reading

“If you’re tired of being upstaged by a small rectangle made of glass and plastic, Jonathan McKee has the advice you need! Whether your pre-teen can’t stop watching YouTube clips or Netflix or you’re worried your older teen’s most meaningful social interaction is with avatars on his phone or tablet, this book is a much-needed lifeline. Jonathan McKee also offers wise counsel for a variety of tough tech situations, and his suggestions are both innovative and completely doable.”

—Shaunti Feldhahn, Social Researcher, National Speaker, and Bestselling Author of For Women Only

“In a world where most parents feel frustrated by their kids’ enslavement to social media and technology, Jonathan provides plenty of practical ideas to help parents create a climate of communication where kids actually put their phones down and engage in meaningful conversation.”

“Jonathan McKee understands kids and this culture like few people I know. He is also passionate about helping parents find meaningful connection times with their kids. There are opportunities to engage, connect, and bond deeper on every page. The bonus questions at the end of every connection topic are easy to get parents and kids talking and sharing life. I highly recommend this book.”

—Jim Burns, PhD President, HomeWord Author of The Purity Code and Teaching Your Children Healthy Sexuality

“Ya gotta love a guy who, speaking from a thoroughly researched standpoint plus personal experience teaching parenting workshops and herding teens (but heaven forbid, not simultaneously), understands the magical powers of cookie dough in drawing polar opposite fam members together in a kitchen and opening up conversation. There’s nothing not to love about this book.”

—Debora M. Coty, Humorist, Speaker, Award-Winning Author of Numerous Inspirational Books Including Too Blessed to be Stressed

“52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid may have been written for parents, but it’s a must-read for all of us. Thankfully, Jonathan McKee doesn’t offer a hopeless message that all is lost unless we destroy our smartphones and turn our backs on technology. Instead, he gives us simple, memorable ways we can use our devices to strengthen our relationships instead of letting our tech toys run the family show. I’ll be giving copies to my kids who are raising my grands in our wired-up world.”

“If you’re tired of seeing just the top of your kid’s head bent over a smartphone, Jonathan McKee’s new book, 52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid, was written for you…and me…as he challenges parents (and grandparents) to examine the example we provide and encourages us we are not powerless to change the tide.… This book is one I’ll buy for my adult children as well, as my grandsons are on the journey into a world very different than the one in which I raised my sons. Jonathan’s book is long overdue.”

“Jonathan McKee has done it again! He’s provided a timely tool for any parent looking to understand their children better in an increasingly technological age. Jonathan’s candidness about his experiences with his own kids and the practical tips, questions, and research he’s provided are bound to give any parent who reads this book the tools they have been looking for to connect with their kids on a deeper level. This book definitely has me thinking about how to create a climate of conversation with my own kids. So put down your smartphone and pick up this book!”

“I regularly find that parents want help but don’t know where to find the good stuff. So much parenting advice is fear-based and impractical. But Jonathan’s gift to us is that he writes to parents from the intersection of hopeful parenting and practical ideas.”

—Mark Oestreicher, Author of Many Books, Including A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Teenage Brains and Understanding Your Young Teen

“Jonathan gives every parent a set of strategies to navigate the smartphone battlefield. 52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid provides you with three wins: connect with your kids in the on-line world they know and love, steer your whole family away from damaging habits, and become an informed model of proper technology use.”

—Hettie Brittz, Author of (un)Natural Mom—Why You Are the Perfect Mom for Your Kids

“Jonathan McKee has done it again! In 52 Ways to Connect with your Smartphone Obsessed Kid, he has given parents a roadmap for relationship success with their kids. Jonathan shares important research on the overuse of screens and devices while combining his love of teens, respect for parents, and easy humor in each practical scenario offered to solve this universal challenge. A winning combination!”

—Carrie Abbott, President, The Legacy Institute, Radio Host, Speaker and Author

“As someone who speaks professionally to companies about managing distractions in a constantly connected workplace, I’m continuously asked for a resource from people on how to handle these issues with their kids. Jonathan’s book is the resource I’ve been seeking for years. Not only will I recommend it, but I plan to adopt many of the strategies when I walk through the threshold of my home.”

