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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 1 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: What are the Deadly Traps?
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Bob: The road along which a teenager travels has traps on either side.
Teenager: Dad? Dad? Slow down. I can't see. Well, I know you can. Dad, are you sure this blindfold doesn't come off? What traps? Huh? Where? Hey, Dad, I'm going to let go for a second. I'll be okay, don't worry. I'm just going right over here. See? See, I'm fine. There, see? Nothing happened. There weren't any traps. Huh? Where am I going? Just out. Dad, I know, I still have the blindfold on, and you've been down this – I know, I know – bye.
(footsteps and then teenager yells)
Dad?
Bob: Ouch. This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, July 9th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. The road to adolescence is paved with deadly traps. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition, and there you have it. You heard the sound of another teenager in the snare.
Dennis: Yeah, and did you hear that cry – "Hey, Dad." Have you ever done that?
Bob: I've been off in some of those snares as I wandered my way through adolescence.
Dennis: That's right, and I've cried out, and sometimes I've been too far away from home, Bob, yeah, and it's a serious matter, though. We're laughing about it – these snares that are in existence today for teenagers are all too real and all too dangerous.
Bob: We're going to be talking this week about some of the deadlier snares that are laid for our teenagers in our culture today, and this is material that comes out of a book that you and your wife, Barbara, have written recently. In fact, Barbara is in the studio with us. Hi, Barbara.
Barbara: Hi, Bob.
Bob: The name of the book is …
Dennis: … oh, no, you've got to do more than that, Bob. I mean, she is denying all types of motherly and wifely duties to be in here, and I just feel like (applauds).
Bob: That's right. We're glad you're along, our listeners are glad you're along …
… good …
Dennis: … yeah, back by popular demand. You know, we were having dinner last night with a couple and they said, "You know, we really like it when Barbara is on the broadcast."
Bob: And I really appreciate, too, and I know Barbara does, that you have offered, Dennis, to do a lot of the laundry and a lot of the dishes as a result of Barbara …
Barbara: … yeah, dinner is the big thing.
Dennis: I don't remember that.
[laughter]
Bob: We're going to be talking about things that come out of a book that the two of you have recently written. It's entitled, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and remind us of what are the big concepts that parents need to be aware of as we go through the process of raising our children.
Dennis: Well, the book is really built around three underlying assumptions, and the first one is so important. In fact, over the next few days the listeners are going to hear us over and over again pound the table about being relationally involved in our children's lives – not merely being at their events, not just going with them but having our hearts connected soul-to-soul.
Bob: Barbara, if you don't have the relationship in place, you're really headed for some turbulent waters as you head into adolescence, aren't you?
Barbara: Yeah, because it's so easy for our teenagers to get involved in myriads of activities – just thing after thing after thing, and they're after school at practices, and they're going to ball games at night, and they're getting up early to do things, and you just don't see them anymore, and unless you've got connecting points, unless you're pursuing that teenager and asking questions constantly – where are you going? What are you doing? What's happening in your life? Who are you hanging out with? and pursuing that child to get to know that child and stay after it, you're going to end up going your separate ways.
Dennis: Yeah, in fact, last night Barbara and I were both up late with a teenager on our bed, and it was fascinating, because we were having a discussion around one of these traps that gets an adolescent. It's the trap of deceit. And our daughter was on the edge of the bed down near one corner, and I looked at her, and I said, "Sweetheart, you need to understand that it's not you in one corner of life and us in the other corner, and that we, as your parents are adversaries. We are in your corner, and we're fighting for you, and we want to keep you out of these deadly traps that are going to get teenagers."
And I just need you to know and need you to understand that, as parents, the reason we love you and are going to battle for you is because we want to save you from the pain that we just heard at the beginning of the broadcast of that teenager walking off into that trap.
And I said to that teenage daughter, "Do you understand what we're saying? We're really pulling for you? We're not against you. And, finally, all too late last night, she nodded her head and said, "Yes, Daddy."
And it was an acknowledgement that only came about after a 30-minute conversation, Bob, that the easiest thing to have done would have been to gone to sleep. I mean, both of us were dead on our feet. We were whipped, but it was one of those magical moments that God orchestrates where if you don't fight it through and go ahead and love that child and stay relationally connected, you're going to miss a phenomenal teaching opportunity with that child.
Bob: And that "Yes, Daddy," was resignation that, "I know this is true intellectually but, boy, it doesn't always feel like we're in the same corner, and you're fighting for me."
Dennis: No, it doesn't, but we've got to hang in there. A second assumption that we think every parent of a preteen or a teen needs to have today as they raise these adolescents to maturity is that they've got to have their own convictions. They need to know what their values are, what they believe, and then they need to know how to build those convictions, that they possess as parents, into the life of the child. And that means you have to shape those convictions in the soul of that child and then end up testing those convictions over the next six, seven years all the way through adolescence.
Bob: That's, really, Barbara, at the heart of what we're doing, as parents, with adolescent children. We are transferring convictions to them, helping them establish a bedrock of core convictions.
Barbara: Mm-hm, and if parents don't know what they believe to start with, it is so easy to be blindsided by all the choices that our kids face, and if you haven't thought through what you're going to do about this or about that, all of a sudden, a kid comes home and says, "Can I go do this?" And parents are so caught off guard that they kind of cave and go, "Well, I guess," and then later on they may go, "Well, that wasn't such a great idea, but" …
Bob: … but now, all of a sudden, a precedent has been set.
Barbara: They're stuck, that's right.
Dennis: That's right, and when the doctor handed us a little baby by the name of Ashley, back in 1974, the doctor didn't say to us, "You know, Dennis, Barbara, you better establish a few convictions, because this child is going to need boundaries. This child is going to need fences around her life to protect her from evil but also to give her a chance to formulate her own beliefs and her own convictions before she leaves the yard, moves out through the gate to the big, bad world out there."
And I believe that the whole process of pre-adolescence and adolescence is one long process of taking our convictions that we've come to and implanting them in our children, watering them, nourishing them, cheering them on, picking them up when they fail, and then sending them out, finally, to the world to have those convictions have an impact on a world that desperately needs to see men and women today who stand for something, who have boundaries in their lives, and who are standing upon the Word of God.
Bob: That really takes courage on the part of parents.
Dennis: Yeah, and that's the third thing that parents need to have today, and I hope this book can literally reach through its pages to the hearts and heavy hands of parents and say to you, you know what? It can be done. You can do it. With the strength that God supplies, with the truth in His Word, with the Holy Spirit guiding you, you, as a parent, can raise a teenager that has the courage to stand for his convictions, for her beliefs, for his values, and they can have a sense of a spiritual mission about their lives that will carry them through some early years of adulthood and on into maturity when they establish their own homes.
Bob: Barbara, one of the things, as I read through the book that I kept reminding myself and highlighting, were the parts where you and Dennis say, "Remember, you're the parent. You have not only the right but the responsibility to do these things." Why is it, as parents, that we lose sight of that and forget that we're in charge, and we can say yes and no and you've got to live with that?
Barbara: I don't know exactly why it is, but it is so true.
Dennis: It's real, isn't it?
Barbara: It's very, very true, yeah. I think part of it is is that we, I think, deep down inside, wish it were not so hard. I think we wish that we could teach our kids a principle or a lesson and have them learn it and be done with it and not have to reteach the same thing over and over and over, and I think it's that weariness that we begin to feel after three or four years into the process, thinking, "My gosh, are they going to ever get it? Are they going to ever understand? Am I not making sense? What's the problem here?" And after a while we just get battle weary, because it is a struggle.
Dennis: I think there's something about the human spirit that wears down, and that's why a good bit of the New Testament is directed to our hearts to give us courage and not lose heart. Galatians, chapter 6, verse 9 is, I think, just a great verse for every parent – "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
Bob, I think it's so easy for parents today to give up. The number of traps that our teenagers face, the swift current of the culture, the lack of support in the community for people who hold to any kind of convictions – I mean, you're looked upon as weird if you have any kind of statement of belief today, and yet that's what teenagers desperately need, and they need it from parents who have not grown weary in well doing.
Bob: We've got five kids – only two who have moved into adolescence. We're already weary. You've had three already pass through. How do you keep from getting weary?
Barbara: Well, I don't think you can prevent getting weary. I mean, I've been weary the last few days, because I'm looking at our kids and thinking, "I don't think they're getting it. I'm not sure we're communicating right," and it's that feeling like a failure as a parent that wears you down, because you know what you want in the end. You know what the goal is, but sometimes you're not so sure how to get there. And so the process, that race that we're running, is a long one, and I just think it wears us down. And the only solution is is to just take some time and get away and remind ourselves of what the truth is and that God is for us, and that if we'll continue to seek Him and trust and pray – I'm praying more than I've ever prayed in my life for my kids.
Bob: This week we're going to look at seven of the 14 traps that the two of you have outlined in the book, and these seven are probably the more obvious and, in some cases, the more dangerous, or the more deadly traps that are laid for teenagers. And the first one that we're going to be looking at this week is the trap of peer pressure, which is something that all of us face, whether we're adolescents or adults – really, it's a challenge for all people, isn't it?
Dennis: 1 Corinthians, 15:33 says, "Bad company corrupts good morals." That's true whether you're 12, 22, or 52, it doesn't matter and, as parents, what we've got to do is we have to anticipate that the teenage years are the most peer-dependent period in any person's life, and we have to be there, alongside our child, guiding them around these traps so that the enemy of their souls does not ensnare them into evil.
Bob: Barbara, one of the big traps that parents are acutely aware of, particularly in this culture, is the trap of premarital sexual involvement.
Barbara: Yeah, Bob, it's because it's so prevalent in our culture, and we see it everywhere, and we know about kids everywhere who are experimenting in this area, and I think parents are very aware of this trap, and they're scared to death and, as a result, we need to really think through – what do we believe? What are we going to do about this with our kids? What are our standards going to be? How are we going to teach our kids to avoid this trap, because we know it's deadly.
Dennis: 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, says abstain from sexual immorality, period. And, as parents, we are to guide our children around this snare, helping them stay out and away from any form of sexual immorality and, frankly, these are some of the most controversial chapters in the entire book, Bob, because we challenge parents to decide what do you believe about sex prior to marriage, and if your child comes and asks you a question, how will you draw the line for him or for her?
In my opinion today, this is where we're using our young people – when parents don't know what they believe around life's most fundamental drive – the sex drive. It's like if you can't define life around that, then will you define it around anything?
The answer is no and, personally, nothing has caused us more agony and time with our teenagers than getting involved in this area, talking to them straight about their character, their choices, what they're going to do, what they're not going to do, challenging them to the highest standard. And nothing sounds stranger today in this culture than to be in this area with your teenager, tracking with them, involved with them, and cheering them on to purity and a biblical word called "holiness."
Bob: Barbara, right next to that huge bear trap of sexual immorality there is another trap that's a little bit smaller, but it kind of triggers the second trap, and that's the trap of dating.
Barbara: Yeah, they're kind of in tandem, they kind of go together, and they're often laid right next to each other, and you step in one, and you're in the other one. The whole thing of dating is it's such an issue with kids because it, too, sneaks up on parents. We tend to think that our kids can't date until they're old enough to drive or be out in a car, but the whole idea of pairing up – of girls and boys pairing up and kind of becoming exclusive with one another and belonging to one another – all that starts, sometimes, in elementary school but, for sure, in junior high.
Bob: Oh, for sure.
Barbara: For sure. You're nodding like you know.
Bob: Yeah, for sure.
Dennis: Had a few phone calls at the Lepine house.
Bob: A few e-mails, a few phone calls, for sure.
Barbara: That's a knowing for sure, isn't it? Well, I think what parents need to be aware of is that they need to be tracking with their kids and being involved with their kids on this issue, too, because this pairing up business, to the kids, is serious, and what it is, it's the foot in the door to dating, and then it becomes a foot in the door to the sexual temptations because, all of a sudden, they're seeing all these other little couples at school holding hands and hugging in the hall and maybe sitting on somebody's lap in the lunchroom or whatever.
And that begins to look normal to our children because that's where they are all day, and so they begin to think, in their minds, there's nothing wrong with that. So-and-so does it and everybody else is doing it, and so they, all of a sudden, assume that standard for themselves unless they've been taught otherwise.
Bob: And they think, "I'm not normal if I'm not doing it." And, Dennis, even if young people stay out of the trap of sexual immorality, the dating trap has some challenges of its own apart from the issue of sexual involvement.
Dennis: Yeah, exactly, the whole issue of romance is a biggie, and I'm just grateful for Barbara, who has been tracking on this one from the beginning with our children, really trying to protect them from developing this romanticized view of relationships that's so prevalent among teenagers.
It's been said puppy love may be puppy love, but it's real to the puppy and, I'm tell you, to a teenager, that romantic view of life – they fall into that and, I'm telling you, they just want to be in love with being in love.
Bob: Mm-hm, some of that comes out of one of the other traps that you talk about – that's the trap of media, because we're constantly fed in the media a diet of romance and sexual immorality.
Barbara: There's no doubt that the media strongly influences that whole concept of dating, because every movie has got a romantic line in it of some kind, whether it's the major theme in the movie or it's a small theme, it doesn't matter. It's in every movie that these kids see, and they've been seeing them since they were young so this has kind of been building, this whole idea of romance and being in love and having somebody that's my own has been building in their thinking for years and years. It's in every book, it's in every song they listen to, it's just everywhere.
Dennis: When we were writing this chapter in the book, I chuckled out loud, because there were so many distractions. I was working on the computer at home, and my teenagers all wanted to get in the computer to get their e-mail. There was telephone, there was TV, there were movies, there was music – I mean, all these things were happening in our house, and I could hear it. I was going, "There is an amazing amount of media that is shaping and influencing my teenagers."
And most parents are not proactive, we are being overtaken by it, and we're in a defensive mode when it comes to all these forms of media.
Bob: There are other traps that are laid for our kids that we're going to be talking about during this series – the trap of pornography, there's the trap of substance abuse, and then there's a deadly trap of unresolved anger in our kids.
Dennis: We don't realize how important our relationship is with each of our teenagers, and if we don't train our teenager in how to resolve conflict as he experiences it, then that teenager can be isolated from the people that love him the most and that can guide him through the most perilous period of his entire life. Most teenage boys are angry. They're just ticked off at the world. I don't understand what testosterone does to them, but I'm telling you, they just get ticked, and guess who bears the brunt of that anger? It's mom.
And if mom's not careful, mom will get hurt, mom will get angry, she'll get in one corner, they'll get in the other corner, and instead of the parent being in the teenager's corner, they're coming out at the ring of the bell, starting another round of arguing, of words flying around, and the very relationship that teen needs is not in place to protect him or to protect her.
Bob: You know, I can't see our listeners, but I imagine the number of heads nodding as we go through these issues. We all live with these very present issues daily as we're raising our kids, and it's hard not to become weary as we talked about earlier in the broadcast.
Over the next few days as we go through each of these issues, you're going to help us understand how you have come to the some of the convictions you've come to, what they are, and then how you press those convictions toward your children.
Dennis: Each of these 14 traps that we talk about has a description of the problem, then we share what our convictions are about this particular issue – like sex, like dating, like pornography, like media, and after we help the parent understand what our convictions are and how we came to them, then we come alongside the parent and equip that mom and dad to be able to shape those convictions that they hold into the life of their preteen and teenager, so that when that teenager begins to face the issues around each of these traps, he already has some convictions that need to be shaped.
Bob: I know many of our listeners have a copy already of your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." But I also know there are some moms and dads who have children who are 9, 10, 11, in what you two refer to as "the golden years." And they're thinking, "Well, I don't need a book like this now because I'm not facing these issues. And, probably, the perfect time to start reading a book like this is when your son or daughter is in those preteen years, because you need a proactive game plan. You need to anticipate some of these issues rather than having them just pop up on you, and you hadn't even thought about them as issues.
I remember when our oldest daughter, Amy, was a teenager, and she had gone over to a friend's house to spend the night, and it turned out that a group of them had been out of the home past midnight. Well, we'd never thought about curfew issues. We'd never thought about those kinds of restrictions, and we had to address that – not proactively but reactively. It took us by surprise.
And what you help us do in the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," is start thinking about those issues and develop, as you said, the convictions we have as parents and then determine how we want to help shape our children's convictions as they grow through adolescence as well.
You can to go our website, FamilyLife.com, if you are interested in getting a copy of the book. Again, it's called "Parenting Today's Adolescent." Go to FamilyLife.com and click the red button you see in the middle of the home page that says "Go." That will take you to the area of the site where there is more information about that resource and other resources we have for parents of teenagers.
Again, the website is FamilyLife.com, click the red button that says "Go," and find out more about the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." You can order online, if you'd like, or if it's easier, you can call 1-800-FLTODAY. That's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team can make arrangements to have a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" send out to you.
By the way, when you get in touch with us, if you are able to help us this month with a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today, we would like to send you as a thank you gift the new book by Dennis Rainey that is called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and this is a great guidebook for dads, especially those dads who have a daughter who is beginning to be pursued by young men. We'll send this book to you as our way of saying thank you this month when you make a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today.
Go to our website to donate, FamilyLife.com, and as you fill out the donation form, when you get to the keycode box on the form, type the word "date" in there, d-a-t-e. Or call 1-800-FLTODAY, you can make your donation over the phone and just mention that you'd like Dennis's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and we'll be happy to send it to you. Again, it's one way that we can say thanks for your participation with us in this ministry and your partnership with us here eon FamilyLife Today.
Well, tomorrow we want to talk about one of the traps that our teenagers face – actually, this really starts before they become teenagers, but it intensifies in the teen years. That's the issue of peer pressure and how that can be a deadly trap for our teens. I hope you can be back with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 2 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Peer Pressure
Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. It's Tuesday, July 10th, and we thought we'd do something a little different today – we're broadcasting from outdoors here on the Montana prairie.
Dennis: It's beautiful out here, isn't it?
Bob: It is beautiful.
Dennis: Big Sky Country – man, the grass is so green and fresh, wow.
Bob: The wind is kind of warm.
(rumbling noise)
Dennis: What's that? What is that, Bob? Did you hear that?
Bob: I do hear that.
Dennis: Bob, the ground's shaking.
Bob: There's a little bit of a …
Dennis: … feel it?
Bob: Uh-huh, it's coming. Look over on the – on the horizon!
Dennis: Bob, it's a bunch of them.
Bob: It's …
Both: The herd!
Dennis: That was kind of fun – we survived the buffalo stampede here.
Bob: I'm not sure we'll survive the teenage stampede.
Dennis: Oh, man.
Barbara: It lasts a little longer.
Dennis: It sure does.
Bob: We are talking this week on the broadcast about some of the traps that are laid for teenagers, some of the deadlier traps that are laid for young people as they go through the teenage years, and one of the traps that they face is the trap of the herd, it's the trap of peer pressure, Dennis.
Dennis: You know, Jeremiah, chapter 5, verse 26 says, "Among my people are wicked men who lie in wait like men who snare birds and those who set traps to catch men." That's peers – evil peer pressure can snare our children and can ruin their lives.
Bob: You know, Barbara, everywhere you look and listen and read and watch, you hear about peer pressure and its influence, and yet it's almost like we've heard so much about it that we've forgotten that it's real, and we're not sure how to define it or what to do with it. From a mom's standpoint, practically, what are the issues around peer pressure that are real issues for our families?
Barbara: To me the big issue for peer pressure is for mom and dad to stay involved. You need to know who the kids are that your child is hanging out with, who their friends are, and you need to be watching how those friends of your child are beginning to change, because all of our kids, as they move from elementary school in those early years of when they still like Mom and Dad.
But they move into junior high, all of our kids are going to change in some way or another, and we can't assume, as parents, that the kids that our children have been friends with since kindergarten, first grade, second grade, are still going to be the same kind of influence, the same kind of child, in junior high and high school that our child is going to be.
We can't assume that they're going to have the same value system, the same convictions, the same beliefs. We've seen it with all of our kids that some of the children that they've grown up with have taken a different fork in the road in junior high and that friendship changes, and if parents assume that those kids are going to just be the same kids, then we get blindsided.
Dennis: You know, in that passage I read in Jeremiah, chapter 5, it says "among my people are evil men." The most dangerous form of peer pressure will not come from the non-Christian audience. It will come from the youth group, from children who have been on the right path until they hit 13 or 15 and, all of a sudden, they steer down the wrong path, and they begin to take a group with them.
In fact, there is a larger group in most youth groups heading down that path than there is down the path to righteousness and following Jesus Christ and, as parents, Barbara and I have spent a great deal of time being very careful analyzing who are our children hanging out with? What's their spiritual condition? Where are they headed – constantly monitoring who our children's friends are.
Bob: The bad kids are kind of obvious, even to our teenagers. It's the good kids who are starting to dabble in some bad things that can be the ones who pull our kids off into the ditch with them.
Dennis: Exactly, and it's important for our children to know when it's okay to run with the herd and what kind of herd they can run with and when it's time for them to graze alone. Paul warned in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 33, he said, "Don't be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals." All of our children have memorized that verse prior to going into adolescence, because they have to understand that peers are going to influence them, either for good or for evil.
Bob: You illustrate this principle in a really powerful way with your sixth grade Sunday school class that you taught for many years. How did you do it?
Dennis: Well, I brought a shiny apple into class, and I said that this apple is about to fall under peer pressure, and I let it spend some time with a couple of buddies, and these two buddies were bad apples, and they had bruises on them, and to make sure that the experiment worked, I'd actually bounced them off the floor a couple of times, so these were truly bad apples, okay?
And I actually hid the bruises from my sixth grade Sunday school class to make the point of saying you can't always trust what you see is true, and I held up a side that didn't have the bruise, and I said, "These two are really bad apples," and then I slowly turned them around, and the children then could see that they really did have a rotten spot on then, and I said, "We're going to let this good apple spend some time with these two bad buddies, and we're going to see what happens as the good apple falls under the influence of these two bad apples," and we put them in a plastic baggie that sealed and put them in a paper sack and left them in a closet for about six months.
