February 10, 2022 • 27 mins
Founder of Shape the Sky, Ryan Klingensmith, is on to talk about the Technology Contract he created for parents to use with their kids. FIRST THING: Amy and Ryan talked about the “Think Before You Post” Pledge. Kari Ann Leventopoulos is the kid behind this pledge and she started it because “kids are becoming unhealthy and addicted to their smartphones.” SECOND THING: Having a conversation with your child about the Technology Contract (linked below) is the first step in the process, so Ryan walks us through what that talk looks like (this part is included in the actual contract, so no need to take notes! It prints out with the contract...making it very easy to have the conversation!) THIRD THING: Ryan goes over the terms of the contract! If your children have smartphones, it’s important that they sign this contract to set guidelines and expectations for safe smartphone and social media use. FOURTH THING: Ryan shared 4 things he is thankful for (tv show, book, instagram follow & drink).
“The more work we do on the prevention side, the fewer problems we will have on the intervention side.” -Ryan Klingensmith, Shape the Sky Founder and Licensed Counselor
Download the FREE Technology Contract HERE:
https://shapethesky.org/resources/technology-contract/
What is Shape the Sky?
Shape the Sky provides educational resources and the necessary tools to teach adults about risky behaviors of the internet and social media and how to create responsible children online and on their smartphones.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Never laugh. A little food for you. So life, Oh
it's pretty, but it's pretty beautiful. Thank you. Laughs. A
little month tightening up because said kick with four. So
(00:33):
my guest today is Ryan Kleing and Smith. He's going
to be on for all four things. And Ryan, you
founded a company that is called Shape the Sky, So
why don't you give a quick bio of who you are,
what you do, and why you founded shape this guy. Sure, well,
thank you for having me first of all, and I'm
really excited about this. I'm a licensed professional counselor and
(00:54):
have been for a long time working with teens in
general since Kurk Combaiden was on tour. And when I
say that with kids now, they don't even know who
that is. But I've been working with kids for a
long time and over the years, you know, I've just
seeing all the different things that have impacted kids, and um,
probably starting about two thousand twelve, you know, kids really
getting their hands on technology, smartphones, iPod touches and stuff
(01:16):
like that, and you know, start downloading apps like Instagram
and Snapchat. Then I started to see the impact that
that was having with kids. So I started just throwing
some trainings together and was going around to just like
local organization and saying like, you know, here's where the
kids are with these apps, and here's where we're at.
Like it's two different worlds here, and some of them
(01:36):
mental health behaviors that I dealt with trying to help
kids were starting to appear online and other mental health
providers and parents didn't realize that this was kind of
like a culture on there. So people really started getting
an interest in it and wanting these trainings because it's
like a kind of quick catch up to what kids
are doing it with technology and where they're standing. So
we just founded the company called Shape the Sky, and
(01:58):
we kind of called it that because really the sky
is your oyster. You know, whatever you want to do
with your life, you can do if you put your
mind to it. And whether that is you know, doing
great things with technology, or if you're making a whole
bunch of mistakes when you're younger, you know, that could
damage your sky. So we wanted to just make it
be a positive thing that like, let's shape your sky
into whatever you want to be. Well, I feel like
the Pledge is a great place to start when it
(02:19):
comes to shaping like your online presence and what you
want to put out into the world when it comes
to being online. So yeah, for the first thing, I
want to get into the pledge, which is something that
I believe came from Carrie. So do you want to
tell us a little bit about her and then we
can go over like what taking the pledge actually looks
like and what the different actions are. Sure. Absolutely, So
(02:42):
Carrie came to me a few years ago. She and
her mom there at a local school here and uh,
you know, she does these pageants and she you know,
it was kind of a nice mutual thing that happened.
She wasn't doing these pageants, but she's also in seventh
grade and seeing how kids are misusing technology because she's
a really good kid. And she said, you know, I
want my platform, these pageants to be you know, to
(03:03):
use these you know, technology responsibly. And she said, you know,
you have a great platform to get my message out.
Would you you know, like to do the partner with us?
I said, absolutely, more kids I can get involved in
this better. Well, you know, I have to say when
I went over the pledge and while we're talking about kids,
I feel like this is a pledge that adults can
take as well, and in fact, I wish a lot
(03:23):
of adults would you know, we've seen how nasty comments
or posts can be when it comes to Facebook or Instagram, Twitter,
It can get awful. But it's not just from kids.
It's from a lot of adults, and you know, even
people that we should be able to trust and follow.
You know, the first thing in the pledge is used
(03:45):
technology with integrity, which integrity is defined as doing the
right thing even when no one including my parents or
guardian or if you're an adult, well then no one
is watching. And I'm going to let you go through
the rest of the pledges, but I just wanted to
make sure of that adults knew, like this pledge might
also be good for you to consider for for yourself,
(04:06):
because we we all could use that reminder of like,
while we've been given this gift of technology, but how
do we want to use it and what do we
want to put out into the world. Yeah, I think
there's a lot of growing pains with technology. You know,
I think back to MySpace days and how intiquated that was,
and like, you know, ten years from now, what are
we adults, are we gonna be proud of how we
were using this because it's just also new, right. But
I think, you know, using technology with integrity when nobody's
(04:28):
looking is like really important to everybody. And I think,
you know, the beauty kind of this pledge is, you know,
it's kind of designed for our parents to sit down
and go over with their child, right, so they're working
through this. Uh, And I say this works really well
for elementary school kids, uh, you know, lower middle school,
fifth sixth grade kind of before or maybe they own technology,
so this would be really good for them to sit
(04:50):
down with and say, listen, you're using technology at school,
you're using it here at home on our family device.
But let's talk about how you're going to use it.
And maybe, as you were saying about with adults, maybe
this would help adults with their reminders. They're going through
this with their kids. Are you you know doing this
as well? Kids are gonna have technology without parents around.
My kids are on Chromebooks at school, and I want
them to use it with integrity because that's what we
(05:12):
know build in our family. Okay, so after the used
technology with integrity, what's the next part of the pledge? Yeah,
so the next part is think before I post. I
always tell kids use a stoplight, right, think about you know,
when you come to stop light and turning yellow, you
have to slow down and think is it safe to
go through? Or should you stop and do the same
thing before you post? Right, slow, slow down, look at
(05:34):
it and say, you know, if everybody saw this, is
this a green light thing? Is this okay to post?
