Vince Williams: Introducing Our Kids To Technology – S4E16

On this episode of the Dudes And Dads podcast, we talk with Vince about how to introduce technology to our children. You're listening to the Dudes and Dads podcast. A show dedicated to helping men be better dudes and dads by building community through meaningful conversation and storytelling. And now here are your hosts, Joel DeMott and Andy Lehman. Hi Joel. Hi, Andy. Welcome back. Oh, boy. Yeah, I am.

I'm really just working on focusing my thoughts, putting words into sentences and are then into paragraphs and some might consider complete thoughts. It's been a little bit of rough. A little bit rough getting a little bit of rough seas. Really. I can't I. Can't say thing. Yeah. Oh. We're just warming up. Just warming up. By the time you know what? Here's a deal.

I don't want to encourage you to fast forward in this episode already, but if you just maybe move it, move it out the forward for five no minutes, I'll be really dialed in. But until then, welcome to the journey. Andy. Hi. Thanks for hanging out here with me and all of us again here tonight. We're excited to have a good time in our conversation. I'm a Dudes Man podcast. You know, Andy, I feel like I feel like things have been going on in my world.

With you. With me? Yeah. I think we're done talking about the death of the Queen of England. We have, yes. That got a lot of it. Got a lot of a lot of coverage. Which not on our show, though. Not on our show. We we you know what? For all of you, by the way, just as you were sitting there right now and as I've said this, you're like, you know what? That's right. I was going to write a strongly worded email to Andy or Joel about your lack of coverage of the passing of the late Queen Elizabeth.

We we apologize. We apologize. We missed that. That was it was an opportunity that we had to do some hard hitting podcast, this discussion. And we. Missed it. We missed it. So I'm sorry. Just don't hit the send button. Just receive our receive our regrets and we'll move on together. Andy was apart from the queen. What's what's been going. On, man? It's getting cold here, and. It. Is. All settling in. And you know, this.

Stuff this morning as I was up in front of our congregation this morning, I just said, Hey, friends, The Leaves, They Are A-Changin and the Pumpkin Spice is a brewing at which time loud boos could be. Oh, some people, people boos. I don't know if the pumpkin spice has turned a corner or not, but some people felt very strongly about the pumpkin spice. The pumpkin spice latte, the pumpkin spice candles, the whole. The whole pumpkin the. Pumpkin spice enterprise, if we can call it that.

Maybe it's since maybe it's seen its day. I've recently converted actually to the Apple Bourbon Spice, which I feel is is fall. That's the candle. It's in my office right now. I get a lot of compliments. Nice lot. Of compliments from a local candle maker, actually. Nice. We should see if she can be a sponsor. How about that? Sure, sure. Well, well, before.

We go off the rails completely on this episode. I love it. Joel, we want to remind you that this episode was brought to you by our patrons like Pat Yoder, Darrell, Brian, James and Ty. Oh, yes. They are faithful supporters of our show and you can be two dudes in dads podcast dot com slash Patrick and patre0n. And you can get monthly you can get become a monthly sponsor and get extra episodes. Free. Early episodes, ad free episodes, all those good things.

So officially autographed an officially autographed photo of either Andy or myself. I don't know that we've ever done that. We should. So that's how I get things started. I just say that we're going to do it and we see what happens. Yes. Yes. So great for all our current patrons. I don't want to say wait by the mail, but. You're going to do it. Officially. Your official glossy is as. Good as concept. Well. Joel, we teased in the entry of this that we are bringing Vince on.

Vince is welcome to the show. Vince. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're you're here, man. You're here. There's no turning back now. So I got to ask you, though, are you a an apple cider guy or a pumpkin spice? Oh, cider. So, Vince, you got to started. Andy and I, we are cider lovers. We are. We're fortunate here in a very small, quaint town. Just up the road is Miller's Mill Cider Press. And it's run by a conservative Mennonite family. And they press the apples.

And Vince, I'm not making a single word of this up, so I just want you to be very clear. They have a cider press that operates off of a river, like, that's, like, powered. And it's not that it has to be. It's just that's how old school they are. It has been the family for a long time. You go, you get your cider. Kathy Miller will be there waiting for you to to take it out of the fridge. It's it's magical and and it's not. Delicious and. Unpasteurized. See, this is the other key.

You get the full flavor of the cider. Yeah, we're big fans, so. Yeah, all cider all day. So I have to say that we have a in Vermont, actually my wife's best friend. Yeah, they have. That's on their own cider press. Yep. Oh yeah. We physically go up there and turn cider. Yeah. Hundred percent. And there's nothing better with you, Joe. There's nothing better. There's absolutely.

