License to Parent with Trace Embry

Cannibalism isn’t one of the systemic problems in American culture. A penchant for the seven deadly sins and a subjective spin on truth and reality, however, are. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth—having been around forever—arguably stem from the even greater problem of that idolatrous and delusional pursuit of self-worship that is systemic to American culture today. When sin actually becomes the end-game and delusion becomes the norm for the adults of any culture, how can the children of that culture really be expected to stem the insanity on their own? Is there a systemic “Snapping of the American Mind” that has led our kids to appear troubled when they are actually reacting normally to a society in crisis?

David Kupelian is an award-winning American journalist, vice president and managing editor of online news giant WorldNetDaily (WND.com), editor of Whistleblower Magazine, and a widely read columnist. He is also the bestselling author of three influential books: The Marketing of Evil, How Evil Works, and, most recently, The Snapping of the American Mind: Healing a Nation Broken by a Lawless Government and Godless Culture. Kupelian has been interviewed by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Neil Cavuto, and many other TV and radio hosts.

How Some Systemic Problems in American Culture Have Developed Since the 1960s

I frequently discuss systemic problems in American culture. Some of the cultural problems that arose in the 1960s have gotten a stronger and stronger grip on children through the years. Despite the fact that some aspects of the cultural rebellion that took place in the 1960s were legitimate in theory, it can be argued that, in practice, some of these things also contributed to new problems.

If we consider the mental health of people these days, it appears that emotional, psychological, and spiritual conditions are worse now for families than they were in the 1960s. In some areas, we have switched one bunch of grievous problems in our culture with a batch of fresh ones.

Unfortunately, many people today are tricked, intoxicated, and mislead by a set of untrue premises and flat out falsehoods. They do not understand what you are saying when you put forth a line of reasoning that involves logic, data, factual statements, scientific thought, historical analysis, and real-world experience. David Kupelian and I discuss dangerous systemic problems in American culture and their consequences as we cover the following topics:

What is The Snapping of the American Mind?

The difference between today’s America and the America in the 50s.

Why parents must be honest and transparent to their kids.

One dangerous aspect of social media.

The addictive nature of smartphones and social media.

Why are teens so anxious today?

One problem with colleges.

Picture provided by: Tumisu

Cannibalism isn’t one of the systemic problems in American culture. A penchant for the seven deadly sins and a subjective spin on truth and reality, however, are. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth—having been around forever—arguably stem from the even greater problem of that idolatrous and delusional pursuit of self-worship that is systemic […]

Deadlines, quotas, meetings, emails, text messages, and myriad other things can make it so easy to confuse the urgent with the important. We may even neglect spending time with our children. As the saying goes, if the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy—a fact that we can all be blind to. Looking at life through the eyes of our children can be their gift of insight to us, as parents.

Ainsley Earhardt is currently a journalist and co-host of Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends. Previously, she served as co-host of Fox & Friends First and regularly contributed to Hannity with her own segment called “Ainsley Across America.” Additionally, she has co-hosted Outnumbered, Fox & Friends Weekend, Fox’s All-American New Year’s Eve, and America’s News Headquarters. She has also been a panelist on The Live Desk and appeared on Greg Gutfeld’s Red Eye. Earhardt is the author of Take Heart, My Child: A Mother’s Dream. She donated a portion of the proceeds from this book to Folds of Honor, an organization that provides scholarships and assistance to the spouses and children of soldiers who have fallen in service to America. Earhardt’s latest book is called Through Your Eyes: My Child’s Gift to Me.

How Spending Time With Our Children Benefits Their Spiritual Development

It is hard for our children to learn from us and for us to learn from them if we don’t spend enough time together. And I don’t mean only spending quality time with your kids when it is convenient or expected. If we don’t actually slow down and intentionally invest extended periods of time with our kids, it is pretty hard to share much real quality time. Parents, there will always be more money for you to make, but you can’t make new time to spend with your kids.

One of the greatest benefits of spending time with our children is being able to view things through their perspective. Parents will learn things about the way their children see the world. This will help parents gain understanding into the motivations, thoughts, and actions of their children. Kids will benefit from this meeting of perspectives too! This type of communication will build the relationship between parent and child. Additionally, it gives children a feeling of safety and connection that will benefit their emotional and spiritual health.

The connection between children and their parents is deeply spiritual. And, although many people would prefer to ignore this concept or refuse to believe it, professionals in the mental health field from schools such as Harvard, Yale, Emory, Chapel Hill, UCLA, and others would agree with me. Ainsley Earhardt and I discuss the relationship between parents and children as we cover the following topics:

Ainsley’s new book Through Your Eyes: My Child’s Gift to Me.

