5 ways to help wean students from a cell phone addiction.
(originally published on Oct 2, 2009 but revised and updated on December 2, 2011)
I heard it said recently that cellphones have become the electronic pacifier of the 21st century. Wow! Yes…that is true. We have students that cannot be without their cell phone. As a girls minister, we have seen this to be a problem not just for our teens but for our parents as well. Sometimes parents are the ones who are wanting their child to have a cell phone so that they can talk with them at an event. We’ve seen unfortunate distractions happen because cell phones were carelessly used at an event by a student who couldn’t stay away from it. Ironically when boundaries are placed on using the cellphone at events or on mission trips, some students express thanks for the break of being “available 24-7″. But there are other layers to this constant need for connection. We have become a society that cannot hit pause…not even in the car. And literally we are seeing a collision occur when people put their need for cell phone connection and/or production above the safety of themselves and others as people continue to maintain constant communication even while they are driving. It’s becoming an addiction, although Texting Queen Emilee Cox might not say it’s an addiction with her 35,463 Texts In 30 Days.
So what are we going to do about it? Here are a few of my ideas to help wean students from a cell phone addiction.
1. While on our mission experiences, we have told students they can’t have their cellphones except during certain breaks. To ensure that their cellphone is charged and checked in, we created these charging tubs. Their name is written in sharpie on a strip of duct tape, and using a dry erase marker, we can check in their phone after each break. We’ve had students thank us for doing this because it allowed them to truly be present when they needed to be present.
2. During small groups, have a “cell phone condo”—-A box that states: “Where Your Cell Phone Lives During small groups.” You could also just have a cell phone bucket placed in the middle of the room and have students place their cell phones in there during small groups.
3. Have your students fill out a cell phone covenant with you. It could look something like this:
I understand that it is possible to make my cell phone an idol or that it may become an addiction for me. I understand that an “addiction is when we’re seeking to find something that only God can provide in something besides God Himself.” (as stated by Craig Groeschel, life church tv) In order to not let this take place in my life, I will agree to a cell phone sabbath where I make the choice to detach myself from my phone once a week.
I will seek to have a cell phone sabbath hour every day during the hours of_________ to ___________.
I will leave my phone outside of my bedroom each night so that I can truly rest and not get caught up in any activity or conversation I might find myself in late at night or early in the morning if it were accessible.
Please keep me accountable to this agreement and ask how I am doing on a regular basis.
I’ve posted another cellphone contract that you can get ideas from here: Cell Phone Contract 2
4. If you are a parent, you may want to consider getting an app that restricts texting while driving. Here are some options:
5. Let’s not forget that modeling cell phone habits is teaching our students and children much more than we may think. I had a student tell me she thought I was using my phone more than I should. She challenged me to not use my phone for 24 hours and she would tell as many people she could about Jesus if I took the challenge. It was a win win for everyone. I took the challenge, and I learned a little about my own cell phone habits. 
I’m sure there are several other things we can do. What have you tried, tested, rejected, and celebrated regarding helping wean students from the cellphone addictive habits? Leave a comment or drop me a line at: girlsminister@gmail.com
DIGITAL Boundaries: how they help in loving your teenaged daughter
Judges 17:6
This was before kings ruled Israel, so all the Israelites did whatever they thought was right .(originally published on January 7, 2011. Reposted with extra links)
I was reading this passage today and recognized that for many of us, we know a “little princess” who lives this out on a day by day basis. Just like the society that Judges was chronicling, girls that we know choose to live their lives doing whatever they want to do and labeling it as “RIGHT”.
So here are some basics you can do to help your daughter have healthy digital boundaries set by your family, so that there is not a temptation for your daughter to “do whatever they think is right” online. You need to be having conversations about technology and tv instead of simply BANNING it. When your student moves out of the house, they need to determine what their digital boundaries are. One of mine is that I don’t post on facebook walls past a certain hour. So read on about some basics, and then work with your family to see what boundaries you need to have. You are preparing them for the future with these conversations, because I guarantee that they are not thinking about how their digital presence is connected to their physical presence. So read on and see if any of these may work for you.
