Did you have permissive or overprotective parents? If you’re a parent, how are you trying to avoid those extremes? It’s tough to strike a balance, & provide the right amount of protection & freedom to kids today. Considering all the influences available through media & technology, it’s harder than ever to monitor what’s appropriate. It’s also perhaps tougher more than ever to be a good kid today.
Apart from God, the world lives by a corrupt value system. The day the Church was born two millennia ago, the Apostle Peter warned & pleaded with the crowd: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40). I don’t know that this generation is any more corrupt than other generations—it just may seem that way since we have so many more opportunities to be exposed to its corruption flowing directly into our homes through mass media.
Our challenge is to be in the world, but not of it (John 17:15-16). We can’t take our kids out of the world & shield them from being exposed to everything. They’re not the ones who created this coarse culture—it’s what they’ve inherited from adults whose standards have been lowered & sensitivities blunted. They think it’s normal to be constantly seduced & tantalized by messages & imagery that blur or overstep the boundaries of decency. So how do we prepare them to live in a culture where they’re spending massive amounts of time with mass media intake? It’s a real uphill challenge to help them hold on to innocence.
What you allow your child to ingest from the internet, social media, music, movies, & TV has more cumulative impact than you do. So your role as media gatekeeper is enormously significant. If you’re counting on the church to counter-act all the multiple hours of negative influence they’ve absorbed all week, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. The hour or so at church, if they’re even brought to church regularly, is going to be woefully insufficient.
Even if you throw out your TV & cancel your internet, kids will still be exposed when outside your home. So helping them calibrate their moral compass, & guiding them in the process of making good choices is one of the most important responsibilities parents have. This begins with setting the example in godliness yourself. Parents are still the main influencers, so never underestimate setting the tone for what’s good & acceptable in your home. It’s not enough to just tell kids “Because I said so.” We have to model integrity, not being hypocrites who have one standard for ourselves, & another for our kids.
These are evil days—do you understand what’s pleasing to the Lord (Eph. 5:1-17)? Are you prepared to separate yourself first from the corruption (2 Cor. 6:17-18)? We’ll be known by our “fruit”—by what we’ve allowed in our eyes & ears to be stored up in our hearts so that it overflows into our speech & actions (Luke 6:44-46).
You can’t protect children from everything harmful, but are you doing what you can? Too many parents are clueless about the kind of world their kids inhabit, the media they’re inundated with & temptations they’re surrounded by. We can’t leave them alone to wander through the minefield of dangers. The vast majority of kids say their parents have no idea what they’re watching or playing on their bedroom TVs, what apps they’ve downloaded on their phones, or what music artists are in their earbuds. Have you asked them? Have you had any conversations about having discernment & staying safe?
Could you say: “I love you, & I have to do what I think is best. God has entrusted me to take care of & protect you. I wouldn’t let you eat garbage & put it in your body, & I’m not letting you put it in your mind.” They might get upset, but we have to be parents & take a stand. As children grow older & move on from parental rules & media management, we have to get them to think for themselves in healthy ways. Teach them to think critically; to question what marketers are trying to sell them; to push back against the culture; to use the biblical filter for their minds about what’s good & not good (Phil. 4:8).
Advertisers & entertainment producers are purposely trying to influence you & your child. They pay big money to gain our attention & shape our worldview, desensitizing us to gross profanity, vulgarity, pornography, & bloody brutality. But it’s actually our spiritual enemy using whatever tools he can get his hands on to corrupt our families, so we better fight back. If you’re going to use media, use whatever parental controls & filtering technology is available. Check out some good resource sites like: cpyu.org, pluggedin.com, axis.org, mamabearapologetics.com.
Our top priority and stewardship from God is to bring our children up in the training of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). So the foundation for that is praying for them, Bible reading with them, bringing them to church, & exposing them to Christian media. Lead the way in showing them how to “be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world…” (Phil. 2:15).