Episode 168: Parenting in a Tech World with Titania Jordan

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In this episode, we sit down with Titania Jordan of Bark, a highly regarded expert in the field of digital parenting and a founder of one of my favorite parenting groups: “Parenting in a Tech World.” Titania recently co-authored a book called Parenting in a Tech World. We had a lovely, in-depth conversation about how to raise kids to be good digital citizens while keeping them safe and connected to us and their friends.

Here are some of the topics we covered in this episode:

  • Digital Citizenship and what it means

  • Issues parents are facing with kids online 

  • Tips for parents who are overwhelmed in regards to how to talk to their kids about digital safety

  • Safer options for kids (including Bark Technologies and what they offer)

If you wish to connect with Titania Jordan, follow her Facebook group Parenting in a Tech World, Instagram @titaniajordan, Twitter @titaniajordan, The Bark Blog and her website: www.bark.us

Resources:

TRANSCRIPT

Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.

Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go! 

Laura: Hello, everybody on this episode of the Balanced Parent podcast. I'm going to be talking with Titania Jordan of Bark, which is a super cool company that aimed for keeping your kids safe in a digital age. But the reason I really wanted to talk with her is because she is the founder of one of my favorite parenting groups on Facebook. I know that parenting groups on Facebook can be a stressful place to be. Hopefully mine, The balanced Parent Community is wonderful and a good place to be. But hers is one of my other ones that I the very few that I pop into. So her group is called Parenting in a Tech World. And it is a wonderful place to get balanced information and see kind of what other parents are doing to keep their kids safe. And there are parents from a range of different perspectives from completely locked down to very free range with their technology, with their kids. And I love the space that is open to kind of that variety so you can find what you're looking for. So Titania, thank you so much for being here. I'm so happy to have you. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself and who you are, what you do and then we'll dive in. 

Titania: Great. Yeah. Thank you for having me and thank you for that. Shout out, it's not easy to have a group of adults on the internet that people like to be a part of. So I really appreciate that. So who am I? I, I'm a mom, first and foremost of now high school freshman, which is insane to me. 

Laura: Congratulations. 

Titania: Thank you. Thank you. We've made, we've made it, we made it through middle school. It was not easy. So now we, you know, we'll talk about that, but I'm also the, the CMO and Chief Parent Officer at Bark Technologies, which is a company that helps to protect close to 7 million children now across the nation with our app that analyzes content on social media and text messages and camera rolls, etc. We offer screen time and filtering capabilities and then we have a safer smartphone for kids. And because of my work there, I saw just how much parents were struggling so much, how much kids were struggling, you know, the rate at which they were encountering problematic content and problematic people and their mental health was suffering. And so I created that group Parenting in a Tech World a few years ago to help parents have a place where they used Bark or not to come and, and gain learnings from each other because this is the first generation of parents that are having to parent in a world like this.

Laura: Right? It it it's kind of the wild west out there in a, in a certain way, right? And I it's very confusing. So my kids are um 10, almost 11 and eight and on one hand, I feel very fortunate because they go to a very small school that is completely media free and mostly technology free. And so even there, though there is still pressure from my soon to be 10 year old or soon to be 11 year old around, will she be able to have a phone? And so where I'm not even in the world of, you know, they don't have their own personal chromebooks, like so many families do, they you know, learning to lock things down is so confusing. So I guess I just wanna for our parents who are maybe have the younger kids or they're just dipping a toe into figuring out. Okay, how do I keep my child safe online? What are some like the very beginning steps to figure out for them? 

Titania: Sure. Yeah. So in order to keep your kids safe online, you need to first start with modeling because safety isn't necessarily about or safety isn't always just about the most dangerous content in people. It's about balance around screen time. And so safety can also equate to physical health and mental well-being, which means if you parent are always on your phone and I I'm not judging, I used to be that parent if you're not getting enough physical activity, if you're not doing enough connecting in real life with humans and it's only through social and text, you know, you start with modeling healthy behavior and, and having a balanced relationship with the technology in your life as an adult. So your children can look up to you and seeokay, that, that's, that's what I should be aiming for. Then when your children do have access to anything that can connect to the internet, it doesn't have to be their own personal device. It can be the home television that is a smart television that you can pull up Netflix or youtube. It can be smart home speakers. I won't say her name. But you know, if you say A L E X A, you can access a lot of content right away. 