And you've you've also trumped me with the whole Vermont vibe, the Vermont cider, just like their sirup, I feel, is what's made by angels. That's what it is. Yes. Well, as. We like to do when we bring on all of our guests, we would like you to do tell us a little bit about your dad's dad. So Dad's who you are, what you do, and anything about your kids, your family, anything you want to tell us. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on. Yeah, no problem.

I, I work in cybersecurity, so I actually teach security awareness for the department at our big insurance company that I work for. I got two kids, beautiful wife. My kids are both four and nine months. A daughter has four and a son that's nine months. And that four year old is a firecracker. Tell you that as you can see, I am recording from my office because I work from home, a.k.a the play area, a.k.a the workout area, a.k.a. the media center, the basement. So. So I do I'm working from home.

I've been working from home for the past two years. I've been in cybersecurity for what now? So seven years. So yeah, that's a little bit about myself. Great. That comes to that. And then you actually came to me and came to my radar because you have you host your own podcast about Dad. So can you tell us a little bit about that? I do. I do as myself and for other my my best friends. It's called the Five Dads Podcast.

And we talk about everything under the sun, stuff that, you know, that's that can get a little bit emotional stuff that's actually hilarious for our kids. And it's a trip. It's a fun ride, you know. So we we all have different backgrounds, but we're all, you know, five best friends. You know, we have some people working in and maintenance, construction, DLC, cybersecurity truck drivers. So it's it's good to get those different perspectives.

And we also like to hear from listeners and, you know, we're just starting off so awesome. So any people that want to come and join up, please do want your input as well. Yeah, we're it's always a thrill I think any time that we get to be on with another fellow podcaster, number one people that feel our pain. Yes, yes. That is, you know that up been down the road. We are. Ian and I were just talking the other day.

There's kind of the general statistic of if if you get passed up 21 episodes, you are basically in the top, like you're in the top few percentile. Like most podcast don't make it, don't make it that long. So take this is first of all 90% of podcast don't don't make it past three episodes. So yeah, so here's the deal. If you're on this journey and you're even if you're starting off and trucking along, let me just say to you, you're you're in the upper echelon, my friend.

So be be encouraged by that. We're always we're always thrilled when people. Are. Getting on it and sticking with it and sharing and just sharing their story, which is I'm guessing it's similar for you, you know, Andy and I said a long time ago, like, this podcast is our excuse to spend time together. We make know, we make tackling. We have a hard time scheduling, so many things ups in our life. We finally, Andy and I finally achieved. We do have a bonfire scheduled with the families here soon.

It felt like that was a Herculean effort. But this this we've been able to manage. So I know it's it's always cool when you get to kind of chronicle life together with with your friends. So that's, that's good stuff. Yeah. So we'll make sure and I'll just say it over at Disney's podcast dot com in the show notes we'll make you make sure yeah you're embarrassingly easy to find over there. I always love to share all the good stuff.

Yeah. So, so, Andy, now we're going to now we're going to you get to dove into all this stuff that we want to learn with the knowledge that we want to bring away. Right? So so Vince and I basically have the same job. We do a lot of it. We both work in cybersecurity, in security. And and so when he told me that he was that's what his job was, I jumped on it real quick and said, hey, let's talk about like introducing our kids to technology and, you know, he's got younger kids. I've got older kids.

You've got kids all over the place. All kids all. The. Way to say kids all over the place. So, you know, this is a great topic that we can talk about. You know, how do we teach our kids about technology? So I guess let's just talk about first like what age do you think we should be introducing our kids to technology? To me personally, I think it's when they're actually able to speak coherently.

That's what I think, just just because of the fact that, you know, if they're able to have a conversation and express what they want, then you can kind of work with it. Right. You know, and let's just start this out there. You know, majority of the time, a young kid in that age is going to watch something like TV. So I think, you know, having those shows already centered around and it ready to go. I actually I'm a big advocate of watching an episode before you actually show it's an episode.

So you know exactly what's going to happen. You know, if anything, you know, takes a left turn you don't know about or just exposing your kid to that initially is the end, but that's what I go with. You know, as soon as you're able to actually have a conversation with kids. What about you guys, do you think? Yeah, I think I. Mean, for me, I'd say the same thing. You know, my kids, they you know, we started with technology being like the TV, you know, the simple, easy.

Like everyone's going to watch it. It's in the main area and then kind of moved on from there. You know, some kids had. A. I want to say their phone, but it's not really a phone. It'd be, you know, just an old phone of mine that they could watch things on definitely, or play games on. But for me it was always touch a little bit about this and the rules later, but for me it was always, you know, you had to be with us like you had to be around us when you're doing it.