What age should I begin introducing TV to my newborn?

What lessons have Ainsley’s learned in raising her child?

The importance of paying attention to the details.

How your reactions to emergencies will help develop character in your child.

How parenting provides us with glimpses of God’s love for us.

The catch to Proverbs’ wisdom in raising kids.

Picture provided by : Nathaniel D. Ether

Deadlines, quotas, meetings, emails, text messages, and myriad other things can make it so easy to confuse the urgent with the important. We may even neglect spending time with our children. As the saying goes, if the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy—a fact that we can all be blind to. Looking […]

In the midst of this, therapeutic residential programs are popping up across the country to give teens in crisis the help they need. Parents may be skeptical about whether or not residential care is a legitimate option and if individual programs are trustworthy; some parents may even cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire idea of therapeutic residential programs. So let’s explore why these programs can actually be a huge help to teenagers and families today.

Megan Stokes serves as Executive Director of the National Association of Therapeutic School and Programs (NATSAP). This organization serves as a national resource for programs and professionals that assist young people who are beleaguered by emotional and behavioral difficulties. Megan has over six years of state legislative experience ranging from interning in the Maryland General Assembly to monitoring legislation across all 50 states. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Salisbury University.

Why Our Culture Helps Create the Need For Therapeutic Residential Programs

I believe that the systemic problems within American culture today have increased the need for therapeutic residential programs. Postmodernism and relativistic beliefs about morality have created a worldview that produces natural consequences that parents are having a hard time handling all by themselves.

Our culture’s movies and music glorify sex and drugs, but most people aren’t prepared to deal with the real-life consequences of being irresponsible with these things. At this point, the problems produced by these consequences are cemented into our culture.

The hippies who were seeking freedom in the 1960s seem to have found it. Unfortunately, these people—who went on to become our current parents, grandparents, government officials, teachers, professionals, and doctors—didn’t take into account the fact that freedom without morality can come at a price. The freedom to fulfill selfish desires without moral guidance is a recipe for disaster and addiction.

Today, it seems we have exchanged loving our neighbors as ourselves for loving ourselves more than anyone. We live in a narcissistic and selfish society that drives people toward indulgence, addiction, and all kinds of sin. This is not an ideal environment for raising spiritually, emotionally, and mentally mature children.

Our culture has never been perfect. We make slow advancements in certain areas, and we fall behind in others. But the state of our culture today puts all of our families and children at risk. This is why therapeutic residential programs like Shepherds Hill Academy are so useful today. Many families are trying to restore sanity and are looking for answers, and sometimes, residential care is the answer they need. Megan Stokes and I discuss the need for quality residential care as we cover the following topics:

How Megan Stokes is making an impact in the lives of families in crisis.

The role NATSAP plays in helping our nation's therapeutic boarding schools.

What is the Miller bill (a.k.a. The Shift Bill) and how it can affect boarding schools.

The truth about residential programs.

Resources for financial help for your teen.

In the midst of this, therapeutic residential programs are popping up across the country to give teens in crisis the help they need. Parents may be skeptical about whether or not residential care is a legitimate option and if individual programs are trustworthy; some parents may even cast doubt on the legitimacy of the entire […]

We also want to ask you to consider the ministry of Shepherds Hill Academy, and the role you may be able to play in the lives of troubled young people in the upcoming year.

Why Teens Need the Ministry of Shepherds Hill Academy

The holiday season encompasses days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. These holidays are typically spent with family and are times to forget the problems of the past year, be thankful, and look forward to things to come.

Unfortunately, this kind of celebration is much harder for some families than it is for others. Many teens who are buried in addictions, experimenting with sexual promiscuity, facing digital addition, or struggling with thoughts of suicide may feel they have very little to be thankful for or to look forward to.

The holidays are all about bringing hope to the hopeless and giving to those in need. Today, we want the License to Parent audience to know that by partnering with Shepherds Hill Academy, you can be a part of the solution to the problems that many teens are dealing with today.

As you probably already know, many of the insights found on License to Parent are tested everyday at Shepherds Hill Academy. This year long, residential, therapeutic academy helps restore troubled teens and broken families for the glory of God. With our culture’s retreat from a biblical worldview and all the behavioral, emotional, and social problems that are consuming kids today, our society needs ministries like Shepherds Hill Academy. Shepherds Hill Academy helps kids get away from mainstream cultural influences, realize the negative effects of these things, and reconnect to deeper pursuits. Our program lasts a year because we want to fully equip our students for when they go back into influences of the world. We also work with families to help them change and create a better environment for their teen.

