This Golden Hour

65. Tanner Clark and One Second of Strength

• Timothy Eaton

Share episode

In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Tanner Clark from Utah. Tanner is known for his motivational speaking and deep insights into the challenges facing today’s youth. He joins host Timmy Eaton for a comprehensive dialogue on the intersections of technology, social media, and parenting. Clark shares compelling stories from his experiences, shedding light on the profound effects of smartphones and social media on adolescents' mental health, happiness, and overall development. The conversation spans the importance of intentional parenting, educating teens about technology use, and practical steps for creating a healthy digital environment at home. Moments of personal revelation and strategic advice make this a must-listen for parents and educators alike, aiming to navigate the digital terrain with mindfulness and resilience.
Connect with Tanner
onesecondofstrength.com

Books
Atomic Habits
Man's Search for Meaning
Hold On to Your Kids
The Teenage Brain

This Golden Hour
Free eBook Course
thisgoldenhour.org

Tanner Clark:

I just think that we have the opportunity to be the biggest influencer in our kids lives. And too often we are the furthest thing from that because we just relinquish control of learning and education to random people on the internet and random people on social media and random algorithms.

Tim Eaton:

Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this golden hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Tanner Clark from Utah. Tanner is known for his motivational speaking and deep insights into the challenges facing today's youth. He joins me for a comprehensive dialogue on the intersections of technology, social media, and parenting. Clark shares compelling stories from his experiences, shedding light on the profound effects of smartphones and social media on adolescents, mental health, happiness, and overall development. The conversation spans the importance of intentional parenting, educating teens about technology use and practical steps for creating a healthy digital environment at home. Moments of personal revelation and strategic advice make this a must listen for parents and educators alike aiming to navigate the digital terrain with mindfulness and resilience. Welcome back to this golden hour podcast. We're excited today to have with us Tanner Clark from Utah. Tanner is a father of four, a motivational speaker speaking in schools across the United States and internationally and on TEDx. That was my favorite of your presentations. I loved it. And also Tanner is the host of the second of strength podcast. So thanks for being with us, Tanner.

Tanner Clark:

Thanks for having me. Yeah, this is exciting. I was excited when your wife reached out and as I go and speak in schools, I get asked a lot about homeschools and I get asked, what about us? What about us? And so from time to time, I've done a couple of homeschool assemblies, just virtual zoom assemblies to try and help people because at the end of the day, and you mentioned, I speak in schools, my goal is to help teenagers grow and progress and become their best self, which is challenging for teenagers and especially in today's world. And So that doesn't stop, just in schools it's, homeschool as well. So I try every once in a while to, to help out where I can with homeschoolers. So

Tim Eaton:

that's excellent. Has anyone ever, we didn't talk about this before the, before we started the recording, but did, has anyone ever approached you about doing homeschool conferences? No, I don't know how to do that. I'm in. Okay. That would, that's a different, we should talk about that after because that's a different thing, man. So we should talk about that because it's not just getting a couple of cause it, in order for it to be, I don't want to say worth your time, but in order for it to be like compelling for you, it's a crowd, but these conferences are huge and they bring in a ton of people. So we'll talk about that for sure. Cause if you got plugged into that. I think you would have, you'd be plugged into a lot. So anyway, we'll talk about that. But so give us a little bio of yourself, just like a personal bio. Tell us about where you are and your travels and whatever you want to say.

Tanner Clark:

Yeah. One of the questions I get asked a lot is how did I get into speaking in schools and helping teenagers? And I think the answer is more, I don't know. Like I, I always loved helping people motivational speaking. I think it's just a fiber of who I am. It fills my cup more na thing. I think one thing that. I as I do this and I do my own podcast and I don't even know how many people listen to it. I don't even know how many people, follow me or I tend to not care because I just go it just fills my cup to do it. It's something I love to do. And if I can pour into more people then all the better if I can impact one person somewhere. Great. But yeah. From a, how did I get into this perspective? It just happened. I had a really strong impression one day as I was doing some motivational work and doing some stuff and I just had this strong impression that said, Tanner, you gotta help teenagers. You gotta focus on teenagers. And I'd actually had that before, but I just never responded to the thing about it. I didn't know what to do about it. So I took it to heart and after that day, There were just some very serendipitous things that fell into place in my life, some key connections, some people that and honestly, I think what helped me most is one of these key connections just being Pushed me over a ledge, pushed me off of the ledge. I didn't know how to jump off of, or I was too scared to jump off of and got me into my first school. And from there, I've been able to just parlay it into, just more and look at, how can I help more people in different ways and whatever that looks like. So I just got into it, but but what I found over time is that, that going into schools and just the need. for this and for someone, whether it's me or whether it's somebody else, but somebody reaching out to teenagers and helping them because right now teenagers are struggling. There's so much going on, whether it's with smartphones, whether it's just with life. And I think even away from teenagers, I think a lot of people are just anxious right now. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of stresses. There's a lot of weight on people's shoulders. And so how can I You know, just with, I think just some gifts that I've been given, how can I help more people and how can I step into a place where I can give people a little bit of light in a world that sometimes feels dark because I don't know, I just feel like we're, and I have a weird obsession with tunnels. I feel like we're in this, like people are in this tunnel and I, one of my favorite things, and every time we drive through the Canyon here, close to where we live in Utah, we drive through a tunnel and I love coming out of tunnels because The world just opens up and there's this freedom and there's this piece. And if I can give a little bit of that to somebody on any given day, then and half the time, I didn't even know if I've done that. I just know that some days I just feel this impression to jump on Instagram or social media and say something that I feel might help someone. And and then I get messages on the end of it, whether it's someone on Instagram saying, Hey, That really helped me today. Or every time I speak in a school, I always have one or two kids right afterwards, usually with tears in their eyes, come and just say, thank you so much. That was exactly what I needed to hear today. So thank you for that. So yeah, it's I don't know. I just I'm a big proponent of growth. I'm a big proponent of moving forward, even if you don't know how to move forward. And I feel like that's put me here on your podcast today.