“Parents’ concerns about their kids’ screen use often lead to anxiety-based control through contracts, apps, and filters. The result is usually alienated kids who haven’t learned self-control. Jonathan McKee will inspire and equip you with practical tools to build connection and influence with your kids, as you guide them toward true responsibility and wisdom with their cell phones and screens.”

–Lynne Jackson, Co-Founder of Connected Families and Coauthor of Discipline that Connects with Your Child’s Heart

Print ISBN 978-1-63409-707-9

eBook Editions:

Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-888-5

Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-889-2

Churches and other noncommercial interests may reproduce portions of this book without the express written permission of Barbour Publishing, provided that the text does not exceed 500 words or 5 percent of the entire book, whichever is less, and that the text is not material quoted from another publisher. When reproducing text from this book, include the following credit line: “From 52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.”

The author is represented by, and this book is published in association with, the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., www.wordserveliterary.com.

Published by Shiloh Run Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.shilohrunpress.com

Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

Printed in the United States of America.

Acknowledgments

I wouldn’t be writing this book if God hadn’t opened the door for me to do so. It’s only by His provision and grace that I am able to share any wisdom or experience. Anything good in this book is from Him, not me.

My wife, Lori, deserves so many thanks for this book. My kids grew up and headed off to school literally during the writing of this book. So any time pounding away at this project was time away from Lori during this new “empty nest” stage. Thanks for enduring through this process, Lori. You know you’re my favorite!

Thanks to Kelly at Barbour Publishing, who spearheaded this book and is the one who really made it happen. Thanks for what you do, Kelly! I love working with you and look forward to our future projects.

Thanks to Greg Johnson, my agent and friend. You rock! I wouldn’t even have this opportunity with Barbour had you not introduced us.

Thanks to Colleen Johnson, Phillip Ball, Michelle, Layton Dutton, and many of my other blog readers for helping me brainstorm about many of these ideas. It’s such a help to hear from parents and youth workers who are on the front lines daily, navigating real life with teenagers. Thanks also to the countless readers who screened this book for me in its early stages. Your feedback was priceless.

And no thanks to you, Pip, my dog, for incessantly getting up from your spot, making noise, constantly disobeying, and driving me nuts as I tried to write this book. Yet you watched over Lori when I traveled, so you totally redeemed yourself!

Being Smarter Than the Smartphone

“I can’t get my daughter to look up from her phone and actually talk with me.”

I hear this almost every weekend as I finish teaching one of my parent workshops. Moms and dads approach me and ask me how to connect with their tech-obsessed kids. Not so coincidentally, I’m experiencing the same struggle with my own kids. The smartphone is becoming a growing source of frustration, vying for everyone’s attention.

Two hours later, I’ll speak to a room full of teenagers. As I hang out with them afterward, inevitably I’ll hear, “My mom and dad don’t understand. All they do is nag me all the time. It’s not like I’m out dealing drugs or driving drunk!”

It’s interesting being in the unique position of hearing regularly from parents and from teens. Week after week, I hear the same thing. Parents regularly complain, “My kids spend too much time staring at their stupid phones!” And teenagers always protest, “My mom and dad won’t let up about my phone!”

Last month my youngest daughter asked me honestly, “Dad, you don’t think I spend too much time on my phone, do you?”

She had heard all the hype about “too much time on screens.” You probably have too:

• Today’s thirteen- to eighteen-year-olds spend about nine hours (eight hours, fifty-six minutes) on entertainment media per day, excluding time spent at school or doing homework. Common Sense Media did the extensive research in 2015. When you add up the time today’s teens devote to TV, music, social media, video games, and all the personal time on their mobile devices, the numbers add up to more than a full-time job. And guess which device they’re clocking the most hours on?

• Screens hinder sleep. In a recent study by the National Sleep Foundation, more than half of parents said their fifteen- to seventeen-year-olds routinely get only seven hours of sleep, or less, though the recommended amount for teens is eight and a half to ten hours. Why? Sixty-eight percent of these teens keep an electronic device on all night.

• Screens can make your grades drop. A brand-new study by Michigan State University followed five hundred MSU students, monitoring their academic performance as professors competed with smartphones, laptops, and other devices to get participants to engage. “The more they relied upon their gadgets as a distraction—even if it was to undertake quasi-relevant activities such as reading the news—the further their grades fell,” the study states.