Bob: They hibernated, right?
Dennis: They did, in fact, over the following months the sixth grade class would be saying, "How are our buddies doing?" I'd say, "Well, I've been checking on them. They're spending time, and you need to know it's not pretty, it really isn't pretty," and then on one of the final class days I would invite one of the sixth graders to come up front, he would reach into the paper sack and pull out this plastic baggie that contained this form of rotten, putrid, apple soup, and there weren't three apples in there.
There was nothing distinguishable that you would recognize as an apple and, of course, my point to those children is that Paul's admonition in 1 Corinthians 15:33 – "You are either going to influence people or you are going to be influenced for evil," and if you spend time with the wrong person, you're going to become like those that you make your friendships with.
Bob: Barbara, as Dennis was talking about the apples that look good from one side but have some hidden bruises, I was reminded of Eddie Haskell – you remember him on "Leave It To Beaver?" He was the young man who would always come over and say, "Hello, Mrs. Cleaver, how nice you look today."
Then when he'd get up to Wally's room, it was always a different story, and he'd start talking slang, and he was rude and disrespectful. Parents have got to be alert to what's going on with these kids. We've got to look all around the apple and see as much as we can, don't we?
Barbara: Yeah, because some kids are really smart, and they know how to do that. They know how to look good when they have to look good, but when they're off on their own, they will do what they want to do, and I think there are a couple of things that parents need to be aware of as you evaluate the kids that your child is spending time with, and one of them is sometimes these peers will ridicule what your standards are. They will make fun of them, or they will belittle them, or they will arrogantly tear down what you're trying to do with your child.
Dennis: Yeah, and I've got to underscore this one, because I think a parent needs to be very careful of assuming too much about the peers that your children run around with. Don't assume that they stand for the same standards that you represent in your family. In fact, Barbara and I have probably come to the point where we don't assume that about any of the children until we get to know them. After we get to know them, we get to know their families, where they come from, and who they are. At that point, we'll begin to give them the benefit of the doubt.
It's almost like any parent of a teenager ought to begin with a basic – this is going to sound horrible, Bob – but a basic mistrust of peers. Why? Because they will arrogantly and flagrantly ridicule the standards and values that you're attempting to teach your child at home – just what Barbara said.
They'll do it frontally, they'll do it subtly, they'll come at your child in different ways, tempting him to step to the left or to the right, but most children, even Christian kids, are not going to step in alongside your teenager and say, "You know, it's really wise that your parents grounded you from going out on dates, because of that mistake you made last week."
Barbara: That's never happened.
Dennis: That has never happened, but we have had great Christian kids – I mean – from great Christian homes come in and say, "Your parents have grounded you from going to youth group? Your parents have grounded you from God? Man, your parents are – I don't know about them, about their values." Now, Bob, these are from kids of great Christian homes. They don't understand what a parent is up to and what a parent is trying to do in providing those boundaries and convictions around that child.
Bob: Barbara, they may also encourage our children to do things that Mom and Dad will never find out about, right?
Barbara: Yeah, and that's historically true with peers, and that's been going on for centuries, but the classic line that our kids have heard over and over again is – "Your parents will never find out." And our kids have all had friends tell them that over different things.
Like, Rebecca came home and was talking about our high school baseball team and their first opening game that she was wanting to go to, and we had looked at her whole week and together we had decided that she didn't need to do that, because we had so many other things going on that week, and she could maybe go to a game the following week.
And at school she was telling some of the guys on the team, "Well, I'm not going to go." And they said, "Well, why aren't you going to go?" "Well, my parents and I decided it wouldn't be a good idea," and they said, "Well, they'll never know – just go – nothing's going to hurt, just go to the game anyway, do it anyway." I mean, over and over and over again .
Dennis: And when that happens, the caution lights go on between Mom and Dad, and we begin to closely monitor those friendships and, at the same time, begin to guard our children from spending too much time from other teenagers who would encourage our son or daughter to disobey us. Now, think about that. That sounds like a no-brainer, but some parents would watch that happen and would not think that they have the right to step into that child's life to begin to curb the amount of time that teenager spends with that child.
Bob: Which is one of the convictions that you talk about in your book. You say that parents have a legitimate right to exercise influence and control even over who your kids are spending time with.
Dennis: Yeah, I want to read something from our book right here – "You are the parent. Realize that maintaining control of those who influence your children is within the bounds of your authority as a parent." Did you hear that? It's your responsibility, you're in charge, nobody else, but there's some kind of complex equation that takes place in the chemistry of a teenager and a parent of a teenager, where a parent begins to abdicate their responsibility and, I might add, their authority, and they give it over to the child, and then they wonder years later why the child went off in the wrong direction.
Bob: Well, here's what happens Barbara – a teenager comes, and there's some discussion, and finally the teenager says, "Well, don't I have the right to choose who my own friends are going to be? Don't I even have the right to decide who I can hang around with?" And, as a parent, you say no?
Barbara: Yeah, and you sound horrible saying no.
Dennis: You've got to sound strong saying no. You can't go "No?" Your own voice can't change like a teenager's. You've got to go "That's right." Call their bluff – and inside you may be going, "Oh, I'm not sure about this. I'm going to lose them. They're going to run away. They're going to become a prodigal. They're out of here. They're going to" …
Barbara: But the whole goal is shaping, though, their ability to choose friends wisely. It's not so much that you're coming down heavy-handed and going, "No, you have no right to make your own friends, your mom and dad are going to do that for you." That's not the issue. The issue is that you're training them, you're guiding them, you're helping them understand how to choose a good friend and how to be a good friend, and that takes a lot of time.
Bob: And the context for that is one of the other convictions you talk about in the book – the relationship that must be in place, because without the relationship, if you start saying, "No, you can't choose your own friends," they check out from you, and they'll just sneak around and do it whether you like it or not.
Dennis: Yeah, that's right. The quality of the relationship that you have with your child will be a determining factor of how significant peer pressure is on your child's life. Did you hear that? It doesn't mean you'll prevent it. I'm just saying if you've got a quality relationship, if your heart is connected to your child, you're going to know what's going on. Your child will know that you know what's going on. You'll be in it together.
There may be times when they slip away, and they've done something, but you can go get that child through that relationship. If that relationship is not in place, you don't have any ability to go get that child and pull them away from peer pressure.
What your ability – to preach? Even with those relationships in place they don't want to hear those sermons. But you know what? With the relationship in place, it makes the possibility of them hearing that sermon a reality.
Bob: You know, as we talk about peer pressure, we talk about it almost exclusively in its negative sense – those folks who yank our kids in the wrong direction – one of the great things that you all talk about is the power of positive peer pressure. This is where parents can really turn peer pressure and make it their ally instead of their enemy.
Barbara: Yeah, and I think a lot of parents aren't aware that that's a possibility, because what happens is when they're not involved, then the kids are going to gravitate toward negative peer pressure, and that's just going to be the human nature of the situation. They're just going to go that way.
But if you're involved, and you're teaching your child how to develop good friendships, how to be a good friend, and then you steer him or her toward kids that you know are going to be good kids, kids that are going to be a good influence, and you sort of help cultivate that relationship, make time for it, and have those kids over to your house and help develop that and teach your child how to keep that going, then you can use that for good in your child's life. So it doesn't have to be negative. It can be positive if parents are proactive about it.
Dennis: When Ashley was 13 or 14, she came home from school one day, and she described what she was feeling like as a young person. She said, "Mom, Dad, it's as though I'm standing on a wall, and my friends are all at the base of the wall, and they picked up stones to throw at me to try to knock me off the wall."
Bob: Wow.
Dennis: And I think what you need to do with your teenager is to help them find some friends to get up on the wall with her or with him, and it's interesting – our oldest three went through junior high and high school alone. They were terribly alone on that wall …
Barbara: But they did have each other, and I do think that made a difference, because even though they were alone without peer relationships from other kids, they were pretty much in school together, and they knew that they had somebody else that was there with them.
Bob: They also had Mom and Dad cheering them on in the background saying, "Way to go."
Barbara: Right, exactly.
Bob: So that when they took courageous stands, at least home was a place they could come to where they knew they were going to get some positive reinforcement.
Barbara: Right, right.
Dennis: Exactly, and when Ashley told that story of how she felt, we just cheered her – I mean – "Way to go, Ashley. Don't let them knock you off. Stand strong." One of our other teenagers has told us repeatedly, "You know, I just feel like such a failure as a teenager."
And when it comes to peers, and being a teenager, our teens make a lot of dumb choices, you know, they choose some wrong things, and it's easy, as a parent, to constantly be on them for the mistakes they're making and not appropriately be for them and the right choices they're making and cheering them on to the objective.
Bob: Barbara, one of the very practical things that you've done with your children to help prepare them for maybe standing alone, is the "decide in advance" game. Tell me how that's played.
Barbara: Well, it can be used in lots of different situations, but for peer pressure, for instance, it would be a situation where – I've done this with all of our kids as they have exited sixth grade and entered into junior high, and I've said to all of them, "Now, you know, as you go through these next couple of years, some of the kids that you've been friends with since second grade and third grade are going to begin to change, and they will choose some wrong paths; some things that our family doesn't stand for, and I want you to be watching for that so that when it happens you'll be not caught off guard by it, and you'll see it coming, and you won't get sucked into making those wrong choices, too."
So it's the idea of thinking through some situations in advance and helping them know that there are going to be some problems ahead, and what are you going to do about it when it happens? And taking it a step further, it could be what are you going to do if you're over at a friend's house, and they put a movie in that you don't think we would approve of. How are you going to handle that?
Or what if you're at the mall, and you see some kids that are thinking about shoplifting? You can tell just by the way they're talking and what they're doing that they're thinking about that. How are you going to handle that? What are you going to do?
There are just multiple things like that that kids are going to face in greater numbers in junior high and high school than they ever faced before, and helping them decide in advance what they're going to do about it is a great step in preparing them to handle it right.
Dennis: It really is, and it comes from Daniel, chapter 1, where it talks about how Daniel made up his mind in advance not to defile himself by eating the king's food.
In other words, he walked into the banquet having already decided what he was going to do in advance of the choice, and I think, personally, this whole idea of parents having their own convictions and then implanting those convictions in their children, helping that child decide what he or she will do before they face the situation, I believe, Bob, is one of the absolute keys in helping our children survive adolescence.
Bob: Well, and that's why you and Barbara have invested as much time as you did in this book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," because you want parents to think through these issues – and I appreciate the fact that what you really want parents to do is develop their own convictions. In some cases, it's clear what the biblical mandate is on some of these issues, but in other cases, we have to decide what do we think is the wise way to approach this? And what kind of standards are we going to have for our family?
A husband and wife need to come to an agreement on those issues and be ready proactively to address them as their children begin the journey through adolescence.
We've got copies of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" in our FamilyLife Resource Center, and I know many of our listeners already have a copy. If you have children who are in the late elementary years, that's the perfect time for you to get a copy of this book and start reading through it.
You could read through a different chapter each week on a date night together and begin, as a husband and wife, to interact over these issues and say, "What are our standards? What are our convictions?"
Again, the book is called "Parenting Today's Adolescent." You can request a copy from us here at FamilyLife Today by go online at FamilyLife.com, click the red "Go" button that you see in the middle of the screen, and that will take you right to an area of the website where there is more information about this book, and you can order it online, if you'd like.
Again, the website is FamilyLife.com. Click the red button that says "Go," and that will take you to the area of the site where you can get more information about the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent."
You can also call 1-800-FLTODAY to request a copy of this book or to ask any questions you have – 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and we've got folks who are available to try and help you with any questions you face or to get a copy of the book sent out to you.
You know, there's an additional resource we'd like to send to you this month. It's a book that Dennis has just written called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date" – a great book for dads or for a single-parent mom as well to talk about how you can protect your daughter as she begins to be pursued by young men, and how you can engage those young men in a meaningful, helpful conversation that will have an impact on their lives as well.
We are sending out this book this month as a thank you gift to those of you who are able to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount. Because we are listener-supported, those donations are critical for the ongoing ministry of FamilyLife Today and in the summer months, particularly, we need to hear from our listeners.
Oftentimes, support drops off in the summer, and that's the case this year as well. If you can help with a donation of any amount to the ministry of FamilyLife Today, you can request a copy of the book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." You can donate online at FamilyLife.com, and if you do that, when year-old come to the key code box on the donation form, type the word "date" in there, and we'll know to send you a copy of that book.
Or call 1-800-FLTODAY, make your donation over the phone and mention that you'd like a copy of Dennis's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." Again, we're happy to send it out to you as our way of saying thanks for your financial support of the ministry of FamilyLife Today.
You know, Dennis, as we talked today about peer pressure, you used the illustration of the rotten apple in the bag, and I remember you telling me that years after your sixth grade Sunday school class, one of those students who had been in the class returned and told you about the power that that particular illustration had had in her life.
Dennis: Yeah, Sarah was 16 or 17 and evidently was facing some pretty challenging days of peer pressure, and one afternoon when the power was out because of a thunderstorm that had rolled through, this young teenage girl and her mom were lying on the bed just talking to each other. The mom relayed this story to me later that Sarah turned to her and said, "You know, Mom, there's all kinds of pressure on me right now by peers, but all I can think about are apples – Mr. Rainey's apples – and what happened to those apples when they gave in to the bad buddies."
That little object lesson was used by the spirit of God in that girl's mind to remind her to do what was right and to talk to her mom about that during a crucial period where she was having to decide either to do what's right or to move in the direction of peer pressure. It helped her do what was right and, Bob, I think that's our role as parents.
We need to step in there and illustrate these principles, call our children to the right choices, and then keep calling them back to those choices. It's not a one-time lesson where you teach it once, and then you back off. It's over and over and over again.
The repetitive side of parenting is the exhaustive side of parenting, but it's where the real gains are made, and I just want to come alongside that mom and dad right now, single parent, maybe even a grandparent who is helping to raise a child and just say to you – hang in there. Don't give in to your child's peer pressure yourself. You've got to stand strong so you can help your child through some dangerous territory that has traps that will seek to ensnare your child and take them toward destruction.
Bob: FamilyLife Today is a listener-supported production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 3 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Sex
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Bob: If you're a parent, have you challenged your son or your daughter to wait until marriage to become sexually active? Barbara Rainey says maybe you haven't given enough of a challenge.
Barbara: We've realized with our kids that the standard of maintaining their virginity is not enough, because when a young girl and a young boy get together, and they decide they like each other, and they begin holding hands and hugging and kissing and other things, what's happening is they're damaging their purity; they're losing their innocence.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 11th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. As parents, how can we challenge our teenagers to a high standard of moral purity? We'll talk about that today.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. This week we are spending some time looking at the traps that have been set for our teenagers throughout our culture and what we can do as parents to help steer our children around these traps so that they don't become ensnared. And what we're talking about comes from a book by Dennis and Barbara Rainey called "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and Barbara joins us in the studio today. Hi, Barbara, nice to have you back with us.
Barbara: Thanks, Bob.
Bob: Dennis, these traps that face our teenagers can be invisible to us, as parents, but they can also be deadly to our kids.
Dennis: They can, in fact, I think that's why much of the scripture is warning us about snares and traps. There are more than 50 references in the Old Testament and New Testament to avoiding the snare of the enemy, or the trap of the evil person, and over in Proverbs, chapter 7, there's the warning against the adulteress, and although it's talking about a married man, I think it relates to our teenagers as we help them navigate the dangers of all the traps set before them.
It's speaking of the adulteress here in verse 21, "With persuasive words, she led him astray. She seduced him with her smooth talk. All at once, he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose, 'til an arrow pierces his liver like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life."
Then Solomon says, "Now, then, my sons, listen up, listen to me, pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her path." Why? Because there's a snare there – there's a trap there, and it may cost you your soul. It may destroy your life.
And, Bob, I think, as parents, we need to assume the responsibility that Solomon was with his son when he penned this book and sought to instruct his son in the way of righteousness. We need to help our children isolate and determine what those snares are, where the traps are being laid, and then help them understand how it happens, and he described the harlot here of persuading the young man with her words and then with her eyes, and he explained to his son how it all happened, and, you know, that's a picture of how we, as parents, are to help our children around these traps.
Bob: And, Barbara, the trap that Dennis has illustrated from the scriptures for us is the one that we're going to be spending time with today and tomorrow – it's the trap of illicit or premarital sexual relations, and whether it's a young lady who is subtly enticing our sons to be sexually involved with her, or a young man who is putting pressure on our daughters to be sexually involved with him, our kids are undoubtedly going to experience, going to face this temptation, this snare, of how involved they're going to be with a member of the opposite sex.
Barbara: And it starts earlier than many of us would ever expect, and that's what I think catches us, as parents, off guard, is that it begins in junior high, and our kids, our girls and our boys, our sons, are faced with this temptation very early on by children who are more grown up, who are raised in a more promiscuous background than we were, who have been exposed to more things in the sexual area than our children have been, and our kids are exposed to that, and they need to know what to do, they need to know what their standards are, they need to know how to make a decision about it.
Dennis: One of the reasons why we have come up with this material, Bob, is out of our sixth grade Sunday school class. We taught that class for more than 11 years and taught more than 500 11- and 12-year-olds. Now, that's a lot of sixth graders, and when we started teaching that class, we looked out over them, and we made a wrong assumption.
We thought, "They're little, they're small, they're young, they're not ready to be challenged in some of the most fundamental areas of life." And I’m going to tell you, over the 11 years we taught that, if those children taught me anything, it was that assumption was dead wrong. Eleven and 12-year-old children, and I believe even down to the age of 10, are capable of beginning to hear some very mature material around building their own convictions and beliefs and taking a stand for certain things.
In fact, one of the things that shocked me was, one of the times when I was teaching about sex to these kids, and I wouldn't talk about the birds and the bees – I always talked about the character issues – your choices and what are you going to do with the opposite sex when you get alone with them?
I asked them how far they would go with the opposite sex, and I'll share later on, in the next couple of broadcasts, what they said, but what shocked me was they already knew. They had already drawn some lines in their mind of how far they were going to go in terms of physical involvement with the opposite sex, and what hit me about this is that, here they are, many of them haven't even broken into puberty yet. They haven't experienced electricity, and they're already figuring out how to turn on the light bulb.
What's going to happen when the electricity is turned on? What's going to happen to their standards then? And it so shocked me and so took me back that I began to restructure everything I was teaching and began to challenge them much as I would challenge a high school senior – challenging them to think through what their convictions were as they related to the opposite sex.
And the bottom line for a parent right here is you need to look at that son or daughter who may be 9, 10, 11, 12 – not quite a teenager yet, doesn't have a teenage body, not gone through puberty at all – let me tell you something – you have a wonderful opportunity now – not two years from now, not six months from now – today, right now, to begin to instruct them and to shape their convictions around one of the biggest temptations a human being will ever face.
Bob: Barbara, at the core of what you and Dennis have encouraged your kids to do in this area is a conviction that the standards most people are setting today are way too low.
Barbara: Yes, we've realized with our kids that the standard of maintaining their virginity is not enough, because when a young girl and a young boy get together, and they decide they like each other, and they begin holding hands and hugging and kissing and other things, what's happening is they're damaging their purity, they're losing their innocence, they're getting involved with each other emotionally. They're giving away part of themselves to another person that was not intended to be done until marriage.
And so we realized that we wanted to challenge our kids to a much, much higher standard of purity. We didn't want them to just end up in marriage as a virgin, we wanted them to enter marriage pure, we wanted them to enter marriage with everything that God wanted them to have intact still there to give to their marriage partner.
So we began challenging our kids with the idea of not getting involved physically at all – not kissing, not holding hands, not hugging, those kinds of things, and we began to talk to them about what that does to them physically and emotionally and how that makes them feel, and what's happening, what's going on when – if they would do those things and why we feel that way and what our standards are, and it's provided lots and lots of interesting conversations, because that is dramatically, radically opposed to what the world is saying.
Bob: Yeah, how long did it take, Dennis, before the word got out at the kids' school or in church that the Rainey kids are really weird, and their parents are really strange, too?
Dennis: You know, it's interesting, Bob, I don't know that the word's out yet.
Bob: Oh, is that right?
Barbara: Not as much as we'd like, I think.
Dennis: Well, you know, that may be true, too, but I think what children are looking for today are some standards that build security. When you build a fence around a playground, that enables the children to use the whole playground, and teenagers are no different. They need to learn how to establish relationships without defining those relationships physically.
Teenagers, given their natural bent, are not going to define and develop relationships verbally and emotionally – they're going to define and develop those relationships romantically and physically, and so what Barbara and I had to determine was, hey, we can either take our teenager head-on and say, you know what? We're going to tell it to you like it is.
We're going to challenge you with what we believe is the right standard for you, as a young person, and it's a high standard, it's a holy standard, but it's the right standard for today, and you know what? We're not going to compromise by mumbling or stuttering or stammering.
We're going to step up, and we're going to tell it to you straight, because we believe, as we do that, that's going to liberate you and free you to be able to get on with what you need to be focusing in on right now, which is developing relationships and friendship on a casual basis and not on this in-depth romantic basis that all teens naturally move to. What insanity.
I mean, think about it – that Christian parents would be herding their children off down this path into the gaping jaws of romance, dating, and sex. I want to tell you something, that's what a lot of them are doing as we move our children even into our Christian groups. We're encouraging these kinds of relationships. And it's the parents who need to seize the high ground. It's the parents who need to take the child by the arm and guide them through these traps.
Bob: Barbara, as you have challenged your children in these areas, have they thought about it for a second and then said, "Boy, I can see the wisdom of that, Mom and Dad, and I'm with you 100 percent. No kissing for me until I get to the altar."
