plan, which I've talked about a lot on this podcast. Read through the McShain plans about comes out to be about four chapters a day. Two from the Old Testament too, from the New. I do it on my iPad with an app called Logos. These are things if you listen to this podcast, I've said these things quite a bit, but I do it on the iPad because it's easy to just hit next, next, next, and it's loads the new. Whatever my text is. After that, I look for something that stood out to me in the text, and I will meditate on that for a few minutes and usually pot will not usually always, we'll post that on social media, on all all social media, with a little thought of mine behind whatever that text was.
So all those posts that you do all come from that day.
Yeah, it all comes from that day.
That's great.
And in fact, I used to in the old days, I used to say, I don't see anything today, I'll just go to something else. But now I forced listen off. I say, you got to you gotta find something from today.
There's nuggets in yeah. So and for me it's usually when my mind has drifted. I can read because I read out loud to myself and I like to see it and hear it. Yeah, And so why I do that? And I don't know how, And I don't know if I could do this anything else. I can read every word on the page and my mind drift to something else while my mouth is still reading the word. Oh yeah, I'm like what, I don't know what I just read in.
The last two I was doing that this morning. And then I gotta go. And but I'll just go back up. I'm in seconds the beginning of second Sam and I'm.
Just like, wait, what, wait, what? What?
What's happening with Abner? So I go back up again. And that's okay. I think. As the coffee goes in, I get it wakes me up a little bit more, so that's okay. But what it's doing is really it's it's softening my heart. I don't I don't pray. Besides, Lord opened my eyes to your word, maybe something gratitude for waking me up this morning. But other than that, I don't go too much deeper into prayer because my heart as hard as a rock. So I let that word. I learned that from George mut I'm an old diologian. He just said I tried to pray before I read my Bible and found out my heart as hard as a rock, and so the word softens me. So that really opens me up. So after the post and I go to my journal. I keep a journal every day. Digital write a little bit about what I just read, and then what's going on in the day, what happened yesterday, I go, I go. That's my prayer time. When I go into what you and I both do prayer notebook app and I'll pray through. That's my systematic prayer of the day, the kind of the one that's laid out and that takes about fifteen minutes. Typically that's like my average fifteen. Sometimes it's twenty five, sometimes it's ten, but it usually stays around around fifteen.
That heart softening part is very, I think, very important for me. What I do is I do a song. I do a worship song that's awesome. Before I that is awesome, I do open the app and I use the Bible app and you can do the it's exact same plan, yes, the machine plan, but I use the Bible app and I'll open that up and before I read, I hit a song that is it's sometimes the great exact same song and it has been for me a thousand dolllias right now is I've just been listening to that song every morning before I start.
You know I've done that, Yeah, and I think I think I should probably bring that back in. I think that's a good thing I should start tomorrow morning, is bringing the song back in, because I'll do the song later, and I think I think having that song early is helpful. Like I said at the beginning, I'm willing to change this routine.
Well, you know that's what we do at service. When you welcome to your service, that's the first thing that happens. Everybody stand up, start singing a song.
Yeah, art softening. Yeah, okay. So then after after the prayer, then I'll go into workout. Yeah, and I'll work out, and after a workout, which I do strength training, i will go to the treadmill and I'll do my Bible memory.
Oh cool.
Use an app called please, no not please, It's called remember Me. It's called remember Me. And yeah, I was thinking Timroth, please remember me. And so I'll go through that. I have my verses will come up that we can go to detail about that another time. And after that, I go into my cold plunge. Yes, the cold plunge. And man and I've been doing together what six months now or so?
It has you know, Yes, it has been six months. Okay, yeah, right at six months now, it's never fun. How cold are you getting now?
So I average I'm a little embarrassed to say, because I know you've got to be colder than me. I average about sixty okay.
Yeah, and I have a little higher tolerance for cold. And I didn't think I did, but then I met you and like, oh, he doesn't have a tolerance for cold at all. When I hear what you're doing. Yeah, I've got average fifty two.
Yeah, that's a good average.
I'll go below and I like it when I go low. It's something that day.
Like a fifty two day for me is like a really cold day. Yeah, but I'm putting four bags in right now and let it sit for an hour here.
