Episode 8: Being Your Child’s Digital Coach // Chris McKenna from Protect Young Eyes

“A coach says, 'I am in this and I am with you. I am for you and not against you.'”

- Chris Mckenna

Healthy Screen Habit Takeaway

Show Transcript

Hillary (00:00):

When you read my guest today's bio, you would think this guy is part superhero. He describes himself as having relentless drive and never ending energy. When it comes to fighting for the safety and protection of children. He's the founder of protect young eyes, which is a leader in tech education and does presentations around the country teaching digital awareness in 2019, his testimony and the us Senate helped draft legislation of the earn it act, which is a significant bill, helping to curb online, sexual, helping to curb online child sexual exploitation. I am thrilled to introduce to the healthy screen habits podcast, Chris McKenna.

Chris McKenna (00:58):

Hi Hillary. It's really fun to be here.

Hillary (01:00):

Excellent. So Chris, in your bio, you include that besides your ceaseless store of energy, you have four amazing kids and your other loves include running spreadsheets and candy, which I love the diversity of this description. So, and I have to ask the question that everybody is now wondering, what's your favorite candy?

Chris McKenna (01:31):

Yeah, that's a good one. I'm a big fan of Skittles are really big for me. So I, you know, I have to preface all of that. I do. I love sweets. I'm just a big fan of things with sugar, which praise God, I have a fast metabolism. 

Hillary (02:34):

So you're a Skittles guy. That's that's it.

Chris McKenna (02:42):

Yeah. Yes. Twizzlers and Oreos are going to hit the top three there. Those are good ones. 

Hillary (02:48):

Very good. Very good. Okay. So Chris, like I said, I kind of view you as this. Like I picture you half the time with a Cape strapped on your back and every good superhero has a story of origin. And so what I'd like you to tell us is what led you to start your organization Protect Young Eyes?

Chris McKenna (03:11):

Yeah, that's good. I have a professional background that includes a couple of significant pivots. So for 12 years I was with Ernst and Young. And so I was a business risk consultant for Ernst and Young worked with big companies. Love it, great job. I've traveled the world. The Lord then called me into full-time ministry. So I left the business world and became a full-time junior high youth pastor because leading junior high kids is exactly the same as being a CPA, not, not even close. And I was also in charge of church finance and large capital campaigns just because they wouldn't let me leave that side of my world. Anyway, I share that because the time that I was a youth pastor was from 2009 to 2016. And that is the rise of portable internet. That is the rise of portable smart devices. And so of course, junior high is right in that sweet spot.

Chris McKenna (04:03):

And parents were asking me a lot of questions around what's this new Snapchat. If you can imagine a world where Snapchat was new or what's this app or that app. And so, because I have a consulting background, I solve problems. I see problems solve problem. That's just the way my brain works. That led to a closed Facebook group. I was doing research, dropping in PDFs  and turned it into sort of an accidental organization because a lot of families started coming my way you layer on top of all of that, Hillary is that I have a history where I struggled with pornography for years. So I had this sort of background motivation after I had my own epiphany that I needed to leave that and talk to Andrea about it and totally come clean and get coveted eyes and get accountability into my life. Right. I had been through all of that process. So it was a double motivation of, wow, parents have this need. Kids are carrying these risky devices. I don't want any of them to experience the devastation that I did from a porn addiction. We've got to do something like the convergence of those things came together to bear on Protect Young Eyes, which was really just website to start off, which then led to school saying, Hey, come talk to our kids and parents saying, Hey, come talk to us. And that led to hundreds of talks until COVID and here we are today, so, right,

Hillary (06:07):

Right. it makes sense where you hear your background as well as coming in with all the kids plus your children, and that leads your fuel, your fuel for the fight, because it's, that, that is what comes through. Most of all, I think in any of your posts, in any of your deliveries, you do have a personal connection with the content. And so it makes sense to me that you do indeed have roots in the cause of having fought in the trenches and moved forward. So I have to ask, What currently, what are some of your bigger concerns that parents are reaching out to you for?