Barbara: Never. Well, it's so different from what they're seeing and hearing that it's taken them a long time to kind of swallow, but, you know, I was just thinking of the old adage, "Rather be safe than sorry," and I would much rather battle my kids and go over and over and over this than have them have regrets someday. I don't want them living with regrets.
If there's any way that we, as parents, can help them avoid making mistakes that they're going to regret for the rest of their lives, I'm going to do it, and so what it means is that we stay after it, and we go over it and over it and over it and continue to reinforce those things and continue to reteach and explain why, because they're out there in the culture all the time, and the culture has given them all these other signals, and so you're having to battle all that, and it just takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to continue to do that and guide them in the right direction.
Dennis: I think if a parent who is raising an adolescent today was asked – what are you challenging your teenager to? What's the standard when it comes to sex? I think most parents would say, "Well, we want them to be virgins when they get married." And yet I think that goal, as such, sets our children up to get much closer to intercourse than if we were building a fence at the top of the cliff that is a ways away from the edge.
And you may disagree with our little challenge that we've given our children, but, you know, whether or not you agree with us is not really the issue here. The issue is what do you believe and where do you draw the line?
I fear today that the Christian community is being conformed to the world and doesn't want to draw any lines, and the reality is the culture is drawing the lines or it's erasing them. Really, the culture is erasing those lines, and our teens are being pressed further and further and closer to the edge. And meanwhile the parents – what are we doing? We're stepping off to the side and going, "Well, kids will be kids."
God gave children to us, as parents. We're to be the protectors of our children's sexual purity, of their emotional purity, of their sexual innocence, and the issue – what are we doing with that? Are we leaving them to their own devices, or are we going to challenge them with a standard that forces them to think long and hard about the culture and about who they are and about their decision to follow Christ.
And I wonder, Bob, if some of these decisions that we've made haven't resulted in our older teenagers – who have now moved on into their 20s – if it hasn't resulted in them – of them taking a stronger stand for Christ because they had to courageously begin to adopt some of these standards.
Bob: Barbara, Dennis talked about not only their sexual purity, but their emotional purity as well. How far, physically, do young men and young women need to go before their heart begins to get swept away?
Barbara: Well, they don't need to go very far at all, and even these junior high kids can get paired up with another guy or a girl, and just the contact that they can have in a school setting is enough for them to be giving their emotions – where they begin to feel attached to that person, where they need to talk to that person, and that's what we're talking about – it's the sense that these kids have of, "I have to be with him," "I have to have his attention, and if he doesn't give me that attention, then I feel lost or I feel insecure," and that's what begins to develop, and we don't want our children's security dependent on another kid at school. Their security needs to be in who they are as a person and who God created them to be.
So it does not take much physical interaction at all for that emotional side of them to get caught up in it, and then, all of a sudden, they're hooked on this person, and they have to have that person.
Dennis: The Bible is so wise. It recognizes the emotional connection that occurs when two people get involved sexually, and I think that's why it warns us over and over again to avoid it. 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 18 through 20 – "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body."
Let me just say there – where are the emotions in our body? That's what the scripture is warning us about. "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body."
2 Timothy 2:22 also says, "Flee also youthful lusts but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart." What's God after here? He wants a pure heart.
I want to read you something from our book. It's something we wanted to capture in words just to give parents a picture of what our goal ought to be – "Picture a beautiful, exquisitely wrapped package. Inside is the most delightful, untainted pleasures you could imagine. Now, wouldn't you want to be able to give that gift to your child? Wouldn't you love to give your child a gift that would be good, wholesome, something to treasure for a lifetime? That's what this gift of innocence is all about – helping your child understand who they are as a sexual creature reflecting the image of God. That's your goal, and once you make it your goal, it will begin to change the way you think about how you guide your teenager down through the dangerous, trap-infested street through Teensville."
Bob, I think every parent is jealous for our children to experience all of life that God intended, and it needs to be experienced in God's timing, and I believe sex, and that is all of sex, was intended to be experienced in marriage.
Bob: Barbara, I can think of two big reasons why parents are intimidated in talking about high standards with their children. The first reason is because they feel like hypocrites, because they compromised their own standards when they were young people.
The second reason is because they know it may cause them to have to change some things about their own behavior today – movies they're watching, television shows, or even their interaction with members of the opposite sex, even in the context of marriage.
Barbara: Well, I think parents need to just evaluate what's more important – is your child's life more important than your life and your pleasures and your interests? Is your past going to keep you from doing what's right? I mean, most of us grew up and lied, but do we ever say that we shouldn't teach our children not to lie just because we made that mistake? I mean, we've all made mistakes in different areas of our lives, but that doesn't meant that we can't teach our children what is right and hold them to a standard of godliness.
I don't have a problem at all with holding my kids to a higher standard in all kinds of areas and in ways that I didn't live life the way I should have, because I know more now than I did when I was a teenager. I'm much more mature in Christ than I was then, and I want my kids to experience all that God intends for them to experience, and that is more important to me than my own interests or my own pleasures, so to speak, today. So I think parents need to pull back and say, "What is my goal? What's more important in life? Is the life of your child more important than your life or not?
Bob: And if they say to you – "Well, what about you when you were a teenager? What did you do? How far did you go?" How do you answer?
Barbara: If my children ask me that question? Well, I think that needs to be answered very, very carefully, because different parents are going to have different answers to that question, and I think that there may come a time when a parent may need to say to a child – but it would need to be when the child is much older – "Here are the mistakes that I made, and I am trying my best to preserve your innocence so that you don't make the mistakes that I made," but I think parents need to be very careful in what they say, when they say it, and how much they say.
Dennis: Yeah, I'd be careful about ever sharing a great deal of detail around sexual failures that you may have made as a teenager, a college student, or as an adult. Children at this age need models and heroes and, emotionally, I don't think they're ready to hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth from their parents. They need you to stand strong on behalf of the standard. Now, that doesn't mean you lie to them.
Barbara: Or that you act like you're perfect and never do anything wrong, either. They need a role model, but they need someone that they know that – you know – you've made some mistakes, but you don't have to enumerate them and spell them out.
Dennis: I might say something to a child to the effect, "You know, that's a great question, and someday you and I will have a conversation around that, but right now here is what I want you to focus on as a young man or a young lady, and move the focus off of you back where it needs to be – on the Scripture and on the young person who is beginning to develop his or her convictions.
All of these things we're talking about begin as convictions in the parent, but it can't stop there. It needs to be implanted in the heart of a child.
Bob: This is a significant enough issue that you devoted two chapters in your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," to this subject because there's a lot for parents to think through and be alert to and be prepared for. This is one of the big traps facing teenagers today, and we want to make sure that, as parents, we address this issue in a healthy, godly, biblical way promoting the standard of purity with our teenagers and helping them see that this is a good gift from God for husbands and wives in a marriage relationship.
You know, a couple of weeks ago we mentioned to our listeners a couple of classic books by Elizabeth Elliot that deal with this issue of purity. Her book, "Passion and Purity," and then the follow-up book, "Quest for Love" are books that are really timeless classics that promote a healthy, biblical view of romance and passion and intimacy and helps young people see how that can be lived out and some of the destructive things that can happen if someone violates God's standards for sexuality.
In addition to your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," we have Elizabeth Elliot's books also in our FamilyLife Resource Center. And I just want to encourage our listeners, go to our website, FamilyLife.com, and if you click the red button that says "Go" in the middle of the screen, that will take you to an area of the site where you can get more information on recources that we have available here at FamilyLife designed to help you, as a parent, not only wrestle with your own convictions but help you challenge your sons and your daughters to a biblical standard in this area.
Again, our website is FamilyLife.com, and you click the red button that says "Go." It will take you to the area of the site where you can order copies of these books that I've mentioned or get more information about them. You can also call 1-800-FLTODAY. That's 1-800-358-6329, and someone on our team will let you know how you can get copies of these resources sent out to you.
And then if you're a father, let me also encourage you to consider getting a copy of Dennis Rainey's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." It's available in our FamilyLife Resource Center as well, but this month we also want to make it available to you as a thank you gift when you support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount.
We are listener-supported. We depend on donations from our listeners to be able to continue this ministry on this station and on other stations all across the country, and we thought this month a good way to say thank you for your financial support would be to make available Dennis's new book. You can request it when you donate online at FamilyLife.com by typing the word "date" into the keycode box that you find on the donation form. You type that in there, and we'll send you a copy of the book.
Or call 1-800-FLTODAY, that's 1-800-358-6329, and make your donation over the phone and just mention that you'd like a copy of Dennis's book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and we'll be happy to send it out to you as our way of saying thanks for your financial support of the ministry of FamilyLife Today.
Well, we're going to look at this subject of sex and intimacy and how we can raise a standard of purity with our teens on tomorrow's program. I hope you can be back with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer on today's broadcast, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?
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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 4 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Sex
Bob: Parents often wonder – when should we have "the talk" with out children? Dennis Rainey says it shouldn't just be "the talk," it ought to be "the talks."
Dennis: I've really found that there are different segments that we go through with our children, whether boys or girls, that I've certainly taken our boys through. First of all, it's just the ABCs of sex – it's the birds and the bees, it's the biological facts about sex, and I honestly believe today that has to be in place by age 10. If you've not had that conversation with your child, the world is having it.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, July 12th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll talk today about the big talk parents need to have with their children – what, when, and how?
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. We have been wandering through a field full of traps this week on the program because, as parents, we need to visit and learn where the traps are so that we can be about our job of leading our children through a field of traps that they're going to face as adolescents.
Dennis: Yeah, I thought you were going to the field of dreams there – you know, adolescence is no field of dreams – it's a picture, I believe, of a parent walking through this trap-infested field with a teenager having a blindfold on and being barefoot, scooting along very closely behind the parent with his hands on the parent's shoulder, and the parent guiding him around all these traps because they're dangerous.
Job, chapter 18, describes the scene, I think, beautifully – verse 8 – "His feet thrust down into a net, and he wanders into its mesh. A trap seizes hold by the heel; a snare holds him fast; a noose is hidden for him on the ground; a trap lies in his path." Now, listen to this summary – "Terrors startle him on every side and dog his every step. Calamity is hungry for him, disaster is ready for him when he falls."
That's the picture of a teenager moving from childhood through those perilous adolescent years to adulthood and maturity, and it's our responsibility, as parents, to go ahead of our children and guide them through this process.
Bob: Barbara, there are too many 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 15-year-olds, and 18-year-olds out wandering in that field with the blindfold on and nobody leading them at all.
Barbara: Except the culture.
Bob: Yes.
Barbara: And the culture is doing a good job of it, and they're out there alone, or they're out there with a bunch of their buddies, a bunch of their friends, and they're wandering around, just looking for direction, for anybody to tell them what to do, and that's why they get sucked into these traps all the time.
Bob: Where are Mom and Dad?
Barbara: Mom and Dad have usually abdicated. They've just pulled back, and they've either decided they can't handle this kid, or they've decided this is too much, and he's just going to do what he's going to do, anyway, and I'm just not going to worry about it.
Bob: Dennis, that's part of the reason you and Barbara sat down to spend the hours writing this book to call Mom and Dad back to their post.
Dennis: I think a lot of parents are losing heart in this culture. This is not an easy time to raise a child, and especially not an easy time to raise a teenager. The culture doesn't reinforce our standards, if we have standards. In fact, the culture is attacking those parents who have standards.
And so, frankly, this is a time to call parents to be courageous, and that's what we attempted to do in this book – kind of put our arms around a parent or a single parent and say, "You know what? You can do it with the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit with God as the builder of your home, you know what? You can raise a child to make it through this trap-infested field, and he can make it to maturity and not be maimed or injured for life as a result."
Bob: Yesterday on the broadcast we talked about the trap of sexual immorality, and you encouraged us, as parents, to raise the standard higher than the current cultural standard. Even within the Christian community, we've set the bar too low, as you see it.
Dennis: That's right. I've got a letter here that was passed on to me by a grandmother who worked in our ministry here for a number of years. Her name is Pat Orten [sp], and Pat is a dear person, but she wrote about how her mother helped draw lines and boundaries around her life.
Now, you can tell by the sound of this letter that this is from another era, but I don't think all of what's represented here is a bad era at all. I think we need to return to some of the standards represented in this note that she slipped me.
She writes – "I remember my mom drawing the line for me when I began to date. She instructed me about how a guy should and should not touch me with his hands. For example, she said to never let a guy place his hand on my knee. I see so many dating couples with their hands on each other's knee or with his hand in her back pocket of her jeans, and I always remember my mother's words.
Because that line was drawn, my husband and I remained pure in our four-year dating relationship before we were married. I can still recall more than 40 years ago the pleasure we both experienced when my husband put his hand on my knee as we drove off on our honeymoon. He laughed and said he'd been waiting for four years to do that." I love it.
Barbara: I do, too.
Dennis: I really do love that.
Barbara: I do, too.
Dennis: She concludes her note by saying, "I'm thankful to my mom for helping me draw the line for purity." Now, you know, that sounds so ancient, so fossilized, but it's …
Barbara: … so healthy.
Dennis: It's so pure, so good, there's something about the breeze that letter creates in our soul to say would be that our children could say on their honeymoon – "I've been waiting for years to do that." Wouldn't that be a tremendous privilege to deliver your child to their wedding altar with that purity, that innocence intact? Well, I think that's what a parent's assignment is as we raise teenagers today.
Bob: Barbara, we talked yesterday on the broadcast about helping our children understand the warnings from scripture about issues of sexual immorality, but the truth is the Bible says a lot of things that are very positive about sexual relationships. It just confines them to marriage. We've got to be teaching our kids the good things the Bible says as well as the warnings, right?
Barbara: I agree, Bob, and I think we need to help our kids see the good things that God designed for a man and a woman in marriage, and I think we need to help them understand that sex is for intimacy in marriage, and that God created it for that, and He created it for pleasure, and it's good, and it's good experienced in marriage, and He intended for us, as male and female, to enjoy that gift that He gave us in marriage.
And He also made it real clear that anything outside of marriage – that was a sin. So I think as we paint a picture for our kids of how marriage is good, and it's healthy, and it's wholesome, and sex within marriage is a wonderful thing, it's a wonderful gift, we can build some expectancy and some hope for our kids so that they can have something to look forward to, they can understand what the goal is, they've got a model lived before them between Mom and Dad, and they know that's something that they're going to want someday, and they'll have more of a motivation to wait, more of a motivation to save themselves, because they understand the plan and what God has for them.
Bob: You know, it feels a little difficult as a parent, because it's almost like telling your kids – you know this particular flavor of ice cream – it's really, really good, but you can't have any now, and you can't have any for a long time but, boy, it's really good when you have some. It's almost like you're taunting them. You feel almost cruel.
Dennis: Well, but that's the mystery of sex. In our sixth grade Sunday school class, one of the ways we sought to teach this was I would walk up to the front of the class with a paper sack and an electrical cord running out of the paper sack to the wall, and I would ask the children – how many of you believe me when I tell you there's something dangerous inside this paper sack? And they would hold up their hands, and I'd say, "Now, everybody who held up their hands, stand up" – and there would always be one boy who did not believe me, and who would be seated at that point.
So I would invite him to come up, and I'd say, "Now let me understand this correctly. You didn't believe me when I told you that there was something dangerous in this sack, is that right?" And he's beginning to look at me a bit suspiciously at that point, being 11 or 12 years of age, and I said, "Okay, you didn't believe me. I want you to stick your hand in the sack," and I whispered in his ear, "Young man, as you stick your hand into the paper sack, go in very slowly, because what's in there really is dangerous."
And at that point he doesn't want to stick his hand in, but his hand goes in, even if I force it in, and it comes out like a bolt of lightning, because he has touched something very hot, and what I have inside the sack is a curling iron that has been sufficiently heated up – and I want our listeners to know, lest they're going to file a lawsuit on behalf of that 11- or 12-year-old, I've never scarred any kids or hurt them or anything, so don't worry about those kids, but I make the point of that young man saying he was given a chance to believe me when I told him that it was dangerous, but he didn't believe me, and so he stuck his hand in, and he learned, through experience, that he should have trusted my word.
I believe God wants us to wait until marriage to experience this area called sex, and he wants us to train our children to do the very same thing in helping them trust that God's Word is true, that His warnings are healthy, that His encouragements about the healthy side of sex are positive, and to not doubt that word and not go against that word, because if they do they're liable to get burned.
Bob: Barbara, help us practically here – as a mom, what did you do with your girls as they were going through pre-adolescence, right before they headed into the teenage years to help shape their convictions in these areas?
Barbara: Well, with all of our girls, I took them away on a little weekend retreat, or even a one-night retreat and took some tapes and some books and some different things and just made it a real special getaway for Mom and daughter, and we'd go stay at a nice hotel or a little bed and breakfast or something that was fun and out of the ordinary, and we would listen to these tapes and read selected portions out of a book and begin to talk about the whole process of them growing up and becoming a woman and what that meant and all the changes that they would go through physically.
And then we would also talk about how they were going to be changing emotionally, how they would change in their perception of boys and right now they thought, you know – and usually it was around their sixth grade year that I would do this, and they would think that boys were pretty weird and not too cool to be around, so you kind of have to convince them that this really is going to happen.
But just talk to them about their interest is going to change and how the boys are going to become interested in them and what boys are going to be thinking and what they're going to be thinking in response to that and just begin to head off, by some initial preparation, some teaching that's going to help them understand the changes that they're getting ready to go through.
Bob: In your book you included a list of what materials you used in those weekend getaways and, at the end of the broadcast, I'm going to let our listeners know how they can get a copy of the book if they want to.
Dennis, how about you and the boys? Did you have a similar kind of weekend experience?
Dennis: Well, I did, but I really found that there are different segments that we go through with our children, whether they be boys or girls, that I've certainly taken our boys through. First of all, it's just the ABCs of sex – it's the birds and the bees, it's the biological facts about sex, and I honestly believe today that has to be in place by age 10.
If you've not had that conversation with your child, the world is having it. Somehow, some way, peers, music, movies, TV, magazines, Internet – all the different forms of media are coming at your kids left and right, and they are hearing some form about sex that's probably degrading, perverted, and certainly not God's way.
But that really leads to an opportunity that – it probably is around ages 10 to 12, and there's a whole bunch of issues that we've talked about with our sons – puberty, what that means and what's about to happen to their body; we talk about dating and what's involved in that; about relationships and even some of the principles for dating and some of the boundaries for dating.
Later on in adolescence you double back and you have some additional conversations, Bob, around all of these issues plus the things that begin to pile up about them – dancing, music, saying no to an aggressive girl who is physically coming on to you; some higher callings about how a young man is to relate to the opposite sex – manners, all those issues about touching, kissing, petting, and intercourse.
These are all healthy discussions that a father and a son ought to be working through and ought to have almost a grocery list, a checklist, that he's checking them off and having these discussions with his sons because these young men need to hear it first and need to hear it second and third and fourth from their fathers – from a Christian perspective.
Bob: One of the things about the checklist that we have to keep in mind is even after we check it off, all that means is that we've covered it once. That doesn't mean it's done, does it?
Dennis: That's right, but that's been one of the most difficult things about teenagers, Bob, especially if you've got more than one. You can begin to assume they got it, and that's very dangerous, whether it be with a son or with a daughter. You need to assume, more than likely, they didn't get it. Don't nag them, don't harp on them, don't stay on their case, but double back and kind of see if they're hearing and beginning to develop their own convictions.
Bob: There are a lot of dads who kind of wipe their brow and go, "Whew, that's over," after they've had a talk with a child, and it's not over until you've revisited the subject a half a dozen more times throughout the teenage years.
Dennis: That's exactly right.
Bob: Barbara, how about you and the boys? Have you felt a need, as a mom, to reinforce any particular issues with your sons?
Barbara: Well, I've just been focused on trying to reinforce what they've talked about with Dad, but it's been interesting – there have been a couple of occasions with our boys, when they were teenagers, when they would go to a youth group retreat or some other kind of conference, and they would hear a talk about dating or sex or some of those issues, and we had some very interesting discussions when they would come back.
I remember one – it was Ashley, Benjamin, Samuel, and I – we were all sitting in the bedroom, and they were all three telling me what they'd learned at this conference about sex and dating, and we just had this great interaction right there on the spot, talking about what they'd learned, and I asked them what they thought about it and do you feel like that's right – is that something you're going to adopt, is that something you want to choose for your own or do you think maybe you want to have a different standard? And we just interacted about all that.
So there will be those opportunities for Moms to validate what Dad is teaching and to say, "You know, I really am proud of the way you're becoming a young man, and you're taking initiative, and you're becoming – you're growing up," and she can do a lot of that kind of validating and appreciating and reinforcing what Dad's been saying.
Bob: Dennis, we've talked about moms and their daughters, dads and their sons, moms and their sons – I know you've had conversations with your daughters. In fact, there was one conversation you had specifically with one of your daughters where you used a water balloon as a way to illustrate what you were talking about?
Dennis: Yeah, Rebecca, who is 17 right now, has a point of contention with me, because she wants a royalty off this idea. She thinks she invented this, but that's not how I remember the conversation. We were sitting out in a grocery store parking lot waiting for some friends to pick her up for a bunking party, as I recall, and there was a water balloon left over from a big water balloon fight we'd had the weekend before between the parents – us – Mom and Dad – and the other teams.
And the water balloon was sitting there, and it was one of the moments where we started talking about how far are you going to go and how much of your innocence are you going to keep and preserve to be able to give to your husband on your wedding night. And I pulled that water balloon out, and I held it up, and I said, "Rebecca, it's like this water balloon contains all of your innocence. It's just a limited amount, only so much, and if you give that water balloon to a young man, and he takes a pen, and he says, "You know, I just want a little kiss.