So once you have connected tech in the home, make sure that you have gone through the steps of just Googling parental controls and the name of the thing, right? Parental control, smart TV, parental controls, Google home, parental controls, Alexa, parental controls, Xbox, parental controls, ipad, whatever your kid can access, make sure you have gone through the, the investigation and implementation of putting in the controls and the filters and the time limits. So now you're set up for success much like you are now in a car and your child has a seat belt on, right? But that still doesn't mean they're totally safe. So just like when you're riding in a car and you're looking out for distractor drivers or drunk drivers and you're following the rules and that sort of thing when your child is navigating tech, it's now time for the those conversations around sometimes no matter all of the safety precautions that we put in place you're likely to encounter something concerning, confusing. Scary. I want you to know it's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. It's okay to be curious and sometimes we just can't avoid what, what happens on the internet. But I want you to know I'm a safe place. You can come to me, you can talk to me and we can get into that in a little bit. But it's, it's those candid conversations about some of the toughest topics around mental health, um sexual content, et cetera that will really set the stage for a uh a better relationship later on. 

Laura: So I, you know, I don't know about you, but I feel like this is kind of a con like conversations that need to have similar to how we talk to our kids about bodies and sex. We need to be like not just one offs, they need to be sprinkled in throughout the, you know, woven into the fabric of our lives that we're having these very conscious aware conversations so that our kids know that we're people that they can come to that. We're, yeah, you were nodding sorry. 

Titania: Yes. So, I mean, it's, you're, you're exactly right. It's little, little deposits over time. You can't just, you know, when your kid turns 10 years old have a three hour dissertation around online safety and digital citizenship, right? Like I do not recommend that. So it's, it's little conversations over time. It's little deposits over time. You know, when they're younger, you can talk about tricky people and how if they're online, they might encounter somebody who at first seems really nice and is giving them compliments. But if they start to ask too much personal information, if they want to know your name or where you live, that's a red flag. They're trying to trick you and we don't ever give out that information. If you're driving and you get a text and you go to reach for your phone. That's, that's a teachable moment, right? Like, hey, oh, I really want to pick up this phone because it's so addictive. It's so addictive. But you know what, I'm not gonna pick it up. I'm not gonna pick this up. It's not safe. I could, I could hurt our family or somebody else. So it's, it's modeling, it's conversations, it's if you're on Instagram and you see something and you recognize that it makes you feel less then like, oh, my house is so not decorated well compared to that or I'm ashamed of my body, that body looks so perfect. You know, it's, it's a conversation starter for them to let them know, hey, I just went on social media and I was trying to disconnect or maybe connect and I felt bad about myself and, and I need to realize that this is only a filtered curated piece of content. We don't know, we don't know what sort of airbrushing went on. We don't know the full story. And I just want you to know that that can happen to you when you go on social. 

Laura: Yeah. Oh gosh, I love that. And I love that. I love that you're talking about narrating your own thought process because kids can't read our minds and they need to know that we're, we're all human and that this, this content is designed to have, you know, these technologies are designed in some ways to, to produce an effect on us. The ding on the text message just designed to draw our attention in the specific ways that some social media platforms scroll is designed to give us a little surge of dopamine. You know, it's important that our kids know this, I I when we, we have conversations like this around advertising and product placement in stores like target just tricked me. I picked this thing up, you know, on.

Titania: High level. 

Laura: Yes. Right. You know, why do they have this packaging? It's just so the kids ask their mommies for these things, you know, um it's the same type of really kind of conscious conversations. I really like it, you framing it like that. I would, you know, in the vein of these conversations, I would love to dive into this kind of tricky situation that a lot of conscious and respectful parents find themselves in. When it comes to their technology. So many of the parents that I work with and that listen to this podcast really want to be democratic in their homes. They want to be collaborative with their kids. They don't want to be overbearing helicoptering. They, they don't want to be controlling with their kids. In fact, there are many times they're actively working against being controlling with their kids. And at the same time, we know that there are very real safety concerns online. And we know that these young children don't have the brain development to make good choices online all the time. 