That gets at the sixty tomorrow in real time. The highest sixty five, okay, and the low is thirty nine. Okay. You might really do tap water. You may just be able to do tapwater. That would be good.
While I do the bath, I'm listening to one of the last two chapters typically that I just read that morning from the McShane. This morning was PSALM fifty. I chose between that and first first Corinthians thirteen. So I was like, which one should I do? And that's what I'll do. Which one should I do? Instead of one Corinthians thirteen? I picked Psalm fifty. I'll listen to that. I'll listened to it in a different translation than I read it. Oh yeah, and it speaks it and I will hear something that I hadn't heard before.
That's cool And what's funny is that? And I don't know this is really important to anybody else, but ours are pretty much Our days are pretty much the same up until you go work out. I go to icebath then and then you when you're going to ice bath, I'm writing for you. Oh, I'm writing for after midnight. Then one you jumping after midnight, I go work out.
Let's take it, let's take it back, and we'll get into what happens next. Okay, the holidays are insight less than one month away. Are you ready with the perfect gift? Well, if you have someone that you just can't think of a gift for, or they already have everything, why not get them a cameo from me. That's when I get my phone out and I'll send you a video message to whoever you want saying whatever you want me to say. Could be encouragement, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas. Maybe it's just a prairie quest for someone you love. It could even be for you. I get those two either way. Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith and I will send you a video message cameo dot com slash granger Smith. There's also a twenty four hour option where I could do this for you right now. That's cameo dot com slash granger Smith. O got diving back into these routines and so then so then after the listening to which I use dwell a Dwell app, which I really like. After that, I guess after that you could say my day is beginning. Yeah, I typically will go back in if I don't beat the kids out. Sometimes I don't beat the kids getting ready for school, which is like seven five. If I could, it could, if I could find a place. Sometimes if I'm having a really good morning, I could do that stuff before. But typically I haven't worked out yet before I send the kids off, and then I've been reading Puritan prayers to them before they.
Oh that's cool, they go to school, that's cool.
That's yeah, that's a great book called Valley of Vision.
I have a hard time with the these and the dows it is we rewrite it.
It is the part that's an acquired taste, for sure, but that's got to be part of the charm of reading that though too, No one's part of the charm. Yeah, I I don't read The King James because of that. Yeah, but when it comes to the Puritans, I could tolerate it. Yeah, sure, yeah. Shall we go to the next question? Here have we thoroughly answered Kyle's questions?
I even forgot what Kyle's question was at this point, but yes, I mean, yeah, yeah, looking back through it, I think so. So.
If y'all want to email me the emails podcast at grangersmith dot com. The next one comes from Emily. Hey, Granger, I would love some input from you on parenting in this day of age, with the challenges of technology and social media, and what age do you feel as appropriate for kids to use YouTube, get their first cell phones, and have social media. My daughter just started kindergarting this fall, and I'm shocked over her friends being into Taylor Swift and watching our music videos already and dressing as her for Halloween, which we said no to. We made a rule that it's okay for her to listen to some of the Taylor songs, but no music videos or YouTube until she's older.
It's hard to.
Believe that we are facing this challenge with our five year old. I dread the day when she wants social media, and I know in my heart that she will. We will have to stand firm against it for her to benefit, for her benefit, How do you handle this and what are your rules or tips.
That you might have?
Thanks and God blessed.
I was excited about this one. I want to put it in here. I really was. It's like these conversations. Oh but just that time in our life right now that this is like yep, and there's not a single parent And I don't care how old your kid is right now. I do if they're below twenty twenty five. Maybe we're having a conversation with this one, this one piece of fun.
You know what I thought you were going to say, Tod, Not one single parent has figured this out.
Well that's that's very true, and that's why we're continuing to have the conversation, right yeah, I mean, and everybody treats them in fact, there's also there's multiple questions in here.
Yeah, one is about technology, one is about social media. One is about influencers. Let's just call tailors with that. Influencers and how you are allowing them to influence your family and your children and your life. Yeah, as an adult or as a kids, but more specifically as a kid.