Well, at that point, Rebecca, you give away just a little bit and he just takes the pin and just ever so slightly puts a little bitty hole in the balloon and out comes a little drop of water." I said, "I'm not saying that's wrong for him to kiss you at that point, but you just given away your first kiss at that point.
And then you decide to maybe kiss a little longer and a little deeper, and the young man doesn't just poke one hole, he pokes several holes in there and now instead of just a drop of water coming out, there are several drops coming out, and maybe it begins to squirt out of the balloon. And I didn't have a pin in the car there, Bob, so I couldn't illustrate this, but she was catching on.
And I said, "What could possibly happen now is that you give your innocence away to enough people so that when you arrive at your marriage bed the balloon would be empty. There would be nothing to give to your husband," and I said, "How would that make you feel?" She said, "Really sad." And I said, "Yeah," and I said, "Your innocence needs to be preserved and protected by you and by us, and that's what your mom and I are doing as we walk through some very dangerous paths, and we help you as you relate to the opposite sex."
And, you know, that illustration – I've gone back to that and so has Barbara with Rebecca on numerous occasions, to talk to her about standing strong and about preserving that which God has entrusted to her.
And the reason I like that illustration is because, as parents, I think we're entrusted, in a sense, with protecting that water balloon. We've got to go the extra mile to protect and preserve and be the guardians and not just give it away or not just let them go and just let them go their own way but be courageous and step into a child who maybe is a teen today, and maybe you've lost control, and it's going to be harder to reel them back in but, you know what? You've got to do it. You've got to do it, because if you don't they could ruin their lives.
And, Bob, I just want to encourage that parent today who is listening – no matter how many mistakes you've made in the past – and we've made many. It may sound like from time to time on this broadcast because we share some of these things that we've done it all right. We have not done it all right. We have made assumptions that our kids have been getting these points, and they haven't been getting them, and they've missed the point.
And we've had to backtrack and go back and reteach, and we've had to give our kids grace when they've failed but you know what? I would rather have fought the fight and have been in there with our children helping to preserve and guard and protect than to back out and just let them go. That isn't right. God has given us these children, and we are to be their parents all the way through adolescence as they emerge into adulthood.
Bob: You know, that illustration you used, of the water balloon, is one of a bunch of illustrations that you provide in the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and those word pictures do stick with our children. When you do more than just talk with them, when you can use a demonstration or a word picture like that, it can make a big difference and, again, it sticks with our sons and our daughters and, in fact, that particular illustration is one that we've incorporated into the resource Passport to Purity, which a lot of FamilyLife Today listeners have used with their preteens, taking them off for a weekend where they can go through the Passport to Purity material and have their sons and daughters ready to face peer pressure and dating and sex and some of these deadly traps we're talking about this week on our program.
You can get more information about Passport to Purity or about the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," by going to our website, FamilyLife.com, and clicking the red button you see there that says "Go." That will take you to an area of the site where, again, there is more information about these resources and other resources. Elizabeth Elliot's books, "Passion and Purity," and "Quest for Love." Books and audio resources that we've selected to try to equip you, as parents, to face this issue and to help guide your children through the dangerous waters of adolescence and get them on the other side with their purity intact.
Again, our website is FamilyLife.com, click the red button that says "Go" in the middle of the screen. That will take you to the area of the site where there is more information on what's available or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY, mention that you were listening to FamilyLife Today and you heard us talking about different resources, and someone on our team can answer any questions you have about those resources, or place an order for you, if you'd like.
The number, again, is 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY. And when you do get in touch with us, it's possible that someone on our team will ask if you'd like to help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation. We are listener-supported, and we hear from families in many of the cities where FamilyLife Today is heard. They call and say, "We appreciate the program, and we want to help keep it on the air," and they make a donation from time to time either on the website or over the phone.
We appreciate those of you who have done that in the past. We depend on those donations to continue this program not only in this city but in other cities where FamilyLife Today is heard. This month, if you can help with a donation of any amount, we want to send you a thank you give. It's the new book by Dennis Rainey called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and it provides for a dad or for a mom guidelines you can follow as you begin to engage young men who might be interested in taking your daughter out on a date. We talk about the kind of conversation you ought to have with those young men before you say yes to that kind of social engagement with your daughter.
We'd be happy to send you a copy of this book as a way of saying thanks for your financial support when you make a donation this month. If you're donating online, as you fill out the donation form, if you'd like a copy of the book, just type the word "date" into the keycode box, and we'll know to send you one.
Or if you call 1-800-FLTODAY and make your donation over the phone just mention that you'd like a copy of the book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and, again, we're happy to send it out to you, and we appreciate your financial support for this ministry.
Well, tomorrow we're going to talk about that subject of dating – when is that appropriate, what kind of boundaries should parents place around that kind of social engagement between a young man and a young woman in the teen years? We'll talk all about that tomorrow, and I hope you can be back with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
________________________________________________________________
We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?
Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved.
www.FamilyLife.com
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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 5 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Dating
Bob: There are times when a conversation between a father and his daughter can be a little awkward.
Dad: Hi, Jules, how was gymnastics?
Julie: Good. I landed the double tonight.
Dad: All right, way to go. Jules, how are you doing with the guys?
Julie: Okay.
Dad: You know, your mom and I have been talking about you and all those boys who call on the phone.
Julie: Great.
Dad: Your mom and I just want to make sure you know what you stand for as you get old enough to date, you know what I mean?
Julie: I know, Dad.
Dad: I want to ask you a very personal question and, listen, you've got the freedom not to answer if you don't want to, okay?
Julie: Sure, Dad, why not?
Dad: Have you thought through how far you're going to go physically with the opposite sex?
Julie: Uh-huh.
Dad: Well, then, would you mind telling me how far you intend to go?
Julie: I know, Dad.
Dad: Where are you going to draw your boundaries, Jules? Your limits?
Julie: Dad, I know what's right and what's wrong, okay?
Dad: Okay, I'll take that for an answer – for now.
Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Friday edition of our broadcast. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and, Dennis, your wife Barbara joining us this week as well. I'm Bob Lepine, and the tension in that car between that dad and that daughter …
Dennis: … did you hear her keep turning that radio up?
Bob: She did not want to talk.
Dennis: I've been there.
Bob: I've been there, too – got a few radios turned up on me in the conversation. This is a particularly difficult issue for parents to deal with, with their children. We've talked on the last couple of broadcasts about how we've got to press through some of that negative static we get from our kids, and get to the core issues around physical involvement, sexual involvement.
But one of the other traps facing our children as they walk through the teenage years is a trap that is right alongside the trap of sexual intimacy. It's the trap of dating. In fact, it may be the gateway. I think you probably have to step in the dating trap before you usually ever get to the sexual relationship trap, and that's where a lot of parents have got to be shrewd in this culture.
Dennis: You know, parents have got to realize that as our children grow up and into the teenage years, there are going to be these hidden traps, these hidden snares, that will be set for them, and I think one of the biggest ones that they will face is this issue of dating.
I think of the verse over in Psalm 142, verse 3 – it says, "When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way. In the path where I walk, men have hidden a snare for me. Look to my right and see no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge. No one cares for my life."
Well, the psalmist didn't feel that, but a teenager ought to be able to say, "I have a parent. I have a mom and a dad. I have a mom, a dad, and a grandparent who care about my way and who are looking out for the hidden snare of dating and the attraction to the opposite sex."
Bob: I think the big question, Barbara, for a lot of kids, as they approach junior high, and they start to develop some interest in members of the opposite sex is – when can I start? How soon can I start dating? And that question might creep up on you.
Barbara: Oh, I think it does creep up on you, just like a lot of this other stuff creeps up on parents of adolescents. We discovered that early on with Ashley, our oldest. We were at a conference, and we were there with another family, and this other family had a son who was a year older than Ashley, and they had been friends for years, and we just didn't think a whole lot about it. But they decided one day they wanted to take a walk together and go get a Coke, and we let them go, and then kind of later on we realized they spent some time together alone. They're 12 and 13 years old.
Dennis: Yeah, she was 12 years old.
Barbara: Yeah, and she kind of likes him, and he kind of likes her and, gosh, I think she just had a date, and we just kind of realized, all of a sudden, that we had allowed her to spend time alone with a boy, and that seemed to be a good definition of a date, and we weren't prepared for that. But, in essence, that is what happened with Ashley, is she was alone with a boy that she liked, and he liked her, and she really had her first date at 12.
Bob: Dating today has become just the accepted practice of American teenagers. It's just what you do when you're in junior high and in senior high, and many parents have said, "Well, I guess that's the way it is, and yet you all see some real dangers in the way we do dating today with our kids, don't you?
Dennis: Yeah, what we call the "dating game" is currently being played in most Christian families, and it cultivates romantic fantasy love before children are emotionally, physically, and spiritually mature enough to have a relationship with the opposite sex. And one-on-one dating leads couples to spending too much time alone at the time when the sex drive is at an all all-time peak for a young man. I mean, it's like taking gunpowder and striking a match, leaving them alone to experience some of these feelings.
Barbara: Another thing, too, that we've seen with our kids is that they don't have the maturity to make a wise choice about who to spend time with. They often make their choices of who they're going to like based on just who is available, because everybody else has a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and so they decide they need to have somebody, and so they just sort of pick somebody. They don't think through – what is this person's values? They don't think through is this person good for me or not good for me or what kind of family does he or she come from? They're just kind of desperate, and so they just pick somebody.
Dennis: And it looks like child's play, because they're children, they're not even, in many cases, into puberty yet, and yet they have these emotional attachments that they develop, romance begins to stir the soul, and it looks for a way to express itself, and the way that romance expresses itself in most people is physically. We begin to show physical affection and appreciation for the other person, and once that starts, where does that lead? And I think that, alone, is one of the biggest cases against allowing your child to date before they're spiritually mature enough and emotionally mature enough to handle the feelings that come with adolescence.
Barbara: Another thing that happens when kids begin to pair off is they begin to have their needs met by that other person, and even if your child comes from a strong home, where you and your spouse are giving that child the attention and the affection and everything that he needs or she needs to be secure, once an attachment takes place with someone else, and your child hooks up with another boy or girl, and they become an item at school – even with the best that you're doing at home, they're going to choose to get their needs met from that other person, because that's more convenient.
They're at school together all day long, so even in the best of homes these kids can hook up with another boy or girl and get those emotional needs met for love and security and attention and everything through that relationship, and then they come home and spend all evening on the phone, and Mom and Dad's influence is cut to nothing.
Dennis: And you wonder why you don't have the influence on them, and you know what? We've experienced this. We've watched some of our children establish these exclusive relationships, and we've experienced the loss. We wonder, "What's going to happen to my relationship with that child?" Well, the reality is someone else is getting that relationship, and someone else is having the influence, and someone else is shaping the values, and someone else is charting a course for that young person's life.
You know what? It's not their husband or their wife, they're not married. But, in many cases, a lot of these teenagers are acting like they're married, and they're sharing things emotionally and physically that were only intended to be shared in marriage.
Bob: Okay, well, with all of this stuff that you've talked about – dangers in dating – why go anywhere near it? Why let your kids anywhere near it? Why don't you just seal them up until they're 19, put them in a closet somewhere, and then let them get out and start …
Barbara: Mm-hm, I think that's a good idea.
[laughter]
Dennis: Because they lock people up for that, Bob. I think every parent listening to us says, "Yeah, I'll vote for that," but you can go to jail for that, you know, today.
I think what we want to do is we want to look at how we can help our children begin to have a healthy respect for the opposite sex, have a healthy respect for their own identity, and then begin to learn how to relate to the opposite sex and develop relationships that don't …
Barbara: Friendships.
Dennis: Yeah, that don't necessarily become romantic relationships.
Bob: Yeah, your children, Barbara, have been on dates, but it's been different than what we think of when we think of kids dating or going together. You've really tried to ride herd on not letting them become romantically attached.
Barbara: Yeah, and the big thing is to make sure that they're not alone, because that is when all the dangerous stuff happens, is when they're alone. So what we've tried to do with all of our kids and increasingly so with our younger ones – we're getting more and more involved in this area, we're becoming more and more proactive in this area than we even were with our older ones – we are now with our younger kids, and that is when we do allow them to go out, and it is a good bit later than what probably is the norm in the culture, we've tried to create an environment where they go with another group of kids, and they have activities that they do together that are group-centered so that they're never alone.
They don't have the opportunity to enter into those temptations and then yield to them. So they go as a group, and they come home as a group, and they do things at our house with groups, and we're trying to foster the idea of developing a friendship with another guy, rather than developing a romance.
Dennis: Some parents, at this point, probably wonder if we're making too big a deal out of this. I don't think so, I really don't. I think one of the most dangerous things that's occurring today is giving our young people too much freedom before they are emotionally or physically or spiritually mature enough to make these life-altering decisions.
And moms and dads – it's us – we are the ones responsible. We must assume the responsibility God has given to us as being the guardians and the protectors of our children all the way through adolescence.
Bob: Barbara, let's say it's spring break week, and one of your children comes to you and says, "Hey, Mom, there's a group of kids going to the mall to see a movie," and let's assume it's a movie that's acceptable – there are a few of those out these days, but let's just assume there's an acceptable film there. There's a group going, and they called and "they want to know if I can go." And you ask the question – "Is it boys and girls?" And the answer is yes. How old does the child have to be before the answer is, "Yes, you can go."
Barbara: Well, there isn't really a specific age limit, although, generally, it would be 15 or 16 in our family.
Dennis: At the earliest.
Barbara: Right. Primarily the decision would be based upon the maturity level of that child. Has this kid demonstrated to us that he or she can be trusted to be alone with a bunch of kids unsupervised by adults? Then I would want to know who those kids are, how they're getting there, how they're getting back, how long they're going to be there, and just all the details – and do I need to be driving and all that kind of stuff. But if we let one of our kids go and do that with a group we would want to know those specifics about the situation, but it would all depend on that child and their responsiveness to us.
Dennis: Over in the Song of Solomon, chapter 8, verses 8 through 10, Solomon speaks of what's called "a little sister." And there were actually two of them in that passage. One who was spoken of as a wall, the other one spoken of as a gate.
The wall was the sexually pure, the one who was in control of her own emotions and one that was managing adolescence well, I think. And the gate is the girl – or for that matter, a guy – who would be too sexually open or too free with the opposite sex.
What happened in that passage was Solomon celebrated the wall, and he built a cedar barricade around the gate. He didn't give the gate freedom, he protected the gate. He celebrated the right choices of the girl who was the wall, and I think, as parents, what we've got to do is truly watch how our sons and our daughters are, and that's what Barbara is talking about here, and give them additional responsibility, additional freedom as they've been a wall, and then if they show tendencies to being the gate, pull out the cedar and start hammering away at that barricade.
Bob: You've got kids, though, in high school before they can go watch a movie in the middle of the afternoon with a mixed group of kids unsupervised – high school.
Barbara: Yeah, we do.
Dennis: And she didn't blink, either.
Bob: No, she didn't, and I'm sure some of your kids have looked at you and said, "Mom, I've got to wait until high school?"
Barbara: Well, and a lot of it, too, depends on who the kids are. Because, see, if I'm involved with my children, like I am, I know who their friends are and who might be somebody that they would be interested in romantically. So it's one thing to send my kids off in a mixed group with a bunch of truly buddy friends, and it's another thing to send them off to a movie in a mixed group where there might be somebody that they're really interested in.
So that's why I want to know who it is and who is going and how they're getting there, so you've got to ask 50 zillion questions to finally find out what the facts are.
Dennis: A couple of nights ago we had some friends over at the house, Scott and Theresa, and our daughters were all just huddled up around the table. It was a fascinating evening, and we got off talking about this. And our teenage daughters were all there, talking, and Scott asked our oldest about dating.
And both Barbara and I had our jaws nearly drop to the floor, Bob, as our teenage daughter, Rebecca, who is 17 years old, said to Scott, she said, "Well, as you raise your girls, don't let them date until they get out of high school."
Hello? And, I mean, this – this …
Bob: You ran for the tape recorder, didn't you?
Dennis: I said, "Can we get fingerprints – we've got eyewitnesses, can we get this in writing? They do begin to get the point after a while. They begin to understand, you know what? Dating ends up in heartbreaking situations where you lose your boyfriend, and you cry for nights on end, and there's …
Barbara: It's just not worth it.
Dennis: It's not worth it.
Barbara: They finally figure it out.
Dennis: It really isn't, and it's worth far more to teach them how to develop a friendship and to keep relationships at that level.
Bob: What age do they have to be before they can go on a double date with somebody, you know – to the prom in the car?
Barbara: Well, probably, it would be 17. We used to say 16, but we're getting tighter on this. It's probably going to be more like 17.
Bob: Junior year?
Barbara: Mm-hm, mm-hm.
Dennis: At the earliest, again.
Bob: What about a single date, where you just go out with a young man for dinner for the evening?
Dennis: Probably – right now, where we are on that, we would probably not encourage that to happen.
Bob: At all ever?
Dennis: In high school.
Barbara: In high school, yeah. Although, you know, there – we might make an exception, depending on who the young man is and if they really – we really feel like we can trust him and her, and this really is just going to be a friendship kind of thing, and it's not going to be – turn into anything else. You know, we might do that, but it takes an enormous amount of time and energy to figure out if that really is the case.
Dennis: And even as I said that I'm thinking our daughter, who is 17, has gone and gotten coffee with "a friend,"
Barbara: Mm-hm, a couple of times.
Dennis: And has sat there talking, but it's not a friend that she has any kind of romantic interest in. Now, here is an important point as parents ride herd on this issue. Your kids are going to look you in the eye and they say, "But I'm not interested in them romantically." If that's so, why are you holding their hand? I don't hold my best friend's hand. Holding hands is not a sign of friendship in this culture. It may be over in Europe, but it's not yet in America. It is usually a sign of affection.
Barbara: Romantic affection.
Dennis: That's right, and you know what? It's astounding, as parents, how dumb I can be. I have had our children look me back in the eye and say, "But it's just a friendship." And I go, "Yeah, just a friendship." Then I get back, and I go, "Wait a second – no, no, no. They were sitting beside each other. They were holding hands on the bus. Hold it, wait a second" …
Bob: … there's more going on here.
Dennis: What's wrong with this picture? And it's – as a parent, what is there about us that we question ourselves and our own judgment? Our judgment is not in question here. Hold it. I'm the parent. I'm counseling myself, by the way, right now – but I am the parent, and I have to be reminded from time to time that I need to reassert myself and it's almost – pull the sword out and put it on my shoulders and say, "You are the one that has the authority in this situation, don’t back off, don't become a wimp, don't lack courage. Step into that relationship, and when they give you some baloney like that and tell you it's just a friendship, call their cards out and say, "Oh, come on, no way, Jose. That's more than just a friendship."
Bob: Aren't these kinds of restrictions or rules going to make your kids the nerds of the world in the school where they're going?
Barbara: Well, it may be but, you know, I think that's okay. I think that it's more important for our kids, we've decided, to protect them as best we can from being hurt and wounded in relationships that they are not mature enough to handle.
And you can do some things to help ensure that they don't feel unduly punished by this. I mean, you invite kids over to your house, and you have lots of friends around, and you encourage them to have their same-sex friends spend the night, you know, all that kind of stuff so that they don't feel that they're isolated and left alone and stuck in a tower until they're 18 …
Dennis: … instead of the closet.
Barbara: But, you know, I just think it's important enough for us – we've decided it's important enough that I will risk that my kids will feel strange and different, and I think that's okay. I would rather they feel strange, different, feel like a nerd, and be safe than let them ride with all the other kids in the herd and get hurt and get tangled up in emotional and physical relationships that they don't need.
Dennis: Here is where a mom and a dad need to be as shrewd as they can be – single parents, same deal – you ought to rally some other parents with you. See if you can't go set up a parents' meeting and say, "Can we huddle up here? Can we all agree to something where we kind of share some common values?" And maybe you don't agree all the way down to the nth degree and, Bob, that's one of the things that concerns me about some of the movements that are occurring within the Christian community right now.
They get so exclusive, so nailed down, so tight, that anybody who is outside their own little prescribed way of doing things, they fracture and fragment and can't fellowship with them, and that's not the kind of unity we need today. Christian families need to be bonding together and banding together and helping one another raise these children on into maturity, because you know what? These teenagers today desperately need the community of Christians to make it and to finish the process of adolescence and to make it to adulthood and to become God's man and God's woman, and I just think it's time for all of us to come alongside each other and to help one another raise these children.
Bob: Well, and that's what I think you and Barbara have done in the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." You've come alongside us, and you're helping us think through our own convictions in this area and help us decide how we're going to live out those convictions, and how we're going to help guide our sons and daughters through these difficult and dangerous water as they go through adolescence.
And I appreciate the fact that you guys, along with people like Joshua Harris and Elizabeth Elliot and others have said, "Let's hold a high standard here for moral purity. Let's not just make the standard a standard of virginity, but let's make it a more biblical standard of purity.
There may be some listeners who think, "Oh, you're out of touch," or "You're old-fashioned," or "You don't know the culture our kids are living in today," and, again, that's where you say "All right, you don't have to buy our standard, but you have to decide for yourself what your standard is going to be and what you're going to try to guide your sons and daughters with.
And whatever you decide, the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," will be a helpful resource in that regard. You can get more information about the book on our website at FamilyLife.com. When you get to the home page, you'll see a red button in the middle of the screen that says "Go," and if you click that button, it will take you to an area of the site where there is information not only about the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," but other resources for parents of teens and of preteens because, actually, you ought to be looking at this material prior to your children's teenage years.
Again, the resources are available online, and you can order online, if you'd like, or get more information. If you prefer to call to order, it's 1-800-FLTODAY, that's 1-800-358-6329. Someone on our team can answer any questions you have about these resources we've talked about, or they can take your order over the phone, and we'll get the resources you need sent out to you.