Joel, what about you? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, same same deal. I'm quite honestly, I mean, our biggest challenge has been on the technology side is that you can you can tell your kids like, hey, like we're firm believers. We're holding off as long as humanly possible to get our kids a cell phone. And, you know, just being just being cautious with that and not introduce not introducing a bunch of things to them before they can they can handle it before you can process it together.

But I like the fact that my kids ride the bus with a bunch of other kids that have had phones, a Let's just be clear, the, the school bus is the den of ill repute. Friends like them. There's nothing almost nothing good is happening. Most, most places. And so, you know, I think, yes, we have our like we're holding off on those things as long as possible. The obviously each of the kids really from an early age now because the schools are providing it in various ways.

You know, they have either Chromebooks or, you know, whatever they're taking home. Those have those have filters on them. Those have and and I've I've messed with the I've mess with them enough to like try to see like okay, like you tried. To break it. I tried to break it, you know, like, oh, well, it's like, okay, like what can anything slide? You know, can anything easy slide through or like, you know.

So when your school kids school start saying, Joel, your kids are looking at things inappropriate. You know, I'm like I'm like, no, exactly what I was thinking. It was just it was me, their pastor, father. That's so. So it totally tracks with every stereotype that should be out there. Yeah. I'm the one up to no good, but.

No, but seriously, like, I think the introduction of those things, quite honestly, for us it's been other circumstances that I introduced those things probably before we would have ourselves in in this world in which we find ourselves that can feel a little bit scary, a little bit intimidating because you're like, okay, they're yeah, they're crossing these lines and be introduced and having been giving these devices or whatever before, we are actually putting them in their hands.

So we feel I don't know, we felt kind of like we've had to play catch up a little bit, quite honestly. Right now. Do you do you feel like, you know, just because other people were doing it? Yeah, your kids was kind of giving you that guilt trip a little bit. Then I have this I have this problem. I don't care what other parents do. Good. No, I don't know what I don't. And I feel like probably all three of us here do a very similar there.

Those other parents will not be responsible for my children ever. And and as we tell our kids all the time, we're raising them to be the adults we want to hang out with in the future. So, like. You know, so, yeah, so our kids, our kiddos have been pretty good. We have not had a lot of conversation or heard a lot of like, well, Tommy down the street, his mom lets him he's got like three cell phones. Like, we've not we've not had any of that.

I'd say for us, we've had some of that from our youngest. So I've got, you know, a six year old all the way up to 16. And so my six year old, a lot of times I'll say, you know, like, why can't I have a phone the other kids do? It's like, well, you're six, you don't need a phone. So we get that mostly from our kids. You're saying within like from brother and sister. Brother. So because they have one. Yeah. So our.

Youngest are had had a our youngest one, you know, once one because she sees them with it and. You've just give me another reason to delay longer. I haven't really thought through that the moment Aaron gets one now my right Molly is going to be all over like, what's the deal? So. Well, I think for us kind of how we've handled that, as we've said, okay, this is the age that you're going to get a cell phone that, you know, all three of my older kids have one now.

And it kind of started because we, out of necessity, needing to have them have one because, you know, these days no one has a home phone anymore. Yeah. So like when they're older and you know, we've my wife and I have had that go, you know, go run errands or be out or whatever. Like we didn't feel comfortable leaving them home without a phone. And so now is are doing other things on their own, their school yoga. They're all. All the older ones are, you know, junior high up.

And so they're all doing things on their own. And so we've had a necessity to have them have one. Yeah. Do you remember, Andy? I remember after basketball practice in school there was a there was a payphone right up like right where, where you would. You would. Put a quarter in and you would call your. Parents. And you would say it's like, here's what I'm doing. Or you did you forget me? I need to get picked up. Or better yet, I always call collect and say, It's Andy, come pick me up.

Nothing out. Of brilliant. I never picked up on that. There's so much more even back in the day, you were more like. I'm older than you are. I sort of. That's just it's your age and wisdom and that's what it is. Yeah, it was live in the future. I had a pager. Oh. I got that at the nice blue clear play pager. And he's like, okay, mom's calling. Let me go get that quarter. To. Make a phone call. Got you the. Advantage. Then. Yeah. I don't know if I would have done that.

People would thought I was a drug dealer. I was going to say, like. Excuse me, one of my client, like, clients is gone. And pagers for me weren't until later or later. But yeah. Let's talk a little bit about so you know, we've talked about like what age should we introduce the kids to technology and kind of what that looks like.

But also, let's now talk a little bit about setting those boundaries and what's appropriate rules for younger kids, grades, you know, in grade school or as well as older teens and you know, with tech. What rules would you say, Vince, to set up for, you know, younger kids? I think a more so depends on how the parent in the situation, the trend. Right. And our preference, as I would just use as myself as an example growing up where my my mother worked two jobs, single three kids and stuff.

