Our Children and Smart Phones

We're up here than it is down there.

And so, rather than sit here and sweat to death, I figured, I was

take my suit coat off. If you're right that, it's even

if you're not. But if he's in chapter 6

tonight, I'm going to be very, very practical with a try to.

I try to give you some lessons on the family that will help.

We got a lot of young families here and that's tremendous.

That's that is a blessing. It really is a blessing to have

that and but there's also a responsibility then to make sure

that we are teaching on. The family and giving you some

things, that'll be a help. And a lot of times we focus on

spiritual side of things and this is to a certain extent, but

very practical on the other side of the other side of it, we have

been in Shenandoah mountains. The last couple days we left

Monday morning and so decided to take just to step back from.

It takes a lot of a lot of studying to read through and

study through some of these different religions and things

and I like to have an overview of the Our thing before I start

and I didn't get a chance to do that with being gone for these

couple days. So by the time I got into

studying a bunch of this stuff out ended up with just about as

much time into it anyway but if he's in chapter 6, just as a

starting point and I'm not going to give you a lot of versus

tonight. Fact not very many at all but

this one will be helpful for you.

I hope Ephesians chapter 6 and verse number 4.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Of course you know, one verse to verse 3 but verse 4 says and ye

father's provoke, not your children.

Children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and the

admonition of the Lord. And that's kind of the focus of

this. Bring them up in the nurture and

the admonition of the Lord. And again, it's two fathers,

it's for fathers and mothers. It's for families.

This is, this is one of those things I remember growing up

when my when my pastor would get up there and preach on

discipline, you know, spanking your kids and all itself.

The parents were like, this is something we need the kids were

like, no, we're going to go home.

We're going to get spanked. Everything, right?

And this may be one of those things that's not disciplined,

but one of the biggest discussions, I think in families

with up-and-coming teenagers is cell phones and, you know, kids

want them parents. Don't think it's a good idea to

give them to him and even though there may not be a lot of back

and forth because the kids know better.

They're still the expectation that at some point cell phones

going to be coming their way and I've said, for a long time that

my kids are not going to have phones that give them access to

much of anything. And I said that, when they were

Little, and I still say that now, and I supposed to a certain

extent, there's a little bit of pressure to let them have a

phone and whatever else. But I'm not, I'm sure it's not

exactly what they want to hear, but they already know it's not

coming their way anytime soon and so it's not really

surprising them, but I want to give you some reasons tonight

that you should seriously consider in relation to delaying

giving your children a smartphone.

Yeah, I'm not a mean, a phone is one thing, I'm talking

specifically tonight smartphones and so on.

Into it. I think this will be helpful.

You number one, when they get a phone, Everything Changes.

I've heard many stories of parents who have regrets and

giving their kids a phone too early or too soon because of how

the relationship changes and their parental influence really

Wayne's after the kid gets a cell phone.

And again this is might want to just take, I got six or seven

different reasons tonight that maybe you can write these down

and these are is just a guideline just something to help

you tonight. As you consider because you're

going to come across this discussion at some point or

other with your children, over the course of the time that

they're teenagers or before that or beyond that.

Honestly, I'm surprised at how many parents are giving their

kids, you know, iPhones at eight, you know, seven eight,

nine years old, and these kids are walking around with phones

in their hands and they're on a Non-Stop.

And I mean, it used to be that it was a teenage thing.

Now it's getting earlier and earlier and earlier but I think

these things will be For you too, as we consider these

tonight. But the first one is that

everything changes when they get a phone, don't take this the

wrong way. But parents, whose influence is

not strong enough to tell their children?

No, they're not going to get a cell phone.

Often is not strong enough to control that phone.

Once the kids actually get it and they're not strong enough to

keep whatever influence they do. Have once the kid gets a phone,

it doesn't take much looking around to see that kids all over

the place are walking around with phones in there and we were

we were sitting up there. And you're in the mountains, you

can't even get service anyway, right?