And then this month we have an additional resource we'd love to send to you. It's a new book by Dennis Rainey called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." It's designed to help us, as parents, have a strategy in place so that when a young man does begin to show some kind of interest in our daughter, and maybe our daughter is showing some interest back, we can know how to engage both of them in that subject and help set up some boundaries around what the relationship ought to look like at this stage of their life, and if they are going to go out on a date at some point, to have some parameters around that event as well.
The book is new, and this month, again, it's our thank you gift when you help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount. We are listener-supported, and we appreciate your financial partnership with us when you make a donation to FamilyLife Today.
If you're donating online, and you'd like a copy of Dennis's book, just write the word "date" in the keycode box on the donation form online. Or if you call 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation, you can just request a copy of Dennis Rainey's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and we'll be happy to send it out to you. Again, the toll-free number is 1-800-FLTODAY, and you can donate online at FamilyLife.com
Well, we hope you have a great weekend, and we hope you can be back with us on Monday when we're going to continue to look at some of the deadly traps that are facing our children as they go through the adolescent years, and we're going to continue to look at this subject of dating. Also, next week we're going to look at pornography and substance abuse and media, and we're going to look at unresolved anger and how that can explode in the life of a teenager. I hope you can be with us for all of that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 6 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Dating
Bob: If you're the parent of a teenager, you may have noticed that your son or daughter during the teenage years is paying a lot more attention to members of the opposite sex. Barbara Rainey says you need to parent with a strategy in mind.
Barbara: What we're trying to do through these years of junior high, but particularly high school, is to help our kids see what it is they're looking for in a person to marry. What are the standards they want? What are the criteria that they would like to be there? What are the values that they would like for this person to hold? So we begin talking about those kinds of things and helping them begin to think, "What's best for me? What does God want me to have someday in a mate?"
We've tried to teach our kids that the best way to find out those kinds of things is through having a friendship with another person, it's not through a dating relationship where everybody is on their best behavior; you only see each other in ideal situations and circumstances, but rather we're trying to train our kids to observe one another in ordinary situations.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. As long as your teens are noticing members of the opposite sex, make sure they're looking for the right stuff.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us. One of my all-time favorite movies is one that I know a lot of people have seen – the movie "The Princess Bride." You know, there's a scene in that movie where Wesley and the princess are moving through the forest, and I forget whether she falls into the quicksand first, I think she does, and then he falls into the quicksand or dives in to pull her out. But nobody saw the quicksand as they were walking through the forest. She just, all of a sudden, fell right into that trap.
And I was thinking about that movie when I was thinking about what we talked about last week and what we're going to be talking about this week, and that is the traps that are in the middle of the forest that our teenagers are walking through.
In your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," you outline a number of traps that have been laid out for teenagers, and, by the way, Barbara Rainey is joining us this week on our program as well and, Barbara, we're glad to have you here.
As parents, we need to be guiding our children on their journey through the dark forest because we know where the traps are. We've been down this road before, and we can point out the spots to them to avoid so that they don't become ensnared.
Dennis: You know, it is interesting – we do know where the traps are. We were all teenagers. We experienced it, we experienced the peer pressure, we experienced the temptations of dating, and yet isn't it fascinating that parents can just kind of stick their head in the sand, and we can say, "Well, kids will be kids. They can just kind of make it on their own."
When we do that, we set our children up to get their marching orders from peers, from the world, from the culture, or from the enemy, and if I understand the scriptures correctly, we, as parents, are to form a partnership with God – Psalm 127:1 talks about the "the Lord building the house."
And the person who ignores the Lord labors in vain, and what we've got to do, as parents, is we've got to seek the Lord, determine what we believe around these issues, and then begin to take some courageous stands, and what we're talking about here is radical, radical stuff with teenagers.
You're not going to be voted in as the most popular with your teenagers as you raise them, but you know what? You're not running a popularity contest. You're a parent, I'm a parent, and I don't want my children to hate me, I want my children to love me but, more than that, I want our children to grow up to become God's man and God's woman, and that may mean for a period of time, whether it be a few hours, a few days, maybe a few months – that child may not like Dad very well.
Bob: Barbara, last week we talked about the trap of peer pressure that our children have to navigate around; we talked about sexual intimacy, and its inappropriateness outside of marriage; and then we began talking about the subject of dating, and you all have developed some strong convictions in this area with your children that are a little bit out of sync with the culture, but they're things you feel passionate about.
Barbara: Yes, we've decided for our kids that we want to protect them from getting involved in exclusive relationships that are going to stir up their emotions and potentially get them involved physically and sexually with the opposite sex, and we know that's not healthy. So in order to protect our kids, we've sort of redefined dating for our family. We've set some different standards for our kids in hopes that in the outcome our kids will be protected, and they'll be pure, and they'll be holy.
Dennis: The conviction we're talking about here is that, as parents, we have the responsibility and the authority to set the rules and boundaries for our children.
I'm going to say that again – we have the responsibility and the authority to set the rules and boundaries for our children.
The culture doesn't, the youth group doesn't – and I know I could get into trouble there – the youth group needs to reinforce, I believe, the standards of the family. That's the way it was intended to work. I think it needs to hold the standard up, call us to that, but I think it needs to be reinforcing what's being taught at home.
I don't think the youth group ought to be a surrogate parent for the child. I don't think the schools ought to be setting the boundaries or the rules for children. I don't think they've got the responsibility. I don't think they have the morality. I don't think they've got the standards, and even the Christian schools aren't going to do it the way parents are.
And so who owns it? Who's got to have it? We do, as parents, and we have got to decide, first of all, what we believe as a family, and you may disagree with what we're talking about here on the air, and you know what? I want to give you the freedom to disagree with us. That's wonderful.
My boomerang question to you if you disagree with us is – what, then, do you believe? What are your standards? What will you uphold with your son or with your daughter …
Bob: … and what's the source of those standards?
Dennis: That's exactly right. Is it the scripture or is it tainted by the world, and too often, I'll tell you, with us it's been one long process of kind of eradicating how we have been conformed, as a family, to the world's standards.
Bob: But you know what you're talking about – parents having the responsibility and the authority to be parents is so true. I remember just recently, we were having a discussion with one of our children, and we said, "You know what, honey? God has given us the assignment of deciding what you can and can't do. It's our responsibility to determine that."
Dennis: That's a novel thought, isn't it?
Bob: We said, "We have to do what we think is right in this area." And you could tell that this particular child didn't really like the answer but couldn't argue with it very much. And then later I had an opportunity to overhear my child talking to a peer, and the child just repeated back what we had said, but it was kind of like, "This is what my parents think" …
Dennis: … "I don't buy it" …
Bob: … "I'm not sure I'm buying it," but at least you could tell that something had kind of sunk in.
Dennis: You know, this is another apologetic for the Bible. We have several listeners who tune in regularly to FamilyLife Today who aren't Christians yet, and I'd just turn to you – if you haven't received Christ, and you've not called upon Him to save you from your sins and developed a relationship with God, show me a better way than this book to connect with God and to connect a family, heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul, and to navigate these traps.
The Bible is the guidebook for helping us handle these issues. This book is what has given us the boundaries and the rules we're talking about here, and what are you waiting for? I mean, now is the day to cry out to Christ and have him become your Savior and Lord and get on with the process of making him the builder of your home.
Frankly, Bob, I wonder how anybody can raise a family in this culture and help teenagers through all these traps without having a relationship with the Lord God Almighty.
Bob: Let me just say at this point – if that concept, if that thought, is something you've been struggling with or wrestling with – if you're wondering about what it means to have a relationship with Christ, we want you to call us. We've got material we'll send you at no cost to you …
Dennis: … absolutely.
Bob: We just want to get it to you and trust that will be a help to you as you weigh out what the Bible says about how we're to be rightly related with God and with one another.
Barbara, we talked last week about the fact that you're really encouraging your children not to date someone exclusively during the time they're in high school. At the same time, though, you're training them for a time when they will begin to notice a particular person and begin to wonder – might this be the person that God would have for me to marry? What are you doing in helping to prepare them for that moment?
Barbara: Well, what we're trying to do through these years of junior high, but particularly high school, is to help our kids see what it is they're looking for in a person to marry? What are the standards they want? What are the criteria that they would like to be there? What are the values that they would like for this person to hold?
So we begin talking about those kinds of things and helping them begin to think – what am I looking for? What's best for me? What does God want me to have some day in a mate? And we've tried to teach our kids that the best way to find out those kinds of things is through having a friendship with another person, it's not through a dating relationship where everybody is on their best behavior, you only see each other in ideal situations and circumstances.
But rather we're trying to train our kids to observe one another in ordinary situations so that our girls see these Christian guys – they see them at youth group, they see them at church, they see them on retreats, they see them at school, they see them with their parents, and as we do things as groups with our kids, our family, and a bunch of other families, they can watch how each other acts, how they respond, what they do, what their choices are, and that's a better indication of what that person is really like than what you see on a high-performance date.
Bob: And, Dennis, what are you encouraging them to look for as they watch these young men and young women?
Dennis: Well, I think the Scriptures are very, very clear where some of the fundamentals are. First of all, in 2 Corinthians, chapter 6, verses 14 through the end of the chapter, Paul writes that we're not to be "unequally yoked with unbelievers." He asked, "What do righteousness and unrighteousness have in common? What does light and darkness have in common?" And the answer is nothing.
We want our children to even be able to distinguish between that young man or that young lady who profess Christ and that young man or young lady who are followers of Christ.
Our churches today, unfortunately, are filled with many who profess to be followers of Christ but in reality they're just professing Christ, and you wonder if they even know Him at all, because their lives are not marked by the fruit that Jesus spoke of, of those who would be His true followers.
And we want our children to have friendships with the opposite sex who are committed Christians, who are growing Christians, and who are concerned about their own spiritual walk with Christ.
Bob: And you saw this, Barbara, lived out with Ashley as she went away to college and started to look around and started to wonder about some of the young men.
Barbara: Right, and there was a sense in which, when we took Ashley to college, and even our boys, for that matter, that they automatically had some freedom that they didn't have when they were living at home because we weren't there to oversee who they spent time with and oversee who they would even date – go out with and spend time with alone.
But we continued to coach them from a distance and encourage them, and then as we watched Ashley go through college, she began to just – by the time she was halfway through, sometime between sophomore and junior year, she just thought, you know, I don't want to mess with this dating stuff anymore. I mean, she had learned on her own that it just wasn't worth it, and she decided she was just going to be content being single as long as God wanted her to be single, and she came to that conviction on her own.
And so for the next year and a half or so, she just hung out with groups of kids and did things with her Christian friends and, in the process of that, got to know a young man very well as a friend, and neither one of them ever thought of anything of the other beyond just a friendship. They both viewed each other as a very good friend, and it was because they had made the decision not to pursue a romantic relationship. And so, therefore, that was out of the question, and it never entered in.
So they began this friendship and continued to be friends for two years, and then they decided at a point that maybe God wanted them to have more than a friendship and then the process went on where they eventually decided to get engaged and married.
But that marriage came out of a friendship, and it was encouraging to see God use that in her life – where she saw him in all kinds of situations – good, bad, and ugly, and otherwise – and so she really knew what she was getting. She didn't see him only on his best behavior and only performing perfectly on dating kinds of situations, and so she knew what she was walking into.
Bob: Last week we talked about some of the restrictions that you put on children about group activities and double dating, what age, what level of maturity they need to be in – what about things like phone calls from guys or phone calls to guys or young men pursuing young women via the telephone?
Barbara: Or how about e-mail?
Bob: Oh, yeah, e-mail.
Barbara: Oh, yeah. Well, we have really had to regulate telephone, and now we are regulating e-mail, because we've discovered that even though our kids may not have an established official relationship, an exclusive relationship with the opposite sex, they can, nonetheless, develop an emotionally dependent relationship over the phone by spending – if they have unlimited phone privileges, they could spend an hour on the phone every night with somebody and be sharing their heart, be sharing their dreams or their fears or their frustrations or difficulties that they're going through and elicit sympathy and compassion from the other person and they go, "Gosh, this person really understands me, so I can maybe tell them some more," and so these doors just open wider and wider to the soul of the other person. So they just begin this give-and-take over the phone, and they become attached emotionally over the phone.
Dennis: And this happens a lot. I mean, children are so needy, it seems, today, as teenagers, they latch onto each other and meet each other at this point of need. One young man was doing this with one of our daughters, and so I told my daughter, I'm going to need to talk to him on the phone. And she said, "Why?" And I said, "Because he's calling frequently, and this is a relationship even though he doesn't even live in our community. I need to talk to him."
So I got on the phone, and he nearly fainted. I mean, he really was scared, and we talked about that a little bit and laughed about that, and then I said, "You know, I just want you to develop a friendship with my daughter, and I really don't want you to send gifts, I don't want you to send romantic notes over here," and a few additional things, and I just kind of built some boundaries around it and asked him to honor that as her dad.
And it wasn't long after that, Bob, that I noticed on the e-mail that we have at home that there was this note to this child, and so I read the note, and this young man that I had talked to over the phone wasn't honoring what I asked him to do. I sent a very blunt, pointed, loving e-mail with the return button. It was interesting – a couple of days later the young man wrote me back, and he said, "Thank you, Mr. Rainey."
Now, let me just say a couple of things to parents at this point. When you step in like this, don't assume that just because the young man or the young lady agrees with you, that they're on your side. Don't just roll off the watermelon truck like a watermelon.
Barbara: "Oh, I've done that one. It's taken care of now."
Dennis: Oh, yeah, Dad's done a good one to that. We've headed that one off at the pass. Wrong. Huh-uh, Dad has got to realize you've got a young man who likes your daughter, and you've got to track, and you've got stay involved, and you've got to watch what's happening, and you know what? At Valentine's Day there was a stuffed animal in the mail. Hello.
So, you know, as parents, you've just got to keep on repeating yourself and teaching and hanging in there and staying involved in your children's lives and resist the temptation to back out of there and to not stay involved and to give them too much freedom before they need it.
Bob: What rules have you come up with for telephone or for e-mail use? What are your standards in that area?
Barbara: Well, our girls are not allowed to call boys, first of all. We really have tried to teach them that guys are the ones who need to take the initiative in a relationship. So the first rule for our girls is they don't call boys – any way for any reason.
And then the next rule is that they just get so many minutes a night on the phone, and our rules are after dinner and after homework is done. So, generally, unless they're trying to get their homework done, and they've got to get the answer, or they didn't get the assignment, all that kind of stuff – there are always exceptions on homework kinds of issues – but, primarily, if they're going to call somebody just to visit and chat and just kill some time on the phone, that doesn't occur until after dinner and after all homework is done, and that's usually, in our family, at least 7:00 at night before that happens.
And then they have to be off the phone by 9. So there's kind of a two-hour window, and with multiple people in the home wanting to use the phone, they can't have a very long chunk of time. We just really don't let our girls chat on the phone endlessly for hours on end. It just isn't productive.
Dennis: And the Internet would be approached in a similar fashion. You wouldn't let your child spend endless hours on the Internet in chat rooms with the opposite sex, nor would you send back and forth a number of e-mails each day or each week.
I think it needs to be limited, and basically what you're doing is you're creating some boundaries to protect your child's heart from forming exclusive, romantic dating relationships. That's the conviction. That's the thing you're protecting with your son or with your daughter.
Bob: You talk about parents being right in the middle of things, and our listeners have heard you talk about being right in the middle of things as you have interviewed any young man who has come as a suitor for your daughter before you've let them even go out on a double or a triple date or go to the prom together, right?
Dennis: Yeah, I've got about eight questions that I ask in an interview of a young man, and these eight questions are now being replicated in hundreds of dads' lives across the country.
In fact, Bob, I just talked to a dad in San Marcos, Texas – in fact, it's the brother of Mike McCoy, who was on the broadcast one time – Brian McCoy just interviewed his daughter Megan's first date, and it was so funny, because Brian said, "I sat behind my desk, and I wanted the most intimidating situation I could get. I made him sit at the other side," and then he said, "I kind of caved in a little bit and asked him, 'Are you nervous?'" And the young man said "Yeah," and he said, "Well, I am, too. We're going to get through this together."
And they went through the interview, and I asked Brian at the end of the time, I said, "Tell me this – when you were driving home to see your daughter, did you feel like you had been a man's man in protecting your daughter?" And he said, "Absolutely, absolutely." And you know what? His daughter thoroughly enjoyed the fact that her dad would look out for her by interviewing a young man who had come a-calling at the door.
Bob: You have recently written a book on this subject, a guidebook for dads to help all of us know how we can engage in that process – the questions we can ask, how we can interview a young man who wants to take our daughter out on a date and, in fact, this month we're making copies of that book available to any of our listeners who can help support the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount.
We're a listener-supported ministry, and so those donations are critical for the ongoing work of FamilyLife Today, and we want to invite any of our listeners who can help with a donation to either call 1-800-FLTODAY, or go online at FamilyLife.com. Make a donation of any amount, and when you do, if you're calling, just ask for a copy of Dennis's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," or if you're filling out the donation form online, just write the word "date" in the keycode box that you see there, and we'll be happy to send you a copy of this book as a way of saying thank you for your financial support of the ministry. We do appreciate your partnership with us here on FamilyLife Today.
And when you get in touch with us, let me also encourage you to consider getting a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," where you also address this same subject along with a number of other issues facing us as parents of teenagers. You help us be ready for the kinds of issues that are going to come up during the teen years.
In fact, I think the perfect time to be reading a book like "Parenting Today's Adolescent," is when your son or daughter is still 8 or 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 years old, in those years that you've referred to as "the golden years," because that's when we need to develop convictions and be proactive and be alert and be ready to face the challenges that are going to come during the teen years.
And, of course, we've got copies of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," in our FamilyLife Resource Center and listeners who don't have a copy and who are interested in getting one can go to our website, FamilyLife.com. If you click the red button that you see right in the middle of the screen that says "Go," that will take you to the area of the site where you can get more information about this book.
You can order it online, if you'd like, or you can call us at 1-800-FLTODAY and ask for a copy of the book. Again, the website is FamilyLife.com, and the toll-free number is 1-800-358-6329. Someone on our team can make arrangements to have a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" sent out to you and I'll just mention again, if you're able to help with a donation, in addition to that, we'll be happy to send you a copy of Dennis's book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." We do appreciate your financial support of this ministry.
Well, tomorrow we're going to talk about another trap that faces our otnrs today. In fact, this is not just a trap for teens but a trap that all of us are facing – it's the way media is influencing our lives. And we're not saying that because you have access to media it's necessarily a trap, but it could be. We'll talk about that tomorrow. I hope you can be back with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. Have a great day, and we'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 7 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Media
Woman: Honey, let's do something fun tonight.
Man: Yeah. How about let's watch some TV.
Woman: No, no, no, no, I was thinking more of like a game.
Man: Yeah, that's a good idea. I think the game is on right now.
(sound of football game on TV)
Woman: I am not talking about a TV game. I'm talking about a board game.
Man: Oh.
Woman: You know, a board game with the kids.
Man: Yeah.
Woman: Okay, if not a board game, how about we read to them? That would be so great.
Man: Yeah. I know – we could do that after the game.
Woman: Which game?
Man: The game on TV. It's starting right now.
Bob: So how about it – did you get the family together, you watch a little TV – does that qualify as family time? Not according to Barbara Rainey. But why not?
Barbara: Well, there really are several reasons. One of them is because I feel like it's not a relational time. It's not building family unity and togetherness. We may be sitting together in the same room, but it's not building our family, it's not allowing for communication between us, and it takes us away from doing other things that I feel like are more important that we could be doing either together as a family or even individually, for that matter.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, July 17th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. There may be a media monster on the loose at your house, so what do you do to get rid of it? Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. Just the fact that you have media in your home doesn't mean you've got a monster in your home, but in a lot of homes, whether it's the Internet or the television or other forms of media, things have gotten a little out of control. In fact, we're going to be encouraging our listeners next month to enjoy a fast from television. We'll talk more about that in coming day here on our program.
But, I was thinking, as we've been talking this week about teenagers and some of the challenge they face, media is one of those challenges, and one of the reasons that things like this are a challenge for our sons and our daughters in the teen years is because their body gets to a point of adulthood before their minds and their emotions catch up, you know what I mean?
Dennis: Yeah, and they're not ready in their character, their emotions, their value system, or their spiritual maturity, to be able to handle what's being thrown at them, and I think one of the biggest mistakes parents make today is they start looking at these young boys and girls who begin to form adult bodies, they begin to look at us eye-to-eye, their height is up there, and we begin to make some dangerous assumptions that just because they look like an adult, they're beginning to even take on some adult mannerisms, that does not mean they are an adult.
And that's why God, I believe, has given parents to teenagers; that we, as adults, need to be careful about taking our hand off the plow. We need to keep both our hands on the plow and keep our eyes fixed on the goal, and keep headed straight down the row and persevere – not give up – don't give in to these desires that can fluctuate with teenagers.
Bob: Barbara, as you look around, you can't help but see parents who seem to be letting go of the plow much earlier than they ought to be – kids getting to the age of 9, 10, 11, 12, and parents are feeling like, "Well, our job is pretty much done."
Barbara: Yeah, I think there are a lot of parents who are letting go way too soon, and I think we see it all around us. Kids have so much freedom today. They're let loose at the mall, and they're wandering around, and they don't have the supervision that I think they need at that age.
Bob: We talked last week about the trap of peer pressure and how it snares kids. We talked about sexual immorality, and we've talked about dating, and one of the things we've realized is we've talked particularly about sexual immorality and dating is that those impulses in teenagers are being fed by the trap we're going to be talking about today, and that is the media.