1. Stop believing the lie that if you set boundaries, they’ll just do whatever they want anyway. I know several families, mine included, that lovingly set boundaries because they know their teen has a prefrontal cortex that is not fully developed until they are 25. We would think it’s absurd to let a baby or a toddler to decide what to do with their day, or where to go. Why do some people believe that teenagers should be different with having age specific boundaries?
Our middle school minister has triplets that are 1 and a precious little girl named Harper who is 3. This past week, Mary Lindsey (our middle school minister’s wife and a good friend of mine) came with the whole clan to let them get some excercise and for her to get a couple of things done. We each took a child and walked with them around the church. There were several times when I noticed my particular triplet moving toward a place they didn’t need to be going or putting something in their mouth that didn’t need to be there. So I would tell them “no” and move them back into the boundaries they were allowed to run in. Just like toddlers need boundaries to grow healthy and even to know they are loved, teenagers need boundaries as well. Here are some that I have seen my parents and other families institute in their homes with great success.
1. Practice a no technology boundary at dinner. That time is family time and so you as much as your children, need to turn off technology and truly begin having conversations with each other.
2. Keep your computers in a family central area. Work with your daughter in creating this family space.
Explain that this computer family area not only encourages public accountability for her, but also for the rest of the family.
3. Work with your daughter to establish “cell phone check-in station” . When cellphones start coming into the life of your teenager, oftentimes they may find themselves tempted to say or do things with their phone that they shouldn’t be doing. These things typically happen late at night. Example: SEXTING, addictive night texting, One family I know picks an hour and checks in the phones of their children in the evening. This policy is so their children are not alone with their cell phones having conversations in bed late at night with people they would never let into their physical room at that late of an hour.
4. Agree with your student to set some facebook profile rules that work both ways.
As a parent,there are some rules you need to have for yourself as well as your daughter. For example,do not post on their wall every week and comment on all of their friends comments. The fact that they are letting you into their social network is great. Do not abuse that. Instead, work with them to agree on how you will interact with each other on facebook. Use the private message feature. Help them understand that they do not need to put their cell phone on their page. There are so many conversations you need to have your daughter to agree with how you interact with your her and how they interact with their social network world as well.
5. Bring prayer into their digital boundaries. Pray each day that they are being wise and seeking to make God known rather than being self-absorbed on faebook. Message them a prayer each week through their facebook email or text them a prayer. Help them to celebrate technology and not just condemning it. Technology is not bad by itself, but when it is placed in our hands we can move it into a bad tool or a good tool. Talk with your daughters about this concept as well.
Check out our other article with 5 specific ways to wean your teen off their cellphone
These are just a few thoughts that I have seen work with Digital boundaries in the home. This is not exhaustive and they can always improve. Each family has different habits and personalities so we recognize that some of these boundaries may not work in your home but another will. Please share below regarding some digital boundaries you may already use or have seen others use.
Facebook Tutorial for parents in your ministry
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Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, social networking, technology, training
This week I was helping some friends out with their facebook profiles and teaching them some basics via a screencast. As I was walking through the process, I realized that this video might be helpful to student ministers who have parents unfamiliar with facebook or maybe it will save you a confusing conversation with your mom or dad. You can literally shoot them this link and be the hero for providing this facebook tutorial tech moment. It’s not very flashy, but maybe it will help someone. Hopefully someone will “like it”. 
That’s a facebook joke, but if you don’t know facebook you won’t laugh until after the video. It’s okay. You’ll understand soon.
So you have a parent who comes to you wanting you to help them understand this facebook thing. Voila! You now have a online tutorial to walk parents in your ministry through a facebook profiel. *Sigh of relief* …that’s right, now you can use this video in your next technology meeting with parents or share the video on your facebook page with your parents. If you need a more specific tutorial, just let me know. I’d love to help you out.