So we kind of had whatever we wanted it to be honest with you. But when it comes to my kids and everything like that is more so I think it's just starts with trust, starts with the open dialog and conversation with your kids. I think that's kind of the rule number one. And I think, you know, setting those those boundaries to say, you know, like if you have that information out there, let's say social media is important. Like if you put that information out there and it stays out there forever.

Yeah. So just remember that. Yeah, I don't necessarily want to say like some type of a scare tactic, but just I think being blunt, honest about those situations really can go a long way. But of course it's more so you have to get that message across as a parent to your kids somehow and all that. You know how to talk to your parent, right? I mean, you're talk to your kids right away. Excuse me.

So necessarily to the point where they may just be like, oh, you don't want to be like a yeah, whatever that I don't know. But but you want them to listen, right? So I think that's the, the biggest thing. And I'm trying to stress to my kid, you know, like kids excuse me, even on the night one night can't respond to you yet. Still talking to them like that. But to say like, you know, hey, if if you tell me the truth, we can get through anything.

You know, it's when you're like, if you lie to me or something that we're that's when we have a problem. And I feel like they can just say, honestly, you know what? They can do. And basically the exposure they have. And we can have a conversation of what they should and what they shouldn't be doing. Then we can go from there. And if they break their trust that you kind of restrict that a little bit, you know, but that's kind of what I got for those areas.

Yeah, I, you know, I've been I was when you said the the things that you do, the things that you do on the Internet are kind of permanent. And there's this. Whole like. I mean, there's a whole there's so many generations that did things that they would now regret as adults. But there's no record of it. There's no record. Right. And it's totally it's totally fine, but not so much anymore.

I'm wondering and Andy, I don't know if in your workplaces has ever been the case where someone's applied for a job and, you know, because I know I do this, I definitely friend those people on social media and I definitely look to see if they've been smart enough to scrub their account before applying for one for the job or whatever. But I mean, there's definitely been there's been instances, I am pretty sure.

And within my wife's company, there's definitely been instances where a person has not secured employment because of what was on their social media saying. Yeah, same for our company, I feel, yeah. Yeah, I would say Vince probably. Very, probably. Absolutely. In your case, right? Sure.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Completely dux. So especially with our, you know, our team and everything like that, if you go out and you apply, you have multiple interviews, then they already kind of know your personality. You're like, what? You been doing stuff before you even walk in the door. So yeah, yeah. That original and that. One if you. Yeah. If you. Would. Yeah. If you have any unsavory. I mean.

I always joke with my, with my brother who is, who has been in security also technology is a data scientist and all this and says that some have some upper tier clients that he works with or whatever and I just always joke rooms. I'm like. I'm like, you know. I just with all the things he's not very active on social media, but it's like with all the stuff that you're into, I'm really surprised that. You've. You've made it this far. Well. It just, you know, it's I don't know.

I just I wouldn't I wouldn't take so many gun pictures. I don't know. I'm kidding mostly. But yeah. I think for me, some of the things that we we've set in place for our kids is time limits. Definitely. You know, we've said an hour a day and sometimes we'll approve more depending on what's going on. But, you know, we've set a hard limit. You know, with Apple, they all have iPhones or an old iPhone. So we've set time limits on those with, you know, the screen time.

And then we've also said, you know, you can't charge it in your bedroom. It's got to be out in the living room, in the public place. We've said, remember, this device is still our device and we can look at it at any time and we can read through your history. We can read through all of that any time. And so they know like that any time we may come to him and ask for their phone and we can look and see what they've been up to. And only the older two are actually on social media right now.

They're on Instagram and we've made sure that they know like don't search for things on the Internet and on they know that they've had the Internet. But I mean, you know, don't don't do things like whoever friend people you only know in real life we've said, you know, don't friend people you don't know. And then we said that same thing that you said, events like whatever you put out there is going to be out there forever, even if you delete it.

Someone may have taken a screenshot of it like it could be out there forever. So don't don't don't post them. Your your boys have recently been offending friending me on Instagram. They know you in real life. They know me and I just you know, it's I wasn't sure what your what your threshold was. So if it's just they know, you know, then I feel okay about that relationship. If it was like. No, I trust. You. Don't don't friend Joel. I trust you. Joe is a really, really spicy.

Social. Media presence out there. Yeah, lots of guns. So many guns. No, no, not really. All right. So are there any things that are there any technology things that as parents that we can do to help protect our kids from tech? Because, you know, obviously there's lots of bad stuff on tech. And so what can we do as parents to kind of protect them? I mean, we kind of talked about that, I guess are the rules.