Chris McKenna (06:59):

There's just a general division. I see right now between parents who allow and parents who have just hard stance won't, right. So there's this delay movement that I am trying to be a part of to delay the acquisition of smartphones and social media as long as possible. And that's a lot of the conversation that I'm having right now. So it's a conversation that has to have a lot of width to it though, because there are parents who have said no slow, or go, and I want to be a voice for all of them. I don't want to shame those who have said go nor do I want to, you know, seem like I'm overly restrictive. And the only way to be is to delay. I there's a few, few, few exceptions where I would say, okay, maybe a middle-schooler is ready for this or that. So there's a balance in this conversation because what they have protected is I want, I want to cast a wide net.

Chris McKenna (07:58):

Internet safety is a spot where there are some different opinions. There are some things that to me are, non-negotiable like, I am never going to be convinced because I understand adolescent neurology. And I understand middle schoolers that any middle schooler is ready for Snapchat. You can't convince me otherwise, like that's a no starter for me. And there's a few others like that, but the things that parents are coming to me for in 2021 are not that different from the things that they were coming to me before, you know, this year.  It's still pornography. It's still people that they don't know online. It's still the mental health aspect. Although I would say the mental health aspect, because now it's been made more complex with the isolation of COVID has become a very complicated conversation because people want to put it right in the column of, well, it's the device that's causing this. And it's never that simple, right? Depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation are always extremely complicated issues that bring with it all kinds of baggage of family history and origin that are complicated by the accelerants in social media. So it's just a really complicated conversation.

Hillary (09:08):

Well, I always say there's a lot of overlap in these areas. There's not, there's not necessarily one root thing, but there's yeah. There's room for, it's kind of like a Venn diagram where you've got the overlapping circles.

Chris McKenna (09:21):

Good way to say it. And so I would say COVID has really elevated both the screen time and the mental health conversation, but Hillary they've always been there. I think it's just that we are, I don't know why. It's almost like we're, we're so busy that we almost require tragedy to pay attention to reality. Like we need something as massive as a global pandemic for us to realize that there are certain things in screens that aren't good for kids or that certain types of kids who are spending 31,000 hours a year on average on Tik Tok that could be impacting them in some way, really? Like we needed the pandemic to tell us that.  Those are the sorts of things I scratch my head on.

Hillary (10:11):

So I have to ask the, the number one question we get asked, I understand your analogy of the the no slow and go, like you said, but when people come to you and say, what age should my child get a smartphone? Do you have an age?

Chris McKenna (11:12):

I do not have an age. I have a minimum. So there's a minimum that is involved in both though. What is the right age for social media and what is the right age for a smartphone? I think no sooner than 15, but that's accompanied by other attributes. So the way that I have the conversation and there's a whole post that we wrote on what's the right age to give my kids, social media, and it starts with attributes. It starts with, if I walk up to your son or daughter and stick out my hand and say, "Hi, I'm Mr. Chris, nice to meet you." If your son or daughter can kind of look me in the eye, can't kind of shake my hand and can kind of tell me his or her name. Then here she is not ready for social media. They need to be masters of the face-to-face before they are masters of the screen to screen.

Hillary (12:04):

 I love that.  I talk about that developmental step happening with young children as well. You want your child to be able to physically do a block tower, placing blocks one on top of another, before they go to a smart screen and are trying to do it on there.

Chris McKenna (12:22):

That's right. I might even ask that young man or young woman tell me three amazing things about you. If they can't articulate a bit of identity about who they are and what makes them them, then there's no way in heck that I want to throw them into a social media soup that is going to like a marinade go out of its way to attach its flavor of identity, which are all kinds of different identities to that very pliable, shapeable, vulnerable heart of that young teenager. Right? So there's some of those kinds of attributes that I asked on top of. And so if it's 15 and then you say no to some of those other things then fifteen's too young, like 15 is the basement, the bottom.  Of that kind of conversation, which is totally counter-cultural to how we see these things today. And yet it's totally consistent with how we treat everything that kids qualify for in the physical world. Right. Whether it's driving a car, college or anything. Right. So it's just a big disconnect. 

Hillary (13:29):

Right, right. Thank you for that. And when we come back, I'm going to ask Chris for his top tips that families can employ for keeping all children safe. But first we are going to take a little break.

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Hillary (13:59):

Today I'm speaking with Chris McKenna, the founder and CEO of protect young eyes, which is an organization that shows families, schools, and churches, how to create safer digital spaces. Chris, one of the reasons why I like the advice given on Protect Young Eyes so much, is it, you address these areas, not only of behavior and family habits, but you also really get down to the nitty gritty, basic basics of hardware. You were the first person I knew who spoke about the importance of the home router. And for those of us who are a little less well-versed on computer hardware, could you explain what a router is? And why is it important?