Tim Eaton:

Yes. No, I, that's an excellent introduction. I love that. There's so much to talk about from that. I, one thing I was thinking of, we I loved your idea of tunnels and coming out of tunnels. This past summer, my family and I went before too. My kids went away for a couple of years. We went on a family trip and we went to Hiawatha. Have you ever been there? Hiawatha trail in Idaho near Cordon. Anyway, it's beautiful. Basically it's a train tunnel and there's tunnel after tunnel and it's right now it's converted to like you bike through it and so it's way long and so it's so dark. They make you get lights and anyway, it's called Hiawatha trail and it's, yeah, it's worth doing, but, and beautiful bike ride, about 15 miles, but it's, oh, cool. But when you, as you approach that, like you're describing the light at the end of the tunnel type thing. So one thing I would just say I just watched several of your things. And what I love about Tanner's approach is just that it's a, it's real. Like I, like sometimes you can see somebody trying to be like motivational speaker guy and they're not, they don't pull it off and you're good, man, because. You're real. And I think that's the difference with a lot of people. They're, I don't know, they just don't pull it off. I don't know how to say that. But so I appreciate your approach and the way you do it. It's awesome. I appreciate that. I was wondering what's your typical I'm not saying like your typical outline, but what are your typical topics? What are you, you mentioned technology and, this rise in anxiety and depression. I've been. reading a lot about the rise of anxiety and depression and the probably the biggest corollary is with social media. And so what's your approach when you go to a school?

Tanner Clark:

Yeah. So really what I talk about is I want teenagers to ultimately be happy and being happy comes from, Recognizing that you're in control in your life. And so what I go in is I first established that as a baseline that they're in control and there's a lot of things that are happening in their lives and there's a lot of things that are circumstantial, a lot of things that may just be, where you live, how you live, whatever it is. But there's a lot of things that are circumstantial to anybody and particular to teenagers. But I want them to know that regardless of what happens to them, And there's always actions that, that happen to them, but they can always control their reaction. There's always something that you can dial up or dial down that can change or moderate how you live your life and how you feel. And so I want teenagers to recognize that first off. And then from that, I want them to know their worth. I want them to recognize how important and how valuable they are. I want them to know that they can get through hard things. And then I want them to know that they can, They don't have to be held hostage to the digital devices in their lives. Because I think one of the things I always tell teenagers and parents is if you're teenager, or if you yourself are unhappy, it almost always goes back to the moment you put a smartphone in your hand. And it's just a fact. And I think if you really like any of your listeners, if you really take a hard look at where you're at right now, and if there's something going on in your life, I bet it almost ties back. To that smartphone, the amount of time you're spending on it, who you're following on it, the comparison, the self doubt, all of those things stem from this device that is control of our lives, because if we are not intentional with our device usage, then we will be unintentionally distracted all of its time. And that's the difference. And so with teenagers, I want to establish that control. And then I want to give them, I, you, I always talk about your one second of strength, and I think we'll talk about that today but, I want them to know that they have the power in one second to walk away from the things that are hurting their heart. And that may be an influencer they're following. That may be a relationship in real life. That may be, it could be anything else that's going on. But I want them to know that they have the power in that one second to walk away. And I always tell them, when you find your one second of strength to walk away from the things that are hurting your heart, the very next second is the best second of your life. Because in that second you will feel freedom. There is just this weight that is immediately lifted off your shoulders that honestly, you can't describe unless you felt it. And the reality is that most people have felt that in their life. I just want them to recognize that was because you took control and had power over whatever that thing was that was controlling you. And then you walked away. And so there's this power that, that comes from that.

Tim Eaton:

So good, man. Have you read Atomic Habits? I have. By James Clear. Yeah. That idea of, probably the thing that hit me more than anything in that book was the idea of votes in the right direction. And that's exactly what I would say you've tapped into with the idea of the one second of strength. And I read about like Viktor Frankl I've read Man's Search for Meaning and that idea that between stimulus and response, you have in that moment. A decision that you have total control of, which I think a lot of times we've abdicated in our discussions today. Like we, we make it sound like, Oh, and we're trying to commiserate or we're trying to be compassionate. It's like good intentions, but it's not like totally helping people. Because the fact is what I want to tell youth and what I want to tell anyone is no, you actually do have the choice. Like you really do have the choice. And in that moment of strength, Or weakness, it's going to determine a lot. And so get votes in the right direction. And guess what? The more votes you get in that direction, it's going to change who you are and you will become that thing that you're putting votes towards. I love that. I love the one second of strength.

Tanner Clark:

It's really compounding, right? Life is compounding. And in fact the last podcast episode that I did if your listeners go listen it's about planned happenstance and planned happenstance is this theory or this reality that, that you can't you don't know what's going to happen in the future, you have no idea what's going to happen in the future, but are you preparing today for those things that are going to happen in the future? And that comes with those votes that you're talking about. You can give a nod and every moment and every second you have a choice. And what is that choice you're going to make? Because, but then the reality that if you make a choice, Now, you've impacted your ability to make a next choice, right? However, I don't want people to ever, and I definitely don't want teenagers to ever think that they made a bad choice, and now that they're stuck in a bad choice. There is always a next best choice. You can always correct a ship, you can always move forward. Even if hope feels lost and it feels dark and it feels like just you're in the middle of that tunnel. And it's as quick as the