But like, are there any any other things that you would say ways that we can protect our kids? Oh, a lot of people, they don't really realize it. But just having something simple like antivirus and phone actually really does wonders. And it does help just because of the fact if your child does download stuff that they were supposed to do, you know, bring it back like LimeWire did.

Oh yeah, I forgot Android devices, you know, all those epic files or, you know, other apps that's not approved that's out there to contain some type of malware. I mean, that potentially could block some stuff. I mean, so I think from actual app size a portion, definitely some type of VPN or some type of, you know, like you were saying anti like stop monitoring something that they have especially with Apple devices.

I know they've gotten really strict with that strict but like a lot more accessible when it comes to privacy and locking it down from a parental, you know, standpoint from there that no, the the conversation I mean, I love the conversation that you've, you know, on me just now. You know, it's just because of the fact, like, if everything's out there, if everything's in open, they should know what to expect, right? So there's no surprises.

So if that trusted and you do something that you're supposed to do, then, you know, we're here to correct it and potentially, you know, take that stuff away. It's really about just education to do education, education, education, education. You know what it is? No way is utilized. No way I'm doing it. And I think that that would be the example for that mind.

So. Pento Yeah, I was, I was just thinking like, you know, we like with our home internet like we have Comcast like sanity and so they, I mean they've really like this from pretty straightforward parental controls around like turning on turning off Internet access, things like that. And I think quite honestly, for us as parents, it's just been a little bit eye opening just in terms of when it tells you how long a kid has been on for.

And it's just easy for you to kind of like not realize how what the amount of time has been or whatever. Well, and this actually, Joel, your wife actually just put a comment in here, too. Is there any software that can block YouTube? Oh, she's asking the good question. We have expanded, like you just said, go. And, you know, you can block certain websites, but, you know, blocking out YouTube is impossible to block. So what can we do to protect. YouTube is YouTube is the bane of our existence.

It's pretty much like, well, that's the thing that they'll get locked into and they're going to watch YouTube or after YouTube or after YouTube or and they they enter into a black hole of awareness where it's like they don't know how much time has passed and, and all that. Yeah, but. Yes. What's that. You, what's the YouTube and like. Yeah. What. How do we. How do we control that evil in. Our lives.

We throw it in the ocean to take it in, you know, like you were saying, Joel, you know, so many guns, the yeah. It's just oh it's but I don't I don't know if there's actually apps that, you know, I think Apple does also Android where it just shut it down. So you actually need a parental lock to go back on it. I could be wrong. I know there's a certain app that does it, especially an Android app. I wish I could find it and and tell you guys over here and kind of put on the spot there.

Well, and if you do want you to reach out back to us, we can put it in our show notes later if you would do find something. But I know that also YouTube has where you can do like a restricted, so you can put it in restricted mode and in restricted mode. It limits comments. You can't comment on sites and and as well as like that's going to be the more appropriate things. Again, that's YouTube.

So it could be not appropriate things, but that would I guess it would be a place, I would say to start doing. But, you know, and then again, they have to be signed in the to do that though, unless you're using something, I think like open DNS, if you have that on your house, you can use you can, I think set that unrestricted mode that forces everything to be in restricted mode, I think, you know. Nice. So hopefully that answered your question, Jackie.

That's Joel's way. We've got we've got work. We've got work to do. She makes a really good point, though, because it really is if we narrow it down like the. The. The watching of videos for long periods of time and, you know, and YouTubers are good, right? Like they know how to draw especially. And like our kids, what they're watching is like, oh, oh, like any YouTuber that is doing oh, well, like Mr. Beast, they're like Mr., like Mr. Beast alone seems like a great guy, but you're.

I'm on to you. Okay. Uh, and like all the challenges they do, or ones where there's, like, where people have, like, hobby farms or doing things like that, like they'll just. Just get real. Real deep. And again, the content of itself, nothing. Nothing wrong. Some of it's actually pretty educational, but it's like we're talking a large portion of the time that can can be lost there.

So yeah. Yeah. So you had mentioned earlier, Vince, you know, about maybe, you know, finding, you know, something on their device that may not be appropriate or how do you how should we handle that as as parents, if we find come across something, you know, if I'm looking at my kid's device and I see something that shouldn't be there. What. What would you say to how do we handle that? Oh, you know, just go in the corner, curl up in the position. That's right. Back and. Forth and. That's right.

I'm not necessarily sure. I think it depends on the parent. Yeah. So you just because if you're you're able to have that conversation and open it up and talk about what that has been going on, excuse my friend, but then you can do that. But, you know, try to come that strongly on a kid, depending on the idea, especially like a teenager or something. You're probably, you know, run away and close the door, slam it.