Yeah, pung that in. Yeah, okay, so let's dive into this. It's a great question. And Emily, first of all, I don't have this figured out. I don't have this figured out as good as my morning routine, but I'll heavily rely on a man as well. Everyone is kind of trying to navigate this the right way. And you know what I think is helpful is that we all have these conversations because Amber and I will learn a lot. We'll go, we'll take the family and go have dinner with another family. Oh yeah, and we'll go, we'll drive home and go. You see what they're doing about so and so that's good. Let's let's implement that.
Yeah.
I hope maybe people do that with me. But but if we all kind of picked little things that we liked and kind of implemented because we all have our own rhythms, our own ages, and our kids. They all have their own likes. Like some kids that I've seen genuinely just love books. They just love to read. And so for that particular family, it's not difficult to get them to read. They hadn't needed to try to get him away from the books, like, hey, put the book down and come in here and socialize a little bit.
With my son.
Lincoln, he's opposite. It's so hard to get him to read. I have to negotiate all kinds of things to get him and try to come up here to this podcast room. And when I'm doing some reading myself, and I'll say, you sit here with me for fifteen minutes and read a check and then tell me what you just read. And usually it's like the Hardy Boys, Yeah, you know, but I have to I'm not ever going to catch Lincoln like off on his own with the Hardy Boys.
He's but you will London, but.
I will London more. I don't know about Maverick. Mavericks, He's own thing.
He's fixing stuff.
So my point with all of that is that different kids have different tendencies and different likes, and so that's why you can't just say here's the rule for everybody, because there's a lot of kids that will go, I have no interest in Taylor Swift at all, right, none, And so for you, for that person, they might say, it's easy, just tell them they can't watch Taylor Swift, right, Eat, it's easy for you to say, yeah, okay, so.
And a lot of that's probably influenced from our school and her and other kids. That's right. That's how it was with our youngest daughter. And yeah, we had to navigate the exact same singer in the exact same situation here.
Yeah, yeah, totally. I see London is thirteen, Lincoln's about to be eleven, and I see with both of them they're friends on social media. Personally, in our house, we don't allow social media. I have told our kids I will give them ten thousand dollars if they get out of the house and never have a social media account.
Oh wow, and that doesn't include YouTube.
That doesn't I'm gonna get to that.
Okay, got it.
But but what's crazy is they have.
To think about that.
Oh yeah, they're like ten thousand dollars or Instagram what or conversations and in an inclusion with my friends which is a big deal.
Yeah, you know, yeah, that's a big deal at that age.
Yeah, so I'm trying to let this play out amber and I need to be saving a little bit of money.
That's like it because if they call your bluff on it.
Yeah yeah, it couldn't I figured out it had to be ten thousand. It couldn't be. It couldn't be two thousand.
Well, ten thousand is so big. That's so big.
It's so crazy of a number that it's way out there. Even five thousand, it's like, eh, I think I could. I would rather work a summer job in this day and have Instagram for us. It's property tax, so you know, yeah for a kid though, that's why out there. Yeah, so that's kind of where we are now. But the catches that ten thousand would also be going into like a car for college there you go, because then we could say, hey, we could use this ten for a reliable vehicle to get you to college. So I have my ways of being able to use it. So the YouTube is a good question though, like that's the gray area, and the gray area is this London has an account with twenty four thousand followers. I just asked her last night.
Wow.
And she makes money every month, ranging anywhere between one hundred and fifty dollars to up. I've seen seven hundred dollars a month.
Wow. That's incredible. It is.
And it's also a problem because she's like, it's my job, daddy, I have to make money.
I have to.
I'm like, hey, you're not supposed to be on YouTube, and she's like, but I have to because it's my job.
So she's using that against me. But it's also a mindset that you try to instill in your kids. Do work hard, make money, you know, against each other. How are you navigating that?
So we are monitoring every single thing she wants. She can't. First of all, the comments on her videos are turned off, so no one can comment on her videos, So she can't sit there and scroll comments. That's great. Uh, she's not allowed to be on YouTube shorts where she's scrolling, because that's pretty much social media. Yeah, that's TikTok, that's TikTok. But sometimes she'll post a video and then scroll her own videos, and so they're like, there's a little bit of a gray area there.
Do you still see light counts? I see comments? Do you see I.
