It’s pretty horrifying looking at your little guy and thinking about him sitting in front of the computer screen looking at garbage like that, but the research is showing that boys are being exposed to internet pornography earlier and earlier, and more and more seriously. We’ve heard of boys as young as ten getting their fathers in trouble at work by looking at porn on their dads’ laptops. How can we protect them? How can we keep them out of the red light district when it’s right there in our own living room?

Here are a few things that you can do to protect your sons as much as possible:

• Talk about sexuality with your boys early and often, in the course of normal life, and always in the context of God’s law, marriage, and family. “Yes, son, that lady is dressed inappropriately. She’s showing parts of her body God meant for her husband alone. I wonder how he feels about that?”
• Warn them that temptation lurks out there and they have an enemy who desires to harm them and their future wives (Porn is not a victimless crime, it harms the watcher, the watcher’s mate, the subjects, and their families). Show them how to shrink a window to hide a sidebar, remind them to think carefully what they are searching on, tell them never to guess at a url.
• Install accountability software on every computer your family has access to. We like Covenant Eyes, we’ve used it for years. It will email you an easy to check report on each user in your family each week. Just knowing they are bound to get caught is a great deterrent.
• Teach them how to fight temptation when it comes. Here’s an excerpt from our book that explains how we do it:

A Fist to Knock Away Temptation

We do our best to protect our sons from temptation, but we know it is impossible to avoid it entirely – our own hearts provide temptation! Sons need to know what to do when they face the desire to sin. We tell our sons to use five important tools to fight off immoral thoughts:

1. Leave the situation. This is so important. If you are in the bathroom, get dressed and get out. If you are in bed, get up. If you are at a friend’s house, go home. Leave a situation that tempts you.

2. Pray and ask the Lord for forgiveness and help.

3. Read your Bible. The Word is a light to our feet and will guide us to do what is right.

4. Sing praises or hymns to God. Sometimes music can break through the coldness of our hearts.

5. Go to your authority and ask for help. Our sons have each done this more than once. They say, “Mom and Dad, I just keep having bad thoughts. Will you pray for me?”

We lift a finger for each of these as we remind them, then close all five into a fist and say, “Five ways that make a fist to knock away temptation.” We remind our sons of this often, because it is important that they realize that they are not helpless before temptation, but that God always gives a way of escape.

Raising Real Men, pp215-116

It’s a scary time to raise a boy. The enemy seems more determined than ever to embroil our sons in sin that will affect them all their lives. The worst thing we can do in the battle to protect our sons’ purity is to pretend there’s no battle at all. That leaves our boys unarmed and unprepared. Instead, we have got to overcome our own shyness, face the battle head on and prepare our sons to be warriors instead of victims. God hasn’t left us and He gives us all we need to follow Him. We want our boys to grow up to be truly knights in shining armor for their princesses.

For more on this topic, check out our hourlong workshop, Shining Armor: Your Son’s Battle for Purity. Use the link above or the discount code raisingrealmen to receive a free month of Covenant Eyes – and help support our ministry.

Hal & Melanie

Hal & Melanie Young are the authors of Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys, Christian Small Publishers’ 2011 Book of the Year. Check out their own blog, join them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter.

Copenhagen photo by Electra Stavrou

Originally Published at the MOB Society

Well, thank you, that’s very encouraging. Does it have to be that way? Does life with a teen have to be more difficult than life with an untrained toddler with no self-control? Is sullen, moody, rebelliousness just a part of growing up?

No!

Get prepared to make the teen years great at our exclusive Boot Camp 9-12!

What’s that? A series of LIVE webinars with Hal & Melanie Young, authors of the 2011 Book of the Year, Raising Real Men, for a small group of parents wanting to make the teen years great!

For more information or to register now (we’ll give you a refund if you win this door prize!), click here!