An inside look at a girls retreat online leaders meeting
No Comments Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, technology, training, Videos, volunteers
This year, I did something a little different with our leaders meeting before our girls retreat. I recorded it and sent out a password protected video link that had a biblestudy and schedule attached. It was well received as it allowed each leader the chance to “meet” with me on their own time. As there is not any “personal” information shared, I thought it might be beneficial to allow other girls ministers to see how I led our “snowball leaders information meeting”. It’s a little long…13 minutes, but hopefully it will be of some benefit to you. So without further ado…
TECHTALK: Distance biblestudy
No Comments Posted under: Featured, Girls Ministry, Talk Talk, technology, training
This week has been a crazy one. Not only are we getting ready to have our girls retreat the week after we have our guys retreat, but we have to fit in 11 interviews for our summer interns in two weeks. On top of that we have a minister’s spiritual retreat and a discipleship retreat. WHOA-WA! But we all go through seasons like that when we feel the need…the need for speed. (yes I’ve been watching some movies from the 90′s on the weekend) Or perhaps, we feel the need to be in four places at once. Well you can’t do that,but sometimes when you are trying to meet up with girls to plan bible studies and no one can be available at the same time for a physical meeting, you can try an alternative. I present to you Adobe Connect Web conferencing!
This Thursday, myself and 3 other girls all at different locations logged onto a customized weblink. Their video camera’s clicked on and because they aren’t exactly geeky techs like me, I used groupme to call them as a conference call and told them to turn off the volume on their computers. That way we had no echo. (If you don’t use headsets or a conference call, your program will pick up everyone’s microphones and it will echo the entire time and not allow for a meeting. Been there done that ) We met for 1.5 hours going over bible studies for Snowball. They loved it and so did I. They were still able to bethemselves on the webconference. For example, one of the girls was being cheeky and found out that when I was reading from my notes, I was not looking at them on camera. That’s when she proceeded to put a pen in her ear or be goofy. I finally realized that everytime I looked away, they would giggle. I soon found out why. Girls are girls even on web conferences. We had a great time and although it doesn’t been face-to-face, it’s a great alternative if you have to. I paid $14.99 for a month. I thought that was very reasonable.
I didn’t get to take screenshots of our meeting, but I’ll put some from the actual program. You can upload documents and girls can download from withinthe chat. You can create notes that everyone can edit. And you can share your screen with participants. If you needed to show a video or something, that would be very useful. In addition, everyone has a video pod so you can seeeveryone’s face. If you use it, let me know!
How to digitally share your favorite resources through shelfari
I’m sure it’s happened to you. It’s a Wednesday night, and a mom comes up to you wanting to know if you have a bible study for her daughter that you could recommend. Same day, (cuz you’re just really popular) a teenaged girl is wanting to find a resource to help her understand theology, and she wants to know what you recommend. Or maybe, you want to let your small group leaders see the approved curriculum you have for them to select for their groups this semester. If one or all of the above scenarios sounds familiar, you need to set up a Shelfari. It’s really easy. It’s free. Go to www.shelfari.com and begin setting up an online reference bookshelf. You can even create tags for specific people. For example, my entire bookshelf is www.shelfari.com/amyjogirardier.
I just created a tagged bookshelf for some parents:
http://www.shelfari.com/amyjogirardier/tags/biblestudy
And embedded, it looks like below:
GROUPME: a great way to communicate with teams of people via text
One of the things I have most enjoyed using in 2010 was this real-time group communications tool via my phone called GROUPME. It’s free and it has been amazing with many different uses. Our student ministry staff no longer uses text messaging as our means of communicating with each other because this has been so helpful. We utilize this so that instantly we all receive the message and in real time we can all view each person’s response. The downside with text messaging is even if your phone can send a message to multiple recipients, the recipients don’t know who else received the message and they can only respond back to you. With GROUPME, this is not the case. It’s like a little text conversation for a group. It has brought our team even closer as we can celebrate with each other, joke with each other, grieve with each other over bad news, pray with each other, and instantly alert each other so that no one is left out of important information. We have even used this tool with our leaders for events. For example, I’ve set up a groupme text group for a pre-teen retreat and our fall retreat. I’ve entered in all of the volunteers numbers and instantly we have communication in text that links us all together even when we are spread out across a campus. It is a time saver when we are doing cabin checks or passing out the student meds or getting bible study supplies to students. It is really handy because someone in bible study group can quickly use groupme to alert us all that a student has yet to show up. We were quickly able to identify that a cabin had overslept and missed their wake-up call instead of having to run all over campus trying to see where the group was.