Don't think there's likes, They're just views, is what she goes by.
Okay, okay, so she's see some react.
I'm not quite sure about that. So addictive. So we're working through that with Lincoln. Lincoln loves these junk YouTube channels that just literally talk about college football video games with the video that ncaa video game. It's these dudes playing this game. And he will watch these guys.
And giving recommendations or just them playing.
It's them playing and talking about it and like oh wow, you know, like using vintage players and they're like, Okay, now I'm gonna try to win this game, you know, by everybody in my roster's fourth team, fourth string, you know, like just weird, the weirdest stuff, and or like I'm gonna build my roster with everyone has to have a last name that starts with an s, you know, the most random strings. And he'll just watch these guys and so I'll call that trash TV. So he has to he can only have an option for trash TV on Saturdays, Fridays and Saturdays, but Friday half a day because he goes to school. But even that has a limit that changes. My kids are not allowed to have screens at all on Sunday. They're not allowed to have them Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. But they can negotiate Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday through doing extra chores. But they can't watch trash, which is the reason they wanted anyway, the reason they want it. For London that's girls putting on makeup and for Lincoln that's football stuff. Constantly got it on Thursday afternoon they get them from school. They could watch some kind of educational something. Okay, well this is so complicated, but yes, you have to tailor it as you get along too.
I mean you do if you're happy. It's either it can't really be for everything all or nothing all the time. Yeah. I mean, our youngest daughter has a phone right now, and she has an iPhone. But it me just saying that. You think, oh, she has an iPhone. She walks around with it. She doesn't know it's plugged in in my office. The only time she takes it is when we're going somewhere all together. Doesn't have other people's numbers in it, and they don't have hers. It's for us to get like, we'll give it to her if she's going with a friend and We tell her it stays in your fanny pack unless there's an emergency, and I will know if you've taken it out to do something. Yeah, And she's like, okay, how old is Grace? She's ten.
So you remember just a few years ago, you and I would have both said here and been like, my daughter's not getting a phone until sixteen or eighteen.
But that changes, It does life.
It's not like we're giving in just the situation is changing around us so fast well.
And it's giving her some responsibility in it, but with some very rigid guardrails. I say, rigid ones that we decide if they move or not. She doesn't just based on a whim or you know, I have you. She doesn't just have free reign with it. It doesn't.
It never goes to one room ever, That's exactly right. I was going to say that. So phones are not allowed in room screens, and there can't go to rooms at all, and they have to be in the family living living space. And then Amber watches every single thing that they see because she has that Bark app. Bark monitors every single thing they do, so we're constantly looking. They don't have free rand to the internet. They don't have free Rando YouTube at all, and they can only watch channels that we have approved. I'll say that too. They can't just random like Lincoln watches those trash football things. Yes, but he's not allowed to go outside of that realm. He can't start like all of a sudden, watching this unless he comes up.
Well.
What she does occasionally says, hey, daddy, can can you check out this YouTuber real quick? See if you approve him? He does this and this and this, and I'll scan through it and I'll go yeah.
Approved. To answer a little bit more for Emily, yes, even if you are. I think what a lot of parents think is I don't I don't know. I don't know how to get into all the settings and do all this stuff after. They don't know how to do it on their own phone, right, but they don't know how to go block things or set up the phone for the kid in order take the time learn you go on YouTube, because it'll tell I need to block sites for my kid's phone. How that type that in, It'll show you and it'll work. It'll step you through their phone how to walk things and how to monitor it all.
Just like you said.
A bark, you know, having the bark gap. But just take a little time. If you're gonna if you're gonna give them a phone or you're gonna give them some kind of access to it, just take the time and be responsible to uh set guardrails up. You wouldn't just hand them take a gas on a lighter and go, I mean, I don't know, let's see what happens with it. You would show them how okay, well the lighters for the grill and the tank of gas is for your lawnmower. You know, you would show them great.
You know, no one would no one give them the keys to a car and go go out there and I hope you make the right turns.