These guys are laughing because they probably know what I'm

going to say. But we were sitting at the

little Wayside restaurant and and this family gets out of the

car, little kid, you know, I don't know.

Five, six, seven years old, jumps out, he runs in front of

everybody, runs into the store, you know, and then the mom gets

out in the dead gets out. And this this kid that looked

exactly like the little one, but just like a bigger version of it

comes walking past doing this on his phone, the whole way into

the store, didn't even know what he was going.

If he didn't have somebody that he Following close behind

otherwise, you know, but you're in the mountains, you can't even

get service in here. Your, your life is focusing

around the cell phone. So, given your kids an outlet to

go, complain, about anything and everything.

You do certainly is not really giving you the influence, over

them that you want and need to have or given you an opportunity

to keep impacting them for as long as you should while they're

in your home. But you have to remember in the

whole discussion that you are the parent, right?

And again, we go back. Back to our verse in Ephesians

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, father's provoke, not your children to wrath but bring

them up in the nurture and admonition of the lord, it's

your responsibility. What happens in your home?

And you are the parent. It doesn't matter how much your

kid whines about wanting a phone.

Doesn't matter how much they whine about whatever else it is

that they want. You're the parent and honestly,

my kids know, the more they want about something, the less the

chances are that they're going to get it.

It's just I mean what you know what the dangers are you know?

What? The drawbacks are to having the

cell phones and everything else and it's your responsibility /

to protect them from those dangerous, no matter how much

they whine and complain about it know, some kids who get a job

early will offer to pay for their own phone because they

know they can Jackson's already. Brought that up with me.

Well, Dad, when I'm old enough, can I, if I can get my, if I can

pay for it, can I have it? No, because it's not about

paying for it. It's not that.

I'm so poor that I can't afford to buy a phone for them.

There's a lot of other dangers and we're going to talk about

those. tonight, but I'm still the parent.

They're still the child, it's still my responsibility as a

dad, whether they're paying for the destruction or not to make

sure that I am bringing them up in the nurture and the

admonition of the Lord, I had several jobs.

You know, when I was in high school I stayed very busy

working for several different people and believe it or not, I

survive without a cellphone. Now, that was back in the day

when hardly anybody had them. Actually my parents did remember

the next cell phones where actually you could bleep, you

know, and you could actually use them like walkie-talkies, that

was the coolest thing that ever came.

Around and I thought, you know, my parents were going to get me

one of these things and I can use it because now I'm going

here and there and they didn't, let me have a phone and you know

what I survived I made it. And it happened that most of the

time, they would call my parents and say, hey can he come over?

We need this work done and I wish they'd get it set up and I

go over there and do the work. And, you know, and I think every

parent can say that for the most part, we didn't always have a

phone and we live, you know, and it used to be that parents would

say, you know, when they get a car, everything changes and it

Does. But now we're taking a step back

and we're saying when they get a phone, everything changes and

most of it happens in the influence that the parents have

over the children, they lose that influence when the kid gets

a phone, because now they have somebody else to be their

parent. This little device in their hand

becomes the parent instead of mom or dad.

So I think, you know, just know that on the day that you allow

your child to get a phone, everything's going to change.

Not my kid. Yes.

Your kid, Everything Changes on the day, they get a cell phone

number to these. This another reason why at least

you should do lay it. All right, phones, do not lend

themselves to spiritual growth. And, again, the cell phone

itself is not inherently bad. I'm specifically talking tonight

about smartphones in the everything that comes along with

it because, you know, okay. If you could get a flip phone

that had like, remember remember back in the day when you wanted

to send a text And you wanted to say, stop you had to say s St.

And then you had to whatever the oh was, you know, you had to get

to the, oh, I mean, it was very, very slow, right?

And if that's all you had then, okay?

Probably, you're okay with that, all right?

But phones, don't have just that capability anymore.

They come with a whole lot of other things and of course, the

kid who's trying to convince his Christian parents.