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]]> http://www.raisingrealmen.com/2011/11/bootcamp9-12/feed/ 34 http://www.raisingrealmen.com/2011/11/wholeheartedchild/ http://www.raisingrealmen.com/2011/11/wholeheartedchild/#comments Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:16:25 +0000 Hal http://www.raisingrealmen.com/?p=4262 Read More]]> God did not forget to include “school” in his biblical design for raising children—:home education is a natural expression of all that God intended for parents and their children. Clay and Sally Clarkson’s Educating the WholeHearted Child is about rediscovering God’s original design for the family. What you’ll find in this book is a homeschooling model that makes sense. It’s an approach that is based on sound biblical principles of nurture, discipleship, instruction, and learning. Newly revised and significantly expanded, Educating the WholeHearted Child is about much more than homeschooling; it is about life. Effective Christian homeschooling must begin with the sure foundation of a Christian home, and the Clarksons’ uncomplicated, common-sense approach to life and learning will provide you with the tools you need to experience God’s abundant blessings for your family.

Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay Clarkson with Sally Clarkson $22

Enter with PunchTab for extra entries or just leave a comment below.

This topical Bible for parents will help you use the Bible every time your children need instruction. Hundreds of Bible verses are organized according to 52 common types of misbehavior, along with numerous parenting ideas and suggestions.

We want our children to understand that “right” and “wrong” are absolutes, based on God’s standards, not ours. If we train our children to submit to the authority of God’s standards, those standards will not change when the children grow up and leave the authority of our homes.

Read more and download a free chapter

From Doorposts, a great source of Biblical parenting helps!

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Football seems to be a sport that our guys are good at and we love the spirit and principle of the league.

A major principle of the league is that family is important. Practices are two long nights a week, but all levels of one team (varsity, junior varsity, youth and mighty mite) practice at one location, so families aren’t separated. Games are on Saturdays and again, all the levels of one team play all the levels of another — so families just make a day of it at the park – bring tents, picnics, toys, etc and spend the day watching football games. Great fun for everyone.

We love the spirit that Coach Earl Pendleton has achieved in the League, too. Parents, coaches and players are expected to act like Christians. Flatten someone in a tackle? After the whistle, give him a hand up. Player injured? Everyone takes a knee and prays for him. Talk back to a ref? You’re ejected from the game. One referee told one of our boys that the refs compete to officiate at our games. He said they love the attitudes – no one ever cusses them out, players just say, “Yes, sir,” and comply. All that and hard-fought football, too? A ref’s dream come true!

An added bonus of football is that our guys are just plain easier to get along with when they are using up all that testosterone and energy on the field!

Read Chapter Six of Raising Real Men to see why boys want to compete on just everything or check out our workshop, Ballistic Homeschooling, to see how that attitude can motivate boys to get their schoolwork done.

But there is a practical question, quite apart from the trick-or-treat and bags-of-candy aspect. If you leave aside the more grown-up temptation to put don a mask and do anonymous mischief, what prompts our kids and particularly our boys to choose certain types of costumes and identities to put on?

“I think I know,” I said, moving into the turn lane. “I wondered the same thing about grown men wearing a hat with a superhero logo on it, and it’s the same as wearing an NFL jersey. Boys, and men, want respect. They want to be associated with the concept of strength, power, and capability, and if they can’t get respect, they’ll settle for being feared.

“I think the spooky costumes are a way of saying, ‘I’m not afraid of ghosts, but you should be afraid of me—Boo!’”

Working along that line of thought, I realized it has some interesting implications in how we parent our boys.

For one thing, how should we respond to that craving for respect in a boy? First, it’s our sons’ duty to learn obedience toward God-ordained authority. Jesus was the Son of God, but as a young man He submitted Himself to being governed by human parents: “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them … and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man,” the Gospel of Luke says of the twelve-year-old Jesus (2:51-52). Our sons do need to recognize that they have a place, and it’s not one of equality with their parents.

But even while we do that, we the parents can recognize his desire to be respected, even at a young age. Some people laugh about the “fragile male ego,” but it’s not really a laughing matter. A great deal of a man’s self-identity is wrapped up in his reputation. A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches (Proverbs 22:1).