Tim Eaton:

next decision. It's as quick as the

Tanner Clark:

very next decision. One second, one second, one more decision, and you can change that course. And but your one second of strength is this concept of, it's really rooted in your in neuroscience where you're, And especially teenagers, but we have this tendency to think with the emotional part of our brain and teenagers, the studies show that teenagers brains, their prefrontal cortex, which is the logic center of your brain doesn't develop until about your mid twenties. And so teenagers are literally thinking with their emotions almost all of the time, but even a teenager who doesn't have that prefrontal cortex fully developed. Can in any given moment, choose to override, hack your brain and override that emotional response that you're having and choose your next best response in that one second. That's I think where, when I think about Viktor Frankl, that's what he's talking about. You have in any given moment, the ability to make that choice. And I want people to recognize that your one second of strength can be used in literally any given moment. every second of your life. And I, if you listen to my TED talk, when I literally think one second of strength every single morning at five 30, when my alarm goes off, and I don't want to wake up to go work out, but I know that it's the right thing for me. And so at five 30, when my alarm goes off, and I want to lay in bed because it's really comfortable. And as humans, we want comfort, we want ease, that is just the nature of what, Our molecules are, that's how we do it. And so I want to lay in bed because I'm tired and I'm exhausted and it's been a long week and I'm in, maybe I'm in the middle of a tunnel. I don't know what's going on, but it's that one second that I just think one second of strength and it propels me out of bed. And I move on to do the thing that I'm supposed to do. And so in any situation, if you are struggling here, there's something that you need to do. It's that one second of strength that pushes you to do it. And that can, and that choice that you can make and whether that is, a lot of times that might be, man, I've been scrolling my phone now for 45 minutes and all I was doing was checking the weather and then you're just in this endless scroll. And it's okay, Recognize that you're doing this and now find your one second of strength and put it down, throw it across the bed, put it in, in a place where you're away from it, but that's the power that you have. But your brain and your emotions will default to ease and simplicity, which means keep scrolling, which means don't go work out, which means don't have that hard conversation, which means. XYZ, right? It just is that continued path, but we know that path is not where growth comes from. The growth comes to the other direction and it comes through making. Our choices and hard choices come from one second of strength in choosing in that moment to do it, despite the lack of want.

Tim Eaton:

Yeah. And you're like, you've explained and so many people have explained you're fighting dopamine. So that's not a, that's not an easy thing. So I want to come back to that, but I have one question that I'd love for you to tell the story about the, that pivotal moment for you, where your daughter came upstairs after you had put her to bed and you could get, when you just said through your phone across the bed, that made me think of that story. And dude, that was so good because like parents can relate to that, but individuals can relate to that one second that made a giant difference and probably propels you on a regular basis. That's the memory of it. But the one question I had before you relate that is, is it universal that youth do not have Developed pre frontal cord. Is that universal? Because why is it that some kids do think, do seem to just think so straight, without that fully developed. And other kids are like, what? Some are just going crazy with some things like. Anyway, what do you think? Yeah,

Tanner Clark:

it's, it is pretty universal. I think that every kid is going to develop at their own rate. Boys and girls are going to develop at their own rate. In fact, the study show that girls develop it around the age of 24 and boys around the age of 26. So there are some differences. between genders, but then there's going to be differences between every kid, right? Like you may, and you may see it in your own household where you have two boys and one boy is like super mature and one boy is not super mature. And I think there's probably a lot of things that really come in a lot of factors like responsibility. Even upbringing, if you think about oldest child versus middle child versus youngest child and the responsibility that's on one and the not on the other. And I think there's a lot that plays into that. And just honestly, just. The brain development of one person isolated of everybody else. But so it's, it is universal that your prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped. I think what's not universal is at what point would you be developed? However, I would also say that even in adults, The things that you do and the amount of time you spend on your phone and the amount, all of these things do impact your cognitive ability. And I think it's even just and sometimes your emotional brain hijacks your logical brain, right? Think about road rage. If you're driving down the road and somebody cuts you off, you logically know that it is stupid to chase that person down and drive your car that fast because it's a. 2000 ton torpedo. However, your emotions override your logic and you do it anyway, which is stupid, but we do it. And so the brain is funny in that way where even in adults, Sometimes we're very underdeveloped and naive in the way we do things. However, with teenagers, it's pretty universal that they are underdeveloped. And, and then what happens is the more time they spend on video games and the more time they spend on devices, there's actually less development in that logical center, because you're tapping so much into that. into that emotional world and the dopamine that's happening there.

Tim Eaton:

Yeah, said. My, my audience is obviously a homeschool audience and the, but I think this story of when your daughter came up, it's just so like informative to anybody because it's a moment where you have a decision and it really illustrates this idea of one, one second to choose strength or to choose not strength. So tell us that.

Tanner Clark:

I had this experience It was five, three, four, five years ago. My daughter at the time was about eight years old and we had just put the kids to bed and that's just the best time of night for a lot of parents, as much as we love our kids and we, as much as as much as they mean to us, and I can only imagine for homeschool parents where it's you are with your kids all day and I go, I go to work or my wife, like we have things going on, but at the end of a long day, There's this moment where you put your kids to bed. They're finally in bed. You can finally relax. You can finally just like. Sit down on the couch and not think about anything. And so that's what happened that night. I, that night I was, we just put the kids to bed. I have a habit and I think it's a great habit for your listeners. I always almost without fail lay with my, my kids. The kids that will lay with me, I lay with them every night. I just think that there's I talk a lot about making sure that you're giving each kid individual intentional time every single day. I think that's important for you and I think it's important for them. And one of the easiest ways to give them individual intentional time is by laying with them at night. Just go down, even if it's for two minutes, even five minutes, whatever, just lay with them, just be with them, just be near them. Anyway, so kids are in bed. I go into our room and I just. Pull out my phone, I start scrolling Instagram, which I think is pretty much the universal thing what we do when kids go to bed, like we're, I'm just sitting there, and I'm scrolling the phone, and I heard just the sound that you never want to hear, I heard footsteps walking down the hallway, and it's just exasperation, frustration come on, I just put you in bed, what could you possibly be doing, you're interrupting my me time, which is, I don't know. But you're in my space now, right? And so I can see out of the corner of my eye, my daughter and she's this amazing daughter who always gets out of bed because something's wrong. Like on any given night, it's like her head hurts or her tummy hurts or whatever. There's always something wrong that. Is just you and I would look at and go, this is so dumb. What are you doing? But so she's, something's wrong with her. And so on this night, she, I look over at her and she's dad, my toe hurts. And I'm just like, you gotta be kidding me. So usually what I would do is I would just give her a quick hug and I would send her to bed and I would tell her that sleep was what she needed to make her toe feel better. Like just go to bed. And on this particular night, I just felt different. Something was off. I just, it was wrong. Something was wrong. And and I'm having my phone in my hand. And so in this one second of strength, I just literally threw it across the bed. five, six feet, threw it across the bed, distance myself as far as I could from it. And I called her over to me and I, as she's walking over, I just made this like commitment in my head that I was going to hug her until she let go.

Tim Eaton:

Yeah.

Tanner Clark:

As, as long as it took, I didn't know what that meant. And cause usually it was just like two seconds, go to bed. And on this one, I was like, no, I'm going to hug her until she lets go. And she held me for five minutes. And as she's holding me for those five minutes and I'm hugging her, I'm just thinking. What was the alternative here? What was the alternative? Scroll my phone? What was the alternative? Just not being present in her life, not showing that she's more important than that phone? What is the alternative to hugging her in this moment? Because in that moment, I just recognized that she didn't need me to talk about her toe. Her toe didn't even hurt. Maybe it did, but she, it didn't. What was hurting was she just needed She needed love. She needed attention. She wasn't getting it. I hadn't filled her cup enough.

Tim Eaton:

And

Tanner Clark:

in that moment, she just needed it. And so just the power of one, throwing, finding my one second of strength and distancing myself from the distraction in my life, and two, the power of five minutes and just holding her until she let go, that's what I needed. Changed me she probably doesn't even remember what she probably remembers just because I talk about it in my TED talk, but she probably doesn't even remember it other than I do. I know and it and it served as a catalyst in my life where it's like. You need to pay a lot more attention, not just to you, me, and what is going on in my life, and what matters most, and how I can achieve my goals and my dreams, or even if it is scrolling my phone for peace and sanity for a minute, right? Even if it's that, but pay attention to the people in your life. and impact them as much as they need to be impacted because you never really know what someone needs. But if you're on your phone, it's really hard to listen. It's really hard to be in tune with someone else's needs. If you are paying attention to somebody who made a Instagram reel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, right? Like who cares?

Tim Eaton:

Yeah.

Tanner Clark:

What matters is my daughter in the moment needing love, needing her dad, needing me to be present. So that she feels important, she feels valued, she feels loved, versus giving our time to other people across the globe on an Instagram reel.

Tim Eaton:

Totally. And I think it illustrates this concept of deliberate, intentional parenting that you're, that you emphasize. And, one thing about homeschool parents is, And people do it totally different ways. I'm into some ways. I'm not in other ways, whatever, to each his or her own. But if one thing that is universal, that is, it is intentional. It's a very intentional choice to say, Hey, we're going to do it this way. And, it, and it's changed. It's different from the conceptions that people used to have about it. Way more, socially acceptable and, just societally acceptable, but this idea of intentional parenting I was wondering With your own kids like so one of the one of your messages is that you can almost come back to the moment you Got a phone and that kind of where things had changed. How are you implementing this in your home? But what is the range of your kids? Yeah,

Tanner Clark:

so we range from 17 down to 8 and so Yeah we'll have a lot of conversations. We try and monitor it as much as possible. My oldest daughter, she has a smartphone. She's probably had it. She's 17. She's probably had it for three or four years. 17, 18, probably since she was, almost 14. And it wasn't long after we gave her the phone that it was a mistake to give her a phone. And I think it was just because of the time spent there, but she didn't have Instagram. She didn't have social media. But I think it's just, it's interesting because our 11 year old girl, the one from the story, she's 11 now. She gave her recently a gab phone. If your listeners have ever heard of gab, it's I don't know that they, I don't think they have it in Canada, but in the United States. I know it's, I've talked to them about that by the way. But anyway, so a gab phone is just talk and text, but even my daughter who can only talk and text on her phone carries around like a status symbol. It's. Weird. It's not weird for her. It's just the, it's culture. Like it's culturally weird, right? This is

Tim Eaton:

where we're at. Yeah,

Tanner Clark:

exactly. And anyway, so there was just a lot of things that happened and then some text messages and some chats that we saw with my daughter that when she got her phone that made me really question and pause what am I doing as a parent? And so what it did is it forced us to be much more involved and much more active. So we do phone checks. I just and, I think a lot of people look at phone checks as this invasion of privacy and you got to give your kids a privacy and they, how could you do this? And this is the 21st century. What are you doing? And I just go, you know what? I don't care. I don't care what you say about that because here's my job. My job as a parent is to protect my kids, help them be happy, help them grow and help them like live these fruitful lives. And if there's a device in my home that is jeopardizing that, then I have all the right in the world. to be responsible and on top of that and not just be my kid's friend, but be their parent. And however, I talk about her, talk about it with her. I let her know, we let her know that those things are going to happen. The phone never goes in her room at night. Never goes in rooms at all, period, let alone at night. So it's checked in at we put it in this RO box, which we can talk about if we want, but I put it in this RO box and at night, that's where it sleeps with my phone. I don't sleep by my phone either. What kind of a

Tim Eaton:

box is that? Sorry. What is that box?