Let him get a phone will say that they're looking forward to

all the spiritual conversations, they're going to have with their

friends and you know how much they're going to enjoy sharing

Bible. He's with each other and all

this stuff when they finally all get phones together, right?

Doesn't usually work that way. Every adult who has a phone

knows that the obvious is more likely going to be true.

There's so much Temptation available at the fingertips of

anybody that has a cell phone. And by the way, it's a great

idea as a parent, even for you to have safeguards on your

phone, right? My wife has access to any

account that I have. She has my password to

everything. I'm not sure.

I don't want to have something that I'm trying to hide from my

wife, right? But when you put that into the

hands of a teenager, even if you take precautions and by the way,

if you do have a decide to give them a phone, they should not

have a phone without a lot of precautions on it, but they're

always around just about everything and brother.

Josh probably knows a whole lot more about that than I do but

there's a lot of people who know how to find ways around any

safety net that's there and they do, they do it.

In more technical or technological, somebody is the

better. They are at it, but there are

always ways around just about everything and that phone is not

lending itself to spiritual growth but by giving them a

phone essentially, you're exposing them to all the

worldliness and the trends of tick-tock and Instagram and I

don't even know all the other social media things out there,

but but I know enough about them to know that.

That is where everybody goes to find out what's popular.

That's where everybody goes to find out, what's in?

That's where everybody goes to try to, See what they have to

do. To be like, essentially, is what

it comes down to. And I've witnessed a lot of

young people over the years, with phones in the trends,

certainly does not lend itself to the, you know, to the kids

who got phones becoming more spiritual.

And I'm not, I'm certainly not saying that.

There's anything inherently evil about a cell phone but rarely

have, I seen it helped their spirituality number three.

Phones amongst teenagers often lead to bullying and regret.

And again this is this is a very practical aspect of it

spirituality set aside but I'm certainly not an expert on cyber

crime or anything like that, but I follow what goes on.

And I know that it's a huge problem and I'm interested in

the crime world I suppose. That's one of the reasons why I

enjoy doing the police stuff and I know Kevin's probably in the

same boat with me on that I stay up with it.

I like podcast about that kind of stuff, just to just to keep

My fingers in that at least a little bit and understand what

goes on in that world and so on. But kids constantly getting

bullied on group, text and Snapchat, Snapchat and Instagram

and lots of other ways and honestly, if those platforms

were not there than there, probably bullying on the

playground, like they're always used to be, right?

But the difference is that's done in secret and bullying on

the playground. Hey, you can hear it, you can

see it. An adult can intervene if they

notice that something's going on, but what's happening now is

these kids are living in their own world.

And not only does that open them up to all these, you know,

pedophiles and everything else. But on top of that, what happens

is they end up in their own little private world where

nobody else knows what's going on.

And I know Kevin's probably been on many of them.

I've been on a good handful of them ourselves were teenagers

committed suicide because they were being bullied on one of

these group. Social media sites that nobody

else knew about and turns out. Once they started going back in

there and trying to figure out why did this kid commit suicide?

Because somebody made fun of them, somebody was picking on

him, this happened that happened and they didn't feel like they

could tell anybody about it because it was in this little

bubble that's hidden from the rest of the world.

So even if they don't kill themselves, a lot of them are

left with scars that last for many many years and and and some

that they never get over and so phones amongst teenagers often

lead to that bullying and regret.

Number four, Young people are particularly vulnerable to

addiction and this is a serious issue that for some reason a lot

of parents overlooked and and this this is bigger than cell

phones. This this this gets into video

games computer games, you know, Playing games on the iPad or

whatever else, but obviously addictions can develop at any

stage in a person's life, but there's a lot of evidence out

there. Now, in a lot of studies that

have been done to suggest that that teenagers are very much

more vulnerable to addiction, and there's been a lot of

studies one that I read in particular, that was actually

very good that explained. Why kids end up getting addicted

because most kids believe it or not, most kids that are good at

that, it get addicted to smoking or drinking.