As a practical matter, we try to be careful how we speak to our sons, especially in front of others—even family members. They need correction and even discipline from time to time—if you are left without discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not sons (Hebrews 12:8)—but as much as possible, we try to administer the correction in private. And when we need to just give them verbal direction, we try not to belittle them. Someone said that a small dog is just as big inside as a big one; I think it applies to boys in some ways, too.

That desire to be associated with strong examples is not a bad thing. Paul tells believers to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14) and to “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1 and several other places). So we try to get our boys really good examples to follow. The world and its media recognizes brute strength and the force of will; do your sons have examples of manly gentleness, humility, duty, and moral as well as physical courage?

This time of year, coincidentally, is the birthday of the Reformation. We always take time to talk about Martin Luther and his willingness to lay down his life for the sake of truth. “My conscience is captive to the Word of God,” he told the Emperor, “and to go against conscience is neither right nor safe … I cannot and I will not recant. Here I stand; I can do no other; God help me.” There’s a great B&W movie about him that we’ve probably watched twenty times. (You can also get it streaming on Netflix.)

Another example, not so famous, is the American historian Francis Parkman. He had to overcome incredible, painful illness and disability, to carry out his scholarly work documenting the history of the early American West. Theodore Roosevelt, a man of great character himself, dedicated one of his books to Parkman, and tells his story in Hero Tales from American History, a change from the stories of explorers and soldiers. Roosevelt also talked about John Quincy Adams’ long fight against slavery, serving as a Congressmen after he finished his term as president. (You can hear both of these stories on part 3 of our Hero Tales audiobook – see below!)

So as you see the little goblins in the streets this week, take a minute and think about the children underneath the masks. What are they thinking (besides “Who’s got the best candy,” I mean)? Are they looking for someone to follow? Or making a statement about what they’d like to be? Those can be some very interesting openings for you to follow up as a parent.

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR HEROES?  THESE RESOURCES CAN HELP!

Where Is Roy Rogers When You Need Him?  is our workshop about our boys’ need for heroes and role models, and ideas about where to find them. $5 on CD, or $4 for mp3 download.

NEW! Hero Tales from American History – Part 3

The next volume of our popular audiobook series from the book by Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge. Hear the dramatized stories of the backwoods general who beat the British army – a former president’s fight against slavery – the suffering scholar of the American West – and the opening battles of the War Between The States!  Introductory price only $5 (Regular price $7) To be released in November!

Or you can order the whole set – from the birth of George Washington to the War Between the States – for just $15 (Save $6 and get free shipping, too!)

Read Part One here and Part Three here of our thoughts on the season.

 She wasn’t talking about little girls dressed like ballerinas and fairies, but folks of any age play-acting the monster variety. Why, indeed, would anyone want to pretend to be a zombie, a vampire, or a ghost for a few hours?

 We’d had this conversation many times before, and we always return to our original answer: because of the symbolism, we don’t do Halloween. I know, and we’ve explained to our kids, 99 out of 100 people don’t give it a second thought, and that may be more like 9999 out of ten thousand. Still, we try to be people who follow the Lord with some conscious thought about what we’re doing and what we’re communicating.

And the usual Halloween routine communicates a couple of ideas which are polar opposites and both wrong. 

The first idea is that there’s nothing to the idea of demons, witches, and all the monstrosities we associate with the holiday. All superstition and ghost stories, they say. Nothing more than play acting at Halloween, all just good clean fun.

There’s a problem with that. Even if that’s true, it’s all just a game, people don’t just assume the fantastic shapes, the Frankensteins and werewolves of old black-and-white movies. They’re dressing in a lot of too-real ideas like victims of domestic violence and survivors of gruesome accidents and criminals of all sorts. Worse yet are the sick sexual fantasies, the pornographic teases of “naughty school girls” and wayward French housemaids and such. You can’t let the kids look at costume catalogs.