Or is this a red light thing that might get
me in trouble? So reword and do how are you
going to do it a little bit differently? But think
before you hit sin because I think kids just fire
things off so quickly without even thinking about the repercussions. Okay,
so think before I post, what's next? Posting for permanency,
like what I post, because I think sometimes when a
(05:56):
young person post something, they're like, oh, if it goes bad,
I'll just delete it. Well, as soon as you had
submit or upload or whatever, like, it's gone and it's
out of your control. So whatever you said to realize
it is permit. Even though you can delete it, it
might be saved somewhere else. Oh yeah, people can save
stuff all the time. I mean, we've seen that happen
with celebrities. The most recent one that comes to mind
for me is Chrissy Teagan, John Legend's wife. She had
(06:20):
posted some stuff on Twitter years ago and probably never
thought it would come back to buy her in a way.
And she was just firing off stuff thinking that she
was just being funny and then well this many years
past and looking back at it's actually not that funny,
and she did get I'm not a part of cancel culture.
I don't believe in that because I think that people
have opportunities to grow and change. But she was lumped
(06:43):
into that I've been canceled category because of tweets from
years ago, like when Twitter first started. So yes, I
mean she could even go back and take them down,
but people screenshot things. There's ways to dig stuff up
and yeah, show that it was there. So I love
that one post for permanency. So if you wouldn't want
to see it there later or thinking like hey, this
(07:03):
is here forever, then don't do it. Yeah. And a
good activity I do with like maybe your fourteen year old,
for example, is say, you know, think about when you're eighteen,
like that's four years from now, you know about you know,
you're gonna be a lot different than you are now,
and would you want to go back and apologize for
your eight year old self for something you posted way
back then, because like when you were eight, like things
were whole lot different. You know. Do you remember the
(07:25):
things you were doing when you're an eight you know,
And that really kind of brings it into context for them. Okay,
what's the next part of the pledge? Post with a purpose.
So you know, there's a lot of stuff on social
media that's just kind of I don't know, it's not
for any kind of good purpose. So you know, telling kids, Okay,
whatever you post out there, make it important, make it
have a good message, Make it be something important, not
(07:47):
just you know, firing off memes or something nasty. Right
to make it make sure it's an important thing. We
have three more parts of the pledge. I'll go through it.
Safeguard for security. Safeguards for security is basically like, okay,
we're not going to post my information out there. We're
not and post my you know, my age, my full name,
all that kind of stuff, like all my personal data.
And it has a little bit of listed on the
pledge that they really realize what that is. And then
(08:09):
the next one is minimized screen time. I was just
talking to a kid today about you know, pull out
your screen time and tell me how much time you
spend on snapchat last. You know, over the week it
was six hours, and that's a lot. So you know,
it's ten minutes here's twenty minutes there, but when you
add it all up, it becomes a lot. So you
really want to minimize that screen time so you can
still do the things you used to do in your
life before you got technology. Do you have a recommended amount?
(08:31):
Every family is going to be a little bit different
with whatever they you know, are comfortable with. You know,
our daughter she has an hour on her iPod per day,
and she can balance out out however she wants. If
she's face timing your friend, if she's a tecting somebody,
if she's taking selfies, if she wants to, uh, you know,
listening to music, that's a little bit different. But any
kind of like computer function on that we limit to
an hour, and that's been a nice balance for us.
(08:54):
I like having a reference to see what other people do.
But you're right, every family is different, Okay, and so
now we're onto the fine part of the pledge. Yeah,
so say what I see, and you know, I always
end my conversations with kids around this is like, if
you see something online, you're going to see it before
we will, trust me, because you're on this way more
than we will. If you see something that you're uncomfortable
with or upsetting or concerned about, say what you see,
(09:16):
you know, and let an adult help you out. And
then kids they sign this pledge, put their name, their age. Yeah,
they can just put their name, first name, their age,
and their location, just so we can kind of see,
you know, how far it is traveling. And they click
I promise, and when they hit submit, it will download.
This pledge is a PDF, and then they can sign
it and parent consigned and hanging on the fridge. So
where can parents find the pledge. It's on shape this
(09:39):
guy dot org under the pledge section shape this guy
dot org and then there's a drop down hit pledge.
And I think this is an excellent thing to be
able to print out and yeah, keep on the fridge,
like you're saying, so you have access to it and
kids know right where it is and there's no confusion.
I feel like this just gives it clarity of like, hey,
this is what we expect. Yeah, And I think that's
(09:59):
the big things. Setting expectations. Right, We've all had bosses,
we've all had jobs, and the jobs I really did
well at, I had very clear boss or supervisor that
told me my expectations before I got involved. And I
think this is starting that structure. Yeah, now right, I
know that there is a conversation to be had about
like a contract when you're actually getting a piece of technology.
(10:22):
So I want to get into that next second. Okay,
so for shape your expectations, you have a youth parent
contract for digital technologies, and part one of that is
the conversation. And this is more designed for kids when
they're going to have their own technology. Uh you know,
(10:42):
that's kind of designated there's but I really think it's
important not to just hand it to him say don't
do anything stupid on it. You have to set the expectations.
Just like you would have a contract to use you know,
your technology with Verizon or a T and T. You
have to have an expectation of how you use it
with your within your family. Uh you know. So the
part one of the contract is kind of a two
page thing and it's talking about you know, really, why
(11:04):
am I having this conversation with you? You know why,
what's the importance of this and uh, you know talking
about like I didn't grow up in the digital age
like you did, but I want to be a responsible
parent around this. And you know, first of all, setting
the before technology requirements, like you know, you're going to
do well in your grades, you're going to do well
with you know, your tours and stuff like that. You're
(11:25):
a role model. I see you as a role model
in person. You're a good kind of human being in person,
but you're gonna be a good kind of human being
and a digital world too. You know, that's part of
the expectation there. And you have to be consistently being
that good person, consistently showing that you're pulling off your
good grades and doing all your chores and stuff like that.
And also, you know, this is an expensive item, right,
You're going to be responsible with that. So in order
(11:46):
to be responsible with that, you're not gonna leave your
jacket at school three days a week or you know,
forget your your stuff outside or leave things laying around
the house. You have to show that you can, you know,
be responsible for items in general before you get this
really expensive item. The conversation ation is starting off as
what I'm reading here. It's like, dear son, daughter, or child,
(12:06):
I love you are at that age where you're wanting
a smartphone and iPod, a tablet or digital device that
can connect you to the world. If we are reading
this together, then I am considering your request to move
to this next stage in your life. If we are
reading this together and you already have a device, realize
that I'm trying to parent differently. I am readjusting how
(12:29):
I watch over, teach, and love you to meet the
challenges of the world today. And I love that both
of those are included in that first paragraph of the
contract because there might be parents that yes, as they're learning,
they're like, oh, shoot, my child's already had a phone
for two years and I haven't implemented any of this.