And we know that the, you know, the, the technology itself is designed to work with our psychology, you know, and so how can we find a place of balance as parents where we don't step into this place of being overly controlling? And yet at the same time, we're not permissive where we can keep our kids safe, but still feel like there's some mutual kind of working togetherness that this where our kids and we are a team together because this is the one topic where, you know, for the most part in all other areas of my family's home. I'm talking to you as a parent now, we feel like we're a team. But when it comes time for my, when my kid starts asking, when can I get a phone, a smartphone? She starts getting this sense of they're controlling me and that we don't have that in very many places in our, in our home, on purpose. And I want to figure out how I can start feeling like we're a team in this together with her, especially, you know. So she's 11. I know a lot of the families that I, that I listen to me have been with me since my kids were little. So their kids are kind of in the same area. 

Titania: Wow. I'm gonna take.

Laura: That’s a long question. Sorry. 

Titania: Yeah. No, I there's so many things I wanna say but I want to also make this concise, I guess the, the first question that I would pose to your 11 year old is what are you looking to do with the tech? You know, you, you really want a phone and maybe it is a phone you want. But what are the things you want to do with it? Because maybe a smart watch could fill the gap or maybe a tablet on the home wifi. You know, what are you trying to do? Do you want to communicate with friends? Friends? Okay. And if so how via text, via Snapchat, via whatsapp? You know, what are you, what are you missing out on? What, what would you like to do? Are you trying to create? I mean, would you like to, you know, create cool video clips or memes or gifts? Are you looking to stream music or podcasts? You know, what are the things you would like to be able to do and then let's figure out the the safest way for you to be able to do that because as a family, I don't wanna speak for you, but I maybe will speak for you now, in terms, you know, as a family, we support education and creativity and curiosity, collaboration, and connection. But as your parent, my job is to keep you safe in life and online. So I'm not going to willingly expose you to something that would cause you to become addicted or introduce you to bullies or extreme graphic, sexual or violent content or adults pretending to be nice who are really not nice. 

Laura: Mhm. I love that answer. We, I mean, we don't, we don't let our kids ride around on bikes without helmets or so to the park before they're ready and before we've had a lot of, you know, opportunities to see them being careful, you know? I mean, so I think that that makes complete sense. So I love that. I've done so much of that with my kid already. And so we've actually had a very similar conversation this, um, over the summer. And we found out she really just wanted to be able to listen to music. So I, I got her a simple mp3 player and she's happy, you know. 

Titania: Wonderful. 

Laura: Yeah. 

Titania: It's about problem solving together. You're a, you're a team and you can solve these problems together. 

Laura: Yeah, she does. She is starting to want to call her friends. But it's so funny because she's at the school, none of her friends have phones. And so I'm, I'm gonna, I'm starting a kind of a, to get the parents together to see if they will all, just, if we can all just get landlines. Like that would be my ideal situation. Wouldn't that be cool? Do you remember that when we were kids? 

Titania: Yes. Yes, I do. 

Laura: It’s so great. 

Titania: It is great. Yeah, landlines. I, I endorse, I don't even know what they cost these days. 

Laura: Honestly, I think that they're free with most people's internet services and we just don't have the, have them up. Yep. So, there you go. So, ok. So let's think about our kids are getting older and maybe they are ready, you know, maybe they're, my kids do have a, a very simple smart watch a gizmo that they share and use when they're going to the park by themselves because we do want them to have some freedom in our safe neighborhood or they go to the library, but when they're older they're in activities. I can understand why lots of parents would want their kids to have some kind of phone so that they can stay in touch. Know when to pick them up. Know if they're changing location. What are some options when kids are, when we as parents we are noticing like this would be convenient for me. What are some options, some safe options. And then how do we frame that for our kids so that we can have really clear boundaries for them for how to use it? 