• Screens are a new playground for bullying. Gossip has just been given a turbo boost. Roughly 43 percent of teens have been harassed online (with about 25 percent of them claiming to have suffered more than one instance of it). Girls are twice as likely to be victims of cyberbullying, compared to boys, and, sadly, they are twice as likely to commit it, as well. Not surprisingly, kids who’ve endured cyberbullying are much more likely to attempt suicide than those who haven’t. And parents are overwhelmingly unaware of the harassment their kids suffer. Studies have uncovered a rather large gap between kids’ experiences and parents’ perception. While at least one-third of students are frustrated by the reality of cyberbullying, a mere 7 percent of parents say they’re worried about it affecting their children.

• Screens create a pressure to be liked in a world where many females already feel self-conscious about their looks. In fact, some researchers studying this struggle to keep up the perfect image online have observed low self-esteem, loneliness, and deep levels of unhappiness as a direct result of using the web. A growing number of teenagers use screens for sexting. Researchers from Drexel University recently surveyed college students, asking them if they had ever sent or received “sexually explicit text messages or images” when they were under age eighteen. Fifty-four percent said yes.

• Screens provide so many distractions, experts now claim kids shouldn’t own them until they are thirteen years old.

So is this just a bunch of helicopter parents worrying too much, or are some of these legitimate concerns?

If I am being completely honest, I’d have to say that a smartphone can be a help or a hindrance. It just depends on who owns whom.

A phone can be a remarkably valuable tool. Let’s face it: all the people who wrote those articles mentioned above warning us about the dangers of the overuse of smartphones and social media own smartphones. I own a smartphone. I love it. (I just recently used it to find out the name of the song playing in a restaurant—thanks Shazam!)

The answer is simple: tech is a great tool, but a lousy crutch. The moment we all become socially dependent on tech…Houston, we have a problem.

“Think about it,” I challenge teenagers at school assemblies, “how many times have you sat in a circle of your friends and none of them is talking because their heads are all down staring at their phones?”

Smartphones can sometimes distract us from the person sitting right in front of us—often a person we care about far more than the endless stream of posts we’re scrolling through at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong: I believe smartphones can actually help people enhance their personal relationships. Think about how you use it. While eating your breakfast, you can see the new baby pic your best friend posted from a different state. You can text your kids from work to tell them what time you’re picking them up. You can call your spouse while driving home. Phones can actually help us connect.

But tech becomes scary when it’s our primary source of interpersonal communication. Reason being? Tech actually can hinder normal face-to-face communication.

I’ve been researching youth culture and technology for decades, and I’ve encountered countless studies about young people spending too much time with technology. I keep using the word technology simply because, if your kids are like mine, then they aren’t just staring at their phones, they are also clocking in hours looking at other screens. Even today’s video game systems offer interactive and chatting components. All over the country, teens and tweens are sitting in front of TV screens, wearing headsets, and talking with people they’ve never even met face-to-face as they explore a virtual world together. This may scare parents on many levels, but one by-product of all this screen communication is that the more time young people spend communicating via texting and IM, the less they recognize real-life face-to-face social cues.

For example, in 2014 UCLA did an eye-opening study in which they observed kids who were unplugged and media-free for five days at an outdoor camp. By the end of the five days, these kids were better able to understand emotions and nonverbal cues than kids who were plugged into a normal media diet.

What does this mean? It simply suggests that real-life, face-to-face conversations are superior. Yes, even when we use “emojis”—part of the digital slang of the new millennium—digital communication isn’t as powerful as good ol’ fashioned face-to-face.

Similarly, researchers witnessed this reality clearly in a bonding experiment in which people engaged in conversation with friends four different ways: in person, and through video chat, audio chat, and instant messaging. As you can probably imagine, bonding was measured and differed “significantly across the conditions.” The greatest bonding occurred during the in-person interaction, followed by video chat, audio chat, and then IM, in that order. Good ol’ fashioned face-to-face communication always wins.

When today’s young people focus on digital connections as their primary social connections, the results are always negative. Research shows that many young people today base their own self-worth and value on online affirmation. The result is too much time trying to impress an online audience and a decline in intimate friendships. In other words, many young people today are substituting true friendships with online “friends.”

This even has ramifications in the dating world. A new study by researchers at Stanford and Michigan State found that couples who met online are less likely to stay together long term than those who meet off-line.