How can I go back and kind of undo some
things and re implement the new ways? So this helps
(12:52):
parents do that. Yeah, I mean when I do a lot,
I do a lot of trainings for parent groups, and
like sometimes people come up afterwards and they're like, that
was all really good night, know a lot of that stuff,
but you know already gave them this technology. What do
I do? And I said, well, don't go home tonight
and ripped out their hands. Chances are they're not, you know,
engaging to all the stuff we just talked about. But
you're gonna have to start introducing conversation that hey, I'm
(13:14):
going to adjust how we're doing this a little bit
and start letting them know that you want to be
more involved in this and that you weren't at the
beginning and you want to change how that is. So
that's why that paragraph is in there to kind of
help parents, you know, in a way that you know
they're not just immediately not trusting their kids, but they're
re reshaping how they're going to talk to the kids
(13:34):
about technology. Now. I know you mentioned the before technology requirements,
but there's also in the contract like year before Technology Balance,
which again I know this is for kids, but I
think this is an excellent section that a lot of
adults could implement in their life too. Yeah. You know,
you as you grow up, your interest change. But you know,
(13:55):
like I rode my bike a lot as a kid,
and uh, you know I want I got a car
that end and I want to call as you realized
I need to write, I like pride my bike again.
I forgot that, and I don't want kids to forget
who they are and what they enjoy and stuff like that.
And I think, you know, it's really easy to get
locked into a piece of digital technology. But like, what
did you love when you were a little Was it art?
Was painting? Was it running around with your friends? Was
(14:16):
it playing some kind of sport? Was it dance? Was
it you know whatever? Uh, you know, don't forget about
that kind of stuff. And if I see that you're
forgetting about that kind of stuff, then we're going to
adjust how much we use this or how we use it.
And I just think, like me as a fourty year
old mom, like I sometimes have to be self aware
of how much I've been on my phone and maybe
need to put it down and go do other things
(14:37):
that I love, like get outside for a walk, read
a book for a little hot minute. My friend Gracie
and I were painting. So it's just something fun, like
tapping into other parts of you instead of just staring
at a screen all day long. Yeah, and we as
the parents have to be the role models for that.
I tell people, like, listen, we have to be good
custodians of this too. If we're always having our nose
(14:59):
in our phone. It feels different. Yeah, we're doing work
emails or something like that, so it feels more of
a constructive thing than just you know, snapchatting our friends.
But what does it look like to a child? You know,
we have to role model that bounce as well. Yeah,
or like maybe even as a as a family, you
take a look at how much everyone's on it, Maybe
implement more family games and activities. Are you get together?
(15:20):
Doing puzzles is something that we often have going in
our house. So I think it's just something that the
whole family can take a look at. What other points
do you have when it comes to like this conversation
of part one of the contract, there's a section that
says a reminder of what words mean because you know,
I think since Facebook came around in two thousand four,
(15:40):
you know, it's kind of messed up our term friend. Uh.
You know, I was on Facebook one day and my
son came up and you know, we're looking at this
post or whatever, and he said, well, who posted that?
And I said, well, a friend of mine on Facebook?
And he's like, well, how do you know them? And
I'm like, well, okay, it's really kind of confusing because
I'm not really friends that an't going to hang out
with him, but I used to work with him ten
years ago, and but we don't buddy it around. But
(16:02):
we're still like a friend, but not really. It's kind
of an acquaintance thing. It's it's really messed up, you know,
to try to explain to him what friends mean. So,
you know, I have a lot of kids tell me
they have these online friends, and I'm like, wain, event,
let's talk about what friend means. This is somebody you
met online who maybe has some friends qualities, but a
friend is really who you grew up with and who
you have birthday parties with and who you laughed with
(16:23):
and played with outside and did all those things with.
That's that's who friend is. Who you're physically connected to
and able to go running around do things. Yeah, you
can make friends online, but you'll never get that friendship
part that you know that you would have got, like
you did in elementary school from spending all this time
with them. And I think part of that is like
(16:43):
talking to what does talking to me? When I'm talking
to kids, they're always telling me they're talking to somebody,
but really is through snapchat or is through you know,
a text message, and you lose a lot of conversation
about that. So I just wanted to redefine what words
mean for them, because if you're not saying the right words,
it doesn't mean the right thing the same thing. So
it's important for parents to understand the distinction, or for
(17:03):
parents to teach kids the difference. I think teaching because
whenever I'm working with kids and they say, I was
talking to my boyfriend or girlfriend, wasn't talking in personal?
Were you snapchatting? Well, we were snapchatting. I'm like, you
lose a lot of relationship when you're snapchatting. So really
kind of helping them redefine those words. And then what
about the part that refers to being left out? Yeah,
(17:24):
I think you know, it's a lot of kids are
are seeing stories and stuff like that in a party
they weren't invited to. And you know, when I wasn't
invited to a party, I didn't know and that was okay, right,
But now they see all this stuff going on, and uh,
you know, in this section, I want to encourage them
that you're not going to be invited to every single
party that's ever out there. You're not gonna be invited
to every you know event, that's just not how it works, right,
(17:47):
But you might see parties that you weren't invited to
out there. Uh, and you have to realize that ahead
of time that you can't be part of everything. And
then what about fitting in? Fitting in? Like this? This
basically comes down to, you know, making sure that you're
not being unkind or doing something unwise to somebody else
just to fit in. You know, I'm not jumping on
that bullying bandwagon. You know, if you see other kids
(18:07):
making red comments and a group chat, don't do the same,
just so that you don't lose friends or so that
you fit in. And the knowledge and wisdom yeah, so um,
this is where we partner with young people, okay, because
they have the knowledge to work the technology, but don't
have the wisdom to behave on it. We've got the
wisdom to behave on it, but we don't know how
to work it. Okay. So that's where I want kids
to be part of. This between adults and kids is like,
(18:30):
you know how to work this technology, teach me, help
me become part of this because I need to know
how to work this so that if you struggle with something,
you can tap my wisdom because I've been through life.
I know how to handle situations. I want you to
tap my wisdom to help you with the situation on
the piece of technology that you understand better than I do.
What about emotional health and just the importance surrounding that.
(18:52):
Talk with a lot of kids that have spent a
lot of time on technology, and you know, and then
a parent takes it for a little bit and then
they'll tell me, man, I didn't know what I was
missing and what was going on with me, and you know,
I just wasn't myself, and um, you know, I only
make sure that they are aware that, you know, you
were a pretty happy kid, or you were doing really
well before this technology. If you know, feeling like you're
(19:13):
not fitting in, or you're not balancing your life, or
you want to stop going to karate like you used to,
is starting to affect your mental health or your emotional health,
then we have to restore that balance. So we have
to keep check on your emotional health as you're using technology.