Dennis: Yes and, you know, the choices that are before young people today are enormous. If a child has an hour or two to spare, think of what he has a choice between. There's books, magazines, newspapers, mail, junk mail, radio, television, cable TV, e-mail, computer software, computer games, video games, and then there's the Internet, and I feel like sometimes the Internet is trying to take over all of our homes, offering the world to our children who sit in front of computer screens to be entertained by choices that, in many cases, are evil.
Bob: In the book that the two of you have written, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," you say that when it comes to media, we live in a media-driven world and, for parents, we have to look not only at what our children are choosing to consume but in what quantity. It's not just an issue, Barbara, of what they're involved with but the amount of time they're investing in media-related activity.
Barbara: I think we need to be really careful as parents that we don't allow our kids to just veg out with media, whether it's the computer or music or television or radio or whatever and become static and become just like a vegetable and just be there. I think kids this age still need lots of activity, they need lots of – they just need a lot of variety in their lives, and they don't need to be consumed with all this information that's out there via media.
Dennis: You know, I am so glad I'm married to this woman, because I think I would have been the original veg. Early on in our marriage, she would walk in – when we had no children – and she would circle my easy chair that I was trying to watch "The Game of the Weekend" on Saturday, and she would circle that chair, Barbara would – kind of like I was roadkill, and a little bit like buzzard.
Bob: You probably looked a little like roadkill in those days.
Dennis: And she was letting me know in no uncertain terms that this was a waste of time and, early on, Barbara began to shape our family's media diet. And she put me on that diet, and it was a point of contention early in our marriage and occasionally can still be that in our family because we do have different habits and different styles when it comes to media.
But there are some women who are listening to the broadcast who feel sometimes that they need to apologize to their husbands for feeling the way they feel about the amount of media coming into your homes, and I just want to encourage you women – stand strong, stand firm. Don't nag, don't harp at your husband, but you know what? Don't give in, either. Hang tough and keep the standard up there because what you two decide on as a couple will establish – listen carefully – it will establish the environment for your home.
Bob: And the Scripture does speak, Dennis, to this issue of how we consume media, even though they didn't have cable TV in David's day.
Dennis: That's right. Psalm 101 is one of my favorite psalms. At the top of it, I have written the word "integrity," and it speaks, I think, of what we allow to come into our soul through the eye gate – and you can add the ear to this, although it's primarily speaking, I believe, to what we set before our eyes.
It says in verse 2, "I will give heed to the blameless way." Now, repeatedly, in this series that we're doing on dealing with traps, we call parents to stay out of the trap. We have to set a standard. We have to model what we're challenging our children to do, and the psalmist said, "I will begin by giving heed to the blameless way."
It goes on, "When wilt thou come to me? I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart." How does he do that? Verse 3, he says, "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not fasten its grip on me. A perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil."
There's the picture there, I believe, of a trap that a man or a woman can walk off into, and it fastens its grip on a dad and, before long, we become the gateway into our children's lives for them to be able justify their diet of all these media choices that they have.
Down in verse 6 – the last part of that verse makes a profound statement, I believe, that every parent needs to grab hold of – "He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me."
A parent needs to realize that we, as fathers and mothers, are the ones who need to walk in a blameless way, because our model will give credence to our words, and that means the choices we make do have an impact on our children as they approach adolescence. That's an important time, those years preceding adolescence. You don't just train an adolescent in the middle of the teenage years. You've got to do it in those elementary years as well.
I know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask Barbara to share with our listeners why she has been so ruthless about media in our family.
Barbara: Well, there really are several reasons. One of them is because I feel like it's not a relational time, because when we are all watching a movie or all watching TV or – some of us are, anyway, because we don't necessarily all do it together very often – but it's not a dialog, it's not a relationship, it's not building family unity and togetherness. We may be sitting together in the same room, but it's not building our family. It's not allowing for communication between us, and it takes us away from doing other things that I feel like are more important that we could be doing either together as a family or even individually, for that matter.
Dennis: If you allow it, media will become the altar where we worship. It will become the focal point of our home.
Bob: The other night I had found a great new site on the Internet, it had a lot of really interesting stuff, and I was clicking from link to link to see what all was there, when I heard my wife behind me say, "Well, goodnight." And it was said in that as to indicate "You vegetable, you vegetable" …
Dennis: "Come out in the vegetable garden, oh, you vegetable."
Bob: And I had to make that hard decision to go down to the left-hand corner and click the shutoff button down there and go and have a little conversation with one whom I had been neglecting throughout the evening. Barbara, you're nodding.
Barbara: I'm nodding. I'm going, "Way to go, Mary Ann."
Dennis: It couldn't be this husband that she's married to. I don't know who she's saying "uh-huh" about.
Bob: Well, in addition to what we model for our children, you've taken some pretty aggressive steps to set some boundaries, some standards for your children in all different areas of media consumption. Give us some ideas, for example, of TV viewing – what's acceptable and how much, Barbara?
Barbara: We generally do not allow our kids to watch television during the school week unless it is something that is very highly educational, which is rare, very, very rare. So we really just try to keep it off during the school week – for the kids, that is.
Then on the weekends, there's not a whole lot that's real great then, either, although as our kids have gotten older and there's been a lot more sport things on TV that my girls have been interested in, like ice skating, they've been watching more of that kind of thing recently than they had years ago.
But we just really limit it, and if there is going to be TV viewing on the weekend for the kids, I mean, it's limited to an hour or two, and if they're sitting in front of the TV all afternoon watching this ice skating thing, and I realize it's been over an hour, I'll walk in and say, "Hey, look, girls, this is it. You can finish the next program, and it's off, and that's it for the day."
Bob: Why? Why, after an hour, are you saying, "We're done."
Barbara: Well, usually, because there are so many other things that are a better use of their time. I just don't feel like it's teaching them anything, if they're not learning anything, it's simply vegetating in front of the TV. They're just sitting there.
They could be cleaning their rooms, they could be reading a book, they could be playing on the trampoline together, they could be, I mean, zillions of things, writing letters, I mean, it just goes on and on, and, obviously, they don't want to quit watching TV to go do chores.
But there are a lot of other things that they can be doing besides that. They could play a game together. I mean, families used to play board games together or used to do a lot of those kinds of things together as a group, and families don't do that anymore.
Bob: So now they turn off the TV and go get on the computer and play a video.
Barbara: Yes, oh, that's happened. I've said "Turn off the TV," and the next thing I know Deborah is sitting in there in front of the computer and I think, "Oh, well, that didn't work."
Dennis: Yes, I've lost this one again. All of this, thought, is based upon one of our core convictions when it comes to media, and that conviction is we, as parents, have the responsibility and the right to screen and set limits to all the different forms of media consumer by our family.
Dennis: All of this, though, is based upon one of our core convictions when it comes to media, and that conviction is we, as parents, have the responsibility and the right to screen and set limits to all the different forms of media consumed by our family.
In other words, we don't have the luxury of being passive, and I think the easiest thing for a man to do in this deal is to delegate it to his wife and let her do it and not be a protector of his family.
But, instead, we have to guard our own hearts, as the Proverbs tell us, and then we have to guard our children's hearts in protecting them from the different forms of media that come into your home, and that begins with limiting what comes in, and then whatever does come in there, I think Moms and Dads need to monitor and pay careful attention to the values that are represented in those particular forms of media.
For instance, if your child is playing a computer game, as I've watched Samuel do on occasion when he was a teenager and wasn't in college at that time. I remember – and this is a person failure. I will probably go to my grave feeling like I compromised here, but somehow he got some kind of computer game that was – it wasn't blood and guts, but there was a lot of blood, okay? They were shoot 'em up, bang-bang game, and you'd slay all these creatures and stuff, and I was watching him do this and you know what? I believe I compromised, I really do. I did not step in there and say, "Samuel, that game has no place in our home."
Instead, something about his age, maybe something about the peer pressure and all the other boys that he ran around with, and maybe it was just a soft place in my heart for him, I don't know, but I kept letting him play this game. And you know what? I'll look back on that and wonder if I shouldn't have stepped in there earlier and said, "Absolutely not."
Bob: Because of the time involved or because of the content of the game or what?
Dennis: I think both. He spent a lot of hours playing that game but, more importantly, I think, was the content of the game. It wasn't anything sexually immoral, it didn't have any language problems on the game, it just was a guy walking …
Barbara: It was killing people all the time.
Dennis: It was just walking in an killing people and spilling blood all over the computer screen.
Barbara: I think what we're talking about is what Paul says in Philippians 4:8. It says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things."
And I think that's a good standard for us to apply, as parents, to video games that our kids play, like this one that Samuel played, or TV shows or movies or music or any form of media. We need to train our children that what they think about, what they expose themselves to needs to be pure and holy and wholesome, and if it's not, they need to question and think about it.
Bob: You know, here's a double-edged sword, and you mentioned that sometimes there are good educational programs on TV. The Internet provides a wonderful resource for getting information for term papers that are coming up. There is positive benefit associated with almost every kind of media and, as parents, we can't just isolate ourselves and go back to typewriters and candles. We have to acknowledge the fact that there's benefit, and we can redeem the media.
Dennis: Yeah and there is where, as parents, we need to do what Solomon did with his son as he taught him to be discerning. We need to teach our children to listen carefully to the values, the messages, and what's being said in the music, on the Internet, in the movie, and our children have grown weary of this stuff with us as parents.
I mean, they would have voted us out of office a long time ago, because we would go to a movie that we did approve of that was appropriate, and we'd walk out of there, and on our way home, we would be talking about the messages that were in that movie and what the underlying values that were being represented in the story line.
And our children go, "Dad, it was a great movie. Just enjoy" …
Bob: … "just leave it alone."
Dennis: "Just leave it alone, Dad." But, you know, I'm not going to leave it alone, I'm sorry. And you know what? They may not like it right now, but someday, I believe, as they grow into adulthood, they're going to be far more discerning. In fact, it's already begun to occur.
I'm watching Samuel – he is being far more discerning about his movies, and I'm smiling big time, because I'm hearing some of those same statements come from his lips that initiated from ours when we challenged him to consider, what were those messages?
I think another thing, too, Bob, is ask your children questions. Hold them accountable for what they're viewing, what they're looking at, and make sure what they're doing on the Internet is that they're not sneaking around, they're not watching something they shouldn't be looking at.
Bob: You mentioned this earlier, but one of the challenges we face as parents today is that it seems like we've got to be an expert on every area of pop culture. I mean, your child comes home and says, "I got the new CD from so-and-so, and you've never heard of so-and-so, and you don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Or, "I want to go see this particular movie," and you've never heard of the movie, you don't know anything about the movie. All you know is that your child says that so-and-so from church, their parents are letting them go see it and, for all you know, so-and-so from church is telling his parents that you're letting your child go see it, and so both of you wind up letting your son or your daughter go see something that you otherwise would not approve of.
I've been grateful that there are resources on the Internet. I know Focus on the Family has a website called "Plugged In Online," and they do movie reviews and so we can go there and look ahead of time and see what the themes are in the movies, what the objectionable elements are.
There are other websites that do the same kind of thing, and I had one of my children come to me not long ago and said, "Can I see this movie? My friend went to see it, and my friend said that there are only a couple of bad words in the movie."
And I said, "Well, let's check this out. We'll go to the Web and see what we can find out, and it turned out there weren't just a few bad words, but there were 20 or 25 bad words in this movie, including some that are fully inappropriate for children, and I showed it to my teenager, and I said, "Isn't that interesting? I think a lot of these words have become so common that your friend has become desensitized to what he was hearing."
Dennis: One of the things we sought to do in the book was give parents a better understanding of all the ratings systems, both for television, for movies, and other forms of media that they can look over so that they can be better appraised.
There are ratings for computer games, and parents need to know what those ratings mean. Most of us are unaware of what those ratings stand for on a box that contains a computer game that you may spend anywhere from $40 to $50 for.
One thing I would add to all these ratings – I don't trust them. After I've said here they are and this is a form of measurement, most of these ratings are far too generous and, in my opinion, they represent what's happening in our culture – the moral dumbing-down of our nation. And, as parents, I think what we've got to do is ultimately train our children to be young men and women who are discerning. It could destroy their lives if we don't raise teenagers today to have a godly discernment about what they allow in their minds and their hearts.
Barbara: And I just want to say, too, that I think it's important that, as parents, that we remember that there is so much more that our kids need besides just information and just entertainment. Our kids need to be playing, they need to be exercising, they need to be outside, and they need to be building relationships, and so much time is spent consuming media cuts that avenue of their life off, and it's an important part of their development that we dare not ignore.
Bob: And I think that's where your book is very helpful, because it does challenge us in these areas, and I'd encourage our listeners get a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," by Dennis and Barbara Rainey.
We've got it in our FamilyLife Resource Center, you can go to our website at FamilyLife.com to request a copy, or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY, that's 1-800-358-6329. Someone on our team can let you know how you can get a copy of this book or, again, you can order from our website at FamilyLife.com.
If you go to our website, you click the red "Go" button that you see in the middle of the screen. That will take you to the area of the site where there is more information about Dennis and Barbara's book. You can order it online, if you'd like, or call 1-800-FLTODAY and someone on our team will let you know how you can get a copy of this book sent out to you.
When you do get in touch with us, if you are able to help with a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today, I just want to say in advance, we would appreciate whatever you can do to help support the ministry. We're listener-supported, and it's donations from folks like you that keep this program on the air in this city and in other cities all across the country.
And this month we wanted to say thank you for your financial support by making available a brand-new resource from Dennis Rainey called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." This is a very practical guidebook for dads to help us with the information we need and to help give us some courage as we begin to engage young men who show up around our house and are interested in taking our daughters out to spend an evening with a group of kids.
We had to spend a little time talking with those young men before we give our approval to that, and Dennis walks us through that process in this new book. We'd love to send you a copy, again, as our way of saying thank you for your financial support for this ministry.
You can make a donation online at FamilyLife.com, and if you do that, when you come to the keycode box on the donation form, just type in the word "date" so we'll know to send you a copy of this book. Or make your donation by calling 1-800-FLTODAY and just mention that you'd like a copy of the free book from Dennis this month. We're happy to send it out to you and let me say thanks in advance again for your support of the ministry. We appreciate your partnership with us.
Tomorrow we want to talk about one of the other deadly traps that has been laid for our teenagers, and it's tied to the media trap we've been talking about today. It's the issue of pornography. I hope you can be with us as we deal with that subject tomorrow.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?
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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 8 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Pornography
Bob: Hi, this is Bob Lepine from FamilyLife Today. The subject matter we'll be dealing with on today's broadcast is of a sensitive nature and probably not one that you'll want to have children listening to. It's really aimed at more mature audiences, so let me encourage you to usher your children away from the radio and then join us for today's edition of FamilyLife Today.
A lot of guys today think of pornography of something that's essentially a harmless indulgence. I mean, it's not hurting anybody else, right? That's how they rationalize it. Whether it's sites visited on the Internet or magazines that are kept hidden away, pornography can have an impact not just on your heart, but it can also be visited to the next generation. Here is Dennis Rainey.
Dennis: I include in our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," a story of a young man who found pornography because his father had a stack of it in his closet, and his dad was sampling this stuff, and the boy found it, and it started a pattern in this young man's life that impacted his marriage, his family, and almost destroyed him as a man.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 18th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What can we do, as parents, to attempt to protect our children against the devastating damage of pornography?
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. Last week and again this week, we have been talking about some of the traps that have been laid for our teenagers as they walk through the teenage years and about the things that we can do, as parents, to be proactive in trying to help our teens navigate around these traps so that they don't become ensnared.
And the trap we're going to be talking about today, Dennis, is a dangerous trap. It's the trap of pornography.
Dennis: You know, Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." What Solomon is talking about there is protecting the headwaters of the soul, because once you pollute the headwaters, the stream all the way out into the life of that person is impacted by that poison.
You know, Bob, you came in one day when we were working on the book, and we'd been talking around this issue about pornography, and you shared a story about how a leader in a church had been impacted by pornography that found its way into his life through Christian families.
Bob: Yeah, this particular individual had grown up in a Christian home and had not been exposed to anything like this at home, but he'd gone to babysit for other families in the church and, again, his parents assumed these families were good churchgoing families. There was nothing to concern them there.
But after the children were in bed, he found, hidden away in some of these homes, pornographic material, and it was his first exposure, and it grabbed hold of him and, Dennis, there is something about pornography that it just seems to get its claws on the soul of a man, and it won't let go.
Dennis: And it's that curiosity, I think, that the enemy uses with men and, I believe, with women as well, that hook them and where they develop a compulsive behavior that begins to habitually get into pornography and sample it, and it poisons the soul. It poisons the heart.
And what we have to do as parents, I believe, we are the guardians of our children's hearts. We are the ones who are to protect them from this evil, but it starts all the way back with our model, what we watch, what we do, what we bring into our homes.
I include in our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," a story of a young man who found pornography because his father had a stack of it in his closet, and his dad was sampling this stuff, and the boy found it, and it started a pattern in this young man's life that impacted his marriage, his family, and almost destroyed him as a man.
Bob: Barbara, that's one of the challenges that parents face today. In Solomon's day, as we read in Proverbs, chapter 5, 6, and 7, you could pretty much warn your kids, "Stay out of this part of town, don't go in establishments like this, and you'll be protected from these images and from pornography." It has been so mainstreamed today that we can hardly let our kids out of the house.
Barbara: Well, we don't have to let our kids out of the house with the Internet. I mean, you know, that kind of stuff is everywhere, and that's what's so scary. But parents really need to be on guard, as Dennis was saying, in protecting our kids and watching where they are, where they're going, and even in letting them to go somebody else's house, like that story you told about that man when he was a young boy, finding it another Christian's home. We have to be so careful where we let our kids go and who we let them spend time with.
Bob: Then we've got to be asking a lot of questions at the same time, like the question you asked your son Benjamin one day when he came home from school.
Dennis: Yeah, and I asked him if he'd been looking at anything he ought not to be looking at, and he was about 12 or 13 years of age.
Bob: That's a pretty bold question for a dad just to grab his son and say, "Hey, have you been looking at anything you shouldn't be looking at?"
Dennis: Well, I think the spirit of God prompted me to do that, and I think what I want to encourage our listeners to do is when the Lord begins to burden you with something with your children, step on in there and ask the question.
Benjamin had come home from school. We were in the kitchen, and I asked him that question, and it was like he was struck with lightning. It's, like, "Dad, have you been reading my mail or something?" And he said – he looked at me after he paused for a moment, and he got this little grin that he has, and he said, "Well, as a matter of fact, today at lunch I was sitting in the back of the classroom eating my sandwich, and some guys had some pornographic literature up front at the teacher's desk, and they were all huddled around it, looking at it, and they said, 'Hey, Ben, come on up and look at this.'" And he said, "I finished my sandwich, stuffed it all in the sack, and I walked up past the desk and on out into the hall and left the room." And I said, "You did what?" He said, "That's right. I didn't look at it. I left the room."
Well, at that point, it was like my son had scored the winning touchdown …
Barbara: … in the Super Bowl.
Dennis: In the Super Bowl, there you go, and I went berserk. I mean, I started screaming, yelling, going, "Yes, way to go, son, that's a phenomenal step," and you know, I don't know to this day if he remembers his Dad going bonkers there in the kitchen over his choice, but I think if there's anything we ought to be getting excited today about, it's young men, young women, who are taking steps away from evil and toward that which is right.
You know, Bob, I think what we're talking about here is parents being involved in their sons' and in their daughters' lives, because there are so many ways these images can gain entrance into our children's soul and poison the headwaters.
Bob: Barbara, when my son Jimmy was about seven years old, we were driving around one day, and there are a series of stores in our community that we've just chosen not to patronize because they sell pornographic magazines. And so as we drove past one of these stores, he said, "Now, Dad, we don't shop there because of some of the magazines they sell, is that right?" I said, "That's right." And he said, "What kind of magazines are they?" And he's seven – and here's the tension for a dad – how much detail do you share in order to protect your son's innocence and keep him away from the destruction? How do parents navigate that kind of a tightrope?
Barbara: Well, I think parents – again, it goes back to being involved, and it's the word we've talked about over and over again in the book, and as we've been talking through these traps – Moms and Dads have to be involved in their child's life, and that means asking questions all the time and then responding to the questions they ask us like you did with Jimmy, and saying, "You know, it's something that is degrading to what God created."
Or bring it back to the scripture to God's blueprint and God's plan for marriage and family and just let them know that this material is not wholesome, and it's not healthy. But we need to be careful that we do it in such a way that we don't increase their curiosity so that they want to go find out what this is.
And I think, as parents, as we continue to pray, that God will give us wisdom to answer these questions and to ask our kids questions, too, to find out what they're seeing and what they're hearing, I think the Lord will grant that wisdom.
Bob: You know, a number of years ago, one of my sons had a friend come over and spend the night, and Mary Ann and I had gone on to bed and, of course, they stayed up later. I think they were watching something on TV or watching a video or something.
And the next morning when I got up, I was on the computer, and I saw a site that I didn't recognize in our history file. I went there and as soon as it popped up, I went "Uh-oh," and clicked out of it, and then I realized that this had to be something that the kids had gone to while we'd gone to bed.
And so I called to my son, and I said, "Son, can you come into the other room for just a second?" And I sat him down, and I said, "Did you guys look at something last night on the Internet that you shouldn't have looked at?" And he realized immediately that he'd been found out, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, so he just kind of dropped his head and said, "Yeah, we did."
And I said, "Well, tell me about it. What happened?" And it turned out that someone at school had given my son's friend an address for the Internet and said, "You ought to check out this site." And they didn't know what was there, they didn't know anything about it. It had been, I think, relatively innocent, at least that when we called the other young man in, and I asked him about that, that's what he told me. He said, "I didn't know all that was going to be there. Somebody told me I should look at it, and so we looked at it."
