Parenting in a Tech World

Buckle up, we are headed straight into the torturous world of parenting in the tech age. Ever feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle with screens, apps, and the internet? We hear you! Join us, Brianna Rooney and Taylor Bradley, as we pull back the curtain on our personal struggles and triumphs with raising kids in this digital jungle. From navigating screen time battles to dealing with the dark side of online content, we’re sharing it all.

In this episode, we get real about the pressures of tech on our kids. We’ll talk about the hard truths, the fights, and the scary realities that come with raising children who are more tech-savvy than we could ever imagine. How do you keep them safe without scaring the absolute bejesus out of them? We’ve got some stories that’ll make you laugh, cry, and maybe even scream a little.

Plus, we’re sharing insights from a Facebook group called “Parenting in a Tech World” that’s been a lifesaver for Taylor. Spoiler: Kids are smarter than you think when it comes to tech, and they’ll find ways around every control you set up. But don’t worry, we’ve got tips, advice, and some uncensored real talk to help you navigate these choppy waters.

If you’re ready to reclaim control, protect your kids’ innocence, and laugh through the chaos, this episode is for you. Grab your favorite drink, cozy up, and let’s tackle this tech beast together. You’re not alone, and it’s time to own your journey and unleash your inner badass. 

Creators & Guests

Host

Brianna Rooney

I am the CEO and Founder of TalentPerch, Techees Recruiting, The Millionaire Recruiter, and now Thriversity. My vision for the last 14 years has been to change the way the World views the Recruiting Industry. Even though I have two little kids, I remain firm on maintaining a work-life balance. I believe you can be as successful at work, as you are at home. You don’t have to choose. The choice is, to be present and rock everything you do!

Host

Taylor Bradley

Chief Strategy Officer, Talent Leader, Advisor, Podcast Co-host. I specialize in turning DIRT to GLITTER ✨

Producer

Kait Vickers

What is Takeover Unfiltered?

Want the raw, unapologetic realities of reclaiming your life? Then tune into the Takeover Unfiltered podcast hosted by yours truly, Brianna Rooney, The Millionaire Recruiter, and Taylor Bradley, The Humble Hustler. We're pulling back the curtain on our personal lives and sharing the ups, downs, and everything in between. From navigating relationships to juggling self-care routines, we're laying it all out on the table. We're all about taking control and making sh*t happen.

Expect raw, candid talks, seasoned with uncensored language. It's time to own your journey, embrace the chaos, and unleash your inner badass. Buckle up, because we're about to take you on a wild ride to self-discovery and empowerment. But don't worry, we're still dishing out some valuable insights into the recruiting world. It's all about finding that balance between work and play, and we're here to show you how it's done.

Ready to kick ass and rewrite the rule book? Grab your favorite drink, cozy up, and join us for some real talk you won't want to miss!

You have to protect that because we know you're not ready for all of that. We also know you can't handle the truth because you're too young, and it'll scare the absolute [__] out of you. Who knows what trauma and doors that could open up? Are you ready for the raw, unapologetic realities of reclaiming your life? Me too. So tune into the Takeover Unfiltered podcast hosted by yours truly, the millionaire recruiter, and the humble hustler. We're pulling back the curtain on our personal lives and sharing the ups, downs, and the in-between. From navigating relationships to juggling self-care routines, we are laying it all out on the table. You're welcome.

We're all about taking control and making [] happen, so expect raw, candid talk seasoned with some, of course, uncensored language. It's time to own your journey, embrace the chaos, and unleash your inner badass. But buckle up because we're about to take you on a wild ride to self-discovery and empowerment. Don't worry, we're still dishing out valuable insights into the recruiting world. It's all about finding that balance between work and play, and we're here to show you how it's [] done.

Ready to kick some ass and rewrite the rule book? Grab your favorite drink, cozy up, and join us for some real talk. You are not going to want to miss this. Hey hey hey, Takeover Unfiltered!

How are you doing?

I am awesome. What the listeners didn't get to hear, and as a reminder, we are not just Talent Taker Unfiltered. We definitely have talent leaders on here, but we are really taking it way beyond our careers. We're wives, well, I'm a wife. I'm a significant other, a mom, a professional, a friend, a daughter—like all those things. And that stuff does bleed into work. So yeah, I'm really excited about all the different topics we've got brewing. Listeners, if you remember, we're getting a little racier here, so if you want some good goods, no matter what it is, please let us know. We have quite a list, and I'm excited. But what the listeners didn't hear before we recorded was this is a subject that definitely gives Taylor anxiety. So, Taylor, go for it. Parenting in a tech world.

