Newest Parenting Challenge – The SmartPhone
Parenting can be a tough job, especially given today’s climate in the world. Some days it’s a battle to find matching shoes, make lunches, get them dressed, and make sure they brush their teeth.
We head out the door and face the snarl of traffic, only to find ourselves sitting next to someone who is experiencing difficulties of their own.
But parenting now involves a whole new element, one that I wasn’t exposed to when I was a kid – the electronic age or as we know it – the smartphone.
Play outside
As a kid, my biggest challenge was avoiding the punishment that kept me inside the boredom shell. We didn’t have immediate access to the world around us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Our world was right outside the front door and across the street. We rarely ventured outside the perimeter – I didn’t anyway.
With this immediate and convenient access to everything the world has to offer, we must remember that not everything is beneficial or useful for our kids. This smartphone also brings negative things and people to our littles.
The exposure is not always positive
Our littles are now exposed to sexual predators pretending to be 15, access to pornography, foul language, inappropriate pictures, viral videos and sick humor. It comes with violent games and evil beyond anything we could have imagined – all trying to take its rightful place on our child’s electronic device and in their minds.
Yes, things were different then
When I was a kid, we didn’t worry about locking our doors. We played outside from morning till night. We didn’t worry about riding our bikes down to the local 7-11. My brothers and I stayed gone all day with our friends. These days, however, we are hard-pressed to let our children go outside by themselves.
Human trafficking is the latest threat
Now we are hearing reports of human trafficking. Evil people are trolling neighborhoods looking for young children to steal. It’s an unfortunate day in the life of a child when they cannot go outside and enjoy nature, neighborhood friends and a dirty mud puddle.
Safety inside the home
Someone once said, “We spend all our time making sure we have secured our family inside our home. We have locked our doors and windows. We have tracked down their movement, making sure they are always safe. As parents, we even interrogate their friends. Spending family time in the same room is more important now.”
But we’re missing something very important
We have failed to protect our children from the immediate threat that beckons their attention every single day – the internet. While we sit in our living rooms every night watching television together, our kids are being invaded by the evil that seeks to destroy them. We get lazy in checking their phones. We get lazy in checking the text messages, the Instagram, the photos, the websites they visit, and the ones that visit them.
Living under a false safety
Here we are thinking we have protected them by locking all the doors, and windows and here they sit with evil in their hands.
I’m not against technology, but as parents, we need to do a better job of scanning their devices. You should surprise them and check their phones in the middle of a television show. Check their phones in the middle of text conversations. Review those phone numbers and Instagram photos. Lord help you if they have Snapchat. We need to check out what their real user names are on Kik, Snapchat, and other instant messaging sites.
I got news for you – some kids make fake names so you can’t find them. They appear innocent all the while they are deceiving you and appearing to be wholesome. That’s for another blog post because I have plenty to say about that subject after being around children and youth for years and witnessing the parental heartbreaks as a result.
Why do we have to be so diligent?
Because we live in a world where the enemy prowls around seeking to destroy the youth of America. If he can get enough youth to believe his lies, then he can get more people following him and fewer people following Jesus. That is the enemy’s ultimate goal. Judging by what is going on in society today, it’has the appearance that the enemy is winning many youths over. We can change this.
It doesn’t have to be this way
1 Peter 5:8 “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
As parents, we have a very important job to do. We need to protect our kids from the evil that lurks around every street corner, neighborhood and internet website in America today. We need to look at their smartphone more frequently.
Today and every day ask God to keep His hedge of protection around you and your family. Take steps to protect your kids from harmful websites and video games.
Will my child be mad at me?
Will they get mad at you for checking their smartphone? Of course, they will, but you should care more about what you are protecting them from then what they think about you. In the long run, you may save them and you from heartbreak.
In His Service,
Jeanette Duby, The Teaching Lady
#smartphones #internet #humantrafficking #enemy
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