Yeah. Well. I think what you said is, you know, every parent is going to be a little bit different. I think for us, you know, we we just confront if they you know, we just say, hey, you know, this is what we've found. And talk a little bit about it and say, you know, explain, explain why we don't appreciate, you know, don't as a family, don't want you to be looking or searching or seeing or whatever that type of things or what would you say?

Yeah, I mean, same deal like the the conversation in which events got it this really well I thought like you know have the conversation before you need to have the conversation like being out in front and being out in front of it, being open.

And again, you know, I know here on here on the show, like we've got kind of a wide ranging audience, people that would, you know, would probably respond to those different conversations differently or have different levels of or various levels of comfortable having having those conversations. You as a parent, here's the deal. We cannot be ignorant to these things, so you do have to educate yourself on them. And this is why Andy and I get people like Vince on the show.

It's just we're like he's like, you know, let's just outsource our we want to like doing a podcast or Wikipedia. What better? Come on, any time. Yeah, yeah. Just dove events. We're having a problem. I mean, come on and help. But but yeah, like, I think surround you. Surround yourself with people and resources and things like that. There is so much and we've, we've had other episodes that have, have talked on various things that can help in this area, which we can link back to those too.

But like there's really good services out there, but you, you're probably going to, you don't necessarily have to spend a ton of money. You will probably have to make a financial investment of some sort. And those things you will have to educate yourself. I and I'll be the first to say, like I, I don't to this point, I've not been terribly concerned, mostly because of what I know, where my kids are at with stuff. But like we are, we're going to be having our first teenager in the in the.

Home. If you're lucky. And he's ready the whole industry to hold me close. Our first teen ager is coming. He's going to be a teenager this this November. And like we're we we are in like right now and approaching the level of conversation that we're having about these things is going to is definitely going to increase like that. So I've because I've not quite honestly, I've I'm really, really honest.

I've not wanted to introduce ideas into my kid's head about the things that that they, you know, that they could look into. Yeah. Because I've had conversations with the parents, too, where they're like they're like I was super concerned and I had this talk about technology is with my kid. And then the kid was like, Oh, I never thought about that. And then, you know, like a livens ideas in their in their mind.

So the inventor said that through what where you pay attention to where your kids at, it's really because any conversation we're having about technology is a conversation about you being involved in your kid's life. Right? Knowing who they are, knowing where they're at, and doggone it, paying attention to some things. And that might even mean for all of us, myself included, pulling the note your nose out of whatever screen world that you're in and paying attention to some of the.

Well, I think you brought that up as a good. Good point, Joel. As a parent, we need to be conscious of how much time we're spending on the screen, because I know. Right. I know for sure my kids have said, Dad, put your phone down. You know, because you're you've told me, no, no phones at the table, no whatever. And I'm like, all right, I forgot, you know that yet I've said that to you. So we need to be as parents, we need to be cautious of of what we're.

What. We're leading our news samples that we're doing other. Events and events. I don't know if you've experienced it yet and it'll come your way. Children are we have a radar for hypocrisy. It's amazing. Oh, yeah. Just like very quickly, point out, any time that you are inconsistent with the things that you did to them, it's really a gift. I'll tell you. Like I, just love so much when a nine year old tells me that I'm doing the things that I tell him to do.

So thank you, Matthew. Okay. I think right now we're with our four year old pack that she has is a master negotiator also. So even if you know I'm doing something wrong, you know, ship. Well, how about this? How about I get this? Because you're doing that. Oh, yeah. At that point, you don't know what they congratulate her or. Yeah, wow. No, no, no, we're not doing this. But yeah, just circling back to what you're saying, Jonah, and it does involve talking to the parent.

I mean, and it all starts with the parent. I've I myself have been caught up in saying like, you know, I need to put this thing away because, you know, I actually spend time it's of young ones and stuff, but I don't want them to see the fact that that's the normalization of always being glued to your phone or seeing it. Right. So I'm actually, you know, spending time or they're in front of you. Yeah. But for for parents, for education and stuff, there are other resources.

I mean, they're like you were saying earlier, YouTube, that's that's a good educational place for parents. You know, not necessarily saying going down a rabbit hole for kids because it could be a rabbit hole if you let it be. But if you're specific and intentional, what you want to get at and you can find that information. There is also I don't know if you guys heard of Udemy or Demi. Oh, yes.

They circle around technology and they have really, really, really cheap t prices for a lot of stuff and it's all virtual, you know, at your own pace. You look at it kind of like YouTube there, but they have chapters and stuff that you can check out with. So it's kind of like a, you know, I want to learn about social media or I want to learn about, you know, my, my, my Internet router so I can secure my stuff, my kids, you know, things of that nature.