Tanner Clark:

It's called the RO box and it's this connected device. Actually a good friend of mine from high school and his partner his co creator, they they developed it and it's this connected device that is tied to an app. And when you put your phone in it, it automatically starts tracking your downtime, the away, the time away from your phone. So essentially it fights dopamine with dopamine. It rewards you and gamifies. Not being on your phone. And so anyway, just connect the device. So it goes in there and we can put, we'll put some in the show notes if you're just want to go and take a look at that. And I, how do you spell

Tim Eaton:

that? What is that? It's

Tanner Clark:

a R O box, a R O box, a R O that I believe it's a Hawaiian word that means to notice. And so it's to be able to notice the world around you is what they do. And so anyway, it's a beautiful device and not only is it beautiful, but. The intentionality behind it. And I remember the first time I put my phone in that device and walked away, there was an immediate sense of freedom and talk about your one second of strength, right? Oh my gosh, I just intentionally left my phone in a box and walked away from it because most human beings never have their phone. Out of hands, reach arms, reach it. It's always with you. It's always in your pocket. It's always right there. And so the intentionality between walking away from it is pretty powerful. So anyway, so with her, phones never in rooms. And what I was going to say about the phone checks is most of the time. We don't even tell her or talk about it unless there's something that I need to just bring up or intervene. That's when I will say something to her, but I also don't, I don't freak out or chastise, I guide and support and talk because I just believe if we freak out on our kids, they will never trust us again and they will, it becomes a bigger problem. Instead, and recently had a, an episode where there was something on the phone and I talked to her about it and I just said, look, I just want you to remember who you are, remember who you want to be, who do you want to be, and then are the things that you're doing on your phone, are those actions getting you closer? You talk about your, you're putting votes in different directions, are those things getting you closer or further away from that person? And then I let them self guide. And that's honestly what I do at schools as well, because I don't ever tell kids in schools, I don't ever tell them, you got to get these things off your phone, delete Snapchat, delete TikTok, get them off your phone. All I do is I present the evidence of why this is challenging for them or what it's doing to their hearts. And then I let them choose to walk away from it themselves. And I always get messages that they do. With her, that's where we're at with my son, who's 14. He has a different phone. It's called a bark phone, which

Tim Eaton:

yeah, I know bark phone,

Tanner Clark:

bark. Again, I don't think they're available in Canada.

Tim Eaton:

No, they're not. Do you know Emily Jones from family tech university? I don't. If she's down there close to you, but family tech university. And she has she talks about the bark phone a lot. She'd be somebody to connect with for sure, because she has a site. My kids have taken her course family tech. You it's called. Yeah. And she talks about different phones and her whole premise is. That this is, I grant you a phone as a parent. Like my role as a parent is that you have to, you have gotten to a point. She said, she compares it to a driver's license. And she said, you have shown that you are capable of this. And so it's not this rite of passage. It's you have gotten to the point where you can handle this much. And it, and some people would say, it depends, everyone's coming from a different background, but some people would say that's still two hands on government. But my question is and I wonder how you would respond is In light of what you just talked about, as far as the pre frontal vortex and just statistics about youth and I'm asking genuinely because in my head and I, I teach religious education to youth and young adults. In my church and we had a a recent leader who, who talked about the correlations and the statistics with the rise in anxiety and depression specifically associated with social media and most people are accessing social media on their phones. So my question is, even if we do teach them at a principle and self guide and all that. Are they even capable because they're not even fully developed? Is that like saying to a two year old? Hey, there's ice cream all in front of you, but I just trust that you're going to make the right decision that, so I'm wondering, and I know that's not universal and it does depend on the kid, but what do you think?

Tanner Clark:

Yeah, so I think that there's like ages that I just don't believe you should have social media or a smartphone like I just don't believe it's there. So like with my son and his bark phone, he When he was 14, he got that phone. He didn't have access to the internet. He didn't have access to social media. I wouldn't put it on his phone. I didn't grant him that access. Like he just didn't have it because I just don't think he's ready for it. And then as the year went along, it was like very similar to what you were just saying is I said, okay, look, if you're wanting this, or if you're if you're in that space, then let's do be real. You can have be real, which I think is the most like safe, if you want to put it but the most harmless, even though that's tough when I'm talking about social media, but the most harmless of the social media apps, right? Okay, let's do that. And then later it was like, okay, let's look at, let's look at internet browser. You want to look at ESPN, you want to look at shoes, you want to look at those sorts of things. Okay. But we're going to. Have conversations about it. We're going to check it. Here's the rules. Here's everything that goes on. I think that there's certain ages where kids just should not have it. It's just, they can't control it. And the hard part is that sometimes it's not even about not trusting your kid. It's about not trusting, Everything that comes along with it. It's not trusting. It's not trusting the the predators that are on these apps. It's not trusting that the algorithm isn't going to just destroy your child because there's there are instances where kids or I guess I should say adults join tick tock just to like, Yeah. Prove this point and they join us pretend they're 13 years old and the algorithm immediately starts sending them self harm Things about eating disorders things like that and it's okay, so we are giving our kids this Fun, consume all of this content and we can't even control what it's feeding them. I just think that we are, we have the opportunity to be the biggest influencer in our kids lives. And too often we are the furthest thing from that because we just relinquish control of learning and education to random people on the internet and random people on social media and random algorithms. And we're just like. You're good. You'll be fine. Go have fun. See you when we see you. And I think that ties back to what I said earlier, where if your teen is struggling, if they're unhappy, if they're, if they are looking like they're in a dark place, and then the scary part is some of them just suffer in silence is it comes back to that device. So coming back to your question. No, there's certain ages that I just don't think that they should have it. I do think that there's with the right checks and balances with the right With the right guidance that you can slowly wean them off of no tech. Because at some point They are gonna have it, let's be honest, and I would rather them learn under my protection and watchful eye than learn without that is how I take it but there's a, there's an age, there's not that doesn't mean that my 8 year old is going to get a smartphone, and it doesn't mean that he's gonna have access to this thing, in fact, we were on, he was watching YouTube the other day, and he was looking at shorts and this random short popped up, and my wife and I were like, We're not watching shorts anymore, guys. Like it is just Tik TOK on YouTube. We're not watching it. If you want to watch dude, perfect. Perfect. If you want to watch how ridiculous have fun, but we're not watching random shorts about random things. That's just not a thing. And so they stopped. And, but it's perfect. But if you're not present as a parent, and if you're not in tune to those things then it comes, then it becomes really hard. And I think one of the fears or one of the challenges that just a lot of parents, which is why your podcast is great and why, these conversations are great is a lot of parents just don't know what they don't know. No,