Titania: Yeah, so what I would not do is give your child either a brand new or older handy down iphone. That would be the worst option. 

Laura: Okay, tell me more. 

Titania: For a variety of reasons. Iphones are not the safest option for children. It, it, it'd almost be like letting your kid's first car be a Ferrari like no, let's, let's start with a Honda 

Laura: A Honda, a Subaru.

Titania: Volvo, like whatever, something safe, you know, that doesn't go 0 to 60 in less than five seconds. Iphones are sleek. They're top of the line but they prioritize privacy and they are meant for adults and because they prioritize privacy so much, they limit and severely hinder a parent's ability to adequately monitor and, and collaborator with their child's, you know, growth and development digitally. Not only that, but iphones have had a bug for about a year in their screen time controls. So parents think they're setting time limits and blocking apps and kids are getting around them because of the Apple bug. 

Laura: Yeah, I've seen that so many questions in your parenting group on that exact topic. Yeah. 

Titania: Yeah, and that's, that's frustrating also, Apple isn't, doesn't work with third party platforms very well. So if you want to use Bark to monitor and analyze and manage screen time on your children's device. Bark works so much better with the Android suite of products. The Apple, it does work with Apple, but Android's better and easier. So if, and when it's time for your child to have some sort of connected tech so that you can communicate and so that you can track their location. I would say look at the, the suite of smart watches that are out there. Obviously, if, if that's your jam, I am, I'm biased and I'm not, I'm biased because full disclosure, I do work for Bark. We have a smart but if there was another company out there that had a better safer smartphone for kids, I'd be working for them. So feel free to do your own research and Google, you know, safe smartphones for kids or best first smartphone for kids. I strongly believe that the Bark phone is that because it's an Android because because it has the bark software built in like kids can't delete it, kids can't circumvent it. It's a fully functional Android device that if you want it, it can be it can, you know, have any app you want, it can do all the things, but most parents don't want that. And that's great because with the Bark phone, you can just make it so that it can call text a certain set of contacts and it can showcase location. So it's really a fully functional smartphone and that can grow with your child but can start out as we call it sometimes a dumb phone or, you know, sort of phone and it has the ability, you know, if your kid needs a certain app for school, like Remind or Canvas, you have the ability to allow them to download it from the Google Play Store. Whereas other first phones for kids sometimes only have a curated app store of a limited suite of apps that don't really, you know, appeal to the kids after you know, say age seven or eight so. 

Laura: Okay. Yeah, so that's a good, a good first one. So in your work, what are some of the trends you're seeing for kids first? Like first phones, how old are they tending to be? And what is your personal kind of professional recommendation for age at when when kids are ready for the responsibility of a smartphone? 

Titania: So before the bark smartphone existed, I would say that unless it's a truly dumb phone, flip phone that could only call or text, could not access the internet and even texting is problematic for kids. It's really important to delay. Delay is the way as my friend, Chris Mckenna says, guys, you know, the wait until eighth movement is a very laudable one. Any parent who waits until eighth grade is in the minority now, but I highly respect that decision and I think more families should do that, because the bark phone exists now there is now an option for families who do want their child to be able to call text, maybe access certain apps or websites safely within certain time, time restrictions. And that's really important too for families in dual households. Righ?. If you, if your parents are divorced and you're seven, you know, it's, it might be time for a smartphone sooner than if you are. 

Your family is, you know, one unit and you're all in the same house and you're 10. So it, it really depends on the age and the stage of the child, the family dynamics is the device as safe as it can be. Have you set up the limits, have you set up the filters, you know, it's also about what they can access. I do not believe any child under the age of 13 should have any social media period. You know, if not for the sole reason that the social media platforms themselves say you have to be 13 years or older to use them and even then 13 is still too young in some cases, in many cases. And it also comes down to the conversations when you do give your child this sort of access, make sure you have had the conversations with them because it really is a matter of time before they stumble across something problematic concerning even if it's just a spam text, right? They get a spam text and they're like, what is this? And you know, you need to talk about all of the potential outcomes. 