Chris McKenna (14:50):

It is the important digital device in any home. You're going to see the full force of my endless energy come out when it comes to this, because it is also the most underappreciated digital device in any home. It is the social distance champion before it was cool to social distance, Oh gosh, don't get me going on the router. It is the source of all of what we do online in most homes, right? It is.

Hillary (15:18):

So it's kind of like the neck of the funnel?  Is that what it does? I have to admit. I mean, for someone who is involved in healthy screen habits, I am remarkably unversed in the technical side of things.

Chris McKenna (15:31):

There are two devices that are typically confused, but are present in both homes and that's an, or in most homes, that's a modem and a router. Sometimes those are two different devices. Sometimes that's one and the same device, a modem will take that cable signal where your internet service provider sends you the signal and it'll turn it into something that your digital devices can use. And then the router takes that signal that can be used by digital devices and shoots it out around the house in a way that wirelessly can connect to those devices. So by controlling the source, you're controlling the access. Now of course that calls into question devices that can connect to the internet through data. Those would be smartphones and certain tablets like iPads that don't require wifi in order to get to the worldwide web. Okay. That's a separate conversation where you need to have parental controls on the devices, right? So we talk about controlling digital access in four layers: the relational layer, the locational layer, the wifi layer and the device layer, and all four are necessary in order to adequately protect internet- ready kids.

Hillary (18:04):

It kind of reminds me of like dressing for the cold, you know, how you have to have your base layer, then your thermal layer that I'm sure I'm getting this wrong. All the outdoors people are probably going that's out of order, but, and then the last layer is you want that, like, you know, weather resistant, so, Hmm. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you for the quick tech 101 lesson. And there's a conversation. Excuse me. There's a conversation that you have that is called the "10 before 10". And can you talk a little bit about that? 

Chris McKenna (18:44):

When it comes to the topic of pornography, which I am very comfortable talking about, ridiculously comfortable, and my kids will tell you, they hear me say the word all the time and they say the word all the time. It's no big deal in the McKenna house, but I want homes to have 10 significant conversations with their children before age 10. So it's just a catchy quantifiable way to be reminded of the importance of multiple conversations around a topic that is usually not that comfortable, whether it actually ends up being six or eight is not as important as being reminded that it has to happen multiple times before the age of 10.

Hillary (19:24):

Got you. So it's not specifically like 10 questions or 10 anecdotes to have. It's more the, the repeated like visiting of the topics so that it becomes a comfortable conversation to have, because ultimately what you want to do is you want to release the taboo around it. So when your children do stumble upon pornography or do start, having friends that are exposing them, whatever A: they know what they're looking at B: they know how to handle themselves and C: they know how to come to a trusted adult. So I, I was very intrigued by your 10 before 10, and that makes a lot of sense to me. I do like that. And I like that. Hopefully if you have enough of these conversations, when they stem from a place of calmness and conversation, then when you are thrown into that tornado of exposure, that will happen. It is not an if it is when it uh, when, if you have a child who is on the internet. Then they can come to you and expect a calm conversation as well. I like that a lot. So another one of the statements on your website reads be a coach, not a controller. And what does that phrase mean? You've got these really great little catchphrase buzzwords that stick with me. Well, but I think I kind of want to like, like tease that apart a bit, you know?

Chris McKenna (21:07):

Well, it's interesting you say that what you just said about teasing that apart a little bit, because we are in the process of I think it's going to be one of the most helpful things that we've ever created for families. And I've not told anybody this yet, so you're hearing it first. And that is a, a section of our website that by age and stage walks through what I call the PYE way, and whether you're a preschool elementary, middle, or high school, or it's going to walk through a stage.

Hillary (21:35):

P Y E stands for Protect Young Eyes.