Tim Eaton:

we're uneducated, man. We're uneducated about it. And it's, it, and it's actually,, there are good analogies that kind of reveal or demonstrate how crazy it is. Some of the decisions we make. I read your article. On Lemonate, which I wasn't familiar with Lemonate and TikTok and owned by ByteDance. Is that right? Yep and I also watched my wife and I watched the all four hours of the congressional hearings with all of the major social media CEOs, which I loved personally, But I was left thinking like, man, I don't know what's going to happen from that. Like they're not willing to cooperate. And there's, here you have all these parents of kids that had committed suicide and other terrible atrocities. And yet it's just they're not going to stop. And so the comparison that I feel like really does. Work is and you got to be careful because like you're saying these have good uses But I just find that the majority the vast majority are not proactively using Social media they are very passively using which is illustrated by scrolling and other things the analogy of getting a license like if my and I grew up in chicago and In a suburbs of Chicago. But if you went downtown, if I had a 14 or 15 in Canada, you can, or at least in Alberta, you can get your learner's license, your learner's permit at 14 and which is, it's 15 where I grew up in Chicago and I don't know what, is it you 15 in Utah, 15 and a half? Yeah. Oh yeah. I was just thinking if my kid and I think that it would be the equivalent of the way that we deal, like you were talking about lack of education among parents and smart phones and also social media. It's just what everyone's doing. So we don't challenge it as parents, but it would be the equivalent of saying to my kid, no, you're 14 now, or even you're 11 now. Take the car downtown and just navigate the roads down there. The one way streets in Chicago alone and all the veins. Those kids would just get killed, man. Anyway, I don't know. I it's so hard because you don't want to demonize it on the one hand, but then the reality and the statistics are so prevalent and clear about the associations. And so I'm struggling with that. I'm struggling with even like my daughter, my oldest daughter, she didn't get a phone until she was 18. And and my current kids, I have a 17 and 14 almost 15 year old who share what we call the we call a car box We're not even gonna call it a phone. It's not your phone it's a car box and the reason why it's a car box is because You use it in the car and but unless you are like seriously constantly monitoring It's so annoying man, and I don't want to and it's not because they're bad kids. It's because they're Normal kids and they're like, we're our friends and what are they doing? And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to chuck that thing.

Tanner Clark:

Yeah it's a challenge. And I have this chart that I've put together that overlays the statistics of suicide rates in the United States and in Utah.

Tim Eaton:

Is that on your site?

Tanner Clark:

It's not, it's in my presentation that I give and so it's, but it's this overlay of suicide rates from like 2002 to 2017, 18, 19, and it's just this steady increase.

Tim Eaton:

Yeah.

Tanner Clark:

And then what I did over top of that is I overlaid. When various apps and devices were introduced into the world. And when you look at this, so 2006, you've got the iPhone and then you've got 2010 with Instagram, and then you've got Snapchat and and Tik TOK, which used to be musically. And you just see on this chart. and the rise and some people will say they're not correlated. And I just look at the chart and I'm like,

Tim Eaton:

no, it's, you can't mislead.

Tanner Clark:

They're pretty correlated to me. And and I'll have to shoot you a text message of this chart because it is, it says, It is eye opening and mind boggling at the same time to look at it and see that as suicide rates in our country, in the United States, as well as as well as individual cities and states, as it rises, it is 100 percent correlated to when these devices were launched into the world.

Tim Eaton:

In those congressional hearings with Snapchat and with Facebook, it was internal studies. Like it was their internal studies that were showing those same correlations. And I couldn't believe the lack of response from the CEOs when these senators on both sides of the aisle were totally grilling them which was very satisfying but only satisfying for the moment,

Tanner Clark:

it's satisfying in that, for once in our life Democrats and Republicans are aligned on something, right? Great. They don't like You know they're worried about our kids, and they're worried about these suicides, and the self harm, and the damages that these are these things, these apps are doing to the mental health of the world. They get it. They see it. And then you have on the other side, these guys who are going, Yeah, we see that too, and we're gonna We're going to put in a couple of things in place. So it looks like we're trying to protect teenagers or whatever. But then at the same time, we're making a lot of money and we got a lot of shareholders. And it's really important that we continue to make this money. And the one that got me in that congressional hearing was the one that, where they were talking with Mark Zuckerberg about About their need to get Gen A, Gen Alpha early, before they turn 13, so that they can have them hooked. E

Tim Eaton:

mails that showed those conversations, right?