Bugs or drinking or pornography, or any of the things that they

end up addicted to as a lifetime addiction start between the ages

of 12 and 14 and some much earlier than that 12 and 14.

And in this one study that I was reading in particular, it went

into explaining how their prefrontal cortex and all this

stuff is being formed and at that age, they don't have the

ability to rationalize their decisions and so they just do

things on a whim and obviously a lot of these things, Things are

designed to be addictive, right? Nicotine itself is addictive.

Alcohol is addictive. Drugs are addictive, this Social

Media stuff is addictive. And so it's becoming very

increasingly clear that a lot of the algorithms that are built

into these social media sites are designed to draw, not just

people, but especially kids into them.

No matter what viewpoints we have for as long as possible.

And and those tools are developed Up to be addictive.

You wonder why you start scrolling on Facebook and you

can't get off, they design it that way.

It's an algorithm that's designed to keep you there.

As long as you can. The more you scroll, the more

they get revenue from the ads that you see and click on and

everything else. Of course they're going to do it

that way and kids in that teenage in those teenage years

are very much more susceptible to addiction.

You give them a phone when they're 12 13 14, 15.

Years old and they developed that addiction.

At that time, it's an addiction. That probably, unless there's

some kind of outside intervention, they're never

going to break and they're going to be walking around at 30 years

old still addicted to that phone and not being able to get off of

it because that's exactly how they're designed in these social

media apps and everything else. One researcher that was talking

about this whole area several years ago, compared giving us a

cell phone to a kid to giving him access to the alcohol

cabinet. That's how addictive social

media and phones and all of that stuff is number five and this

kind of goes right along with that, but social media use is

frying. Kids brains.

Remember back in the day 90s, maybe even the early 2000s, used

to be that the biggest war in favor of teenagers was the War

on Drugs, right? Nancy Reagan.

This is back in the 80s, going way back but it stayed around

for a while. Remember the Dare program dare

to keep kids off drugs and everything else?

That was the big push. Because kids were getting

addicted to drugs and they were frying their brains on drugs and

everything else. There's a lot of years of

research showing what drug, use does to the brain, and they had

a, another had an ad campaign. I think they probably still do

to a certain extent, this is your brain.

This is your brain on drugs and it just shows you like, you

know, looks like a scrambled egg essentially.

And so I mean that's based on all the years of research of

what drugs does to a person in their brain and everything else.

There's only a few years of research on the implications of

social media on the brain. Because social media has not

been around for all that long, especially when it comes to, you

know, kids using it and especially the developing brains

of teenagers. But the early research actually

is very troubling in what this social media lifestyle and

social media world is doing two teenagers essentially.

But the research is showing that teenagers are being trained to

read in short chunks, not being able to grasp any kind of

meaningful information. They can't, they can't engage in

Long. Emotional reading, at all.

When's the last time you walked out in public and saw a kids

sitting somewhere reading the book.

Nice to carry a book with me everywhere when I was when I was

growing up, I mean, I love to read write and used to see kids

sitting all these and see kids at the library reading books and

all this, you don't see any of that anymore because they can't

even comprehend that. Because everything they have is

a short, little blurb of, you know, 160 characters, or

whatever it is that it allows you to do on these social media

sites. They don't read books anymore,

they don't, they don't, they don't develop social skills.

Everything is done through a text message, right?

I don't know how to talk then. How to interact with anybody

because of that they're losing their ability to rationalize and

what's happening is that is in turn making them less happy and

more anxious than any previous generation.

And all of these things are things that have been researched

out and studied out. And then we wonder why they

can't sit in church and pay attention for 30 minutes during

the service, right? We wonder why, you know, in

order for there to be some kind of Youth Activity, it has to be

fun, exciting and exploding with all kinds of everything because

they can't pay. Tension long enough.

And so, they learn nothing in a youth meeting.