The inspiration for this episode is, I think, if you're any parent, it doesn't matter how old your kids are. They could be three; they could be thirteen. You're parenting in a tech world, and you're having to deal with the TVs, the iPads, the phones, all that []. My kids are ten and six, soon to be eleven and seven, and this is very real in my life. I'm in a Facebook group called Parenting in a Tech World because these kids are smart as []. That's the other thing; they're smart. Like anything you think you know about tech, I guarantee you they're better at it unless you're obviously like an engineer or do something tech-related for a living. These kids, there's apps to get around the safety apps that you put on phones. They can hack it; they can get around it. It's insane.

That group has given me a lot of insight. What I really joined the group for was I had this fight going on with my family, my immediate family. My husband and I agreed that we wouldn't get our son a phone until he was twelve. Now all his friends have phones. Everybody's got a phone, and I knew there was going to be some pressure there. But my husband got a new phone and gave our son his old one. Now, it's still attached to his number.

Wait, without your permission? Like he just gave it to him, and you found out?

Yeah. No, it was bad. He didn't give him a new phone; he gave him his old one that's attached to his number. So, if someone calls my husband, if I call my husband, it rings on that other phone. But what it was supposed to be for was to just FaceTime his friends so they could play Roblox together and chat. That's what it was supposed to be for. I'm like, okay, well, I can accept that. I got over it when it was a fight, but I got over it. Then it evolved into not being just that. They were playing games on the phone, YouTubing on the phone, and I just lost it. I was like absolutely not. I had a fit on everybody one day. This was probably two weeks ago.

What really inspired the fit that I had was that I had been on that group and seeing these horror stories about parents, kids getting exposure to something on YouTube. This woman was speaking about how her nine-year-old son had been doing something on their computer or phone and he'd been on YouTube and porn popped up.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. It gives me chills to actually say it—gross chills. This woman was like her son saw the worst of the worst. Think about the worst things that you could see. Now, having not had the sex talk with your kids because they're nine, this poor woman was like it's a thing now. So many women chimed in and were like something similar happened to me. They shared their experiences—therapy, etc. It had rocked their kids' worlds.

For that specific woman who put up the post, her son became addicted. He was trying to find ways to look it up all the time. It's very real. Other women shared how their daughters saw things and are now scarred for life. Seeing such things when you know nothing about sex can be traumatizing.

Oh, 100%.

It's real. That's why I lost it and flipped out. I said, "This is what I'm talking about." My husband thinks I'm an over-researcher, an over-analyzer. I read a lot, read the news a lot, and I definitely have developed paranoia because of things I've read. But this is the world that we live in, so I don't think it's unjustified paranoia. This is the reality of the world that we live in, and I'm trying to protect my kid. Parenting in a tech world is scary with the pressures to give your kids a phone, YouTube, ads, and the security settings. There are ways to get around them, plus they've got their little friends helping them get around it. The exposure this gives kids to things we weren't ready for as parents, very early on.

My son has a friend who knows what semen is, knows what periods are. He's ten. Why does he need to know all of that? His mom said he's known about it for years. I'm just like make it make sense because I don't understand. For me, anything my ten-year-old knows, my six-year-old is going to know. 100%.

Yes, exactly.

My three-year-old doesn't need to know about all that. It's things he wouldn't have visibility or access to, but because it's so accessible now to kids through technology, it's on their radar at an early age. They talk about it, and it becomes something I have to address that I wasn't ready to. This is why, when you led the episode with this gives me a bunch of anxiety, I wanted to give the listeners the context of why. These are weekly battles. How much tablet time do you give them? How much TV time?

I met a mom at the gym whose boys and my boys clicked. She gives her kids no tablet or technology during the school year. In the summer, they get one hour a day of either TV or tablet time. That's it. One hour a day. That's extreme, and great, but think about the average kid and what they're getting. That's really strict. Good for her.

I know. I was like what do you do with them all day?

How do you entertain them all day? I struggle with not wanting to be their source of entertainment. I think I've done a good job of raising kids who can entertain themselves, but even they can only do that for so long without their tablets and technology. They get bored, which is a trigger word for me.

Oh, 100%. I tell my kids only boring people get bored. Bye-bye.