Tanner Clark:

That's the one to me where I'm like, okay, so they're, they are they're, they care about shareholder value, and they are, they care about how many kids are on it, they care about, Adults as well, but how many teenagers, and can they get them hooked on these apps early? And if they can get them hooked at 12, or 11, or 10, then it's better for them. And that's the scary thing for me. And you'd be shocked. Like, when I go, so I do, when I go speak in schools, I do high schools, I do middle schools, and I've done elementary schools before, and I've asked kindergartners. I've asked kindergartners, how many of you have a smartphone? And 50 percent raise their hand. 50 percent of 5 year olds are raising their hand because they have a smartphone. No dude,

Tim Eaton:

we're just dumb.

Tanner Clark:

We're dumb. It's

Tim Eaton:

crazy.

Tanner Clark:

It's crazy. And I, and look, here's the, here's what I would say. Is, if you've given your kid a smartphone, A young kid, if you've given your young kid a smartphone, and I get it we need to I understand the need of connecting and being connected with them and using it as a tool and a phone and texting and they've got sports practice and all I understand the communication tool device of a smartphone. However, It is not too late. Even if you gave your kid a smartphone and it's like it was too early and you know it was early, it is not too late to walk that back. Just do it. Just find your one second of strength and walk that back and it's okay to have the conversation with your kid and say, look, I made a big mistake. I'm doing this tech thing for the first time. I've never been a parent of a tech world. I've never been a parent of a 10-year-old who wanted a smartphone before. That's, no, we're all thrown into it. I thought it was good, but let's call a spade, like I made a mistake, we're going to take this back, we'll find another way, we'll get you a flip phone, we'll communicate with you, but we're not going to do the smartphone thing anymore, and here's what's going to happen, your kid is going to be ticked off for about a day and a half, two days, and then you're going to start to see a change in their mentality, you're going to start to see a change in their behavior, you're going to start to see a change in their creativity, you're going to start to see that they are no longer know, these things. Acting like an adult and they're starting to act like a kid again. That's what you're going to see when you choose to walk back, giving your kid a smartphone too early. That's what you'll see. And just let them be bored. Let them create. I think that kids and humans, we are happiest when we're creating, we are happiest when we are developing things. I think that, I always say believe that God, Heavenly Father He wanted us to be like Him, and the very first thing that they were creators, created the world. So let's be like them. But social media wants us to be consumers. They just want us to consume everything that's going on instead of creating. And I think there's a very slippery slope there that we need to recognize, both on just a growth and like a human perspective, but then if you want to go into a spiritual perspective as well. Yes. What are you trying to become? And I think we want to become, I think the end goal is that we want to be more like God and a little less like the alternative, right? But it comes down to consumption and creation.

Tim Eaton:

Oh, that's a great relationship. You're showing, are you familiar with attachment theory? Gordon Neufeldt and Gabor

Tanner Clark:

Matei,

Tim Eaton:

they have a book called hold onto your kids and they have other things. And anyway, it's very similar to what you were just talking about. And this idea. There's this misconception of connection and attachment that, that happens through social media. And the fact is the evidence is showing quite the opposite, that it's not actually improving connection and attachment and their whole thing is that we have a generation and for generations now have been peers have been being raised by peers instead of by their parents and there isn't the attachment and those relationships. That are happening. I loved your top five books. I'm really excited to look into the, I wasn't familiar with the teenage brain and the chaos machine or unselfie. So I'm going to definitely do those, but I'm very familiar with glow kids. I'm going to actually interview him and and boys adrift. Excellent too. My, my colleague just wrote a dissertation and he's on basically digital scriptures versus the physical book and and glow kids was one of his major. He had so many good experiences reading glow kids. And so I read it as well. And so that's an amazing literature that you have there. I just had a couple other questions. If you have time for that, I sure. Can you tell us about the teen cell contract and what that's all about? Like I saw that on your site and what is that?

Tanner Clark:

Yeah. It's so anybody can download it. It's free to download. But it's just, to me, it's a communication. And so what I use it for and what I would add advocate that parents use it for is when you're going to give your kid a smartphone, I would, and even if you've already given your kid a smartphone, I would download this again, going back to, we can walk back our, we can walk things back. Yeah. You can't be easy, but walk it back and it's worth it. And it is worth it. And so download this this cell phone contract. It is, contracts a tough word because it, it feels so binding, but, and so I don't want it to be a, I do think it's binding, but I don't want it to be like this, like punishment tool. It's not a punishment, it's a communication tool. And so what I want you to do is I want you to download it. It's editable. You can change it however you want. Like it's yours. It's free, but download the contract, change it to the way you want it. But I think there's a lot of bullet points on there that are very, just In line with the things we're talking about things that kids shouldn't do on smartphones. Don't bully don't send naked pictures Don't do XYZ like and so but I want you to go line by line with your kid and talk about each line not just Don't send naked pictures. Good? You good with that? Yeah. Yeah, I won't do that. No. Cool, check. Hey, here's what happens. If we do that, there's things that'll happen. One, it could get you and them in a lot of trouble. In fact, child pornography, like you could go to jail, like there's a lot of really bad things that can do there. But also, there's this thing out there called it's called sextortion, where people are tricking kids, in fact, there's 500, 000 sexual predators on the internet every day trying to get kids to send them naked pictures so that they can then ask them for money, tell them that they're gonna tell their parents that they sent this picture if you don't send me 5, 000. And then what are you gonna do as a kid where you don't have 5, 000? Now you're in a hole, you're in a tunnel, and you don't know how to get out, and there's always light at the end of the tunnel, but have these conversations. And, hey, if you do this Let's talk about it. Let's get through these things together. So I want you to use it as a communication device, use it as a tool. And that doesn't mean that there aren't like penalties or that there's not, consequences of the kids, the teenagers actions, if they have that smartphone, right? If you do this, if you are bullying on your phone. If we see that, then, your first thing that's going to happen is this, if we continue to see it, then this, and then we're going to take the phone away or whatever. So I just want it to be a communication device. I don't want it to be this like, Oh, my parents made me sign this contract. You can change the word. It's editable changes, whatever you want. I don't care, but I want you to just start the conversation with your kid, because at the end of the day, the only way that we as adults. And our teenagers make it through this tech heavy world and their tech heavy adolescents together, because it's not them and it's not us. It's together. The only way we make it through together is through communication. There's no other way. There's no other answer. We've got to do it together. And this contract is really just a catalyst to do that. It's just a conversation starter between you and your teenager. Get on the same page with things and then revisit it. Have those conversations continually so that you can, You can continue continually march to the same beat.