What are some signs and parents can look for if
they feel as though technology maybe messing with the mental
health of their children. Yeah, I mean you're gonna know
(19:34):
your kids if there's changes in behaviors, changes in moods,
if they're hiding things, getting more sneaky, getting more quiet,
shutting down, they don't want to do things with their
friends anymore. Maybe they Another thing is they're not using
technology as much as they used to because maybe it's
just upsetting them too much, so they start putting it away.
Know your kids and know the changes and try to
correlate it to what they're using. Is after they used
(19:57):
a device, or are they avoiding device? Stuff like that. Okay,
so now I want to get to the terms part
of the youth parent contract for digital technologies. Now this
(20:20):
is where there's this list of forty one expectations and
so what are something that you would just want to
highlight and how did you come up with like these
forty one. A lot of parents had asked me about
a contract, and there's been you know, basic contracts I've
seen float around the internet. I knew that a contract
need to be in place, But what I did was
I just sat down and started writing out what I
(20:40):
would want to be in a contract for using any
kind of technology for a young person. So I got
my list down and then I went through it, and
then I jumped to the internet. I didn't extensive search
of other people's contracts out there to see, you know,
if I'd missed anything, just you know, because there's just
so much to it, and make sure I really a
(21:00):
wholesome contract here that encapsulated everything. But it goes through
a lot of different things, and I'm not gonna get
through them all obviously, but uh, you know, these are
the terms where the technology is going to be kept.
When can you use it? What are the school rules?
Are allowed to ticket school? But you know, what are
the school rules? What's the same in the handbook? You know,
because we want to follow those rules to talking about
sharing passwords, are sharing accounts or hiding apps or having
(21:24):
multiple accounts for eating, like two or three Instagram accounts.
It talks about that kind of stuff, making sure we're
not sharing photos of id s, passwords, stuff like that,
phone numbers, anything like that. And then talking about you know,
if somebody approaches you online like what do I do?
Who do well? Immediately you come and you tell me
and we'll talk about this, uh, you know, because it
(21:45):
might be appropriate, it might not. Uh you know, one
of the things I think we spend a lot of
time with kids. Uh. You know, our parents are pretty
sure to send to tell kids is do not send
any pictures of yourself unclothed. Right. The thing I think
we miss is telling kids do not request that from
somebody else, because that's unfair to them, right to put
(22:05):
a person in a position like that where you're asking
for something. So I think we always need to highlight
that just as much it talks about not being deceptive,
not being hurtful to other people. And I've had people say,
there's a lot in here, but listen, it's gonna take
your twenty minutes to go through this thing. The twenty
minutes of prevention or setting a contract in place may
save you hours of uncovering stuff and dealing with the
(22:27):
mess that you know you didn't set the structure for
ahead of time. I've had a lot of parents come
to me and they say, I know I need to
do something, but I don't have technology and I don't
use it at the level they do, so I don't
know what to put into a contract. So that's why
I put as much in here as I can. You know,
some of it doesn't apply. Scratch it out, edit adjust
for your needs. But I tried to get it all
(22:47):
in there so you didn't miss anything because there's you know,
usually oh I forgot to do that. And as you said,
that's where they find a loophole and they go into
something you didn't clearly define. Yeah, I'm just gonna point
out a few that have stood out to me. The
first of the forty one I love, which is technology
as a privilege. It's not a right. I'm willing to
continue the responsible behaviors I have displayed to earn this privilege.
(23:11):
Love that one. Another one that stood out to me
is I understand who someone says they are online is
not who they may be in real life. I feel like, again,
that's another one adults could repeat back to themselves. We
can think we know certain things about people, or think
that people have this kind of life, and then feel
bad about ours and just no, no, you're getting like
(23:31):
the filtered version. I will talk to my parents if
I see someone I don't know posting concerning or inappropriate content.
I think, like you said, like kids are going to
notice this stuff before we do, and I think having
something in there that opens up an opportunity for your
kids to feel safe coming to you about something like
that's awesome. I love that one. Yeah, I have kids
(23:53):
that have told me just many over the years. Sometimes
I'm afraid to tell my parents about something because they're
gonna say, I went online looking for it, and I
didn't go online looking for it, but I found it.
And if I tell them, they're going to take my device.
And so does this help, Like having something like that
in the contract help also protect the child too from
potentially losing their device if the parents overreact. I'm hoping
(24:17):
that this contract helps parents not overreact because you said
it ahead of time. If you see something, say something, basically,
you're not in trouble for somebody else's behavior on here,
but we want to help that person or whatever it is.
You know, we're going to put a field on so
that you don't see that content anymore. Whatever happens, we
don't want you to be in trouble for something you
found awesome. Well, y'all can see the contract. It's at
(24:39):
shape the Sky dot org and I already have my
copy printed out, so my kids are getting the Shape
the Sky experience over at my house. And so, yeah,
this is definitely an amazing resource and such a helpful
tool for so many people. I'd love to have you
share some things that you're thankful for before where we go.
(25:00):
If you're down for that sure thing, absolutely okay. So
I thought we'd wrap with some gratitude, as I often
do with guests, and if you just want to share
with us a TV show that you're thankful for, a book,
(25:21):
an Instagram follow, and a drink. Okay, Well, let me
start off with the TV show. I'm a very curious person,
so the Curse of Oak Island. I'm stuck to that show.
I can't get on stock from it. I learned about
oak Island when I was a kid, from the TV
series in Law in Search of years ago. But I'm
just it feeds my curiosity. As far as a book,
(25:43):
I would have to say, I'm a Stephen King fan,
I'm a zombie fan, and obviously I'm into technology and smartphones.
So he has a book called Cell C E L L,
which kind of incorporates all three. I won't give it away,
but I've read that book more than once. Okay, you
might be my first guest that's ever shared to Stephen
King book. I love it, though, I mean I'm not
(26:04):
particularly into like scary things. But I like that you're
bringing a little diversity to the podcast. Yes, and it's
got uh you know, technology build into it. It's it's
a really unique book. Okay. And then what about an
Instagram follow? Instagram follow, I would have to say red
Bull Bike one word, Okay, it's red Bull as a
lot of uh you know, it's mountain biking down really
(26:25):
huge hills, people doing incredible jumps and uh you know
stuff I wish I could uh do at this age,
but I can't. But it's really fun to just experience
these people doing crazy things on mountain bikes called down
hills and all these jumps and everything. So it's kind
of fun. And then do you all have an Instagram
for Shape this Guy? Ye, let's just shape the Sky. Okay,
so at Shape the Guy if people want to check
(26:46):
that out. Um, And then what do you got for us?
Like a drink recommendation or a little snack or what
do you like? I've been told I'm boring, but I
like a vent a dark roast with sugar free vanilla
from Starbucks. Okay, into dark roast with sugar free vanilla pumps,
just black with the sugar pumps. I gotta say that's
(27:07):
the first here too. I've been told I'm boring, but
you know, sometimes I need boring. Ryan, You're not boring,
You're you. I feel like it's not boring because you're
actually giving me something different than most people give me.