Chris McKenna (21:39):

Yeah. And we're going to fit all of that into what we have come up with, which is called the digital trust framework. So that phrase comes from the digital trust framework. So after 1,100 presentations that we've done over the past six years, I've noticed that there's a pattern in families who tend to have kids who use technology well, and that pattern involves five things. It's: Copy me, Co-Play, Curiosity, Conversations and Coaching. And these are attributes that we describe in great detail in our Instagram account. And also in our app, they are not described clearly on our website, which is the problem that we are in the process of solving. But that last one to be a coach instead of a controller. So I tend to see things in columns and rows because that's how spreadsheets are organized.

Chris McKenna (22:35):

So things move left to right, right. I, I like frameworks. I like things that I can put things in that are sequential. The digital trust framework encourages parents to live in the middle of a continuum that has three sections. There is a over-protective, fear-based parent on the left. There is an overly permissive, apathetic parent on the right. And then there is a parent who uses digital trust in the middle. And you build digital trust with those five C words that I just listed off. The last one, being coaching. Kids know a parent and will always defeat a parent whose objective it is, is to control their kids online. And the reason for that is there's a reality that kids know more, and no matter what fence we build, if it's not built with a sense of care and of understanding and built with them, then they will continually tap on that fence until they find a weak spot and they will find, they will find that.

Hillary (23:34):

Right. It's that generational divide between digital natives and digital immigrants.

Chris McKenna (23:39):

The kids want to work with a coach, a coach routes for their team to succeed. A coach says, I, in this and I am with you. I am for you and not against you. And when we try to use our authority to control kids with technology, we inadvertently chase them into the places we don't want them to go. It's the proverbial, don't touch the wet paint. But if they know more about the paint than we do. Imagine now we're doubly, you know, doing the wrong thing here, right. And parents need to understand that whether you're 14 or 40, when someone tells you not to do something, what's your natural inclination?

Hillary (24:17):

Touch the paint.

Chris McKenna (24:18):

Touch the paint. Right. And so I want parents to see their role. We have non-negotiables and ultimately we're the parent, but sit down and talk to your kids as if you're rooting for them when it comes to technology, instead of just shaking a disappointed finger at them all the time.

Hillary (24:36):

Right. Right. And it be stepping into that manager like proactive role rather than the reaction, there are a few resources that I feel protect young eyes is absolutely amazing in providing. And one of the ones I would feel absolutely remiss if we did not plug or share a little bit about is the protect young eyes app. And can you explain what this is and what people can expect from it?

Chris McKenna (27:39):

Yeah, thank you. This was our pandemic pivot. So when the pandemic robbed us of hundreds of presentations in about three weeks, we decided to pivot towards something that was so ironic about what happened during COVID. His parents needed us more than ever, right? And we didn't have a channel for getting to them. And so we poured all of our remaining time and resources into building the protect app, which they can buy both in Google play and Apple app stores. And it takes most of what we know and puts it into bite-size little mini swipeable panels. Now we're at 500 and it's growing every week. We're adding more and more all the time. It has an emergency section for tough situations around predators, suicide, sexting and pornography. It has a trend section where we're dropping in updates that are happening. Little videos. We have a whole section of videos that were produced with teens and young adults that parents sit down and watch with their kids. So there's some really unique aspects to it. I don't know of any other set of video resources that exist, that you sit down and watch with your children that both talk to parents and kids about tough topics at the same time.

Hillary (28:50):

Yeah. And the videos are not the typical dorky videos. They're, relatable. So, I mean, of course your teenager is going to find, you know, holes to poke at anything, but it does foster to help foster those conversations that you're talking about are so important to have.

I think that is, it is such an amazing reachable resource that even addresses this concept of the digital divide that has become so apparent during the pandemic where certain people have more access to streaming and internet capabilities in their own home, or not. More people own did, you know, smartphones than actual computers in their home. And so by creating the app, you have extended your reach to nearly, I mean, the world you're, you're doing it.  One of the reasons why I love the protect young eyes app is it, it delivers these really important lessons in snippets. It's not a huge investment of time. And I think we are all, you know, we all feel compressed as far as how much time we can invest in things.