They learned nothing in, you know, they can't sit in church

and so they send all the teenagers out of the auditorium

to go have fun with the youth. Pastor, who just got through the

same thing, himself. Right.

Who still can't keep himself off of his phone either because he

grew up in that same lifestyle and he's addicted to it to,

right? And then we wonder why our

churches are falling apart and why everything has to be a big

party scene to keep people coming.

And I'm kind of being facetious a little bit but, but really,

I'm not because this is exactly what's happening in our

churches. There is one of the last kids

can't sit down and read through a commentary to understand the

Bible because they've never had to do that before because there

are they've got this phone that gives them two sentences and

then they can move on and read another two sentences about

something else. And read another two sentences

about something else and look at this picture from that

happening. And this, you know, and They're

being trained to do. And social media is destroying

their cognitive abilities. And we wonder why we have the

dumbing down of America. Social media is doing it and

we're putting the tools in their hands to make that happen.

You know. Kids have to be constantly

entertained or they don't want to do it.

Kids have to be constantly, you know, charged up.

Or it's not as exciting as sitting over there in the

corner, scrolling through some social media post, right?

There's a lady by the name of Jean twinge wrote a book called

ijen. And she says this, in the midst

of the pandemic, doctors are reporting a rise in Tourette

like symptoms that they believe me.

Be caused by too much social media, use specifically too much

time on Tick-Tock Tourette's. I mean, You wonder why so many

kids today have? So many neurological issues

right there, wasn't around 30 years ago, right?

ADD and ADHD in this D and that be and all that, right?

I mean, why is that? I think it has a lot to do with

this kind of stuff, and unfortunately, I think that a

lot of parents, see a phone is a type of babysitter.

So they don't be bothered to have a conversation with their

teenagers and essentially what they're doing, is stunting that

parent-child bonding time over. That'll actually matter in life.

They're trading what? Little time they have with their

child for a few minutes of Peace so they don't have to have this

conversation so they don't have to be bothered with their kids

because they got all this busy stuff going on in their life and

essentially what they're trading at for is you know, no

meaningful conversations with their kids unless they can pull

them away long enough to have one.

And once you give them that phone, everything changes and

you're not going to get it back. Number 6, this kind of goes

right along with what we've just been talking about.

But the development years are critical.

The teenage years, especially our critical years for teenagers

morally psychologically cognitively and spiritually.

They are as teenagers. They are developing what they

are going to be as an adult. And that's when they learn a

sense of who they are, they learn how to learn.

They learn how to develop that, moral compass, they learn how to

develop their spirituality and to do so many more things.

And I'll be honest with you, most of the decisions that I

made. That helped me to become what I

am. Now I made, when I was a

teenager, I made it at Youth Camp.

I made it in, you know, teen conferences, I made it at those

times when I was still developing into who I was

becoming, and what's happening now is the same exact thing.

You have these youth conferences and everybody's on their phones.

And they're not even paying attention and they're not

developing spiritually. And if by chance, God gets ahold

of their heart in their 20s. Then we're salvaging a couple

here and there rather than an entire generation.

We're losing a generation because of these cell phones and

there's so much research out there and how young people

develop and and yet they're so little known in terms of how

social media is impacting that development and all the initial

indications are that, it's not helping in the least.

And that, in fact, it's greatly harming, our children, as

they're growing up, they essentially what it comes down

to As a society is that we're in the middle of a giant

experiment. And I, for one, don't

particularly care to have my kids be Lab Rats and this giant

experiment of social media and how it affects our kids and

their brains, right? I want them to grow up learning

how to learn. I want them to grow up learning

how to, to be spiritual young people apart from a phone.

Your identity is not in a cell phone, your identity.

If you're saved is in Jesus Christ, you don't need all of

that stuff, and not just that, but It's from a purely physical

standpoint, harming our children here's another thing.

Number 7 only got this is the last one.

I'm gonna give you a couple of a couple of things as we close

kids are absorbed in anger and polarization at a time when they

should be enjoying life. Some days.