Laura: Yeah, I really, so I feel like you have helped me feel quite a bit less anxious about this because the what you're saying is that like the normal rules of conscious and collaborative parenting apply here, just keep doing those things and apply it to this new topic, right? 

Titania: Yes. And, and I would say, oh gosh, I mean, the the biggest thing you will see when you do give your child their very own device, right? Which that's another conversation around like, hey, if I if parent is paying for it and the service like this is this really a collaborative thing. This isn't like your own thing. The story, it's, you really gotta have that conversation about the addictive nature of I'm gonna give you this thing and it's gonna pull you in. You are going to move around less, you're going to play with your other toys less. You're gonna talk to mom and dad and siblings less. It is going to pull you in and we have got to have a balance, not because I need control, but because your mental and physical health and wellness is top priority. If you are not getting enough sleep, if you are not getting enough movement, if you are not doing enough things outside of this device, we're gonna have to make some changes and it's for your good. 

Laura: Yeah. Oh I love, I love that. And I think that that kind of circles back to this modeling piece of things too that you have to be super aware of your own practices. I'm coming off of a three month social media detox. I took it all off my phone. It's been blissful and that has been something that I've been kind of narrating for my kids out loud. What it's like why I chose to do it. How interesting it is, how I lose my phone way more often now because it's not glued to my hands. And the other thing that we love to do in our family that we have done in our family is we have a charging station in a drawer in our kitchen where my husband and I charge our phones. And so we've been modeling their entire lives that no phones go into bedrooms and that's just how it is. And so dad and I both plug our phones in at night. They don't come into our bedroom. So what my hope is that when they get to that age, that will also be, you know, that we'll just be like, that's what we do in our house. You know. I was talking to a mom the other day. And she has a, a rule in her house that whenever kids come in and come over to play that they have a, a bowl and all the phones go into the bowl and I'm kind of curious about what you think about that type of practice. 

Titania: I absolutely love it wholeheartedly. Endorse it. It's really sad when your kid gets to be the age where some percentage of their friends have a smartphone or a tablet and they come over and that's all they wanna do. They just want to sit around either looking at the one kid's device or they're all on their own devices. It's like, well, why are you together in the first place? If you at the siloed into your screen. Kids need to play, kids need to create, kids need to explore, they need to run around, they need to talk to each other in real life, face to face, learn nuances of emotional expression. The, the phones need to go in the bowls right now. You so you don't want to limit a child's ability to, you know, communicate with their parents or something like, hey, you can come and, and text, you know, whoever you need to. But what this time is not meant for is, you know, collective scrolling on Tiktok. Like that's not what this is for. You can do that on your own time. So, yeah, huge fan.

Laura: I love that. I read a a research study when I was pregnant with my first child. So this is 10 years ago, which is like, or I guess nearly 12 years ago, now. So a long time ago in the tech world, but they did a lot of interviews with teenagers. And one of the trends they found was that the friends whose parents had that rule, that was the popular house for the kids to go to, even though they didn't like the rule, they liked going to that house better. It was more fun. So I, I had decided on that role before I was even a full parent. Okay. You had, I had just one last question for you. You use a term that I don't think I've heard before. Okay. So it's probably gonna be two questions. 

Titania: It's fine. 

Laura: Okay, so the term was digital citizenship and I'm kind of curious about what that means and how we can support our kids in developing good digital citizenship. And that kind of ties into this my next question, which is about kind of this unique space that we the parents are in where one of the, you know, we're raising kids in this really digital native age. And we were some of the last parents to not have our early childhood inundated with this type of technology. And so sometimes I think that there's some fear and some overwhelm and like it's so different, it's so big. So those are the two things. What is also, oh, sorry, digital citizenship first. 

