1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 Note: Around 27:36, Mark shares a brief story from his years in end-of-life care that mentions a father’s abuse of his children. No details are described, but please listen with care if this topic is hard for you. Screens aren’t going away, and Mark Naito isn’t asking you to throw them out. He’s asking a harder question: when you walk through your front door, what gets your attention first, your family or your phone? Mark and his wife founded Navigating Tech Family after their own struggle with screens. He’s a husband, a homeschool dad of two in Boise, Idaho, and a former memory care administrator who spent years with families at the end of life. That experience shapes everything he teaches: nobody’s final wish is more time online. In this conversation, Terrie and Mark talk about: Why the goal is a home sanctuary, not a screen-free life What happens to a child’s creativity and imagination when media fills every quiet moment How fast kids adjust when parents offer real alternatives (faster than the parents do) Simple starting points like screen-free dinners and music without the TV Why switching to a landline actually got Mark more callbacks The quiet ways AI teaches us to doubt our own God-given judgment A sobering end-of-life story about the cost of waiting too long to reconcile If you’ve felt the pull of the phone during family time, or caught yourself trusting a screen over your own wisdom, this episode will challenge you in the best way. Chapters 00:00 Meet Mark Naito and Navigating Tech Family 02:55 A Home Sanctuary, Not a Screen-Free World 04:14 How Screens Affect Child Development 07:31 Discipleship Decks: Conversation Cards for Your Family 09:28 Hope, Creativity, and the Family Tech Reset 13:24 Workarounds: Landlines, Boundaries, and Screen-Free Dinners 18:27 Always On, Never Connected 19:15 AI, Dependence, and Trusting the Mind God Gave You 27:36 Lessons from the End of Life: Don’t Wait to Reconcile 29:52 How to Contact Navigating Tech Family Connect with Mark Naito Navigating Tech Family: navtechfam.com Phone: (208) 586-0432 (Mark’s preferred way to connect, so call a real human!) Resources mentioned Discipleship Decks: Spark a Conversation, Resolving Conflict with the Fruit of the Spirit, and Strengthening Relationships with the One Anothers. Available at hypurpleypublishing.com Up, Down, and All Around discipleship handbook Connect with Terrie terriehellardbrown.com hypurpleypublishing.com Have a question for Mark? Leave it in the comments. We’ll pass along anything we can’t answer and post his reply. Got a topic you’d like us to cover? Tell us that too. A few updated sources for things mentioned in this episode: • Amazon’s revenue: Amazon passed Walmart in 2025 as the world’s largest company by revenue, at about $717 billion. • The Waldorf school: The often-cited statistic comes from a 2011 New York Times article (“A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute”) about the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, where about three-quarters of students had parents connected to the tech industry. • Tech leaders and their own kids: Bill Gates has said his children didn’t get cell phones until age 14, and Steve Jobs told the New York Times in 2010 that his kids hadn’t used the iPad because “we limit how much technology our kids use at home.” #ScreenTime #ChristianParenting #FamilyDiscipleship #DigitalWellness #Homeschool #SparkingEverydayDiscipleship Sparking Everyday Discipleship http://booksthatspark.libsyn.com/website <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/43747099/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/bc90ce/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/content/208866299