FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  

References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.

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 n...