Yeah, the whole I'll give you something to do. Hey, why don't you go do this chore? Actually, I need help with laundry. No, I'm fine. I'll go jump on the trampoline. How interesting. You found something to do, didn't you?

Exactly.

Constantly comparing yourself. When that mom told me that, I was like, oh [__], I need to do better. I'm giving my kids way too much time. There's the mom guilt again.

Yep, we were just talking about that.

Just talking about that. If you guys haven't listened to the episode of Mom Brain Moving Into Work Brain, definitely do that with Haley O'Neal. It was amazing. We were just talking about the guilt. Thanks for reaching out. We're going to do an episode just on that. How do you stop that [__]? It's real. With the tech stuff, and Diego's ten, we have similar aged kids. I got seven. He was the last kid allowed to play video games. I don't have a console in our house. He does Roblox on his computer. This was just as of last November. He hasn't really had it for too terribly long in comparison. He got obsessed with it quickly. I don't want...

Here's the thing though. He's always good at making sure he does his chores. Whether it's homework or chores, he does it fast so he can go play Roblox. It's like, well, he's doing what he needs to do, so here's his reward. At the same time, it's not good for him. I put another stipulation on it. I have four separate workouts for him that take 20 minutes. I said, do these workouts, and then you can play. I'm adding things to his plate. He doesn't complain because he knows he gets to do this, but it's like, God, you want to teach them responsibility. You want them to get rewards, do what they want to do so they don't rebel. That's its own separate conversation. It's really hard. I try to stay firm on not using iPads unless we're traveling. When we're on a plane or a long car ride, they know they can have unlimited time. We drive to Tahoe; it's seven hours. They get super excited because they know they can have it. They kind of have unlimited time. We have to drive an hour, then they get it, and the last hour, they have to turn it off.

Yeah.

They know. But it's like, the interesting point to the woman you were talking about who's so strict with it, it's almost like, are their kids upset? I think about the sugar thing. I am an ice cream [__]. I love ice cream, which means I don't keep it in my house because I will eat it all. I'll go crazy. But it's like, if I don't have it, I don't crave it. The more you have it, the more you crave it. Is technology the same thing?

Yeah. Then separately, this is another thing. You don't want them to feel isolated. That's what me and that mom were talking about. Her husband even fought her on giving them an hour. We're both like, wow, that's really strict. Her husband fought her on that. He was like, you're spoiling them. She only wanted less.

Oh [__].

Yeah. He didn't want them to feel isolated because Roblox gives them something to talk about. That's so true because my boys and her boys bonded over talking about Roblox. They made friends about Roblox. The other thing that's very real based on my story is the battling with your spouse on what they think is normal. Aaron, my husband, grew up playing video games. He grew up with his friends going to each other's houses before school to play Call of Duty. They're functioning normal members of society. I'm hyper-sensitive to tech for all the reasons I outlined. I think he just thinks about it like, well, the only fear would be them ending up playing video games in their mom's basement for the rest of their lives. Me and my friends proved that that's not going to happen just because they play video games. For me, it's not even about the screen time. It's about the exposure to things they're not ready for and what that could do to them mentally, what doors that could open up.

That was when I had my come-to-Jesus with all of them. I sat them all down and said, I'm trying to protect you. I need every single one of you to [] understand this. I didn't say [], but that was what my head was like. All of you, all three of you, and I have two sons and a husband. I'm pointing at each one. I'm just trying to protect you. That's where I think it really sunk in for my husband. I'm not doing this to be controlling. I'm not doing this to be some strict mom. I'm trying to protect them. I'm trying to protect their innocence. I'm trying to keep them young. They're not ready for all of that stuff. They're not mature enough to handle it. They wouldn't know what it is. They don't know what to do with it. I've seen all these requests on Roblox. I turned off all that functionality, but the random people requesting...

That's what I don't like. That's what scares the [__] out of me.

Yeah. They're talking in the game. I like that because it's teaching them how to be social while playing. That aspect I like. Diego goes, "Hey, I just met Taylor. He's the cousin of someone I go to school with." I was like, whoa, how did you find that out? Did you ask where you live? I'm thinking of all the people posing to get to kids. Now, oh my God, that just scares the [] out of me. How can you use voices? They don't know everything that happens because we don't want to scare the [] out of them. To your point earlier, it's a scary [__] world. We want them to be prepared, but we don't want them to live in a bubble or be terrified their whole lives. Going back to your paranoia, we don't want them to have that.