I wish I could go back to the Carefree days of being a kid.

I'm glad I'm an adult. I don't want to be a kid

forever, but sometimes it's it would be nice to just go back to

the days when you had no responsibility wouldn't go back

to the time when you could go out and play cops and robbers if

you wanted to or Cowboys and Indians and you could play as

long as you wanted and nobody cared right.

There was no other responsibilities that you had

other than making sure you ate right other than making sure

your room was clean when you got to bed you know, when you when

you got up in the morning or whatever else There was easy.

There was no real responsibility and what's happening now and I

mentioned these algorithms already, but these these

algorithms and social media are designed to keep you online.

And so, Have you ever been angry at a post that you read on

Facebook or one of these other sites?

I'm sure you have, right? Have you ever you ever been

polarized by some news Outlet or news story?

I'm sure you have and essentially what happens is the

same thing as happened with kids and it's just pulling them

deeper and deeper into a Viewpoint.

That's taught them to hate everybody else who doesn't hold

that same Viewpoint. Now completely different from

saying that we ought to hate sin and everything else.

I'm not saying that well you know we should You know, accept

this or that because you know, it's a different Viewpoint.

I'm not saying that, but some people don't even realize that

the information they're being fed through their social media

posts is tailored to, keep them online and information that

other people are not seeing because the algorithms are all

given those people completely different set of information.

And so now you have two people who are completely Polar

Opposites against each other and anger and frustration and that

can just be pulled to the surface because anger and

frustration, keep people on those platforms.

So they're keeping them mad. That they're keeping them angry

so that they'll stay on those platforms and our kids are being

sucked into that. And as you're being sucked in

now they're growing up as angry people instead of getting

outside and playing like they should be their kids, right?

They're going to grow up and they're going to have

responsibilities and they're going to be adults and they're

going to have families and they're going to be dealing with

all that stuff for the rest of their lives.

Let them be kids as long as they can be kids, right?

As much as it as much as that is unhealthy for us how much you

know, how much more unhealthy is it?

For kids, they don't need to grow up yet, they're going to

spend the rest of their lives as grown-ups.

Let them let them keeping them from that phone.

Just let some hold onto that innocence and that childhood a

little bit longer. And I'm glad my parents kept us

in a bubble and kept us away from a lot of that stuff and I'm

glad for that. I was able to be a kid and I had

to be an adult at 12:00 because I saw way more than I should

have seen or I heard way more than I should have heard.

Or I was drawn into all these adult conversations way too

early. And I'm thankful for that.

And that's one of the things that our kids are missing out on

by being drawn into all of this Social Media stuff at such a

young age, they're not kids, they're grown up at 14, right?

And we're missing out on that. Let me, let me kind of close

with this. Let me answer some arguments.

All right, because I don't deal with it a ton, but I hear a lot

of these different things. And so number one, they need to

have one so that I can get ahold of them.

That's a, that's a number one argument.

I fuck it has to have a phone. I got to be able to get ahold of

Everyone, I would like to know how many parents actually really

do use that phone to get a hold of their kids when they do have

a phone, but be sure you're sending them a people that

you're comfortable with sending them with and you don't even

have to worry about really getting hold of them, right.

We're going. We're going to to teen camp here

in order Youth Camp, here in a few weeks, and they're going to

be responsible adults who are going to be responsible for your

children and if you can't trust them too, if you can't trust the

people that you're going to send him with and they have to have a

phone so you can get a hold of him 24 hours a day, then you.

Only not sending them with people that you should be

sending what's in the first place, but you could give them a

phone with only minutes and texting on it.

And that's what we do for our kids.

We leave them at home every now and then, we'll run up to store

Jackson's, getting to the point where he's able to kind of stay

home with the younger ones, and they can handle themselves for a

little bit of time. They have a phone at home, that

can make a phone call, and can send a text, and there's two

phone numbers in it, mine and my wife's, and that's the only

thing they know how to do is send a text and make a call.