We are thankful that God is faithful and provides the right people to invest in life-changing ministries. We ask you to ask God if He would have you support our ministry. If you feel led to ease this financial burden on a family in crisis, you can donate to Shepherds Hill Academy and choose to give to the student scholarship fund. The more scholarships we can offer to families in need, the more families and teens we can reach. Shepherds Hill Academy doesn’t need the support, these families do. Every little bit helps, even if you can only afford to cover the cost of one day at Shepherds Hill Academy. After all, if 365 people are willing to cover the expenses of one day, one teen could experience a whole year at Shepherds Hill Academy.

As I mentioned, many hurting teens do not have the typical holiday experience. They will not have a typical holiday experience at Shepherds Hill Academy either. But when our culture is so full of consumerism at Christmas, an atypical Christmas can be exactly what these teens need. At Shepherds Hill Academy we create a holiday environment focused on community, spiritual meaning, and fellowship. The distractions of our culture are gone, and I have heard some of our students say that they were having the best Christmas of their lives at Shepherds Hill Academy.

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We also want to ask you to consider the ministry of Shepherds Hill Academy, and the role you may be able to play in the lives of troubled young people in the upcoming year. Why Teens Need the Ministry of Shepherds Hill Academy The holiday season encompasses days like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. These […]

Unfortunately, the thinking of the world has influenced the minds of too many Christians today—even those within Bible-believing, evangelical churches. In fact, rarely realizing it, many Christian parents are raising their kids to actually acquire appetites, habits, and even addictions for the things of our toxic culture. Consequently, our kids are processing thought, truth, and reality no differently than the rest of today’s secular, politically correct, and postmodern-thinking world, and they are yielding the same disastrous results as the rest of our fallen world.

Our guest, Anthony Selvaggio is an author, lecturer, lawyer, and the new senior pastor of Rochester Christian Reformed Church in Rochester, New York. In addition to serving in ministry, he has also previously served as a visiting professor at the Ottawa Theological Hall in Ottawa, Canada, and as an adjunct professor at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has written nine books, including the one we discuss today, 7 Toxic Ideas Polluting Your Mind. Anthony Selvaggio lives in Rochester, New York with his wife Michelle, and they have two children, Katherine and James.

Why Many Christians try to Justify the Sinful Thinking of the World

Our culture greatly affects how we raise our kids. Once kids are made aware of this, it’s been my experience, they often seem to understand it and accept it even more readily than their parents. Might just be my experience, since I regularly see kids grow by leaps and bounds by virtue of the fact they are at Shepherds Hill Academy for a year and learning what they are learning there.

Either way, too many parents are totally unaware of just how much our culture has affected them as parents. They seem to be able to justify exposing themselves to too much of the same garbage that they know is harmful to their kids. They too often think that God’s admonitions in Scripture do not apply to them as adults. Unfortunately, parents often pay the price for it, and later they wonder, “What the heck happened to my life?”

You wouldn’t believe the number of Christian parents who buy their kids booze; many buy into all kinds of worldly thinking and ideologies, including giving their kids porn “to make men out of them” or condoms to go out on dates. And, sadly, many parents regularly watch programs like Game of Thrones with their kids—and think nothing of it!

Of course, I haven’t yet mentioned all the parents who just, carte blanche, give their kids smartphones with unlimited access to content that would make guys like Hugh Hefner, Larry Flint, and even Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy blush! Beyond all the violence, foolishness, sin, and vice out there on the Internet, there are also seemingly innocuous ideologies that fly in the face of biblical teachings that help tee-up our kids to believe things that lead them to believe other things that lead them to believe still other things. Before you know it, you, your kids, and your entire family are exposed to things and engaging in things that pollute your own hearts and grieve the very heart of God.

Over time, we’ve been so conditioned and indoctrinated by it all that we just don’t see the problem with a lot of it anymore. Too many of our kids have never seen the problem with it. Sometimes we allow things into our lives because we don’t want to be considered legalistic by the church nor intolerant by the world. In essence, we’re covering our own backsides and satisfying our own carnal desires for the sake of being amused and entertained. We seem to know nothing about “dying to self.” Then we moan because God doesn’t answer our prayers! God is not going to endorse sin or foolishness. We have this unconscious or naive notion that we can live like hell—and allow our kids to live like hell—and then expect heaven for a reward. God’s ecosystem doesn’t work that way.

Unfortunately, the thinking of the world has influenced the minds of too many Christians today—even those within Bible-believing, evangelical churches. In fact, rarely realizing it, many Christian parents are raising their kids to actually acquire appetites, habits, and even addictions for the things of our toxic culture. Consequently, our kids are processing thought, truth, and […]