I hope. So yeah. But you know, for parents, you know you already know how that is, and it's easy for you to explain. The problem is most parents just don't know. Oh so then I don't take the time to educate themselves in it. It's changing like that. This side note I'm on the developer side of the from when we had the ee app radio app is that I'm on the developer side, so I get the actual developer betas for phone and iPad or whatever, and I'll do those and just stay up to date simply because then I can tell I tell my twenty two year old daughter things about the upcoming iOS and what it can do for you now and things you need to go turn so cool, just because mainly because I'm a nerd and I like, I like investigating that kind of stuff, but also to safeguard and keep my I've my stepdad it was super into computers when I knew him a long time. But now he called me the other day and he's like, I don't know how to get a picture from my phone to my computer. Can you help me? Like, you just didn't stay up on this, did you? He goes, No, just didn't didn't have a reason to like stay up on it. It's where the world's stay up on it, so you know and inform yourself. Yeah.
And by the time so this good little girl and Emily's grow is five, yeah, exactly, So by the time she's she's Grace's age, it's going to be drastically different. So you can't take ant Man's advice for Grace at Grace being ten and then apply this to your daughter in five years.
Because it's going to be different exactly very different.
We were talking before stay up on It, before we start recording, A man and I were talking about chat GBT and treating that as social media for kids. So whenever you would allow your kids to have social media, that's also the time you would allow them to have chat GBT. Right we say that today, that might change next year it might be something totally different.
I could see that that actually being a class in school how to properly use chat GPT. It's going to be that involved. I mean, your phone right now is learning how you write, from text to social media posts to your journal, all of that is being fed into your phone's intelligence. Your phone knows everything about you, how you think, how you write. It's moving that direction. That's really what the journal app is in your phone. It's collecting data from you. And you know, I think that if we don't teach kids how to do it responsibly, it's just going to get off the rails. I see that being a class. So if they're doing that in a class, that's one thing. But if they're using it to cheat in the class, to write their English papers, to help them with math. Help is one thing to finish your homework. That's a different story. Yeah, you can literally write now twelve plus twelve and it'll give you the answer. It gives you the answer. It's a equivalent to the calculator exactly exactly, exactly right.
And I think right now what you're talking about CHAUDGBT in its form today is it's like a pager compared to FaceTime where it's going to be just in a.
Few years, one hundred percent, we're.
Going to look back and go, Man, remember when you actually have to type this stuff. Have you ever had conversations with CHADGBT in the audio.
I don't do a lot of talking to it. I have, I have tried it. I don't. I haven't. I don't do that much. I use it very practically for the fiends that I'm that I'm writing, you know, on some of the other podcasts that I'll work on, I use it to write descriptions. I'll just take the transcript and drop it in from the whole podcast, write a description. We'll just most do this.
Hey, I'm sitting here with a producer for my podcast. His name is ant Man. We're talking about chat GBT and just the future of it and the way that we could interact especially with voices, and how crazy that's going to get in the future. What do you have to say about all that to the people listening now on the podcast, It's.
Fascinating to think about where voice technology could go. Right now, we can have natural conversations, but imagine more personalized interactions and even deeper integration into daily life. The potential is huge, and it can make tech feel even more human. It's all about making these tools more intuitive and helpful for everyone.
Yeah, that's fascinating. Thanks, brother, You're.
Welcome, Glad to be part of your conversation.
I don't know why I called him brother.
Who is this is how you talk? And he might be offended if you didn't call him brother because he knows that's how you do. You can't see it. I don't think right here, but there's a mic literally right by your phone. I think we might should just set him up asking questions every once in a while on the show. On the podcast, Okay, Greg wrote an email, this is what we've been talking about.
What do you think about it? I want to ask right now. I mean, it's kind of like where this podcast is going to do right now. So I'm on a podcast right now, I got a question from Emily, and what we do on this podcast is answer questions, and she's wondering, really how to guard children from social media, especially YouTube, when they're watching things like Taylor Swift music videos and they are influencing them in the wrong way. So how do we navigate that with kids?
That's a great question, Emily.
One way to approach it is by setting clear guidelines on what content is appropriate and using parental controls to monitor usage. Watching together can also be a good strategy. It lets you discuss what they see and guide them on critical thinking about media. Encouraging open conversations about what they watch helps them develop a balanced view and understand your concerns.
Would you like more specific tips?
