Out of the Mouth of Babes

Al Mohler points to a good essay by Diana West, regarding the change in roles between children and adults.

Here is West's introduction:

When your average doting adult today murmurs the expression, “Out of the mouths of babes,” it is less an expression of wonder than a validation of the widely held assumption that children — babes, tweens, and teens — are innately wiser than their elders. They know better (sexual and fashion choices). They are discerning (music). They feel, therefore they understand (politics). Or so we have come to think due to a stunning if under-appreciated cultural reversal. Once upon a time, we believed wisdom was an expression of experience and maturity. Today, we believe the exact opposite.

Mohler concludes:

From a Christian perspective, Diana West's essay, as well as her book, The Death of the Grown-Up: How America's Arrested Development is Bringing Down Western Civilization, serves to alert parents and others to the challenge of raising children in such a culture. The goal of Christian parents must be to raise children to adulthood -- a genuine adulthood. The Bible honors children, but the biblical worldview establishes parents as the authority figures and adults as the figures of wisdom.

"Seen but not heard" is not the best model for parenting children. On the other hand, it is infinitely superior to the abdication of adult authority that marks the current age. Once again, Christian parents are reminded that raising godly children in this age requires the courage of a counter-revolutionary.

You can read the rest of West's essay here, and Mohler's interaction here.

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Filed under // Al Mohler children family youth

Posted January 22, 2010

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Children and Media Consumption

Al Mohler points to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation of the media consumption habits of America's children, ages 8-18.

It seems that in the past 5 years, media use has increased by a whole hour a day among our youth, not to mention what they're fitting in to those hours.

And it's not just that these kids are devoting 7 1/2 hours of their daily lives to media immersion -- their multitasking means that they somehow consume nearly 11 hours of media content in that 7 1/2 hours of time. Over the last ten years, young people have increased their consumption and use of every type of media with one exception -- reading. As the researchers make clear, the vast increase in the amount of time teenagers are able to access the media is due almost entirely to the fact that their mobile phones allow an online life that can be carried in the pocket (and in far too many cases, taken to bed). "The mobile and online media revolutions have arrived in the lives -- and the pockets -- of American youth," notes the report. "Try waking a teenager in the morning, and the odds are good you'll find a cell phone tucked under their pillow -- the last thing they touch before falling asleep and the first thing they reach for upon waking."

And if you think that this increased use has no effect on your children:

Another important section of the report indicates that the young people who spend the greatest amount of time with media report lower grades and lower levels of personal happiness and contentment.

You can find the Kaiser Slide Show here (check it out for some overwhelming statistics).

HT: AM

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Filed under // Al Mohler family media youth

Posted January 21, 2010

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Piper.::.Why Require Unregenerate Children to Act Like They’re Good?

I find this article from Dr. Piper helpful in thinking through this issue.

Here are his main points:

1) For children, external, unspiritual conformity to God’s commanded patterns of behavior is better than external, unspiritual non-conformity to those patterns of behavior.

2) Requiring obedience from children in conformity with God’s will confronts them with the meaning of sin in relation to God, the nature of their own depravity, and their need for inner transformation by the power of grace through the gospel of Christ.

3) The marks of devotion, civility, and manners (“please,” “thank you,” and good eye contact) are habits that, God willing, are filled later with grace and become more helpful ways of blessing others and expressing a humble heart.

Caution. Here we are only answering one question: Why should parents require submissive behaviors of children when they may be unregenerate rebels at heart? Of course that is not all Christian parents should do.

Let there be much spontaneous celebration verbally of every hopeful sign of life and goodness in our children.
Let us forgive them often and be longsuffering.
Let us serve them and not use them.
Let us lavish them with joyful participation in their interests.
Let us model for them the joy of knowing and submitting to the Lord Jesus.
Let us apologize often when we fall short of our own Father’s requirements.
Let us pray for them without ceasing.
Let us saturate them with the word of God from the moment they are in the womb (the uterus is not sound proof).
Let us involve them in happy ministry experiences and show them it is more blessed to give than to receive.
Let them see us sing to the King.
Let us teach them relentlessly the meaning of the gospel in the hope that God will open their eyes and make them alive. It happens through the gospel (1 Peter 1:22-25).