Exactly. We have to protect that because we know they're not ready for all of that. We also know they can't handle the truth because they're too young, and it'll scare the absolute [__] out of them. Who knows what trauma and doors that could open up?

I feel like I have things like that from my past. I know something happened to my mother, and she was hyper-sensitive about us being alone with men and strangers. She was very honest with us about it. I lost my mom when I was 15, and she was sick for eight years. I knew this even before then. That's how young she was very honest with us. She was very much like that. I think it is definitely, and I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I definitely have been hyper-sensitive to all things with regards to sex and males my entire life. I don't want to open that door up for my kids when they're not ready for it. They're not ready for me to explain it. I would die if they saw porn, and I had to explain what those specific things were and why people do it. It looks like they're being hurt. In some of the cases for that woman, they were, because there's different types of porn.

Yes, exactly.

It just opened up a door that I'm trying to protect y'all from. You need to just trust me. I'm not trying to control you. You will have freedoms and flexibility, but this is it. It was crazy because I never get that way about things, and they all were like, okay. Nobody pushed back. It was like, okay, she's really serious. I'd been telling them we had these rules, and that was the moment I lost it. I said, this is affecting our family dynamic. It's not acceptable to me. I felt very strongly about it, and I never feel so strongly about things like that unless I do. They all took me very seriously, and it hasn't been an issue since. You have to protect your kids and try to keep them young. I would rather keep my kids innocent and have them be, as bad as it is to say, made fun of for not knowing things or not being on social media. My son has friends who have social media already. He's not going to have social media for a very long time. There's no reason for it.

Oh my God.

Yeah, they don't need it. You don't need to tag your kids on Facebook.

Do people do that? Oh my God.

Yes, they do.

Oh my God, that's its own separate thing. For everyone that is divorced and co-parenting, that's a whole other subject. I'm very happily divorced and happily co-parenting. He's great. It's funny because I feel like my ex-husband is more sensitive to a lot of things. For example...

I feel like he wants our daughter to just go play in the park. I took all of my being not to smack him, to be very honest with you, not to just be like, are you [__] kidding me? Our little girl is learning how to defend herself. Screw this.

But over at his house, they're on YouTube a lot, it seems like. They are not on YouTube at my house. If so, it's insanely minimal. If I catch them, I'm like, hey, no, you said you wanted to go on Roblox. It does worry me because some of the [] that comes out of their mouth, I go, how do you know that? Where did you learn that? He's like, YouTube. It's always YouTube. My God, [] YouTube.

It's definitely scary. Just recently, I was asked...here for listeners, as they followed our journey, I'm super transparent, very honest. Both of us are. Ask me a question you don't want to know the answer to. My son goes, "What's a virgin? What's a virgin?" From Hocus Pocus, you're a virgin. I was like, "I'll talk to you about that soon." He was like, "When?" I'm like, "I don't know. I'm going to reserve the rights until 13, but we'll see." Because again, I have no idea when you're supposed to talk to him about sex. Probably middle school, I would imagine. Oh my God, I'm not looking forward to that.

Then the other day he goes, "What's 69? Why do all adults laugh when I say the word 69?" I'm like, "Oh [__]." I'm like, "Dude," he's like, "Will you tell me when I'm 13?" Because he's always like, "Will you tell me?" Like that's the age. I go, "I don't know, dude. It might be 16. I don't know. I don't know. That's a conversation I might not ever want to have with you."

At the same time, it's almost contradicting because you'll learn it from your friends. Someone's parents don't care. I don't know if I want him to learn it from me, but at the same time, I like to control the narrative. It's...yeah, anyway. There's our buddy Google. All they have to do is Google that.

Yep.

I'm sure he has. I'm sure he knows because him and his little friends snicker about it. I'm sure he's just kind of playing me. "Hey, why don't you tell me?" Or maybe he doesn't fully understand. I was in high school and never knew what a BJ was. I knew what a [__] was but didn't know it was also a BJ. I remember being in high school, feeling so stupid, like the only person who didn't know what a BJ was. I felt so excluded, not in the cool crowd. It felt like that.

Now, it's way more common to homeschool, especially after COVID. Before, you would think a homeschool kid is like the weirdo. That was how I felt, even though I wasn't homeschooled. It felt like, oh, I'm out of the loop, not cool, embarrassing. You don't want your kids to go through that, but at the same time, you'd rather them feel that than be the one spreading the word.