They absolutely need to get ahold of somebody because

there's an emergency or something like that, they can do

it. They doesn't have any internet

ability, it doesn't have any capability, they don't know, any

of the passwords. They don't know any of that kind

of stuff because I don't want them to be able to have that

because it's not good for them to have.

Second thing that I hear a lot of times there's no it's going

to stunt their growth in technology and honestly this is

one that I have in the back of my mind.

Sometimes you know, these guys have never really been on a

computer. They've never been on a

smartphone where they can get on there and mess around and play

around and do whatever they want to do.

And I think, you know what, they're growing up in a computer

age and they're going to get to the point where they're going to

be, you know, 18 years old and they don't even know how to turn

a computer on and I know it's going to put them back and

everything else. Do you know that Steve Jobs?

The guy who invented the iPhone and the iPad and all these other

things did not let his own children.

Have a cell phone or an iPad. Did you know that?

He said it was be it would be way too detrimental for them to

have one of those things. They said around at the dinner

table just about every single night and had dinner together.

No phones, no iPads, none of those things and you know what

Steve Jobs as, probably one of the smartest Tech Minds it's

ever been that's ever lived and maybe he's the one that's

responsible for all of this stuff.

So maybe we should be blaming him but obviously didn't feel

that it was so important that his kids be technologically

advanced that they were never going to be able to catch up.

Kids pick up things very easily and I've learned that, you know,

we have an iPad that every once in a while, we'll let the kids

play some games on, you know, how long it takes him to figure

stuff out about 10 seconds and they know more about it than I

do. By the time they're done in

those 10 seconds, they'll pick it up, they'll figure it out.

You don't have to have an iPhone to stay up to technologically

up-to-date and all those things. Number three.

And I think this is a big one that people Fall prey to.

I don't want them to feel out of place.

Well I got to get my kid a phone that, you know, the everyone

else has a phone to my kid needs to have one too.

It's a very weak argument. We're trying to teach them to be

different from the world, number one, and number two, it's better

to have them feel out of place than to lose them or subject

them. To all the harmful things that

we just mentioned. I ride with officers a lot.

And, you know, we'll get to talking about something and

somehow, And I can't even tell you how many times this

conversation is come up for whatever reason.

I'm talking about drinking or something like that.

And I'll say, you know, I've never had one sip of alcohol in

my life. Never tasted it.

Don't have a desire to taste it. What you've never drink alcohol.

I said, nope. And you know what?

Almost every single time they say, you know what, it's

probably better that way. Probably better that way.

They drink, they go to all these different breweries and

everything else in a lot of their lives.

Revolve around that drinking and everything else, but when they

look back, they say in their mind, you know what?

I wish I'd never started that in the first place and I think the

same thing is true with your children when it comes to

phones, if they're being honest, and look, I'm far enough away

from it now that I can look back and I can be honest, I'm glad I

didn't have that stuff. When I was a teenager, I wanted

everything that all the other teenagers had my parents rarely

gave it to us. I'm glad they didn't.

Ask me that then I would never have said that.

Ask me that now I'm glad they didn't do it.

Did it make me different? Yeah, because there was other

kids that had stuff that I wish I could have had that.

I wish I could have done that. My parents just didn't let me do

but now that I'm looking back on it, I'm glad they didn't.

Let me do those things. Well, they didn't give me that

stuff and this is one of those cases where everybody's got one.

My kids got to have one of their going to feel out of place.

You can be glad that you didn't, and so will they here's the

fourth one that I hear often, as well?

I just have to trust my kid. I know it's probably not the

best, they're going to make mistakes, but I just have to

trust them to make the right decisions.

It's not that I don't trust my kid.

It's that I don't trust his flesh.

And neither should you the same way that I don't trust my flesh.

If I put that in his hands and give him the ability to make

those decisions. Then inevitably he's going to

make some wrong ones and those decisions may be way bigger.