Tim Eaton:

That's great. I love that. And just the principles in that are just this idea of communication education, like it's an opportunity to talk about education and Oh no, like this stuff is real, man. Like you look, you can show article after article where people, where these youth took their lives, like they took their lives because they were like you said, because of the extortion. And anyway, just there's some real things that we have to be upfront with our kids. You can't. You can't skirt around the issue in the day we live it. Like you got to come straight out to these youth and our children and and let them know what's really there and what's at stake. And with some

Tanner Clark:

kids yet, in general, you should have the conversation earlier and earlier, right? Obviously it's extortion and that sort of thing. If they're if they are. Getting a smartphone, you have to have that conversation. But look, even on Roblox and games like this that your kids are playing on video games, like you got to have that conversation with them. Don't talk to strangers. Don't do this. Hey, at, the studies show that kids are being exposed to pornography around the age of eight years old. So Hey, have you had the conversation with your kid about pornography yet? Gotta have it, it's hard, it's scary, it's not fun, find your one second of strength and have that conversation.

Tim Eaton:

And again, coming back to your point on intentional parenting and I feel like the pendulum swings, but with the day that we live in and the increase in tech and everything else I just want to re enthrone parents as the ones that like, like parent and and let's get, let's motivate other parents to parent because. Yeah. We have to unite as parents or else, like literally we're going to, we, what is that what's that saying by, I think it's Henry David Thoreau. That's most men live lives of quiet desperation and we just abdicate the role if we don't intentionally parent and be deliberate about the things that we're doing.

Tanner Clark:

And you're right, you said it a few minutes ago, someone else is going to take that responsibility if you don't, and I don't want that. I don't think anyone wants that.

Tim Eaton:

And of course I have my biases because I, this is a homeschooling podcast. We came across homeschooling and if I was going around to schools, what I would want to be doing is just be going, Hey, did you know that there's options out there? I don't care what education choice you choose, but what I don't like is people not knowing that there are choices. Cause I don't, I'm not even, I'm not even advocating, Hey, you should homeschool. What I'm saying is you should just like the smartphones and the, Social media is like, Hey, no, the options because man the statistics and correlations with people who are not having to be reprogrammed every single day because they're not exposed to as other, like all the social media and smartphones that friends have and all that they're still exposed to it, but it's more in a parent, anyway, I just would love to have people. Hey, there's options. And do you know those options? Man, I've totally enjoyed this conversation. This has been awesome. I appreciate it. I'll give you the final word and then tell us where we can find you and and what's coming up for you. Ooh, the final

Tanner Clark:

word, I feel like I should say something important. I don't know what that is. Yeah, you can find me. My, my website is www dot one second of strength. com. And on there, if you're if you are not a homeschooler, then, you can, connect with me about speaking at your school. If you are a homeschooler, at some point I would follow me on Instagram at RealtannerClark. And at some point I will do another homeschool assembly, which would give my, basically the same assembly that I give to in schools I would do for for homeschools. But yeah, the final word, I don't know that I have anything insightful to say other than I think that our kids are really important. I think that our teenagers are really important. And at the end of the day, they want to feel loved. They want to feel valued. They want to feel understood. And as they go through adolescence, That's what adolescence is this, almost this separation and learning and growing and expanding their capacity. And as we look at smartphones and we look at the restrictive nature of what they are, they're keeping kids from ultimate growth. They're keeping kids from growth. Us as adults from ultimate growth and you have to decide what you want in this life. You've got to decide and it's really hard for teenagers. And I'm not also saying that teenagers need to have it all figured out because they don't. I don't have it figured out. You don't have it figured out. Nobody has it all figured out right now. And that's what this evolution of life is all about, right? We get to learn. That's what planned serendipity is. You get to prepare yourself now for the future opportunities. And so I would just say To the teenagers, to the adults that are there that are listening choose the things that are most important to you, whatever those things are, and then take a look at your life and see what things are helping you get there. Yeah. What leads to that? What leads there and what's not getting you there. And that's really the simple answer to growth and happiness. And know that happiness is not in the final destination. It's in that progress as you move forward, as you progress, as you get to where you want to go. But. All of that comes down to a simple choice. All of it comes down to finding your one second of strength and deciding that in one moment you are going to choose to lead towards that growth, to lead towards that happiness, to progress to the life that you want to live versus being stagnant or going the opposite direction. But it is always your choice. Your choice, even if it's a hard choice, even if it's a difficult choice, but you get to choose it. And at the end of the day, if you lay down in your head at the end of the night, and you recognize that you made choices that were positive for your life and are going to move you towards a certain goal and a certain outcome that you deem is best for you, you're going to sleep pretty good. And that's the best.

Tim Eaton:

Oh, that's awesome, man. Thank you. So empowering to just know, like with all the unknowns you do have, what is absolutely true is you do have the power of choice in that second of strength. So thank you so much for sharing with us today and taking time. This is Tanner Clark, everybody, and hopefully we reconnect again. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day. That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.