It's kind of inevitable that based on whatever parameters you or I or whoever puts in place for their kids, they're going to feel left out. Going back to the social media, some of my oldest son's friends have social media. He's not going to have social media for a very long time. There's no reason for it. You and I talked about what social media has done to our self-esteem. I don't want that for a young person. I can't even imagine growing up in a social media age for kids. I'm so glad we didn't have it. I would give anything to go back to a world where we didn't have it. It is what it is. I feel like as parents, we have to protect them. Everybody thinks their kid won't do that or doesn't know this. They know what it is. They'll hear things. There's things I didn't even know my son knew until they popped up in a song. He knew what it was. Little friends from school have access to look up whatever they want on their phones because their parents don't want them to rebel. They have different perspectives and reasons for doing what they feel is right for their kids.

Good reasons, I should say. It kind of sucks because in wanting your kids to grow up faster, you make everybody else's kids grow up faster too. That frustrates me. I don't want to expose them to certain movies. There are movies I watched growing up, but I wouldn't let my kids watch at this age. I knew it was over my head as a kid, but I'm going to have to explain things to them that they're not ready to know.

That's just something as a parent, we have to be really mindful. It's very stressful because it can take one incident, one thing happening, one rabbit hole. That woman with her nine-year-old son, one thing took them down a really dark path. There were hundreds of comments from people with similar stories. It's scary because this happens so frequently. It can happen quickly. A sleepover at someone's house could expose them to something. Not saying a creepy dad, but something on TV because they have looser technology rules. These are things we didn't have to worry about growing up. Going to spend the night at someone's house, you didn't have to worry about Google or YouTube.

For me, the thing that scares me the most is their mental health on whether they feel good enough. Technology shows all this fake [__]. No one's having that great of a life. Some people, right, but it's all fake. There's a funny shirt that says I'm way cooler on Facebook. I think of friends I know who are struggling in real life. Someone asked me about a friend who looked happy on social media. I was like, wait, what? What is she saying she's doing? I know she's miserable.

My brother went through some [] in college because of social media. He was looking at what others were doing and felt he wasn't cool enough. He had the biggest confidence going into college and left after a year with negative confidence. It was so sad to watch. He's built himself back up, thank God, but it was a really scary time for us. It was because of social media. That's the [] that scares me the most. Technology tricks and swindles people, posing as voices, calling your family.

My family and I just had a conversation about our safe word. If someone calls me sounding like my brother, I'll ask for the safe word. If they don't know it, I'll assume it's fake and hang up. You don't want to not help your family.

Right.

All of that is scary. I'll lose sleep over the porn thing now. It's scary. Listeners, we'd love to hear what you've put in place, what you're seeing and doing. It's absolutely an issue.

This will be an ongoing conversation as things happen in my world or your world. This stuff is so relatable. That's why I'm on that group. I have to mute it every now and then for 30 days because it gets heavy. There's nothing else that makes me feel as heavy as this subject. The social media, the porn, it's all things you're just like, wow. When you're ready, you can have access to all of that, but not now. I tell my kids, you're not ready. You have to trust me. Having that conversation with your kids is important because they'll get pressure from friends. You want to be the cool parent, but the cool parents who don't want to be strict are doing a disservice to the rest of us and their kids.

Exactly. If your kids don't understand how to censor themselves, they're too young for it. Whatever it is, if they don't understand or grasp the implications, they're too young. As a parent, think about worst-case scenarios. If that scares you, then you have your answer. Worst-case scenarios happen every day, and we need to protect our kids. I would strongly recommend the group Parenting in a Tech World. It's a public group. You have to agree not to cuss anyone out, basically, and then you get in.

We'll share this podcast in it for sure.

Yes, definitely. Tech is really cool. I've been a tech recruiter for 16 years and seen cool stuff before it's out. But what's not coming out is security and protection for our kids at the level it needs to be. It's up to us to do this. Most of my clients are around chatbots and AI, not protecting kids. How are we not there yet? It's our battle, our fight.

If you don't open Pandora's box, you don't have to close it. They can want to relate to their friends as much as they want about social media and phones, but if you don't let them, they don't know what they're missing. That's where we messed up, dabbling and letting them have that experience. Then you have to undo it. Proceed with caution. If they don't know what they're missing, they won't crave it. It's like if I don't take that first bite of a Cheeto, I'm not going to eat the whole bag.

Exactly.

All right, thanks y'all. We'll see you next week.

Thanks.

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