So okay, Well, Shape the Sky dot org again. That's
where you all can find a lot of Ryan's work
and a lot of the stuff we went over today.
I think it is a very important resource for any
(27:30):
parents listening, or if you happen to play a role
in kids lives, maybe you or a teacher, maybe you're
an aunt or an uncle. Shape this guy dot org
is something that you should definitely check out. And Ryan,
thank you so much for all that you do for
the youth and helping guide us through raising the kids
and um putting out this content for us. It's really awesome.
(27:51):
Thank you for having me
Never laugh. A little food for you. So life, Oh
it's pretty, but it's pretty beautiful. Thank you. Laughs. A
little month tightening up because said kick with four. So
(00:33):
my guest today is Ryan Kleing and Smith. He's going
to be on for all four things. And Ryan, you
founded a company that is called Shape the Sky, So
why don't you give a quick bio of who you are,
what you do, and why you founded shape this guy. Sure, well,
thank you for having me first of all, and I'm
really excited about this. I'm a licensed professional counselor and
(00:54):
have been for a long time working with teens in
general since Kurk Combaiden was on tour. And when I
say that with kids now, they don't even know who
that is. But I've been working with kids for a
long time and over the years, you know, I've just
seeing all the different things that have impacted kids, and um,
probably starting about two thousand twelve, you know, kids really
getting their hands on technology, smartphones, iPod touches and stuff
(01:16):
like that, and you know, start downloading apps like Instagram
and Snapchat. Then I started to see the impact that
that was having with kids. So I started just throwing
some trainings together and was going around to just like
local organization and saying like, you know, here's where the
kids are with these apps, and here's where we're at.
Like it's two different worlds here, and some of them
(01:36):
mental health behaviors that I dealt with trying to help
kids were starting to appear online and other mental health
providers and parents didn't realize that this was kind of
like a culture on there. So people really started getting
an interest in it and wanting these trainings because it's
like a kind of quick catch up to what kids
are doing it with technology and where they're standing. So
we just founded the company called Shape the Sky, and
(01:58):
we kind of called it that because really the sky
is your oyster. You know, whatever you want to do
with your life, you can do if you put your
mind to it. And whether that is you know, doing
great things with technology, or if you're making a whole
bunch of mistakes when you're younger, you know, that could
damage your sky. So we wanted to just make it
be a positive thing that like, let's shape your sky
into whatever you want to be. Well, I feel like
the Pledge is a great place to start when it
(02:19):
comes to shaping like your online presence and what you
want to put out into the world when it comes
to being online. So yeah, for the first thing, I
want to get into the pledge, which is something that
I believe came from Carrie. So do you want to
tell us a little bit about her and then we
can go over like what taking the pledge actually looks
like and what the different actions are. Sure. Absolutely, So
(02:42):
Carrie came to me a few years ago. She and
her mom there at a local school here and uh,
you know, she does these pageants and she you know,
it was kind of a nice mutual thing that happened.
She wasn't doing these pageants, but she's also in seventh
grade and seeing how kids are misusing technology because she's
a really good kid. And she said, you know, I
want my platform, these pageants to be you know, to
(03:03):
use these you know, technology responsibly. And she said, you know,
you have a great platform to get my message out.
Would you you know, like to do the partner with us?
I said, absolutely, more kids I can get involved in
this better. Well, you know, I have to say when
I went over the pledge and while we're talking about kids,
I feel like this is a pledge that adults can
take as well, and in fact, I wish a lot
(03:23):
of adults would you know, we've seen how nasty comments
or posts can be when it comes to Facebook or Instagram, Twitter,
It can get awful. But it's not just from kids.
It's from a lot of adults, and you know, even
people that we should be able to trust and follow.
You know, the first thing in the pledge is used
(03:45):
technology with integrity, which integrity is defined as doing the
right thing even when no one including my parents or
guardian or if you're an adult, well then no one
is watching. And I'm going to let you go through
the rest of the pledges, but I just wanted to
make sure of that adults knew, like this pledge might
also be good for you to consider for for yourself,
(04:06):
because we we all could use that reminder of like,
while we've been given this gift of technology, but how
do we want to use it and what do we
want to put out into the world. Yeah, I think
there's a lot of growing pains with technology. You know,
I think back to MySpace days and how intiquated that was,
and like, you know, ten years from now, what are
we adults, are we gonna be proud of how we
were using this because it's just also new, right. But
I think, you know, using technology with integrity when nobody's
(04:28):
looking is like really important to everybody. And I think,
you know, the beauty kind of this pledge is, you know,
it's kind of designed for our parents to sit down
and go over with their child, right, so they're working
through this. Uh, And I say this works really well
for elementary school kids, uh, you know, lower middle school,
fifth sixth grade kind of before or maybe they own technology,
so this would be really good for them to sit
(04:50):
down with and say, listen, you're using technology at school,
you're using it here at home on our family device.
But let's talk about how you're going to use it.
And maybe, as you were saying about with adults, maybe
this would help adults with their reminders. They're going through
this with their kids. Are you you know doing this
as well? Kids are gonna have technology without parents around.
My kids are on Chromebooks at school, and I want
them to use it with integrity because that's what we
(05:12):
know build in our family. Okay, so after the used
technology with integrity, what's the next part of the pledge? Yeah,
so the next part is think before I post. I
always tell kids use a stoplight, right, think about you know,
when you come to stop light and turning yellow, you
have to slow down and think is it safe to
go through? Or should you stop and do the same
thing before you post? Right, slow, slow down, look at
(05:34):
it and say, you know, if everybody saw this, is
this a green light thing? Is this okay to post?
Or is this a red light thing that might get
me in trouble? So reword and do how are you
going to do it a little bit differently? But think
before you hit sin because I think kids just fire
things off so quickly without even thinking about the repercussions. Okay,
so think before I post, what's next? Posting for permanency,
like what I post, because I think sometimes when a
(05:56):
young person post something, they're like, oh, if it goes bad,
I'll just delete it. Well, as soon as you had
submit or upload or whatever, like, it's gone and it's
out of your control. So whatever you said to realize
it is permit. Even though you can delete it, it
might be saved somewhere else. Oh yeah, people can save
stuff all the time. I mean, we've seen that happen
with celebrities. The most recent one that comes to mind
for me is Chrissy Teagan, John Legend's wife. She had
(06:20):
posted some stuff on Twitter years ago and probably never
thought it would come back to buy her in a way.
And she was just firing off stuff thinking that she
was just being funny and then well this many years
past and looking back at it's actually not that funny,
and she did get I'm not a part of cancel culture.