So how can parents help teenagers swing the pendulum back toward real-life, face-to-face connections?

Tech Enabled

We need to help teenagers move from being tech dependent to tech enabled. Phones are really convenient tools for helping us communicate with people outside the room, but they become a hindrance when they interfere with our connection with people inside the room.

In my “How to Be Smarter Than Your Smartphone” school assembly, after hashing through many of these realities with teens, I always challenge them:

If Mom or Dad accuses you of spending too much time with tech, don’t argue. Instead of getting defensive, just prove it with your actions. Slide your phone into your pocket, go hang out with your friends, and talk with them face-to-face. In fact, try this:

• Log off social media for a day and just hang with your friends outside.

• Go on a kayak ride with that girl/guy you talk with so well.

• When you see that beautiful sunset, resist the temptation to snap a pic, find the perfect filter, caption it, and post it on Instagram. Instead, just enjoy the sunset! Maybe even look up and thank the Creator of that beautiful scene. Then pull out your phone and text your mom, telling her when you’ll be home.

Our kids will never learn how to be responsible with their phones if we ourselves are slaves to our own devices. It doesn’t matter how many lectures we give or how hard we try to teach what we know; we can only reproduce who we are.

I need to hear this just as much as anyone else. As a parent of three, I’ve failed at this countless times and am regularly learning hard lessons. (I should be brilliant by now, with all the mistakes I’ve made!) And that’s the key: learning from our mistakes, letting them make us better, and then adjusting our behaviors. I call this “adaptive parenting.”

As parents, we have the unique opportunity to demonstrate how to use technology responsibly and effectively. As imperfect humans with a phone in our pocket, we can model how to responsibly use our devices for entertainment, for knowledge, and as a tool for connection. More importantly, we can show them how easy it is to actually turn off the TV, set our phone or tablet aside as we enter the dining room, and enjoy a meal together uninterrupted. We can easily keep our phone in our pocket when we’re hanging out with friends. We can turn it off when we go away on a three-day camping trip—where we’re without a Wi-Fi signal—and actually survive!

This book is full of ideas that may help families look up from their devices and enjoy face-to-face relationships.

Before Diving into This Book

As you read through these fifty-two ideas, you’re going to start noticing some common denominators. In fact, some people may be tempted to discount some of them and say, “Eating a family dinner is pretty much the same thing as taking your daughter to coffee!” I’d be quick to reply, “Yes, and taking your kid hunting is really similar to going on a bike ride. They’re both outdoor activities that catalyze a climate of continuous conversations.” (Nice use of alliteration, huh?) But you’ll find these common denominators quite necessary—and extremely helpful—for two reasons:

1. Each of these ideas presents unique characteristics and advice. In both the “Two-Player Mode” and the “Netflix-Binge Bonding” chapters, you’ll notice each setting involves parents actually using technology to connect with their kids. Similarly, you may notice several chapters helping you use questions to engage kids in conversation (“Fingertip Questions,” “The My Big Fat Greek Wedding Method,” et al.). Each of these chapters will provide new tools you can use for these specific situations. Besides…

2. Your kids’ tastes are going to vary. One kid may really respond to late-night splurges but may never be interested in stopping for frozen yogurt on the way home from school. Another may be open to no tech at the table but would freak out at the mere suggestion of a media fast, especially regimented No-Tech Tuesdays. If your kids are like mine, they’ll be unique in taste and temperament. The more ideas you have in your arsenal, the better.

So enjoy these ideas, most of which I’ve drawn not only from years of research, but from my years out on the front lines as an imperfect parent who wanted to connect with his kids. These are many ideas that worked for my wife and me. I hope some of them will be a help for you as well.

The Coviewing Connection

Way back in 2004, I read about a California mom who learned the hard way that she didn’t know as much about her kid as she thought she did.

Roberta “Bobbi” MacKinnon died from injuries after being flung from a playground merry-go-round propelled by a rope tied to the back of a vehicle. Bobbi and her friends had watched the MTV show Jackass and decided to try to copy their merry-go-round stunt. The result was fatal.

Praise for 52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid

Acknowledgments

Contents

Being Smarter Than the Smartphone

Tech Enabled

Before Diving into This Book

1

The Coviewing Connection