I want to learn about apps, app security and what I can do around you. Just search from there and find. I found in the past, you know, classes that may be worth two or 300 bucks yourself, right? $9. Well, that's something to look into through out there for your listeners. That's that's a great option. I never really even thought about that. You know, I've heard of that site before, but I've never really thought about that as a as a way to educate

parents on you know, things that they can do either kids. A Well, let's talk a. Little bit about like, you know, we talked about how to introduce our kids, but like what age you say, you know, a little bit like the screen time like how long when you're, you know, what age should the screen time be? You know, a short, long, like, what does that look like?

Of course, I'm like, yeah, I'm like the one who this my wife and I, we have started off, you know, very strict when it comes to this our daughter and I feel like we need to get back to that with our son because of the fact that we have it with our daughter. And our son is always around. So seeing that we have a nine month old, every time my daughter's having that screen time, see who's on it now.

See sister watch and stuff. But in terms of time limits and stuff, we try to do around half an hour a day, that's us when I guess at screen time and as they get older, we can kind of decrease upon that. Or if it's a weekend, then we're there to monitor it.

Yeah, we can potentially watch a movie, but that's kind of the extent of that because also not only found that with with kids, it's kind of like not white noise if it's concentrated in that time frame, but the fact they actually pay attention within that time, that should give them because it's precious that that right.

So from then you can actually use it as a tool of having a conversation with your kids or the time just because if you're sitting there watching it with them or you know, even not, you can actually ask some, hey, what did you watch? What did you learn? Oh, what do you think was going to happen? How did that make you feel? And you can kind of just use that as a springboard for your other things outside of screen time.

Great. Yeah, I am just again, I think I'm just caught off guard sometimes by how quickly the time passes or if you're not, so many times it's like, okay, you can have, you can have this much time and then you're going on and doing your things as a parent. And like there's been playing time for what I'm like, Oh, you've been over there for 2 hours, like. You know, and you're. In you're in the exact same position you were when I left you. She tells me, tells me something. Just yeah.

So yeah, I think that's the setting those goals and finding and finding ways. I mean, it's also a conversation like if it's you and your partner, you know, you got to you've got to be on the same on the same page together. And again, that's not been honestly for me. That's not been my strong suit of being like, yeah, I think really solidifying like what the both of us are trying to aim for in terms of yeah, just in terms of what our expectations are or follow through or things like that.

So we're we're trying to get trying to get better get better systems in place. But it's I mean, it's it's. Hard. It's a it is a challenge, just like it's like the rest of parenting turns out. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you said it yourself. You know, it is just from my experience, I having a conversation in years as well. It's different, right. So it just depends on the situation in the parent.

And I go back from when I was younger like I was saying the the example before with my mother and stuff, I had the gamut screamed and I had a whole show lined up. When I came out of school, I was sitting in front of that thing from like sit like three to whenever ready to sleep, you know. So kind of got an opposite effect on it. And I know the, the ramifications, you know, from that happened. But again, it was the best that, you know, that I can do at that time.

So they get all depends on the parent the situation like you were saying watch yourself and. Yeah I mean I'd say for me, you know, we try to limit it hours to an hour. Obviously it was I honestly when it was when our kids were really young, sometimes it was easier to sit them in front of like an iPad or something and say, Hey, watch this show for a little bit so you can get some stuff done. And like, as a parent, like, that feels terrible now. But be. Real. Real talk though what it is.

I mean, yeah, everyone did it. Yeah. I mean does it, it. Is what it is but it's say, you know, as, as they're older, we try to be flexible a little bit with them, you know too, if there's not a lot going on, they will do it. You will let them have a little bit more time.

If there's if we notice that they're doing it but not being social like they're not interacting with the family or those around us, then we kind of say, all right, you've been on the phone for a bunch today and they'll those days and they're like, I hope not. And I look at their screen time and I'm like, Actually, you have. But because it's kind of funny how that gets away from you, but. Right.

So, so we just kind of, we try to be a little bit flexible, but, you know, we try to keep it within our but again, if, if there's a reason to have a little bit longer, I may you know, I'm willing to have it a little bit longer, too, because, you know, as as parents, sometimes we are the same way. We know sometimes we try to limit ourselves, but sometimes you're just like, I need to veg out now. And so we let that happen. You become a potato on the couch. Yeah. Wonderful feeling. Yeah, yeah.

Definitely. Well, this has been super helpful. I've really appreciated your conversation with us today. It's been good to talk to a security professional, so I really appreciate that. And just from my side, it was not too nerdy. So thank you for that. That's all. I always I always get on and do that, too. Yeah. No, I always think it's funny just to totally stereotype and and be like, I know you and your nerd bro's talking about the technology. Oh, my sister thinks I'm a complete nerd.

