We reject the idea of choosing a spouse for our child. We wouldn’t dream of picking a career path for our kids. We don’t like the idea of indoctrinating our kids with our beliefs about any number of life issues. Even we Christians who believe in discipleship sometimes avoid huge topics in our homes. Think: politics, logic, economics, sex, modesty, sin…
We certainly don’t want to force our children to eat tomatoes.
OK, maybe that’s not a cultural thing. Maybe it’s just in my house that I allow tomatoes to be picked out of food. Perhaps if my kiddos didn’t do such a great job of eating their fruits and veggies overall, I’d push the tomato thing. Poor kids. I mean, most of our dinners include tomatoes. In fact, I grow seven different kinds of tomatoes every summer–green, zebra, yellow pear, black Russian, cherry, sungold, and Early Girl. It’s GREAT. Unless you are my kids.
I may be off track.
(Note: This was originally written in 2010.)
Kids and Media
In our culture, we don’t like to force things on our kids that may affect them for the rest of their lives. Right? We tend to want our kids to choose their own paths. It’s a whole thing–a matter of parenting pride. We let our children choose their own paths.
Until it comes to their brains.
When it comes to their brains, we shove a steady diet of questionable material into their heads, hoping for the best. Open skull, insert innuendo-risqué-dress-violence-crude-humor-insert-media-thing-here. I’m looking at me too, here.
Why do we do that? Why do we set our children in front of a screen, or hand them a Scripturally questionable book–and hope for the best? Why do we desensitize our kids to violence, the Occult, sexual immorality, crude language, and disrespect toward parents and adults?
Love Comes
In the musical “Fiddler on the Roof”, Golde and Tevye had been married for 25 years. Their marriage was arranged by their parents, and in all the time they’d been married, they’d never talked about love.
Remember that song in “Fiddler” where Tevya asks Golde, “But do you love me?”… and she stumbles around for an answer before deciding that after all that time caring for him, giving him kids, sharing his bed, and so forth, it must be love… or something like that?
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Kids and Media
We set our kids in front of the television, or we give them library cards, and fail to oversee their reading and viewing materials. We want to share with them the media we love. We want them to see the same scenes we saw as children–when media was brand new, and a giant social experiment. Now that media is amazing, and the scenes are incredibly real, we want them to see those super-cool things too.
We forget to monitor the violence, the Occult, the sexual immorality, the crude language, and the disrespect.
We forget because we grew comfortable with all of it ourselves. We became committed. Love came.
Our kids don’t necessarily love what they see in the beginning. They may even be scared witless, or confused, or (should I whisper it?) indoctrinated in the culture— in the ways of the world. But they grow comfortable with it. They become committed. Love comes.
What if we made a different choice?
What if we don’t have the right to decide for our children that their brains are going to be stuffed with violence, worldly themes, sexuality, witchcraft, and raw language?
My husband and I have decided that our kids can make their own decisions about what they watch–when they’re adults. Until then, we don’t want to decide for them. We don’t want to stuff their brains with scenes they can never get rid of.
We do want to educate our children, so we expose them to a LOT of books, and a few movies here and there. We choose carefully, and sometimes we make mistakes. In fact, sometimes we turn off movies 20 minutes in or chuck a book 3 chapters in–and our kids know why. We probably choose differently than your family does–after all, this boils down to a conscience issue. We work hard to choose media intentionally, and with an eye for the future. We don’t want to marry our children to worldly ideas and images they may later learn to love. We don’t want them to grow comfortable viewing sin. We don’t want them to become committed to the images that fill their heads. We don’t want love to come.
We want our kids to make their own media choices–when they are grown, and educated enough to choose wisely.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. – Philippians 4:7-9
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Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible
You want your kids to learn and love the Bible.
You want to teach the Bible…
As parents, we deeply desire the best for our kids. We look for the right schools, we make them eat right and exercise, and we get them involved in extracurricular activities. We take our job as parents seriously.
But are we also putting our time and energy into
teaching them the Bible? Giving them the life-changing, soul-nourishing words of Scripture is not only doable, it’s an essential part of parenting kids for Jesus. And the good news is, studying God’s Word as a family doesn’t have to be difficult!
2 Timothy 2:15, ESV, says:
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved,
a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
Our job, as parents who love Jesus, is to help our kids become approved workers, unashamed and rightly handling the word of truth.
