Various news stories continue to emerge suggesting that kids lack self-control when it comes to social media and viewing videos, especially on platforms like TikTok. Experts speaks of an obsessive behaviour that needs to be curbed.
Kids are by nature foolish, and that's why they have parents and yet it is the parents that in many cases seem more than willing to facilitate the problem. Burdened (as they see it) with young kids, they want the distraction and rely on devices (such as phones) to quiet and pacify the children. Often they are just as addicted to the phones themselves. We have all seen the disengaged parents staring at screens out in public - ignoring their children.
But it's not just the screen time and obsessive-compulsive video watching that is of concern. This constant exposure (in addition to what they receive in school) has been utilized to plant ideas and ideologies in their minds that would have otherwise never been there.
Listening to these young kids talk about their self-esteem, gender, and the like is baffling to me. A generation ago as young kids we never wrestled with such questions (nor would we have understood them) and neither would these kids apart from the fact that these notions are being put there and consequently corrupting them. They worry about things we never even thought of and they're not the better for it. We were kids - they are kids that have been corrupted and poisoned.
It's no surprise that dealing with not just adult-level topics but things that they really cannot understand (and shouldn't even be thinking about) produces not just destructive forms of anxiety, but obsession.
If parents don't realize this and work to radically correct this situation (which if Christians will necessarily involve the elimination of public school), there's not a lot of hope. The battle is not just uphill, it's more like trying to scale a virtually insurmountable cliff. The enticements and ideologies of Babylon are powerful and even the strongest parent-child relationships will be shaken.
Be parents - shepherd your children. They are foolish and easily taken in, affected, and shaped by those who do not have their best interests at heart. And as a parent with adult children I will say this - pour yourself into parenting 100% during their early years. For me a whole decade went by in a blur. I worked and when I wasn't working I was being a Christian husband and father. My wife and I were their world - not their servants but their teachers and guides. This is not to say that role ceased - by no means! But what I mean is the hours invested when the children are young will give you peace in the long term. My children are in the faith and we don't have a lot of baggage. As such the relationship with them as young adults is flourishing and a great encouragement. And for the record, as young children they behaved - they were trained. We took them everywhere without incident. Not only were restaurants (and church) non-stressful outings - we could sit in a coffee shop and talk, while our kids would sit quietly waiting on us.
And how are these many long hours invested? You spend time with them. You teach them and when they're young there's a lot of discipline and intervention. Consistency is trying, even exhausting but it's critical. Follow through on what you say, even if you're exhausted in your easy chair. Get up and deal with it. The respect is established when they're very young and then when they're older and too big to corporally punish or impossible to contain when defiant - it's not a problem. We didn't have to deal with those issues.
And we were not 'lucky' as many said to us. Our kids behaved because we taught them and trained them to do so. They learned self-control and that has remained with them.
Even my own father who in many ways utterly failed as a parent, father, mentor, and moral example nevertheless instilled respect. My experience was hardly unique. In my case the respect also entailed a great deal of fear - and to some extent that's proper but in the case of my old-school father it was certainly beyond the pale, at times approaching terror. The point being - for good or ill the respect was there. And though there was much to lament with regard to my upbringing, once I was a parent I came to appreciate that respect and understand just how important it is. The way kids talk to their parents today is abominable - literally so. There is no respect, no self-control, no standard and as such they are left wide open to outside influence. They want attention even if it's seemingly harsh. That's something parents with 'brat' children don't understand. The kid wants discipline and structure. It provides security. And for these semi-abandoned yet spoiled kids in school that view their parents as little more than a cash/ATM machine, the attention and focus comes from other sources - often evil ones that lead them down wayward paths into drugs, crime, perversity, decadence, and in some cases mutilation.
Win their hearts, establish respect, and you can ground them in the faith. Shelter them but also prepare them, push them little by little out into the world. Don't be afraid of it. If you've prepared them, they can handle it and then as adults they'll be the ones that resonate stability and fortitude and their peers and the people around them will respect them and actually gravitate toward them. It's been pretty interesting to watch.