One of the most asked questions at my talks is about the internet and safety for our kids. This video is about the hardware and software that can be used to help in this area.
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If you think I am missing any great applications please let me know.
What do you use in your family?
Thanks
My new Parenting: Navigating Everything talk is now completed. Love a chance to speak this to your parents at your church, school, conference, camp, or other events.
We all want the best for our kids but which parenting information do we choose? With over 75,000 parenting books produced in the past 21 years and the many voices, articles and online resources available, the task of figuring out where to turn for parenting advice is overwhelming. Some foundational parenting questions all parents must consider:
What are Parenting Styles and which ones should I be using in my parenting?
How can I gain better communication skills and use them with my children?
What does spending time with my kids look like?
How do I effectively discipline my children?
Various aspects of home life also need addressing, with each section being a sizeable discussion on their own. In this talk I will look at where parents can begin these discussions, (on-ramps) and give them practical tools so they can effectively talk with their kids about all of the following areas:
Let’s look together at how we can best help our kids navigate the world they are growing up in.
They will not be with me forever, so I prepare them accordingly. – Trophy Child, Ted Cunningham
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I would agree with the findings from this TV show.
High school is nothing like it used to be.
That’s the message of “Undercover High,” a documentary series on A&E that follows seven adults who pose as students for a semester at Highland Park High School in Topeka, Kansas.
The undercover students, aged 21 to 26 when the show was filmed last year, took classes, joined clubs, and saw firsthand the struggles teenagers go through in their everyday lives. Even for the participants who graduated as recently as five years ago, their return to high school was completely different from their first time around.
Here are seven things the undercover students learned about high-schoolers that most adults don’t realize.
Social media has changed the game.
Teachers have less control than ever.
Bullying doesn’t stop when the final bell rings.
Girls are constantly pressured to share sexual images of themselves.
They are struggling with depression in record numbers.
Teen pregnancy isn’t what it used to be.
And most of all, they just want someone to talk to.
Click here to read more on each of these 7 findings.
Parents, how are you addressing these things in your home to equip and empower your kids to be able to deal with them outside the home?
This is not an easy article to read but it is a very important one for us as parents and leaders so we can see where culture it as today and how we help our kids to have a better understanding of pornography. I don’t think most parents faith-based or not would want their kids to view pornography, but we all need to talk to our kids about pornography and teach them how to process what they might see:
American adolescents watch much more pornography than their parents know — and it’s shaping their ideas about pleasure, power and intimacy. Can they be taught to see it more critically?
Statistics are also scary:
On average, boys are around 13, and girls are around 14, when they first see pornography, says Bryant Paul, an associate professor at Indiana University’s Media School and the author of studies on porn content and adolescent and adult viewing habits. In a 2008 University of New Hampshire survey, 93 percent of male college students and 62 percent of female students said they saw online porn before they were 18. Many females, in particular, weren’t seeking it out. Thirty-five percent of males said they had watched it 10 or more times during adolescence.
For all the parents who tell me that they want to be the ones to talk to their kids about sex and porn we seem to be failing in this regard:
It’s not surprising, then, that some adolescents use porn as a how-to guide. In a study that Rothman carried out in 2016 of 72 high schoolers ages 16 and 17, teenagers reported that porn was their primary source for information about sex — more than friends, siblings, schools or parents.
Drew, who had once used porn as his main sex educator, was now thinking about sex differently. “Some things need to come to us naturally, not by watching it and seeing what turns you on,” he told me. The discussions about anatomy and fake displays of pleasure made him realize that girls didn’t always respond as they did in porn and that they didn’t all want the same things. And guys didn’t, either. Maybe that porn clip in which the nice, tender guy didn’t excite the girl was wrong.
In our church world, we need to look at how we can have better conversations on pornography. With many of today’s teenagers getting their sex education from pornography we have to look at how we can help parents have this conversation in their homes, and then assist them by equipping and empowering them in our churches.
This actually would fall under a larger topic of equipping parents to help their kids get a Biblical Worldview of healthy sexuality. This would encompass everything from pornography, sexuality, dating, media awareness, pregnancy, STI’s, etc.
Love to hear peoples thoughts.
Click here for the entire article.
The organization Fight The New Drug has put out a survey to see if you “Can you tell the difference between a summarized scenario from the Fifty Shades trilogy and a real #MeToo experience?”
Really interesting. Love to hear your thoughts.
Click here for the survey
Each day there seems to be a new allegation of sexual harassment on the news. I thought that is article was a really important conversation.
The flood of new allegations has caused many to ask: What counts as sexual harassment? While there is a general legal definition for the workplace, a national survey of U.S. adults conducted by Barna between October 19-25, 2017 (shortly after the original Weinstein report) asked American adults to identify specific acts that they consider to be harassment
Given the range of behaviors selected by Americans, it’s increasingly clear—to some, for the first time—how insidious the problem of sexual harassment is.
“The past few months have ushered in an unprecedented level of awareness and shock at the pervasive experience of sexual harassment,” says Roxanne Stone, editor in chief of Barna Group. “The revelations surrounding celebrities and politicians have opened up a floodgate for women especially, but men too, to acknowledge the ways in which they have experienced both subtle and overt forms of harassment in their workplaces, churches and social circles. The data bears this out: Nearly half of all American adults admit to experiencing or witnessing sexual harassment at some point in their lives. Four in 10 women say they have personally been victims of it.
I really love the challenge at the end of the article.
“Leaders in every level of society—from entertainment, to the marketplace, to politics, to churches—must honestly wrestle with this challenging issue and what it means for their institutions. Pastors and spiritual leaders, especially, must be ready to talk with their members: to hear the stories of the victims, to offer counseling services, to speak from the pulpit on the respect and humanization that gender equality really requires. Churches, with a message of brotherly and sisterly love, have an opportunity to be leaders in this disorienting conversation.”
I am hoping there is continued healing for people who have been harassed & sexually assaulted, I wrestle with what restoration might look like for people who have done the harassing & sexually assault, and I pray that through discussion, dialogue, and further education we can stem this tide of people being hurt physically, emotionally, and sexually in the future.
Love to hear further conversations, blogs and thoughts on this.
Click here for the entire blog.