Hillary (31:21):

And I think that is where Protect Young Eyes excels is their ability to deliver a ton of information in a short amount of time. And another resource that I think does that amazingly well, I spoke about it on episode two with Smith Alley is the Smith and Chris' podcast. And you, yes, you are the Chris of the Smith and Chris combo. And I love your format. I always tell people they're kind of like, I I'm, I don't know if even this show is still on, but back in the day we used to watch like 20/20 at the, on Friday night, it says kind of like a recap, a real quick recap of the week. And you guys I say are the 20/20 of the the tech world. And cause you covered this. Yeah. You cover all types of just little news bits that have happened in the tech world. And you get this fascinating, like, uh, this fascinating play between you and Smith, where you are kind of have the dad perspective of what's going on and Smith is the teenage voice. So you've got the digital native digital immigrant. I just love, I just love what you guys are doing

Chris McKenna (32:40):

Well, thank you. we enjoy doing it. He's a great guy. I know, uh, glad you could talk to him. And I could see there was a, there was a temptation there for just a minute. And when you were describing the difference between us to call me the old guy and not the dad, I could sense it there, Hillary and that would have been okay. That's okay.

Hillary (33:06):

No, I, I don't think I could call you the old guy without knowing that you're clearly a peer, if not younger than me. We're going to take a short break. And when we come back, I'm going to ask Chris from Protect Young Eyes to share his healthy screen habit. So we can all get a little bit healthier with our own practice.

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Hillary (33:31):

We're back. I'm talking with Chris McKenna, founder and CEO of protect young eyes. So Chris, on every episode of the healthy screen habits podcast, I ask each guest for a healthy screen habit that our listeners can put into practice in their own home. Do you have one?

Chris McKenna (33:51):

I do. And it goes like this worry more about values than time. And what I mean by that is one of the most frequent questions that we receive is, " Chris, What's the right amount of time that my kids should be spending online? Or what's the right amount of gaming that my kids should be doing? It, or what's the right amount of Snapchat or Tik Tok? And people listening to this might be surprised. I hope they don't judge me too hard, but we don't really have hard and fast screen time rules in the McKenna house. We don't instead I've asked myself and Andrea and I have asked ourselves these, these questions, what are the attributes that we want to see in our kids without screens? So what do I want to see? I want to see a clean bedroom. I want to see regular showers. I want to see conversation happening at the dinner table.

Chris McKenna (34:43):

I want you to be a pleasant young man when you're hanging out with us or a young lady, right? I want to see a whole child and I want to see those things. Do you get your homework done when you're supposed to? Inthe middle of a game and I say, “Hey, could you quick take the trash out? Just pause, Smash Bros for a minute.” Do you say yes most of the time, if the answer to all of those sorts of value based questions, what do we value as a family? We value time together. We value taking care of our spaces. We value obedience. If those things are in check. And if you want two more hours on the switch on Saturday, amen and hallelujah. Like I think we totally stress ourselves out as parents trying to hit a number. And there's a couple of reasons for that. It's easy and measurable. We kind of feed ourselves the lie that if we hit a certain number, we're being a good parent. When I think we're doing more digital trust damage than good. Then then if we took a values-based approach to screen time, as opposed to a clock based approach. So that's what I mean. 

Hillary (35:52):

I like how you're considering the whole child and their experience. And because ultimately that is the person who is out there in the world as well. It's the whole child that gets put out there. It's if they're not put on a kitchen timer for manners out in the world

Chris McKenna (36:13):

That's right. And now I want to say because every single child is so different. That's, what's so difficult about our space. Hilary is that there isn't a prescription for a healthy internet family. There are tips and principles. And here's what I would say about the principle that I just communicated. It does not override what you know, to be unique about your child. If you have a child with highly addictive tendencies that you have seen even a small amount of screen time to be destructive to the whole child, then please do what's best for your kid. Right. And please adhere to 20 minutes. If anything more turns your child into a rage filled alter version of him or herself. Right? So I, I do want to caveat it a little bit with that because there is such variability in how technology impacts children. But I think for the most part, we can take a values based approach, but there are edge cases for everything.

Hillary (37:13):

Well, I'm, I have an educator's background. I was an educator for years before starting our own family. And that's this whole concept of individuation in education where you teach to the individual child. And that's, that's what you're speaking to where ultimately you do have this end goal result that you're working towards, but how you get there gets tailored based upon the needs of each individual child. That's right. Yes. Okay. If our listeners want to find out more about Protect Young Eyes, I will link it in the show notes and perhaps they could go check you out themselves @protectyoungeyes.com. Thank you so much, Chris, for being here today.

Chris McKenna (38:00):

You're welcome, Hillary. My pleasure. Okay.