I don't believe in that because I think that people
have opportunities to grow and change. But she was lumped
(06:43):
into that I've been canceled category because of tweets from
years ago, like when Twitter first started. So yes, I
mean she could even go back and take them down,
but people screenshot things. There's ways to dig stuff up
and yeah, show that it was there. So I love
that one post for permanency. So if you wouldn't want
to see it there later or thinking like hey, this
(07:03):
is here forever, then don't do it. Yeah. And a
good activity I do with like maybe your fourteen year old,
for example, is say, you know, think about when you're eighteen,
like that's four years from now, you know about you know,
you're gonna be a lot different than you are now,
and would you want to go back and apologize for
your eight year old self for something you posted way
back then, because like when you were eight, like things
were whole lot different. You know. Do you remember the
(07:25):
things you were doing when you're an eight you know,
And that really kind of brings it into context for them. Okay,
what's the next part of the pledge? Post with a purpose.
So you know, there's a lot of stuff on social
media that's just kind of I don't know, it's not
for any kind of good purpose. So you know, telling kids, Okay,
whatever you post out there, make it important, make it
have a good message, Make it be something important, not
(07:47):
just you know, firing off memes or something nasty. Right
to make it make sure it's an important thing. We
have three more parts of the pledge. I'll go through it.
Safeguard for security. Safeguards for security is basically like, okay,
we're not going to post my information out there. We're
not and post my you know, my age, my full name,
all that kind of stuff, like all my personal data.
And it has a little bit of listed on the
pledge that they really realize what that is. And then
(08:09):
the next one is minimized screen time. I was just
talking to a kid today about you know, pull out
your screen time and tell me how much time you
spend on snapchat last. You know, over the week it
was six hours, and that's a lot. So you know,
it's ten minutes here's twenty minutes there, but when you
add it all up, it becomes a lot. So you
really want to minimize that screen time so you can
still do the things you used to do in your
life before you got technology. Do you have a recommended amount?
(08:31):
Every family is going to be a little bit different
with whatever they you know, are comfortable with. You know,
our daughter she has an hour on her iPod per day,
and she can balance out out however she wants. If
she's face timing your friend, if she's a tecting somebody,
if she's taking selfies, if she wants to, uh, you know,
listening to music, that's a little bit different. But any
kind of like computer function on that we limit to
an hour, and that's been a nice balance for us.
(08:54):
I like having a reference to see what other people do.
But you're right, every family is different, Okay, and so
now we're onto the fine part of the pledge. Yeah,
so say what I see, and you know, I always
end my conversations with kids around this is like, if
you see something online, you're going to see it before
we will, trust me, because you're on this way more
than we will. If you see something that you're uncomfortable
with or upsetting or concerned about, say what you see,
(09:16):
you know, and let an adult help you out. And
then kids they sign this pledge, put their name, their age. Yeah,
they can just put their name, first name, their age,
and their location, just so we can kind of see,
you know, how far it is traveling. And they click
I promise, and when they hit submit, it will download.
This pledge is a PDF, and then they can sign
it and parent consigned and hanging on the fridge. So
where can parents find the pledge. It's on shape this
(09:39):
guy dot org under the pledge section shape this guy
dot org and then there's a drop down hit pledge.
And I think this is an excellent thing to be
able to print out and yeah, keep on the fridge,
like you're saying, so you have access to it and
kids know right where it is and there's no confusion.
I feel like this just gives it clarity of like, hey,
this is what we expect. Yeah, And I think that's
(09:59):
the big things. Setting expectations. Right, We've all had bosses,
we've all had jobs, and the jobs I really did
well at, I had very clear boss or supervisor that
told me my expectations before I got involved. And I
think this is starting that structure. Yeah, now right, I
know that there is a conversation to be had about
like a contract when you're actually getting a piece of technology.
(10:22):
So I want to get into that next second. Okay,
so for shape your expectations, you have a youth parent
contract for digital technologies, and part one of that is
the conversation. And this is more designed for kids when
they're going to have their own technology. Uh you know,
(10:42):
that's kind of designated there's but I really think it's
important not to just hand it to him say don't
do anything stupid on it. You have to set the expectations.
Just like you would have a contract to use you know,
your technology with Verizon or a T and T. You
have to have an expectation of how you use it
with your within your family. Uh you know. So the
part one of the contract is kind of a two
page thing and it's talking about you know, really, why
(11:04):
am I having this conversation with you? You know why,
what's the importance of this and uh, you know talking
about like I didn't grow up in the digital age
like you did, but I want to be a responsible
parent around this. And you know, first of all, setting
the before technology requirements, like you know, you're going to
do well in your grades, you're going to do well
with you know, your tours and stuff like that. You're
(11:25):
a role model. I see you as a role model
in person. You're a good kind of human being in person,
but you're gonna be a good kind of human being
and a digital world too. You know, that's part of
the expectation there. And you have to be consistently being
that good person, consistently showing that you're pulling off your
good grades and doing all your chores and stuff like that.
And also, you know, this is an expensive item, right,
You're going to be responsible with that. So in order
(11:46):
to be responsible with that, you're not gonna leave your
jacket at school three days a week or you know,
forget your your stuff outside or leave things laying around
the house. You have to show that you can, you know,
be responsible for items in general before you get this
really expensive item. The conversation ation is starting off as
what I'm reading here. It's like, dear son, daughter, or child,
(12:06):
I love you are at that age where you're wanting
a smartphone and iPod, a tablet or digital device that
can connect you to the world. If we are reading
this together, then I am considering your request to move
to this next stage in your life. If we are
reading this together and you already have a device, realize
that I'm trying to parent differently. I am readjusting how
(12:29):
I watch over, teach, and love you to meet the
challenges of the world today. And I love that both
of those are included in that first paragraph of the
contract because there might be parents that yes, as they're learning,
they're like, oh, shoot, my child's already had a phone
for two years and I haven't implemented any of this.
How can I go back and kind of undo some
things and re implement the new ways? So this helps
(12:52):
parents do that. Yeah, I mean when I do a lot,
I do a lot of trainings for parent groups, and
like sometimes people come up afterwards and they're like, that
was all really good night, know a lot of that stuff,
but you know already gave them this technology. What do
I do? And I said, well, don't go home tonight
and ripped out their hands. Chances are they're not, you know,
engaging to all the stuff we just talked about. But
you're gonna have to start introducing conversation that hey, I'm
(13:14):
going to adjust how we're doing this a little bit
and start letting them know that you want to be
more involved in this and that you weren't at the
beginning and you want to change how that is. So
that's why that paragraph is in there to kind of
help parents, you know, in a way that you know
they're not just immediately not trusting their kids, but they're
re reshaping how they're going to talk to the kids
(13:34):
about technology. Now. I know you mentioned the before technology requirements,
but there's also in the contract like year before Technology Balance,
which again I know this is for kids, but I
think this is an excellent section that a lot of
adults could implement in their life too. Yeah. You know,
you as you grow up, your interest change. But you know,
(13:55):
like I rode my bike a lot as a kid,
and uh, you know I want I got a car
that end and I want to call as you realized
I need to write, I like pride my bike again.