Titania: We'll start with digital citizenship and just like you and I were raised to say, please thank you. Maybe take our dishes over after dinner if you see somebody in, in pain or hurting, you know, tell a trusted adult, you know, it, it's a lot of things that we can carry over from our own experience growing up. Just digital. So let's say you're on a text thread and somebody is being mean to somebody else, don't be a bystander, instead be an upstander, stand up for that person. And if you don't feel comfortable in searching yourself and becoming a target yourself, tell an adult, you know, it's not okay to be unkind to someone online. And there's a fine line between teasing, right? Just having fun and, and truly being unkind and, and bullying. So kindness and empathy is something we really need to pour into this generation because it's a problem. Digital citizenship also looks like being, being smart and responsible with your PII that's personally identifiable information, you know, you don't want to get hacked, you don't wanna get taken advantage of, you don't wanna be targeted. 

So teaching them about, you know, using their real name and even little things like not using your social security number, you know, in an email and somebody asks for it, you know, there's so many things to, to consider. When you're thinking about being a responsible digital citizen and using terms like a digital footprint, you know, if you leave a footprint in the sand, the tide can wash it away and that's great. You'll never see it again. But anything you do online is a permanent footprint and even if the platform says it goes away or it disappears or deletes, it doesn't, it lives on a server somewhere. And even if it gets deleted after a certain amount of time on that server, what happens if somebody was sitting next to the person who received it and took a picture of it or a screenshot of it? It's just, it's a lot of rabbit holes. It's a lot of rabbit holes. But then that goes back to the modeling. Another big thing too is the FOMO, the fear of missing out or being left out. You know, when you have a device and you start sharing stories and that sort of thing. Think about the why behind the sharing, you know, did you get to go to the Taylor Swift concert? Are you excited to share with everybody? Maybe don't make that a public story, maybe make that just close friends because, you know, maybe not everybody can afford that concert or maybe you could only take two friends when you really wanted to take four. You know, think about how, what you're curating online makes other people feel. 

Laura: Hmm. Oh, that's an interesting aspect of it. Okay. Thank you for that.

Titania: A lot, a lot. But.

Laura: No, it's a lot and it, but it's good to be thinking about. I mean, we think so much when our kids are toddlers about those, please and thank yous. And how do I make sure my kids grow up to be gracious and loving and kind and I mean that worry continues online. Okay. So for the parents who after hearing this conversation are like, oh God, now I need to go Google, you know, you know, everything that parental controls in my child's device and I'm gonna be so overwhelmed. What, what can we do to lessen that overwhelmed feeling of like being a kind of being afraid of technology like there? I mean, because there's a part of me that just wants to like ostrich moment. It just stick my head in the sand like it's not gonna happen. They're gonna go to this tiny little school and never have technology for the rest of their lives. It's just, I don't have to worry about it, you know, but so we can't do that obviously. But what can we do to start ourselves in learning but without really feeling overwhelmed and keep our kids safe. 

Titania: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you need to give yourself some grace, right? Because no other generation of parents has ever had to parent in a town like this. So grace, deep breaths and baby steps, step by step. You don't need to figure it all out all at once. All in one day, we talked about the Facebook group, feel free to join that and just start to kind of be a lurker browse. See what your parents are dealing with. Feel free to ask a question. What's your most pressing question today. What's the one thing you want to focus on today? Maybe it's a gaming console, maybe it's a certain app you want to download on the family device and see if it's safe enough for them to play. Google is your friend. You know, thankfully, we as parents do have search engines now at our disposal to get answers to questions, we don't have to turn to encyclopedias and our pediatricians with everything. Also keep in mind that it is, uh you know, it's a constant, a constant tweaking. It is very, very relational, lots of conversations and you can learn honestly by participating with your child. Let's say your child wants Roblox and you've done your research and you're like, there's some pros and there's some cons maybe sit with your child, download it together, go through the steps together. Chances are they'll teach you some things, you'll teach them some things and then you can look at it with your adult lens and see, hey, is there a chat feature in this game where you, you can talk with anybody who's online, adult or child? Okay. That's really cool. But also potentially scary. Here's some things we should talk about. So step by step one at a time, don't let your child have access to something that you yourself have not navigated yet. 