Then he even realizes they are maybe even have way more

consequences than I realized at the time when I gave it to him,

there are plenty of other places in ways that they'll be put into

positions where they're gonna have to learn to make the hard

decisions. The consequences for not making

the right decisions. In this area are far too

dangerous for me to feel that. It's worth it.

This this was not a large study that was done by any stretch.

But I've read about one. That was it was actually

conducted amongst High School juniors.

And every one of them had a cellphone that had been given to

them by their parents and they asked them to be transparent

about the issues of cell phones. And many of them admitted that

social media has been a very big struggle for them.

This is 11th graders, 16, 17 years old, That's something that

should not be a very big struggle for a 16 or 17 year

old. Because they shouldn't even have

that in front of them, but they were willing to admit.

They were very open and honest in the piece of advice that came

out as they wrote down in this little questionnaire and I think

they did it fairly anonymously. So that, you know, it was, it

was not something where they could go talk to these

individuals or whatever else, but the openness more than

anything else, was they said as 11th graders.

Don't give your kids phones for as long as you can help it.

That was from. 11th graders the biggest piece of advice that

they gave in this study. Don't give your kids phones for

as long as you can help it as a pretty interesting conclusion

that they came to and when you're in 11th grade saying that

and you know it's a big problem because you're trying to do

everything you can to convince your parents, why you need to

keep it. Here's my conclusion that I came

to. We can always add a phone.

It's very hard to take it away. I obviously don't know everyone

in the world but I don't know of anyone who has permanently taken

away a smartphone from a kid that they had previously given a

smartphone to. Not that you can't take it away,

but what happens. So often is if you caved and

gave them that phone in the first place.

Then do you have the ability to go back and take it away from

him? Probably not.

When I, when I cut my hair, I don't usually take as much off

as I'm planning to take off. I take off a little bit at a

time because you can always take off more.

You can't put it back on once you've taken it off, right?

And the opposite of that is true with the phone, it's easy to

give a phone, it will be. I assume very, very hard to take

it away. So I think it's much better to

err on the side of caution for all the reasons that we

mentioned here tonight. I'm not saying that you, you

know, I'm not, I'm not sure, I'm not, I'm not your kids parent

you are you have to make that decision when you think the time

is, right? And when you think they're able

to handle it, I am just cautioning you on some reasons

why you should wait as long as you possibly can to give them

not just a phone necessarily but that technology because it's

going to have an effect on them and as soon as it gets into

their hands, Everything changed. Are you willing to deal with

those changes? Because as parents it's our

responsibility to bring them up in the nurture and the

admonition of the Lord. And if there is a tool that I

can keep out of their hands to help them in that process of

bringing them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord,

then I want to do it. I don't want to give that tool

to them, that's going to put them in a position where they're

going to be compromised or where they're going to fall or where

they're going to fail or where they're going to not succeed as

a Christian in their life because I put Thing in their way

that became a stumbling block to them and then I failed in my

position as a father to train them up in the nurture and the

admonition of the Lord, just a caution tonight.

That's all that is. And hopefully some things that

you can use that will be a help to you as you're making those

decisions, they're going to come, you're going to have to

make those decisions. Hopefully, this will help you to

be a little bit more informed and how you do it.

All right, let's pray will be done.

Father, we love you, give me. Thank you so much for your

goodness to us. Thank you for the word of God.

I thank you for practical things that we An use in our lives,

that will help us too. Raise our children for you.

That's ultimately our goal is we want our children to reflect the

Holiness of God in their lives and as fathers in particular,

but even as parents in general, it's our responsibility to raise

them for you and to put them on the best path that will get them

as close to you as they grow up in their lives.

And so, I pray that you give us wisdom.

I pray that you give us discernment.

I probably should help us to to be the guides to our children

that you expect us to be. Thank you for all that you do.

Course, in Jesus name. Amen.

Your? Dismissed.

Dismissed.