And I said, "Well, I've got to call your dad and let him know what we looked at, and we've just got to be on the same page, and he allowed that that would be okay. And we didn't make a big deal out of it because I think they had come across this relatively innocently, but we did say, "Look, there is danger here. It's not just something innocent it's not harmless. You've got to be very careful. You don't want to be going to these sites. Looking at this stuff can damage your soul."
And, you know, when we think about this issue of pornography, we typically think about our teenage sons and the pictures and images that they're seeing, but, I'll tell you, there is a growing trend of teenage girls going on the website to look at particular kinds of pictures or images. And even if they're not looking at what we would technically refer to as pornography, they are going to sites, or they're reading literature, or they're viewing things that can have the same kind of influence on their soul.
Barbara: Yeah, I think there are two things that girls are most susceptible to. One would be magazines and the kinds of images – the way they portray women and teenagers in magazines, the kinds of things that they wear. And all of that can desensitize their perspective of who they are as young women and how they are to act and what their standards need to be.
And the other thing would be novels that girls read, because there are a lot of novels out there, even Christian novels, that are romance novels that stir up all kinds of longings and passions and desires and interests along those lines that are not necessary for these girls to be experiencing. It's not something that they need at this age in their lives.
They need to be doing things that are much more wholesome and relational with girlfriends and family, rather than feasting their eyes and their minds on these magazines and books that are all about things that they have no business being involved in.
Bob: Some of the magazines that you subscribed to when you were in high school and had hoped you might subscribe to someday with your daughters you found were wholly inappropriate.
Barbara: Yeah, I remember discovering that and what a shock it was when our oldest daughter was a teenager and I thought, "Well, I'll just subscribe to this magazine for her," and went and bought a copy at the newsstand for her to have and was just amazed at how it had changed over those years from when I was a teenager to when she became a teenager, and that was even about 10 years ago, and the content was awful, it really was.
Bob: Dennis, in the same way that men are stimulated visually, women are stimulated emotionally – what they read in romance novels and magazines can gain a grip on their soul.
Dennis: I think it's the wise parent who understands that this problem is not just a male problem. I think many of the soap operas today, a lot of advertising, other things, are trying to gain entrance into a woman's soul and pollute her much as diabolical forces are trying to do the same thing with men, and it's why we've got to maintain a good connection with our daughters as well as our sons and be tracking with them, asking them how they're doing.
One of the things, Bob, that I think is very important to discuss with our teens and preteens, is just a good definition of what pornography is. I think a lot of times we can classify pornography at such an end of the spectrum that we fail to recognize where pornography starts, and our definition that we use is that pornography is any type of media – words, photographs, movies, or music, that stimulates sexual excitement.
Now, if you start with that definition, all of a sudden, that opens the door to all types of advertisements, whether it be on TV, whether it be on the radio or in print media and, frankly, some of the advertisements that are used even in major news magazines or even in the newspaper is absolutely pornographic.
And, as parents, I think we've got to start with our own basic conviction of what is pornography? What are we going to classify as pornographic literature? Pornographic images? And I believe pornography is that which perverts the beauty of what God said was very good.
The sex drive and sex in marriage is all appropriate and good and blessed by God, but pornography is an appeal to the fantasy. It calls men and women away from real relationships to these fantasy relationships that don't exist.
A second thing that's very important is, without being explicit, you talked about this with your son, Jimmy – we have to explain to our young people that pornography has certain steps associated with it. There's a slow, gradual, slippery slope that you start walking down, and it starts with just a little bit of curiosity, and then there has to be more stimulation to satisfy that curiosity, and it can be so powerful, so alluring that it can take an innocent encounter like I had one time of opening a trash bin to dump our garbage in the trash bin, and there was, opened in the trash bin, a pornographic magazine.
Well, at that point, I could either decide to walk away or pick it up and stuff it in my trash bag and take it back into my home. I left it where it was and didn't look, but it's those types of little steps that determine who we become.
Bob: We were driving along the other night with a friend of my daughter's, and they have an Internet service, one of the large, national Internet services, and we were talking about e-mail, and she said, "We routinely get e-mails sent to us inviting us to visit all these icky-sounding sites," and it's happening innocently where your children are a click away from an image that will burn into their soul and will never leave.
Dennis: Yeah, and that's why parents have got to be involved, and they've got to use some of the resources that are being created to protect our families. There's an Internet service that we list in the book that is filtering out pornographic sites from ever even making it to your computer.
There's software available that's mentioned in the book as well to talk about how to filter these images and words from ever making it into your home, and I think, as parents, we've got to use all these resources that help us protect and guard our children's hearts, because we've been given that responsibility, and your child doesn't have the maturity to be able to discern what to do with that Russian sex site that pops up on your screen.
Bob: Dennis, what should a mom or a dad do if they come across files that they know have been downloaded onto the computer that they realize are inappropriate?
Dennis: Well, first of all, you're making the assumption that they found them casually. I would empower every parent listening who is raising a teenager to take the freedom to look. I wouldn't hesitate to look in my son or my daughter's room or where they've been tracking on the computer if I suspected anything and you know what? Even if you haven't suspected anything, it might not be a bad idea if you just go and look and just check it out.
Now, is that invading the child's privacy? I don't think so. That child is under your care. You are protecting that child. If you came home and were afraid somebody was hiding in your child's room, wouldn't you go look in that room first to see if somebody was in there, if there was evil in there, if there was harm going to come to him? You wouldn't think anything about that. Well, I think the same thing is true of this. I think we need to look at see if our children are sampling.
Secondly, if you do find it, I think immediately you offer grace. You know, that's at the core of the Gospel. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast."
We're all sinners, we've all broken God's laws, we need grace to be able to rightly relate to God and to one another. You forgive your child, and you go armed with that grace and forgiveness, but you take a step beyond that, and you call that young man or that young lady to be accountable. You ask them to step forward and to submit to some actions like not being on the computer late at night after Mom and Dad have gone to bed; not having a computer in their bedroom with the door closed. The idea is, is bring their lives out into the light and let them walk in the light.
Then, I think, third, ask your child questions – are you looking at anything you ought not to be looking at? Are you allowing your mind to feast on anything that could pollute your soul as a young man or as a young lady?
Bob: I think it can be helpful for parents, too, to have software on the computer, things like on our computer at home, we use something called "Safe Eyes," that's a program you buy, and a service then you subscribe to that provides a level of safety.
There is also monitoring software. We've talked before about a program called "Desktop Surveillance," that gives you snapshots of where your children have been, where anybody has been on your computer. And all of these kinds of computer programs can be helpful but, again, we have to remind ourselves that there is no computer program that will keep a teenager away from something they shouldn't be looking at if they really want to look at it.
They can go to a friend's house or a cyber café somewhere, they can find a computer that's available and, I guarantee you, if they go off to college, unless they're in a situation where the college actually filters the Internet, they're going to have access wide open. You've got to make sure that you're not just dealing with the problem by putting boundaries around your teenagers, but you're helping your teenager cultivate the personal boundaries, the personal convictions, the self-discipline to stay away from these sites that we've talked about today.
And to do that, you need the kind of guidance that the two of you provide in your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent." I think you give us, as parents, a good game plan for how to address these issues, how to have an ongoing conversation with our teenagers so that we can raise this issue regularly as our children go through the teen years.
This is one of the more than a dozen traps you talk about in the book "Parenting Today's Adolescent." And I think it's a particularly helpful resource for parents who have preteens. You're right on the verge of your children becoming teenagers. Maybe you're not dealing with these issues now, but they're just around the corner and now is the time for you to be engaging in these issues, developing some convictions and being ready to have some standards in place that you can interact with your teen about as they start to move into their teenage years.
Again, we've got copies of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," in our FamilyLife Resource Center. Go to our website, FamilyLife.com. In the middle of the home page, you'll see a red button that says "Go," and if you click that button, it will take you to an area of the site where you can get more information about the book, or you can order a copy online, if you'd like.
Again, the website if FamilyLife.com, click the red "Go" button so that you can get a copy of Dennis and Barbara's book, or call 1-800-FLTODAY, that's 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team will make arrangements to have a copy of this book sent to you.
You know, a common theme that we've had throughout this week as we've talked about the traps that are facing our teenagers is the theme of how important it is for parents to be proactive, to be involved, and to make sure you have a relationship in place with your teenager as you move into the teenage years so that you can have some of these challenging conversations.
I was just thinking about the book that you wrote recently, Dennis, called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and if a dad is going to step up and take on that responsibility, he needs to do it on the foundation of a healthy relationship with his daughter.
This month we wanted to make a copy of your new book available to any of our listeners who could help with a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today. We are listener-supported, and so we depend on those donations to be able to continue the work of this radio ministry and the other outreach ministries of FamilyLife Today.
And if you can help us this month with a donation of any amount, we want you to feel free to request a copy of the book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." If you're donating online at FamilyLife.com, when you come to the keycode box on the donation form, just type the word "date" in there, and we'll know to send you a copy of Dennis's book as a thank you gift.
Or if you call 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation over the phone, just mention that you'd like Dennis's new book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." We're happy to send it out to you. It's our way of saying thanks for your partnership with us in this ministry. We appreciate your financial involvement, and we're also glad you listen to FamilyLife Today.
Now, we hope you can be back with us tomorrow for FamilyLife Today. We want to talk about one of the other issues that faces teenagers today – it's the issue of drug use, substance abuse, alcohol, marijuana – what can we do, as parents, to try to proactively deal with this issue and help our teen avoid that trap? We're going to talk about it tomorrow, I hope you can be with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
_____________________________________________________
We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?
Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved.
www.FamilyLife.com
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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 9 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Substance Abuse
Bob: Have you heard about a new drug called cheese? Have your teenagers heard about it? If they have, and you haven't, then we've got a problem. Here is Dennis Rainey.
Dennis: Do you think we have a problem with substance abuse? We've got a massive problem, and the problem is not a teenager problem. In my opinion, it's an adult problem. It's the failure of parents to be involved in their children's lives – guarding, protecting, and keeping them away from this type of substance that can destroy their lives.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, July 19th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What have you done to warn and protect your children about alcohol and drug abuse? Stay with us.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. Last week and again this week, we have been talking about some of the pitfalls, some of the traps that face our teenagers as they walk through their teen years, and we've been talking about the need for proactive parenting; the need for us to pass along mature, godly wisdom to our sons and our daughters as they go through their adolescent years, which is something that the Bible talks about over and over again.
Dennis: It does. In fact, Proverbs, chapter 13, verse 14 says, "The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life to turn aside from the snares of death."
You know, the Book of Proverbs was written by Solomon, I think, primarily to teach his son. Proverbs 13, 14 really exhorts a child to listen to the teaching of a wise person, because it brings forth life, but it also warns that, as parents, what we're helping our children do is turn aside from a snare that would produce death.
Bob: And the trap that we're going to be talking about on the broadcast today is one that has tragically claimed the lives of countless thousands of young people.
Dennis: Well, listen to these statistics, and these come from the PRIDE, which is the National Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education, which, Bob, is an incredible survey of more than 129,000 students in the sixth grade all the way through the 12th grade, done in more than 26 states across the country, and they found that of all sixth through twelfth graders, 29.5 percent of them had used an illicit drug at least once in the past year.
Bob: Three out of 10?
Dennis: Three out of the 10 – marijuana, of those in grade 6 through 8, 13.6 percent used marijuana at least once this past year. And then you take alcohol, of those who are in middle school – 44.5 percent have used alcohol at least once in the past year. Then there's smoking – of those in middle school, 31.1 percent have smoked cigarettes at least once during that school year, and of those in high school, 48.2 percent.
Do you think we have a problem with substance abuse? We've got a massive problem, and the problem – this is going to sound radical – the problem is not a teenager problem. In my opinion, it's an adult problem, it's the failure of parents to be involved in their children's lives – guarding, protecting, drawing boundaries around their children's lives, and keeping them away from this type of substance that can destroy their lives.
Bob: I've got to confess to you my own naivete in this area. When I was in the 9th grade, I was standing at my locker one day, and a fellow who was on the football team with me came up and leaned up against the locker next to mine, and he said, "Hey, Bob, you interested in a bag of marijuana?" And I said, "No, I don't think so." He says, "Okay, it's cool," and walked away.
I went home and told my parents, and we called the police, and the police captain came out to our house and took a report, and then I got to thinking, "I've got to go back to school the next day, and the word is going to get around, undoubtedly." Well, the word didn't get around as to who, but we did hear later on that this young man had been expelled from school. Obviously, I was not the only target of his interest in selling marijuana.
But that's about the only time in my life that I've had any kind of a run-in with illicit drugs, and throughout high school and college I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, and I was pretty square.
Barbara: Yeah, I was, too, Bob. I didn't do any of that stuff and, for me, it was primarily because I was afraid to. I just didn't – I was just chicken. I didn't want to get into alcohol, and there were kids who started drinking when we were in high school and started smoking when we were in high school. Drugs, I don't think, were much of a problem when I was a teenager, however, it was starting to make inroads into college. But I just didn't want to have anything to do with it, because I just was afraid of it.
Bob: Afraid of what it would do?
Barbara: Afraid of what it would do and afraid of the consequences, and I knew it wasn't right, and I just wasn't going to mess with it.
Dennis: You know, I had enough choices when I was a teenager – I'm glad I wasn't a teenager in this era, because between alcohol, marijuana, the pills that people have to numb them, I mean, children today have a lot more alternatives when it comes to substance abuse, and parents have a bigger task, I think, because they're available, in many cases, in people's homes.
Bob: And in some cases, Dennis, the problem that our kids are facing really stems back to what's being modeled for them, again, by their parents.
Dennis: Yeah, I look back to some of the decisions that Barbara and I made early on in our marriage, and this is one of them. We were going to model a life that didn't bring this stuff into our home, and I can't help but wonder today if we got on the phone right now and called Ashley and Benjamin and Samuel, our older three, who have now moved on beyond the teen years – I think it would be interesting to know if any of them had ever taken a drink. I don't think any one of those three has ever sampled alcoholic beverages and, as far as marijuana, smoking, doing any other kind of drug, I don't think that they've even been there.
And I don't pat ourselves on the back at that point, but I think our own stand of deciding what we're going to model and really paying attention to that. I think we underestimate how a parent can give approval, not merely to a drink or to a drug, but to a lifestyle that accompanies them.
Bob: You know, there's a lot of discussion around the scriptures in this area, about whether it is unbiblical to take a drink, and we read passages where Paul exhorts Timothy to take a little wine for your stomach for medicinal purposes, Jesus turns water into wine at Cana, and so a lot of Christians think to themselves, "It's not prohibited in the scripture. I have freedom in Christ."
Drunkenness is forbidden, but taking an occasional drink, having a beer with the guys at a football game or a glass of wine with dinner – there's nothing biblically wrong with that. On the other hand, Barbara, you and Dennis have said even though there's nothing biblically wrong, it's not going to be a part of our lifestyle. Explain that.
Barbara: Well, I think that, even though we agree that there isn't anything biblically wrong with it, we just felt like, early on, that with our kids we did not want that to even be a temptation to them, because if they felt like it was okay for Mom and Dad to have wine with an occasional meal, or to have a beer now and again, even though it was not something that was an ordinary occurrence, even though they would understand that it was an exception, I just don't think our kids in this culture have the maturity to be able to say, "This is an exception."
I think they look at us, and they go, "Well, if Mom and Dad do it, it must be okay," and they make these mental leaps from seeing what somebody else is doing to deciding it's okay for me, when they don't have the maturity to know how to balance it or don't know how to do it in moderation, and so they decide, well, it's okay, and they just – they go bonkers with it.
Dennis: I'll tell you, it's not just teenagers, either. This story is not about a parent raising a teen, but it applies to what you're talking about – I'll never forget a peer who developed a problem with drugs, and it all started when this particular adult was over at a friend's house, and they went out for an outing with a pair of people who were very godly, very mature Christians, and during that outing, that other couple served my friend a glass of wine, and alcoholic beverage.
That started that man, in his mid-40s, down a trail that nearly cost him his life, his marriage, his family, his ability to earn a living, and it all started with him looking at a peer, someone that he admired and looked up to, but nonetheless a peer – age-wise and professionally – and I want to tell you, if it can have that kind of an impact on somebody who is 40, what kind of an impact would it have on a 12-year-old, an 11-year-old, or, for that matter, a 16-year-old who is trying to find a point to anchor their lives in this stormy gale called life where they're living.
They don't have many anchor points, and I think our teens need to be able to look at parents, and I don't think we should be worshipped. I'm not talking about that, but I do think our model needs to be as consistently strong and upholding the highest values that we can possibly represent to our children, because today's teenagers – listen to me – today's teenagers need us. They need parents they can depend on; parents who represent something.
And to be a Christian parent today and to be doing some things that are just a little foggy or just a little gray, and, you know, it's not that much. Let me tell you something – these children are like radar units. They lock on us, they watch, they look, and they make determinations off of our lives – whether we like it or not – and so that's why Barbara and I decided we won't do that.
Bob: Well, certainly, one of the dominant themes of adolescence is how close am I to adulthood? And so if young people are watching parents and their behavior and their activity and saying, "That's what it looks like to be an adult," they're trying to rush adulthood as quickly as they can. The sooner they start drinking, for example, they think they're closer to adulthood, and that will lead them down a path well ahead of their maturity.
Dennis: Well, advertising – that's the pitch of all the booze advertising that occurs on TV, in newspaper ads, magazine ads, billboards, and one of the things we've done with our children from an early age is we've sought to unmask the deceit of this advertising with our children as we drive by those billboards, as we open those magazines, as we see those advertisements while we're watching the football game on television.
We talk about what the lie is behind that advertisement – that you have to drink to be happy, that you have to drink to have fun. And then, as our older children have left and gone away to college, we've continued to test their convictions by asking them why their friends drink, why people who live in the dorms or the sorority or the fraternity – why do they have to go out and get plastered? What is it that's taking place there? Are they running from reality? Are they searching for some kind of peace? Is it that they don't like who they are while they're sober, and they do like who they are when they're drunk?
We've talked with all of our children about becoming the person that pleases God, and having an identity in Jesus Christ that is winsome and feeling good about that identity so that you don't have to take a drink to feel good about yourself.
Bob: Apart from the desire to be older or more mature, what is the lure for young people to sample cigarettes, alcohol, or illicit drugs?
Barbara: Well, I think that's the big lure, really, but I think what hooks them is their insecurity, because kids are so insecure. They don't know who they are, they don't know where they belong, they just have all these areas where they don't have confidence yet, and so they get hooked on that because that gives them that false sense of confidence when they're drinking or when they are smoking and looking cool and grownup, and I think that's what keeps them doing it, because it fulfills that need they have to feel some sense of confidence and self-esteem.
Dennis: I couldn't agree more with what Barbara said. I think we forget what it was like to be a teenager and to be growing up and feel so uncertain of who you are and try to find ways to carve out your own personhood and identity as a young man or a young lady, and I think there are two other things you add to that mix – the most powerful of which is peer pressure. And, of course, that's where they're getting their identity – from their friends and peers, and I think that's one of the major reasons why a lot of children drink – is they're hanging around with other children who do.
Bob: Well, but if they're hanging around with kids from the youth group, then …
Dennis: But, see, there is where we get tricked. In fact, that brings up a great story that occurred a number of years ago with one of my sons. They came back home, and one of them said, "Dad, I'm not quite sure how to tell you this, but a couple of the boys from the youth group got plastered."
And I said, "Who was it." "Well, I'm not sure I should tell you." And I said, "Well, let me tell you something, son. If they got drunk, and they were driving a vehicle, and that had come out in the story, and it was you, I would want to know. Because, at that point, as a dad, I would want to step into my son's life, and I would want to correct this, lest they lose their life, and you can lose it, you can ruin it, and you can destroy it all around a substance called alcohol, or a drug that you might take."
Bob: You mentioned that peer influence is one of the critical issues leading kids. In addition to peer pressure, what's the other factor that you think is leading kids to sample alcohol and drugs?
Dennis: It's real simple – stress. I think grades, the stress of popularity, the schedules they keep, stress is a biggie, and I think a lot of kids are trying to escape lifestyles. In fact, this is such a huge issue, Bob, that in our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," we actually call this a trap – busyness – and address this issue of crowded schedules, jamming too much in and trying to achieve too many objectives today as young people.
Parents are responsible for the lifestyles of our youth in not allowing them to live their lives on the edge.
Bob: Barbara, what would you say to a son or a daughter who says, "Well, in Europe, Mom, everybody drinks wine with every meal from the time they're six years old. They don't have the hang-ups that you guys have."
Barbara: Yeah, I would probably laugh and chuckle like we just did and say, "Yeah, we don't live in Europe, either. This is not Europe, this is America, and it may be true over there, but it's not true here, and we're trying to set a high standard for you, and we want to raise you in a godly way, and we're just not going to do that."
Dennis: Yeah, and they've got some real problems because of it.
Bob: And the tragedy here is that some of these kids get so close to these traps, that they fall completely in, and there are kids who aren't alive today.
Dennis: Yeah, you're pointing out the destructive nature of these substances like alcohol, pills, marijuana, other forms of drugs that are abused by young people and, you know, Bob, some time ago you were at my 50th birthday party, and you remember what happened – all of my children came back from the different spots where they were – Samuel came down from college where he was at the time, and Ashley and Michael drove over from they live and having been newly marrieds.
And a part of that celebration was my son Benjamin who, at the time, was in Estonia, got on the phone and began to weep and began to share his appreciation for me as a dad, and the entire staff was there as they had him patched through and, man, it was the best birthday party I've ever been a part of for my life.
Just hearing my son on the phone and hearing his appreciation for me as a dad and a man, you know, if you could just die at that point and move on to the next – to eternity at that juncture.