I forgot that, and I don't want kids to forget
who they are and what they enjoy and stuff like that.
And I think, you know, it's really easy to get
locked into a piece of digital technology. But like, what
did you love when you were a little Was it art?
Was painting? Was it running around with your friends? Was
(14:16):
it playing some kind of sport? Was it dance? Was
it you know whatever? Uh, you know, don't forget about
that kind of stuff. And if I see that you're
forgetting about that kind of stuff, then we're going to
adjust how much we use this or how we use it.
And I just think, like me as a fourty year
old mom, like I sometimes have to be self aware
of how much I've been on my phone and maybe
need to put it down and go do other things
(14:37):
that I love, like get outside for a walk, read
a book for a little hot minute. My friend Gracie
and I were painting. So it's just something fun, like
tapping into other parts of you instead of just staring
at a screen all day long. Yeah, and we as
the parents have to be the role models for that.
I tell people, like, listen, we have to be good
custodians of this too. If we're always having our nose
(14:59):
in our phone. It feels different. Yeah, we're doing work
emails or something like that, so it feels more of
a constructive thing than just you know, snapchatting our friends.
But what does it look like to a child? You know,
we have to role model that bounce as well. Yeah,
or like maybe even as a as a family, you
take a look at how much everyone's on it, Maybe
implement more family games and activities. Are you get together?
(15:20):
Doing puzzles is something that we often have going in
our house. So I think it's just something that the
whole family can take a look at. What other points
do you have when it comes to like this conversation
of part one of the contract, there's a section that
says a reminder of what words mean because you know,
I think since Facebook came around in two thousand four,
(15:40):
you know, it's kind of messed up our term friend. Uh.
You know, I was on Facebook one day and my
son came up and you know, we're looking at this
post or whatever, and he said, well, who posted that?
And I said, well, a friend of mine on Facebook?
And he's like, well, how do you know them? And
I'm like, well, okay, it's really kind of confusing because
I'm not really friends that an't going to hang out
with him, but I used to work with him ten
years ago, and but we don't buddy it around. But
(16:02):
we're still like a friend, but not really. It's kind
of an acquaintance thing. It's it's really messed up, you know,
to try to explain to him what friends mean. So,
you know, I have a lot of kids tell me
they have these online friends, and I'm like, wain, event,
let's talk about what friend means. This is somebody you
met online who maybe has some friends qualities, but a
friend is really who you grew up with and who
you have birthday parties with and who you laughed with
(16:23):
and played with outside and did all those things with.
That's that's who friend is. Who you're physically connected to
and able to go running around do things. Yeah, you
can make friends online, but you'll never get that friendship
part that you know that you would have got, like
you did in elementary school from spending all this time
with them. And I think part of that is like
(16:43):
talking to what does talking to me? When I'm talking
to kids, they're always telling me they're talking to somebody,
but really is through snapchat or is through you know,
a text message, and you lose a lot of conversation
about that. So I just wanted to redefine what words
mean for them, because if you're not saying the right words,
it doesn't mean the right thing the same thing. So
it's important for parents to understand the distinction, or for
(17:03):
parents to teach kids the difference. I think teaching because
whenever I'm working with kids and they say, I was
talking to my boyfriend or girlfriend, wasn't talking in personal?
Were you snapchatting? Well, we were snapchatting. I'm like, you
lose a lot of relationship when you're snapchatting. So really
kind of helping them redefine those words. And then what
about the part that refers to being left out? Yeah,
(17:24):
I think you know, it's a lot of kids are
are seeing stories and stuff like that in a party
they weren't invited to. And you know, when I wasn't
invited to a party, I didn't know and that was okay, right,
But now they see all this stuff going on, and uh,
you know, in this section, I want to encourage them
that you're not going to be invited to every single
party that's ever out there. You're not gonna be invited
to every you know event, that's just not how it works, right,
(17:47):
But you might see parties that you weren't invited to
out there. Uh, and you have to realize that ahead
of time that you can't be part of everything. And
then what about fitting in? Fitting in? Like this? This
basically comes down to, you know, making sure that you're
not being unkind or doing something unwise to somebody else
just to fit in. You know, I'm not jumping on
that bullying bandwagon. You know, if you see other kids
(18:07):
making red comments and a group chat, don't do the same,
just so that you don't lose friends or so that
you fit in. And the knowledge and wisdom yeah, so um,
this is where we partner with young people, okay, because
they have the knowledge to work the technology, but don't
have the wisdom to behave on it. We've got the
wisdom to behave on it, but we don't know how
to work it. Okay. So that's where I want kids
to be part of. This between adults and kids is like,
(18:30):
you know how to work this technology, teach me, help
me become part of this because I need to know
how to work this so that if you struggle with something,
you can tap my wisdom because I've been through life.
I know how to handle situations. I want you to
tap my wisdom to help you with the situation on
the piece of technology that you understand better than I do.
What about emotional health and just the importance surrounding that.
(18:52):
Talk with a lot of kids that have spent a
lot of time on technology, and you know, and then
a parent takes it for a little bit and then
they'll tell me, man, I didn't know what I was
missing and what was going on with me, and you know,
I just wasn't myself, and um, you know, I only
make sure that they are aware that, you know, you
were a pretty happy kid, or you were doing really
well before this technology. If you know, feeling like you're
(19:13):
not fitting in, or you're not balancing your life, or
you want to stop going to karate like you used to,
is starting to affect your mental health or your emotional health,
then we have to restore that balance. So we have
to keep check on your emotional health as you're using technology.
What are some signs and parents can look for if
they feel as though technology maybe messing with the mental
health of their children. Yeah, I mean you're gonna know
(19:34):
your kids if there's changes in behaviors, changes in moods,
if they're hiding things, getting more sneaky, getting more quiet,
shutting down, they don't want to do things with their
friends anymore. Maybe they Another thing is they're not using
technology as much as they used to because maybe it's
just upsetting them too much, so they start putting it away.
