I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. My dad wrote that line (it's from Psalm 101:3) on an index card and taped it to our television when I was a teen. These days, we might run out of tape before we could attach those words to every platform or device on which our kids might see something bad.
The average child, aged eight to eighteen, spends more than seven hours a day on a screen.3 Pornography accounts for an astonishing 30 percent of all internet traffic.4 Kids are first exposed to porn, on average, between ages eight and eleven.5 And only 43 percent of today's teens think that porn is bad for society, compared with 55 percent of adults. (In a teenager's eyes, it's much worse if you don't recycle.)6
I could go on, but you get the idea. Exposure to pornography, whether accidental or intentional, is not an if for our kids; it's a when. And that exposure represents the number one reason that technology — which can be such a big help in our lives — can make parents worry.
Sara's twelve-year-old daughter, Allison, likes to create collages on the computer, using clip-art images and videos to make her masterpieces. At home, the computers have content filters and other parental controls, but the devices at her father's office are not as protected. And one afternoon, when Allison was using an office computer to work on a project, some obscene pictures popped up on her screen.
Immediately, her father got a text alert from his internet provider: A porn video has been accessed from this location.
A quick review of all the office computers revealed the trouble spot. But when asked what she'd seen, Allison denied all involvement. And the more her parents pressed for details, the more emotional and manipulative she became.
"That was not like her at all," Sara said. "My radar was on high alert — and I realized that our greater concern was not what she'd seen or the exposure she'd had, but the choice she was making to lie."
Thinking about what she calls her own "progressive sanctification" — one where the Lord continues to tenderly transform her heart — Sara resolved not to react in knee-jerk fashion, but to slow down and ask God for his counsel. "I wanted the Lord to teach me how to relate to my daughter, knowing that the way I treat her now will affect our relationship and her life in twenty years."
She started with prayer.
"I know the freedom that comes with confession," she said.
"I prayed that God would turn Allison's darkness into light and that she would know the joy of walking in that light and enjoying sweet fellowship with other people and with Jesus."7
Eager to have her own burden lifted, Sara reached out to an older friend — someone she knew she could count on not to gossip or pry, but to pray.
The woman responded with reassurance. "When God alerts us to something that is not right in our children's lives," she said, "it's not because He wants us to be worried or scared; it's because He wants us to pray. Our prayers open the door to God's redemption, protection, and blessing in our kids' lives."
PRAYER PRINCIPLE
God doesn't want us to be worried or scared; He reveals things so that we can pray.
Noting that Allison likely felt embarrassed by what she had seen (and maybe scared to admit it), Sara's friend pointed her toward Psalm 25 as a prayer prompt:
Let Allison put her hope in you, Lord, and let her never be put to shame. (Psalm 25:3)
Relieve the troubles of Allison's heart; free her from her anguish. Take away all her sins. (Psalm 25:17-18)
Guard Allison's life, rescue her, be her refuge. May integrity and uprightness protect her. (Psalm 25:20-21)
Sara and her husband continued to pray verses like these, trusting in the Genesis 50:20 promise that God could take something so clearly intended for evil and use it to bring about something good in Allison's life.
It wasn't long before He did. The following Sunday, after hearing their pastor talk about the freedom that comes with confession and the triumph of grace over shame, Allison pulled Sara aside.
"I need to talk to you, Mom."
Allison broke down and revealed all that had happened, including her attempts to cover up what she'd seen by lying about it. As she confessed, Sara saw her daughter's countenance change. It was as if a cloud had lifted. Allison's shadowy face became joyful and radiant.
The transformation made sense to Sara. "When we keep things hidden," she said, "it always leads to deeper and darker things. It's a mercy, not a burden, to be found out."
- Andy Crouch, The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2017), 51.
- See Crouch, Tech-Wise Family, 26.
- Cited in Ashley Welch, "Health Experts Say Parents Need to Drastically Cut Kids' Screen Time," CBS News, August 6, 2018
- Cited in Crouch, Tech-Wise Family, 169.
- Cited in "What's the Average Age of a Child's First Exposure to Porn?" Fight the New Drug, January 28, 2020
- Cited in "Pornography Statistics," Covenant Eyes
- Prayers reflect Psalm 18:28 1 John 1:9–10
Excerpted with permission from Praying the Scriptures for Your Children by Jodie Berndt, copyright Jodie Berndt.
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