But when I got back to my office, there was an e-mail waiting for me on my desk that I've got in my hands, and I think it points out the danger of what we're talking about here, and how drugs can ruin a young man or a young woman's life. And it's from one of our staff here at FamilyLife.
It says, "Dear Dennis, Happy Birthday. I'm glad to see you taking it so well." It wasn't really that bad, Bob. This particular parent goes on to say, "I don't mind being 54, it's just a number. Good health is more important than age."
And she went on to say a few other things there, and then she said, "Hearing your son overseas was special and hard. I couldn't help but feel the contrast. You see, today my son goes to court to be sentenced to prison for drugs. Pray for him to come to repentance. I have not seen my son in more than four years. I know God has heard my prayers for him and that God will do what is best for all concerned."
I don't know why our children, so far, have done so well. It's the grace of God that He has overruled many of the mistakes that Barbara and I have made. But I looked at that memo, and I thought how easy it would have been for one of our children to have taken a step and headed down in that direction and today it could be one of my sons or my daughters going to prison for drugs.
And I'll tell you, if you go out to that finish line, and you look at that point, what's that worth? It's worth taking the strongest stand, being the most diligent parent, hanging in there and persevering when your children fail and when you fail, and not giving up in diligent prayer for your children to ask God to keep them from evil and harm and from temptation, and ask God for victory.
You know, in all these traps we're talking about here, you can't ignore the fact that it is the Lord who builds the house, and it's the Lord who must protect our children, and it's the Lord who must be at work in our children's lives on behalf of His agenda for them, calling them to do what's right when no one is looking.
And I pray for those parents right now that if you're facing a tough situation with a prodigal child who is still living in your home that God will give you the grace, the perseverance, the love, the compassion, to go after that child and to love them out of their sin. May God grant you success as you raise those teenagers.
Bob: You know, in the final section of your book, you and Barbara talk to parents of prodigals with encourage them and provide some comfort along with some specific steps that they can take and some things that they probably ought to avoid.
I want to encourage our listeners – if you don't yet have a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," we do have the book available in our FamilyLife Resource Center. Don't wait until your child is a teenager facing some of these challenges, or maybe a teenager in trouble before you order a copy of this book. When you kids are still 8, 9, 10, before adolescence hits I think, Dennis, that's ideally the time for a mom and a dad to read through this book together; to take each one of these traps that you outline, maybe go out on a series of dates where on each date you talk about your convictions in these areas and what do we want our standards to be and how do we want to communicate that and how do we want to enforce that in our home?
The book "Parenting Today's Adolescent," will help you in those discussions, and you can get a copy from our FamilyLife Resource Center by going online at FamilyLife.com. Click the red button that you see in the middle of the screen that says "Go." That will take you to an area oaf the site where there is more information about this book and about other resources that are available from us here at FamilyLife to help parents of teens and parents of preteens.
Again, the website is FamilyLife.com, click the red "Go" button that you see in the middle of the screen to get to the right area of our website. Or just call us at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team will be available to either answer any questions that you have about the resources we have, or place an order for you and make sure that these resources get sent out to you.
And there is an additional resource I want to mention – that's a book that has just been written by our host, Dennis Rainey. It's a guidebook for dads called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date," and for the last few weeks we've been making this book available as a thank you gift to any of our listeners who are able to help the ministry of FamilyLife Today with a donation of any amount. We appreciate your partnership with us, and we'd like to say thank you when you make a donation to FamilyLife Today, and this month we're doing that by making available Dennis's new book as our thank you gift.
If you make your donation online this month, when you come to the keycode box on the donation form, just type the word "date" in there, and we'll know to send you a copy of this book, or call 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, you can make a donation by phone and just mentioned that you'd like a copy of Dennis's new book and, again, we're happy to send it out to you, and we appreciate your support of this ministry.
Tomorrow we want to tackle what winds up being a surprise issue for a lot of parents. It's a teenager who always seemed like an even-tempered, mild-mannered, lovable son or daughter who, during the teen years, seems like he or she is angry about a lot of stuff. Maybe everything. We'll talk about unresolved anger in the heart of a teen on tomorrow's program. I hope you can be with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
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Tomorrow we're going to talk about the final deadly trap facing adolescents. This one may be a little bit of a surprise for parents. We've talked about media and pornography and drugs and dating and sexuality. Tomorrow we talk about unresolved anger and what that can do in a family relationship. If your kids have been showing their anger, tune in tomorrow as we talk about how you deal with that here on the broadcast.
Let me thank our engineer on the broadcast today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 10 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Unresolved Anger
Bob: What does a parent do when he or she hears these words?
Child: I hate you, Mom. I hate you, Mom. I hate you [echoes].
Bob: Wow, that's hard to hear. That's something no parent wants to hear. Welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. I think we've got parents who have probably heard those words from an angry son or a daughter in their home and, as we have talked this week about the traps that face teenagers, one of the traps that I think can take a parent by surprise, Dennis, is the trap of unresolved anger.
Dennis: You know, James, chapter 1, verse 19 directs us: "Let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger," slow to wrath. I think there's a reason why the Apostle James exhorted us thus. It's because every human heart that's ever been made is not quick to hear, is not slow to speak, and is certainly swift to be angry.
We have within us that natural tendency to get ticked off at other people. In fact, Barbara and I, on more than one occasion, have just kind of pushed back and go, "Why is it that there is so much conflict in our family?" And it's because we have so many people in our family. We have a lot of human beings.
Bob: Barbara, welcome to the broadcast. There is something about childish anger that we see displayed in a three-year-old or a four-year-old who doesn't get his or her way and, as adults, we almost smile at some of those expressions of anger just because they're so immature. But we quit smiling when it's a 13-year-old or a 15-year-old who is expressing some mixture of childish anger and adult response.
Barbara: Yeah, because it's a lot more difficult to handle. A little three-year-old or a four-year-old, you're still bigger than they are, you can reason with them, you can put your arms around them and love them, and you know you can probably make it okay pretty quickly as a parent. You know you can fix it.
But with a teenager you don't know that you can fix it, you don't know what the problem necessarily is, and the volume goes up and the rage goes up, and because of their size, they can do more damage, not only to someone else but to themselves, and so it's a much more frightening prospect to have an angry teenager.
Dennis: And many times the source is not the child. The source is the parent.
Bob: What do you mean?
Dennis: Well, I want to read you a story from our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent."
We begin by asking the question, "Have you ever had a scene like this at your house? Two of our teenagers were asked to clean the kitchen together. Over the next 45 minutes I came back in to inspect their work three times. The first time they were arguing about who had done the most. I asked them kindly to keep on working. The next time I came back they were bickering about who had to sweep the floor. I calmed their emotions and encouraged them to finish the job. Finally, after I'd inspected their half-hearted work, the two of them gave me this lame excuse that they didn't know what a clean kitchen should look like."
Bob: Now, hang on. You're sounding angry even as you read the story.
Dennis: As I relive this, this makes me mad. Well, I write in the book – "That did it. This normally unflappable dad flipped. The anger that I controlled during the prior visits erupted and spewed out like lava. I went on a tirade about how they were so disrespectful and how they were conning me and just generally being disobedient.
I picked up a box of Kleenexes, and in an unsanctified flurry of rage, flung the box near their feet – hard. I whirled around, stormed out of the kitchen, stomped out the front door, slamming it shut. Standing there on the front porch with my blood pressure higher than the stock market, two profound thoughts dawned on me.
First – 'It's really cold out here. Why am I standing here freezing and those two teenagers are inside warm as toast? I'm the father, I'm the one who is paying for this house, and I'm supposed to be in charge.' The second thought settled like the cold in my bones and pierced me – 'My anger has gotten the best of me. I'm acting like a foolish child.'"
I conclude the story by writing, "I don't recall how long I stayed outside, nor do I recall the exact words of my apology to our children that followed. I do recall coming to an important realization – if I'm going to do my part in helping these children grow up emotionally and know how to appropriately express their anger, then I've got to finish the process of growing up, too."
Bob: And, you know, there's not a parent listening – okay, maybe there's one or two, and I want to meet them someday …
Barbara: So do I.
Dennis: Yeah, really, I do, too.
Bob: But most of us have been pushed right up to that point by our kids, where we just get so frustrated that all that comes out is the lava that you described as you shared that story. We just erupt in anger. What's at the core of an angry response, whether it's on the part of a parent or a child?
Barbara: Well, I think, a lot of times, the core is a feeling of hurt. I think our kids get hurt at school, they get hurt by one another because siblings are just unmerciful to one another.
But I think what's hard for Mom and Dad is that Mom and Dad know that we're doing our best. As a parent, we are trying our hardest to raise our kids right, to do what we can for them, to serve them, to provide all these opportunities for them, and when they come back and yell something hateful to us, or get angry back at us, that hurts our feelings, and we think, "Gosh, why am I doing all this?"
And so we, in turn, get angry back at them, and it just goes on and on and gets worse and worse.
Dennis: If there is anything I've seen that really hurts Barbara and can so impact her that it really ticks her off is when the children are not respectful of her as a mom, and they start mugging her and taking advantage of her.
And so one of the things that Barbara and I have learned that has really helped us is that when we feel angry to not just vent that anger or express that anger but to help one another find out what it was that made us feel that anger, especially with the children.
And the reason is, is because teenagers are still children, and we cannot expect them to behave as adults. We are adults, and our children should not expect us to behave as children.
In order for the adult to call the child to maturity, it assumes and presumes that the adult is acting like an adult, and the adult is properly expressing his or her anger in a biblical fashion, and that's why it's so important that we be in touch ourselves with our own emotions and understand what's taking place in us as adults.
Bob: Barbara, here is the tension that parents face. We want to allow our kids the emotional freedom to express what they're feeling. We don't want them to bottle it up and act like they can't express what they're feeling. But when they're feeling anger, that expression may be completely inappropriate.
I know you and Dennis have to or three things where it's out of bounds for your kids to express this kind of anger.
Barbara: Yeah, that's right. We've talked about what's appropriate and what's not, and we've really worked hard to help our kids feel comfortable expressing how they feel about things, because we want them to communicate and be able to understand what's going on inside of them, but there have to be boundaries on that.
They can't just express completely freely, because they're going to cross boundaries, and they're going to do some things that might be damaging, and those things are, for our family, anyway – one is when they're angry we don't allow them to be disrespectful to us, as parents. And another thing that we don't allow them to do when they're angry is to say things that would be emotionally damaging to their siblings or to parents, for that matter, but primarily that comes up with siblings.
For instance, we wouldn't allow our kids to say to a brother or a sister, "I wish you'd never been born," or "I wish you weren't in our family." Those kinds of things are hurtful statements that you can't just say, "Oh, he didn't really mean that." That really does a lot of damage in a child's life.
Dennis: And when Barbara says that we don't allow that, that means if it's expressed.
Barbara: Well, that's how you teach what is not allowed is when they make the mistake and say something like that. You go back in and …
Dennis: … you correct it, and then you penalize them for those kinds of words, because those are incredibly harmful, damaging words that our children can't just say and walk away from like it didn't matter.
Bob: There are going to be some consequences.
Dennis: That's exactly right – and severe consequences – and I think every family unit needs to have its non-negotiable core convictions around this issue of anger because if you don't, the human nature being what it is, I think we're going to hurt each other profoundly and deeply.
Bob: One of the things that we see in the scriptures, Dennis, is the injunction for fathers not to provoke their children to anger. Sometimes, when our kids are angry, it's our own doing, isn't it?
Dennis: Yeah, over in Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 4, and then in Colossians 3:21, the Apostle Paul speaks directly to fathers, and he says to them – "Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they be discouraged," or don't provoke your children to anger.
And I think there are things that fathers can do and, for that matter, mothers, as well, but specifically what fathers do that can hurt our children and find them angry.
And, of course, on the broadcast a number of months ago we had a gentleman on whose name was Lou Priolo, and he'd put together a list that we include in our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," that talks about 25 ways to provoke your child to anger, and I'm not going to share them all, but some of these are worth mentioning and just commenting on, because I believe, as dads, we have some responsibility to make sure these things don't happen in our marriages and families.
And the first thing he lists as something that would provoke our child to anger is if we lack marital harmony with our spouse. And I think, as dads, we need to make sure we're one with our spouse as we hammer out boundaries, points of discipline, and how we're going to raise our children.
The second thing that provokes a child to anger is modeling sinful anger or rage. In other words, a dad who just gets ticked off and throws a Kleenex box …
Bob: … storms out of the house and winds up on the front step.
Dennis: Exactly, that provokes children to anger, much to my shame, I'm sorry to say. Another one is constantly disciplining in anger and always relating to them out of an angry spirit. These are all ways that fathers and mothers can model a spirit of anger before our children and provoke our teenagers to be even angrier than they already are.
Bob: Barbara, one of the things we've got to help our kids do is understand what's appropriate – how they can channel that energy that's associated with anger in appropriate ways.
Barbara: I remember a time not too long ago when our girls were having a big argument, and they were feeling attacked by one another, and our oldest daughter, Rebecca, just left the room. And under some circumstances, I'll call the girls back in and make them resolve it and make them figure it out right on the spot, but that particular time I just let her go.
I talked to her later on, and she said, "You know, Mom, what happened?" She said, "I went upstairs, and I was so mad at my sister, I was so angry at her, that I just cleaned my room." And I said, "You what?" She said, "I just cleaned my room." She said, "I had all this energy. I was so mad at her, and I didn't know what else to do," and she said, "I just tore into cleaning my room." And she said, "I cleaned it up so fast, I couldn't believe how fast I cleaned it."
When she finished that and came and told me, we went and worked it out with her sister, and it was not quite as volatile because she had spent a lot of that energy, and we went back to her sister and worked out the situation, and they both made their apologies and things were fine.
But the temptation is for our kids and for us, as adults, is to take that energy that we feel that comes with being angry and take it out on the other person, whether it's physically or verbally.
Bob: I've got some children who really need to get angry.
Dennis: Yeah, there's a lot of parents going, "Yeah, this is the type of anger we need channeled in our home."
But, you know, the thing that Barbara's talking about here I don't want our listeners to miss – that teenage girl needed a mom to come alongside her to help her know how to process her anger and then move back into those relationships and make them right. I'm going to tell you something – teenage girls need that from their moms and their dads, and teenage boys really need the help and may need it, at times, from their father.
And, you know, the more I've experienced in life and watched teenage boys, there is something that happens with teenage boys when the testosterone hits the veins, and they begin to mature into young men. There is an anger that bubbles to the surface that they don't know what to do with and you know what? They hurt their brothers and sisters and their parents repeatedly.
In fact, we went through a period with Benjamin – it probably lasted for 12 months, maybe a year and a half, where he was just punishing his mom. He was not being respectful of her, and he had Barbara's number, and I attempted to step in there, Bob, and protect Barbara from him, as a young man growing up – he was 14, 15 years of age – and I remember one night it reached a head again, and I go, "Son, come with me."
Now, this is after Barbara and I had talked about it, we'd prayed about it, we prayed about it again, we prayed about it again, and we were desperate to see the Lord work. Our fear was at that point, you know, we're going to lose this boy.
Bob: I remember, Barbara, you saying that there was a period of time when you thought, "I don't know if this one is going to turn out."
Barbara: Oh, I felt that many, many times, because I just saw the way he argued with me and pushed me on everything. There was nothing that I could say that he would go, "Oh, yeah, sure." Never. It was a constant battle.
Dennis: And so I – I didn't grab him, but I did the equivalent of a grab, and I said, "Come with me," and we drove a few miles to a little restaurant, and we sat across the table, and I pulled out a salt shaker and a pepper shaker, and I said, "The salt shaker is your mom, and the pepper shaker is you, and here's what's happening."
I said, "Your mom is telling you to do something," and I moved the salt shaker forward, and I said, "What you're doing instead of submitting to your mom and obeying her, you're getting angry with your mom, and you're moving your anger and emotion level to a higher pitch than your mother's." And with that I moved the pepper shaker ahead of the salt shaker.
And then I said, "What's your mom doing in response to that? Well, she's having to feel like, to gain control, she is having to increase her own emotional intensity," and with that I moved the salt shaker ahead of the pepper shaker.
Bob: The war is escalating.
Dennis: That's exactly right, and I said, "What are you doing, son?" And he took the pepper shaker and moved it forward. I said, "Let me just explain something to you. I want you to understand this as clearly as I can say it. You are not going to win, and the reason you're not going to win," and I said to him, I said, "I want you to look me in the eye, look me face-to-face right now, because I am on your mother's side, and between you and your mom is me, and you're going to have to deal with me, even if you do defeat her temporarily. Do you understand, son? You will not win. I love you, I'm committed to you, I forgive you, I'll give you grace, but you know what? You are being unkind, unfair, disrespectful, disobedient, and rebellious to your mom, and it's time you stepped up to manhood and stepped toward maturity and you did away with childishness and childish anger and begin to become God's man."
Well, there had been a lot of other conversations that had been futile, and they had fallen on deaf ears, fallow ground, nothing had happened. Not this one. Something clicked within his soul – maybe it was his age, maybe it was his own emotional maturity, maybe he was growing up, maybe it was the appeal to his spirit to follow God and become God's man, I don't know. But it really marked a turning point in his life and in his relationship with his mom.
And, you know, I would just turn and address that mom who is beleaguered by a teen and who has just been beat up verbally and disrespected by their attitude. It may be time for you to enlist your husband on your behalf. Ask him to step in and intervene in this relationship and become the heavy and rescue you from the hurt and the harm and the damage of something you shouldn't have to bear alone.
And that's why God gives a child two parents, I think. I pray for that single parent right now who has to handle this on his own or her own. May God grant you grace, and may He bring a kindred spirit helper alongside of you to bear some of the emotional weight of this, because this is some of the most challenging, difficult stuff in raising a teen today.
Bob: You know, the thing that makes this a deadly trap is that if we don't do our job as parents, anger grows into bitterness, bitterness grows to futility. Children can wind up contemplating suicide or taking out their anger on others in their peer group in violence, in all kinds of wrong behaviors.
Dennis: Anger that goes unresolved results in isolation, whether we're adults or children. And in isolation, a human being, whether he is a teenager or an adult, can be convinced of anything including a voice that says, "Your life is worthless. Go ahead and take your own life, you're not worth anything."
Bob: And, of course, that's kind of the extreme conclusion that only a handful of teenagers come to, but we've got to be alert, as parents. We've got to be aware that that's where unresolved anger can lead. That's why we've got to stay involved, we've got to communicate love, we've got to make sure that we are helping our teenagers process the anger that they are feeling and understand it. You've got to be praying for them and trying to guide them through not just this issue of unresolved anger, but all of the issues we've been talking about this week – the issues of substance abuse and pornography and media and daring. They need us to be actively involved in helping them navigate these turbulent waters of the teenage years.
And in your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" you help us engage in these issues with our sons and our daughters in the teenage years. First, by making sure we're on the same page as Mom and Dad, but then knowing how we can set standards and how we can reinforce those standards as our children go through their teenage years.
We've got copies of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent" in our FamilyLife Resource Center. If you have children who are just now 9 or 10 or 11 years old land not yet in the teen years, it's the perfect time for you to get a copy of this book and start reading through it together.
We've suggested that husbands and wives have some regular date nights together and take each of these traps that you talk about in this book and begin to process what are our convictions, what do we want to have as the standards we're going to have in our home as our children go through the teen years?
To get a copy of the book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," go to our website, FamilyLife.com. There's a red button in the middle of the home page that says "Go" on it, and if you just look for that red button and click it, it will take you to the area of the site where you can get more information about Dennis and Barbara's book. You can order online, if you'd like.
Again, the website is FamilyLife.com, look for the red button that says "Go." Click that to get to the area of the site where you can order a copy of the book or call 1-800-FLTODAY. That's 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY and mention that you'd like Dennis and Barbara Rainey's book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and someone on our team will make arrangements to have a copy of that book sent out to you.
I want to say a quick thank you, if I can, Dennis, to those listeners who, over the last couple of weeks, have contacted us to make a donation for the ministry of FamilyLife Today. The summer months are months when actually donations drop a little bit for ministries like ours, and that has been the case this summer as well.
So those of you who have contacted us either by going to our website at FamilyLife.com or calling 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation, we have appreciated hearing from you and, in fact, we'd like to invite those of you who are regular listeners and maybe have never called to make a donation to FamilyLife Today to consider doing that this month.
We have a thank you gift we'd like to send you. It's a copy of a brand-new book by Dennis Rainey called "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." It's a guidebook for dads to help us engage with the young men who come knocking at our door, asking if they can take our daughter out on a date.
And you might not have a daughter, or your daughters may be either too young or too old for a book like this, but let me encourage you, get a copy of this book and pass it along to someone you know who does have a teenage daughter, and may be facing this issue right now. It's a great way to reach out to a friend with a helpful resource that may open up some conversation between the two of you.
Again, the book is our gift to you this month when you make a donation of any amount to support the ministry of FamilyLife Today. You can make that donation online at FamilyLife.com. If you do that, when you come to the keycode box, just type the word "date" in there so we'll know to send you a copy of the book.
Or call 1-800-FLTODAY, make your donation over the phone, and just mention you'd like a copy of Dennis's book, "Interviewing Your Daughter's Date." We're happy to send it out to you, and we want to say thanks again for your financial support of this ministry.
Well, I hope you have a great weekend. I hope you and your family are able to worship together this weekend, and I hope you can join us back on Monday when we're going to talk about taking a break from television during August. Dennis has this idea that we ought to have a fast during the month of August and just keep the TV off the whole month, and I don't know what I think about. Well, yeah, I do know what I think about it. We'll talk about it Monday, all right? I hope you can be back with us for that.
I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. Have a great weekend, and we'll see you Monday for another edition of FamilyLife Today.
FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.
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