The good news? Teaching the Bible isn’t hard. Your family can learn the Bible together.
…and you can!
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Help Your Kids Learn and Love the Bible will equip you with everything you need to know to teach the Bible to your kids!
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Rachelle says
I find it’s easier to weed out the things that are “obvious.” That is, my husband and I agree that kids don’t need to be exposed to graphic violence, lots of swearing, etc. Others we know mostly respect that. It’s harder to watch against the subtle things that don’t really add value. We were recently questioned what was wrong with letting our little one watch cartoons. People don’t always understand when we try to explain that we want the question to be, “What’s right with this movie/book?”
Danika Cooley says
Rachelle,
I LOVE that perspective… “What is right with this media?” is a fantastic (and appropriate!) question. It’s one we strive to ask about everything we hand our kids.
~ Danika
Samantha says
I use Pluggedin. I FF or we close our eyes at violence/sex. There is a few R rated movies I will watch, and I know watching on TV or something like ClearPlay edits bad stuff. Defiance, Passion of the Christ, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Are examples. (all true stories or based on true stories)
Danika Cooley says
Thanks for weighing in, Samantha. 🙂
~ Danika
ARW says
Right on!!!!!
We don’t do a lot of tv – we barely watch the news. We do watch some movies but the ones we choose to watch are limited !!! We are very intentional about the books our kids read. Our kids know the standard and if we miss something – or they find something that is not as obvious from the cover, back or chapter titles, they bring the book to us. I spend several hours each week finding books. This is becoming more of a challenge as the kids are getting older and their comprehension is higher..but it is do able. Even classic books have many things that long ago I never thought about but now…everything matters.
Sally Tutor says
Theses choices are often hard to make, and every family draws different lines, as you said. Our children are 14 and up, and it is a blessing to see them rejecting certain songs or artists because of the content or the lifestyle. We don’t always agree with every choice, but we see them thinking. It’s amazing how shocked people can be when they find out what your children HAVEN’T watched or read, as if that might be damaging. We also get quizzes about why we allowed this but not that. Sometimes the answer is just because. Sometimes it’s the stage of life. Thank you for this post.
kyrawest says
It is so refreshing to not be alone in this way of thinking. Thank you. I too ask “What’s right with it?” before I watch. Even at church there are people who act like I am inflicting harm by not letting my kid watch certain things. I used to like a lot of shows that now I just don’t care to watch and wouldnt let my daughter watch. I figure Jesus is right here with me, does it please him? If not it’s turned off or if its a book it’s in the garbage.
Shirley says
We tried to shelter our children from such garbage, but sadly, they were introduced to a lot of it when they started attending Jr./Sr. High youth group at our church. I was unaware that the discussions, games and fellowship there would be full of things that did not, in my opinion, pass the Philippians 4:7-9 test. They were made to feel like “weirdos” for not being familiar with some of the popular, secular media that was used as references in discussions or trivia games. Thanks for your insightful parenting posts, Danika.
Rhoda says
Oh my–can I relate. We are very careful what our children watch and read. Now that they are in the youth group at church, they feel very left out at times. Though they long for deep friendship, they also recognize that what is here around them isn’t what they want to be. Right now it is tough–we want to see them develop deep friendships, but we also recognize that what is available right now in their life isn’t deep friendship material. Most of the young people their age really don’t want to be different from the world, be different for Jesus’ sake. I’m thankful my kids can see the difference and aspire to be right with Jesus. I also know that this season of life is just that–a season. The Lord loves my kids more than I do and will only do that which is right and good for them. In His time He will bring the friendships they long for. In the meanwhile, we hold the line on what they watch and read as this does make a difference–not just for now, but for eternity. We are looking at the long haul, not the easy way out! Thank you for the discussion as this gives me hope–we are not the only ones out here making tough decisions for our children. My prayer is to raise Daniel’s–doing right even when all around is doing wrong and there is no one to stop you from joining in. Daniel learned to stand and withstand in Jerusalem long before he had to stand and withstand in Babylon. He never would have stood for right in Babylon if he hadn’t been raised to go against the godless society Jerusalem and Judah had become. His parents had a huge role in that. Can’t prove that from scripture, but there is no other way to explain it. His parents did right when all of the world around them was going mad with idolatry. It wasn’t easy, but they did it. So can we!