You can then terminate the group at the end of retreat so that volunteers don’t get annoyed with the ongoing dialogue. The only downside is that there are only 25 people allowed to a groupme number. I had to set up 2 groups for our fall retreat. They also have a feature if you use the GROUPME iphone app to make a conference call and get everyone on the line. And now you can upload images that all the group can see and respond to. Very cool. So how do you get started? Just go to groupme.com and you’re ready to start. But before you do, check out some ways we’re using groupme.
Here are some ways I think you could utilize GROUPME in your ministry to girls:
-Use GROUPME with the girls you are discipling. Just make sure you create some digital boundaries to mute the conversation after a certain hour. You might also want to bring in another adult onto the GROUPME just for accountability.
-Use GROUPME for a volunteer checkin with your smallgroups and for announcements for the evening or Sunday AM.
-Use GROUPME for your student staff like we have been doing.
What are some other ways you could utilize GROUPME? Share below.
Tigertext: helping teens and adults cover their tracks
This is a new app only available on iphones right now but it allows a person to erase texts you’ve sent on another person’s cell phone. Interestingly named Tigertext. The company that released it promises that it was not named after Tiger Woods but ironically it would have been a program he would’ve benefitted from. I think this is not something that teaches teens how to use their phones. It bypasses consequences and moves straight to covering up their actions. I will never have this on my phone because I try to create boundaries in my phone useage that would never put me in a place that would cause me to send something I would want to have retracted. Not using my text messaging past certain hours. My question is: can this really delete poor texting decisions a teen or adult makes? Does the text still get documented somewhere that the authorities could trace it down. I would like to know more information—otherwise we will now have more Sexters unaccountable for their actions. Shane Hipps makes mention that when you bring in a technology into your life, you gain and you lose. What do you see the advantages of this technology being and what do you see the disadvantage of this technology being if it were to be introduced into your life or the life of your teens?
web 2.0 suicide: are your students on the digital ledge?
The term social suicide is one that has been around for awhile. I looked up the most popular definition on The Urban Dictionary and this is the one that rose to the top:
SOCIAL SUICIDE: commiting an act or acts that alienates one from their social scene or social circleto kill one’s social life
Example: John commited social suicide by asking out his ex-girlfriends best friend barely a week after they broke up.Example: Veronica is commiting social suicide by talking behind her friends backs.
- Create online hours and offline hours—-one of my friends wrote on the pillows of our senior girls last year this quote that stayed in my mind forever—”Nothing good happens after midnight”. That goes for the internet and even begins earlier…don’t go on the networks past 10. Often times you start posting things or saying things that you would not want to be said and those comments can’t be erased very easily.
- Take some digital breaks each week — If you begin to feel like your online presence is becoming demanding or even addictive, begin to schedule digital breaks or sabbaths. Tell someone or even post in your status that you are “off this week” or “this day”. Don’t let your profile or status own you.
- Consider the legacy… It’s hard to believe that a digital presence could cause havoc on your physical presence but it can. Your digital fingerprint leaves a legacy…think about what your profile will say when you begin to try and shake it, or change it.
What other boundaries do you have or tell your students to think about when they are online? Share them below.
Pixable: Your Girls Ministry’s best friend for memory keeping
It’s amazing how facebook has revolutionized our ability to save, comment on, celebrate, and keep in touch with memories through the facebook photo tagging abilities. I know that within hours of an event, I have instant feedback from our students and leaders as they upload their photos to photo albums on facebook and tag me in on the fun. Sometimes this can be my worst nightmare as we try to educate our students about what should be uploaded and what should not. However, today I just want to live in a naive world and pretend that all pictures are good pictures. You with me? So wouldn’t it be great to somehow have tangible albums that can be printed off, even passed out the week after an event? Let me introduce you to Pixable! It’s pretty simple. You have all the photographers (ie your students and leaders) now here’s how you can aggregate those into an amazing memory book or calendar. Image the possibilities! Meet your new best scrapbooking friend. I can’t explain it better then them…so here is Pixable.com!
- Girardier 2.0 update: we're having a boy! Technology was so good we could even see black rimmed glasses and converse shoes:). #fb
- RT @mikeglenn: New Post by @amyjogirardier - girls minister of @brentwoodbc on Self Esteem - http://ow.ly/6IErg #truthfulconversations
- Proud of the students I prayed with this morning at their school flagpole. Now I'm moving to breakfast. See you at the Puffy Muffin;).
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