Know your kids and know the changes and try to
correlate it to what they're using. Is after they used
(19:57):
a device, or are they avoiding device? Stuff like that. Okay,
so now I want to get to the terms part
of the youth parent contract for digital technologies. Now this
(20:20):
is where there's this list of forty one expectations and
so what are something that you would just want to
highlight and how did you come up with like these
forty one. A lot of parents had asked me about
a contract, and there's been you know, basic contracts I've
seen float around the internet. I knew that a contract
need to be in place, But what I did was
I just sat down and started writing out what I
(20:40):
would want to be in a contract for using any
kind of technology for a young person. So I got
my list down and then I went through it, and
then I jumped to the internet. I didn't extensive search
of other people's contracts out there to see, you know,
if I'd missed anything, just you know, because there's just
so much to it, and make sure I really a
(21:00):
wholesome contract here that encapsulated everything. But it goes through
a lot of different things, and I'm not gonna get
through them all obviously, but uh, you know, these are
the terms where the technology is going to be kept.
When can you use it? What are the school rules?
Are allowed to ticket school? But you know, what are
the school rules? What's the same in the handbook? You know,
because we want to follow those rules to talking about
sharing passwords, are sharing accounts or hiding apps or having
(21:24):
multiple accounts for eating, like two or three Instagram accounts.
It talks about that kind of stuff, making sure we're
not sharing photos of id s, passwords, stuff like that,
phone numbers, anything like that. And then talking about you know,
if somebody approaches you online like what do I do?
Who do well? Immediately you come and you tell me
and we'll talk about this, uh, you know, because it
(21:45):
might be appropriate, it might not. Uh you know, one
of the things I think we spend a lot of
time with kids. Uh. You know, our parents are pretty
sure to send to tell kids is do not send
any pictures of yourself unclothed. Right. The thing I think
we miss is telling kids do not request that from
somebody else, because that's unfair to them, right to put
(22:05):
a person in a position like that where you're asking
for something. So I think we always need to highlight
that just as much it talks about not being deceptive,
not being hurtful to other people. And I've had people say,
there's a lot in here, but listen, it's gonna take
your twenty minutes to go through this thing. The twenty
minutes of prevention or setting a contract in place may
save you hours of uncovering stuff and dealing with the
(22:27):
mess that you know you didn't set the structure for
ahead of time. I've had a lot of parents come
to me and they say, I know I need to
do something, but I don't have technology and I don't
use it at the level they do, so I don't
know what to put into a contract. So that's why
I put as much in here as I can. You know,
some of it doesn't apply. Scratch it out, edit adjust
for your needs. But I tried to get it all
(22:47):
in there so you didn't miss anything because there's you know,
usually oh I forgot to do that. And as you said,
that's where they find a loophole and they go into
something you didn't clearly define. Yeah, I'm just gonna point
out a few that have stood out to me. The
first of the forty one I love, which is technology
as a privilege. It's not a right. I'm willing to
continue the responsible behaviors I have displayed to earn this privilege.
(23:11):
Love that one. Another one that stood out to me
is I understand who someone says they are online is
not who they may be in real life. I feel like, again,
that's another one adults could repeat back to themselves. We
can think we know certain things about people, or think
that people have this kind of life, and then feel
bad about ours and just no, no, you're getting like
(23:31):
the filtered version. I will talk to my parents if
I see someone I don't know posting concerning or inappropriate content.
I think, like you said, like kids are going to
notice this stuff before we do, and I think having
something in there that opens up an opportunity for your
kids to feel safe coming to you about something like
that's awesome. I love that one. Yeah, I have kids
(23:53):
that have told me just many over the years. Sometimes
I'm afraid to tell my parents about something because they're
gonna say, I went online looking for it, and I
didn't go online looking for it, but I found it.
And if I tell them, they're going to take my device.
And so does this help, Like having something like that
in the contract help also protect the child too from
potentially losing their device if the parents overreact. I'm hoping
(24:17):
that this contract helps parents not overreact because you said
it ahead of time. If you see something, say something, basically,
you're not in trouble for somebody else's behavior on here,
but we want to help that person or whatever it is.
You know, we're going to put a field on so
that you don't see that content anymore. Whatever happens, we
don't want you to be in trouble for something you
found awesome. Well, y'all can see the contract. It's at
(24:39):
shape the Sky dot org and I already have my
copy printed out, so my kids are getting the Shape
the Sky experience over at my house. And so, yeah,
this is definitely an amazing resource and such a helpful
tool for so many people. I'd love to have you
share some things that you're thankful for before where we go.
(25:00):
If you're down for that sure thing, absolutely okay. So
I thought we'd wrap with some gratitude, as I often
do with guests, and if you just want to share
with us a TV show that you're thankful for, a book,
(25:21):
an Instagram follow, and a drink. Okay, Well, let me
start off with the TV show. I'm a very curious person,
so the Curse of Oak Island. I'm stuck to that show.
I can't get on stock from it. I learned about
oak Island when I was a kid, from the TV
series in Law in Search of years ago. But I'm
just it feeds my curiosity. As far as a book,
(25:43):
I would have to say, I'm a Stephen King fan,
I'm a zombie fan, and obviously I'm into technology and smartphones.
So he has a book called Cell C E L L,
which kind of incorporates all three. I won't give it away,
but I've read that book more than once. Okay, you
might be my first guest that's ever shared to Stephen
King book. I love it, though, I mean I'm not
(26:04):
particularly into like scary things. But I like that you're
bringing a little diversity to the podcast. Yes, and it's
got uh you know, technology build into it. It's it's
a really unique book. Okay. And then what about an
Instagram follow? Instagram follow, I would have to say red
Bull Bike one word, Okay, it's red Bull as a
lot of uh you know, it's mountain biking down really
(26:25):
huge hills, people doing incredible jumps and uh you know
stuff I wish I could uh do at this age,
but I can't. But it's really fun to just experience
these people doing crazy things on mountain bikes called down
hills and all these jumps and everything. So it's kind
of fun. And then do you all have an Instagram
for Shape this Guy? Ye, let's just shape the Sky. Okay,
so at Shape the Guy if people want to check
(26:46):
that out. Um, And then what do you got for us?
Like a drink recommendation or a little snack or what
do you like? I've been told I'm boring, but I
like a vent a dark roast with sugar free vanilla
from Starbucks. Okay, into dark roast with sugar free vanilla pumps,
just black with the sugar pumps. I gotta say that's
(27:07):
the first here too. I've been told I'm boring, but
you know, sometimes I need boring. Ryan, You're not boring,
You're you. I feel like it's not boring because you're
actually giving me something different than most people give me.
So okay, Well, Shape the Sky dot org again. That's
where you all can find a lot of Ryan's work
and a lot of the stuff we went over today.
I think it is a very important resource for any
(27:30):
parents listening, or if you happen to play a role
in kids lives, maybe you or a teacher, maybe you're
an aunt or an uncle. Shape this guy dot org
is something that you should definitely check out. And Ryan,
thank you so much for all that you do for
the youth and helping guide us through raising the kids
and um putting out this content for us. It's really awesome.
(27:51):
Thank you for having me
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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