No, man, we'll take it from here. Maybe one of these days we'll actually get you on the podcast and do the whole thing.
That sounds like a lot of fun. Whenever you're ready, I'm here to help. Good luck with your podcast.
Thanks.
You use that microphone stand and again it's off camera right now, that microphone stand with the thing to set your to set your focus when you have to go around and do it. Maybe we just make that the chat GPT guy. You just have him set it that mic, give him a camera. We're getting another camera for him, and then we can just took the phone up right to the right to the road cast. It is recorded.
Fascinating, it is.
Yeah, that's where we are in twenty twenty four in November, you.
Know where at You know, I'll say that the last time. I'll put it up one more time. But you know, the when I first discovered this voice, it was starting to listen to me.
Yeah, it is.
When I first discovered this is I was I was going to Latin America on a mission trip, and I was like going through these different apps about prayers, and I decided to go to him to see if he could help me with a prayer. You probably don't remember this, but a while back, I was going to Latin America and I was going to be speaking Spanish on a mission trip, and I was asking you if you could help me with some prayers. And so now as I talk to the people on the podcast, maybe you could show me how I said, Hey, give me in Spanish a good prayer for the people on this mission trip.
Sure thing here, diss, I'm.
Okay, hold up, now tell me what you said.
Sure, here's what I said in English.
Loving God, we ask you to guide and protect our team on this mission. Give us strength, wisdom, and an open heart to serve others. May your love shine through us, and may we.
Bring that's good.
Thanks, You're welcome. If there's any so.
Fascinating, So I can go back and forth and I can say, hey, you should got to slow way down, and he would slow down the prayer and then I'd be like hey, and I could like test the theology and be like, I don't like how you said this. I would rather you say through Jesus, you know, some thing like that. And he's like, yeah, no problem, let me change that for you. And he was walking through.
I was going to say when he was he speaks good Spanish. Yeah, way better than me, that's for sure. Oh lah. The But saying what he said in English that you can hear, you can tell that he's paid attention to you, that he's used words and phrases that you have, He's heard you say. I think he's like, it's a person saying that kind of scary. He knows me exactly. And it's that is only going to, for lack of a better term, improve, It's going to become more like the person the further we go. I mean that was that was four point.
Zero or four oh yeah, four oh.
The one that was right before was only about six months ago. Crazy, man, we have gotten way like having though.
Man, this is fun, it is fun, but but these are just emily back to you. These are things we're going to be thinking through. And I think you should put a I into this social media category.
All of us should.
This is not something that we want our kids to be immersed with yet. I say yet, because I guarantee you in twenty years the teachers will be AI.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I definitely. You know, if we have robots go we talked about this on After Midnight as we have robots going into the house within the next year. From Elon Musk was optimus that if you're going to you're gonna have them clean your house. You're gonna have them teaching your kids in five years.
Yeah, crazy stuff, and which doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to be scary. I was actually just going to say that.
Because it can be what you want it to be. That's what is just look on the right side of this whole thing, you get to teach or you get to tell it. I want you to teach my kid right, based off the Bible and based off this translation. Yes, and make sure everything run through the plan with me before you tell them. I want to know every detail that you're going to talk to exactly right.
So this example we just did with with the Spanish thing, I would never just go hey, chat GBT, just say a prayer and let me let me memorize that and go say it in Spanish. Yeah, you know I'm going to say, hey, walk through in English. This is what I want to say. Now, give me the best way in Spanish, not word for word English, but how they would say what I'm trying to say here, right, so that I'm controlling the theology of it, just like yea, I would be controlling the teaching exactly. So it doesn't have to be scary. I know everyone listening, or a lot of people listening, are like totally alarmed right now that our kids are going to be taught by robots in five years. But it doesn't have to be scared.
No. In fact, it could be better than what you have now in a lot of ways. If your word, If you're one of those parents that doesn't want to send their kid to a public school because you don't know what the teacher is going to be talking about. It's good. You now get to tell the teacher what you're going to be talking about.
It's good in the same way that you could trust a robot driver on the road more than a distracted, drunk, texting, tired person. All right, we'll see you guys next Monday.
Thanks.
Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video. Yigi