Laura: I think that that's a big thing for, you know, so many of us are slow to get our kids on technology because we're not into it. You know, I, I grew up in the time of, you know, Atari and Nintendo, but my parents didn't let me have video games. And so, like I have, I have, I still don't know how to play video games, you know, as a 40 year old person and I never really had the desire to. And so when it comes to like, learning how to navigate minecraft or roblox, like I don't have the person personal desire to, but my kids might one day and so maybe you should check it out, you know. 

Titania: be a kid again, you know, they're figuring it out for the first time. Do it with them. 

Laura: Yeah. Yeah, I really like this. The idea of making it relational to something that you can do together youtube is one of those things that we only do together in our family, even youtube kids. You know, I, the, the stories, I'm sure you hear so many stories from parents but the stories of the content that I hear my clients, you know, kids have come across on, on youtube. That is one thing that we literally only watch it when the parents are sitting right next to the child. 

Titania: But smart. 

Laura: Yeah.

Titania: Very good. 

Laura: But I, I like the taking a similar approach to other things that they're wanting to dabble in for those of us who have our, our kids kind of locked down on screen. Sorry, this is the last thing.

Titania: You can ask as many questions. 

Laura: Oh, I, I really do appreciate this conversation for those of us who do have our kids kind of locked down or who maybe the kids just aren't terribly interested or we're not up on it yet. So we haven't gotten them things like minecraft and Roblox. How can we navigate that from a place of not wanting our kids to feel left out of their generation? Because that is one thing that I, I feel interested about for my kids because they are going to this very small technology free school where they're not abnormal in their own setting, but the neighbor kids all play games and they don't even know what they are, you know. And so I kind of, and they will eventually go into a public school setting. So I feel kind of like, how can we help our kids, you know, navigate that well and consciously without just like having them play something so that they don't feel left out so that they can actually make a choice. Do I want to play this because I have FOMO or do I want to play this? Because it actually looks interesting? You know what I mean? 

Titania: Well, so you mentioned watching youtube as a family, you know, good news is if, if your Children want something or interested in something, they're going to talk about it, right? The kids are the best advocates for what they want. So if they come home and talking about, you know, so and so and so and so has Minecraft, I really want to play it and you can be like, cool, let's go to youtube as a family. Let's type in what is Minecraft or tell me about Minecraft and let's watch a video about it. Let's see what it is. 

Laura: Interesting, yeah. Okay. 

Titania: You know, and let's get to get to know because then your kids can kind of learn the lingo and feel like they're a part of it without actually downloading it. And then if you decide, you know, it's almost like cliff notes, right? 

Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. 

Titania: I wasn't allowed to watch Beverly Hills 90210, you know, in fifth grade when everybody else was, but you better believe I was looking through the TV guide to try to just get some nuggets so I could participate in the conversation a lot. 

Laura: Absolutely. Yes, I love that. Oh my gosh, that's so helpful. Thank you so much. Um, ok, so I just want to make sure you, you know that we finish up this conversation by letting our listeners know where they can go to get support. So can you drop kind of the name of your? I'll have the links and everything but some people are audio people and they like to hear it. 

Titania: I love it. I get it. I'm, I'm, I'm always multitasking and playing a podcast as I'm doing all day. So I get it. So yes, easy, easy to remember name, Parenting in a Tech World, what we're all doing right now. So if you go on Facebook and you go to the search bar and type in parenting in a tech world, you'll find my Facebook group. It's got close to 400,000 parents in it. There is so much support and information in there that, that we can help you with. And then if you do like to consume content like reels and be kept in the know about, you know, different teams, slang or trends or apps of what you should know. I'm always creating Instagram reels. So you can look at my name in the show notes and just Google search me and I'm, I'm on all the social places as my name. So yeah, that's some sources. 

Laura: Awesome. Thank you so much. I so appreciate the help you're giving this generation of parents and navigating this really tricky world. So thank you so much. 

Titania: Absolutely. Thank you for your platform and all that you do to help. 

Laura: We're in this together. 

Titania: Yes!

Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from. 

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout-out, and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family, and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.

All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!