What Boundaries Should Christian Parents Have on Technology?
Nothing is more dangerous to your child's well-being in your home than the devices you own. Once upon a time, we were worried about our kids breaking limbs. They climbed too high in a tree, hurt their head because they biked around without a helmet, or got lost because they strayed too far from home. Statistically, those things are less of a risk, but the most dangerous place for your child is online.
The Anxious Generation book and movement have raised the alarm about how technology is harming our kids. Check out the book and resources to do a deep dive into the far-reaching impacts of the overuse of technology on our children. There are many ways technology is stunting our children's growth and development and exposing them to untold harm.
We know that adolescent mental health has decreased dramatically in the Western world over the past 20 years, which is directly connected to the invention of the smartphone and young children having unlimited access to them. Smartphone and social media use negatively impact attention, sleep, and behavior, and can lead to addiction. For girls, this is even worse and is associated with body image issues, raising their risk of sexual harassment and predation.
Boys are giving up real-life experiences for endless hours playing video games, stunting their development, and leading to addiction. Pornography exposure ubiquitous, kids are encountering porn at young ages, and in unexpected places such as at school, on the bus, playground, and more. With the whole world in our kids' pockets, exposure is almost unavoidable, and it is hard to predict when or where your child may encounter inappropriate content.
Sadly, this summary of just the basics of the crisis that youth are facing only starts to barely scratch the surface of the ways that technology is damaging their generation. As parents, we have to band together and start taking action for the sake of our children and their children. As these technologies were invented, we did not know how they would change us, but now the information is rolling in and demands we respond.
In our family, we are navigating this bumpy road of guarding our kids from the wide, wide, endless world of the internet and social media while not having our kids completely isolated. Finding some middle ground with some common-sense guardrails is possible. I've found that revisiting the boundaries you have in place often is essential, as our kids are smart, and they find workarounds. Life is busy, so getting lax on protecting them from the endless stream of technology in and out of our homes is easy.
Delay Smartphone Ownership for Your Child
If you don't do anything else regarding protecting your kids from technology, doing this is the most critical guardrail your kid needs. Do not buy your child a smartphone until a minimum age of sixteen, but waiting until eighteen is preferable. Their developing brains cannot handle the endless possibilities a smartphone offers in their pockets. It hijacks their lives and personalities, disrupts their development, and exposes them to countless dangers.
There are so many ways to allow your child to communicate with you and others without using a smartphone. The first thing we implemented when our kids got old enough to stay home alone was a regular landline house phone. That way, they could call us if they had an emergency while I was at the grocery store.
The next option we have used is an old-school flip phone with no internet access. It takes 10 minutes to send one text message. There are no apps, no browser, and no frills. They can call us or send a short text if they are out of the house and need to contact us. The best part is that it is inexpensive; the service costs us $7 a month, so we aren't out hundreds of dollars if our kid loses the phone. This encourages them to call to communicate, as even texting is cumbersome, and there is no way for them to wander onto websites or apps we aren't monitoring because the phone does not support these features.
Honestly, we all want to give our kids a phone because we are anxious that if we send them out into the world, something could happen to them, and we want to be able to reach them. A basic phone without apps allows our kids to contact us anywhere they need to go, but it also guards them from the dangers included on a smartphone.
Delay Social Media Usage
Social Media is designed to be highly addictive, particularly for teens. Still, almost any adult will attest to how quickly, after checking their phone, they find themselves mindlessly scrolling their social media feeds. We can protect our teens from being sucked into this void by delaying social media usage until they are at least sixteen.
Social media raises your teens' risk of depression, anxiety, OCD, worsens ADHD, body dysmorphia, hurts mental health, and more. It makes them a greater target for bullying and sexual harassment, can expose them to pornography, or make them a target for sexual predators. It's the Wild West of the internet, and it's created with addiction as its end goal.
I know a 'peer pressure' narrative makes kids feel they need to have their own social media accounts. Still, we would not allow our kids to start driving at 13 just because everyone else is doing it, nor should we let them have social media accounts before they are developmentally ready to navigate such a challenging responsibility. Find ways to band with other parents and encourage them to delay giving their children this privilege to normalize these guardrails for our kids.
Filter and Limit Media Use in Your Home
If you own a smart TV, laptop, tablet, smartphone, video game console, or other form of technology that uses the internet, you must monitor these items and how they are being used in your home.
We installed a filter on our internet router for our whole house that blocks inappropriate content, violence, profanity, and more. We have time limits in place for video game and TV usage. We do not allow tablets, laptops, or phones in our kids' rooms. They have to be used in shared spaces. We are vigilant about monitoring shows, YouTube channels, movies, and video games to ensure they are not watching things that are too violent, coarse, or sexual. As your child starts reading independently, you must monitor books for the same things.
Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
We want to do our best as parents to ensure our kids are exposed to pure, noble, lovely, and admirable things. In a world full of coarse content, it takes considerable intentionality to ensure they are not spending their time influenced by dark images and ideas.
Teach Your Kids How to Guard Their Hearts
Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it."
As parents, we must monitor technology use because the images, games, conversations, stories, and ideas it presents to our children have the power to change their hearts. We must show them how to guard their minds, bodies, and souls because from them comes who they are.
In our home, this has looked like boundaries to help keep us all safe, but also many intentional conversations about why we have these boundaries and how to be wise regarding media. My husband takes my boys aside to work through books such as Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today's Young Kids. He does Bible studies with them to help them understand the value of their minds, purity, and what God's way looks like, and he checks in with them to ask how they are doing.
In moments when our kids stumble, we've administered consequences, but we've also seen it as a chance to dive deeper into the state of their hearts. Equip them with more tools, more language, and answer their questions. We talk openly with them about sex, temptation, pornography, addiction, and more because we want to be their safe place as they grow to have to navigate these things on their own as adults. We delay exposure so we have more time to equip them and instill in them strong values so they are prepared to protect themselves when the time comes, so that they can make their own choices about media consumption.
Originally published June 23, 2025.