I will say it tell you that whenever I call her, she has a caller I.D. on myself with the glasses. Oh, boy, oh, boy. I want that. Yeah, that's unfair. Unfair for. A while. So. Yeah, but before we let you go, though, we have to do the pop quiz.

Now it's time for the dudes and dads pub quiz. All right. So if you've never this for the pop quiz, it's a time we get to just randomly pepper events with questions that have nothing to do with security. Or anything. Like that. We just want to get to know him a little bit better. So Joel, why don't you go first then?

So I'm going to go I'm going to go sort of into the technology grab bag here because it seems fitting if you had to choose between only having a cell phone or a car for the rest of your life, which would you choose? Cell phone. Or car? Air person I'm thinking, oh, I got to say cell phone. Okay, I do. The reason I would say that is because you can always some or some in the car. Yeah, true. Ten for if you want to. Yeah. You're going to be someone's passenger I guess.

Right. Exactly. Okay. Now I'm trying to get on those Uber black. Reasonable. Which is really funny though, you know, because if you think about it, like when we were kids are parents were always like, don't get in cars or strangers don't get in cars to strangers. And now all of a sudden we're like. I'm seeing. People give. Me a car and they show up and you get into a car with a stranger. You just point out to you. Steve All right, that's. All I need.

Just tell me or Steve, that's all good enough. All right. All right. So my question is, what is something you like that most people don't? I think I would like to say I like brussel sprouts. I like Brussels sprouts. Yeah, dude, I'm coming strong on the Brussels sprouts as well. My wife got me on the train. Yeah. So I think you know what? Brussels sprouts. It's an emerging it's an emerging trend. Good. I like this thing. Let me see here. Um, what show on Netflix did you binge watch?

Amber? Pressingly fast. Oh, I can tell you right now is the great British Baking Show. Oh. Oh, yes, yes, yes. And then after that, I'm over here trying to make eggs than pie. Yeah. Decorated it out. Is it good? Is it going okay? Is anything turned out okay or. No? No. Okay. I'm a little bit like that when I'm watching like those home redecoration shows. I'm like, yes, I can do that. And then I try it and I'm like, No, I can't go. No, terrible. Right. All right.

So I'm going to stay on the the kind of geeky thing to what's your favorite gadget. Eric Gadget Oh, that is the question. Well, I will keep it very, very simple because it gets the job done a lot. I have this little key USB and in that key USB since I am a certified ethical hacker as well to all act here also. So if I feel like I want to do something legally, you could just go anywhere at any time. So I think that's cool. Awesome. Certified Ethical Hacker.

Another, uh, job descriptor resumé builder that I was I didn't ever think there that I know, I know it's a thing. It's a thing and a. Bunch of waivers. I would imagine. I would imagine. And not post pictures of guns. Okay. So. Oh. Let's see. Oh, we're all we're is by. Okay, Vince, what is one important skill every person should have? Okay, everyone needs to know how to cook because I am sick and tired of going over someone's house and tasting disgusting. Oh, yeah. Hot take out.

Vince. I hope your friends. I hope your friends are not listening to this. That. Is he talking about me? What do we make? Did we try to make brussel sprouts? No, I hope, my friend. Oh, so they can make sure that everything is okay when I come. Vince, you're really raising the bar in your relationships through this show and I salute you. I salute. You. All right, Joel and Vince, my last question is, what are you currently curious about? Areas. Oh, so I am big into cryptocurrency.

Okay. I'm very curious about that. But in order to get even more curious about it, more specifically, I am more curious in what's called a rug pull. I don't know if you ever heard it. A rubber bullets. Nerd alert. Area up. It's when someone creates a cryptocurrency, a bunch of people invest in it, and then you just take all the money. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I'm wondering how it's a little bit to to do that, but it's, it's something I'm, I'm curious about interesting events. Uh. What is me?

See here, I got a whole long list here. Okay, here we go. What is your most embarrassing moment from your teenage years? Oh, all right, so I have an embarrassing moment. I went to a town hall dance and taught in a dance competition and felt horrible. Oh, I have everybody. Oh. Do you feel like that was a good takeaway from that? Was there? It was a learning experience. Was there some sort of redeeming thing on the other side of it? No. Just because you're.

Embarrassed. Is going to take this loss. And I was really hoping for a Hallmark moment. There I was. I just was trying and instead of clearly touching on something that was deeply painful and. I thank you for sharing part. Well, I think you've successfully passed

the do's and don'ts, but I was honored and. Well done. Well done, Vince. Absolutely. Yes. Hey, guys, we're so grateful for so. Yes. Vince, thanks for joining us. Thanks for being with us. Hanging out with us. We'll have to do it again sometime next time. I need you to nerds in the same room together. But friends, we do want to just say thanks for tuning in to another episode of Dos and Dads, the podcast.

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