Even if these things are not real, there are people who think they are. Joe Leaphorn, the Navaho police detective featured in Tony Hillerman’s mystery stories, often encounters stories of “skin-walkers,” the shape shifters of Navaho legend. Leaphorn says in one of the early novels, “I don’t believe in skin-walkers, but I believe in people who do.” What he meant was that whether such things exist was immaterial; there are unmistakably real people who do believe in them and because of that belief, do things which have a real impact on those around them.

Missionaries encounter this all the time. Whether the local witch doctor or shaman has real spiritual power or not is somewhat beside the point; if the local people believe he has power, they fear him and defer to his will. The missionary has to overcome the social power this figure wields in order to free the people to follow Christ—the real spiritual power. 

On the other hand, we shouldn’t make light of real tragedy and real sin—don’t sugar coat it—as if it’s all a game. R.C. Sproul Jr. observed that erecting toy tombstones in your yard isn’t a laughing matter; death is real, and for many of us, a very, very bad prospect. It’s not a joke.

The second idea is that ghoulies and ghosties are real, but it’s okay to pretend about them. The Bible sort of squelches that for us.

Consider that when God established His people in a formal way, in the national identity of Israel, He explicitly told them to stay away from that stuff and the people that practice it:

There shall not be found among you … anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.  (Deuteronomy 18:10-12 ESV)

In fact, He made it a capital offense to follow these teachings (Leviticus 20:27) or consult with those who do (Leviticus 20:6). It’s one of the reasons He wiped out the ancient Canaanites and gave their land to the Jews.

It’s interesting that He doesn’t suggest that these people are truly powerful—He simply says we have to avoid it all. For them (and us), it’s a prostitution, seeking after forbidden  spirituality when you’ve already met the source of true spiritual power, no different than seeking sexual adventures outside of your marriage—except this time you’re cheating on God, and you can’t sneak around on Him.

It kinda takes the fun out of Harry Potter and Ouija boards.

The other option is that spiritual things are real, both good and bad. And if you believe the Bible and believe what Jesus Himself said, you have to take that as given.

Are there bad spirits in every tree and stone beside the road? I don’t see any evidence of it in Scripture or nature. But it’s plain to me that besides the evil that men do, there are spiritual forces, even personal ones, we need to take seriously. Jesus wasn’t playing make believe or joshing along the cultural superstitions when He confronted demons: there are many incidents in the Gospels where Jesus displayed his power over them, casting out unclean spirits which had oppressed individuals a variety of ways. [1]  Jesus never backed away from correcting misunderstandings and human additions to God’s word, even in the face of mob violence and physical threat to Himself, but He never “corrects” the “mythological” view that evil spirits are at work in some people’s lives. Instead, He defeats them, then teaches His people to understand their nature (see Luke 11:14-26, for example) and how to combat them (Mark 9:28-29, Matthew 17:19-21)  He took it seriously, as did the apostles.

If we believe the Bible, and we believe Jesus, then we need to believe that whatever nonsense and mythologies humans may have created in addition to the truth, there is a fundamental reality—there are beings and powers we need to be aware of and avoid, not toy with. Christ has overcome them on earth, and God overrules them throughout the universe, but we need to keep out of their reach just the same.

And for that reason, well, let’s just say we don’t get into the spirit of Halloween.

(More tomorrow, on why boys in particular may be attracted, and what that suggests about our parenting them!)

King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, John Gilbert (1817-1897)

 King Henry V of England was hopelessly outnumbered by the approaching French Army, but he stood firm and roused his troops, commending them to the hands of God and each other, and led them to a decisive victory that was the beginning of the end of the dominance of the nobility in warfare. For centuries, the heavily armored knights on horseback fielded by the nobility of each land were the overwhelming force of warfare. Henry, instead, placed his English longbowmen in the forefront of battle — and defeated the French horse! Some say the “V for victory” sign descended from the victory salute of the two stringfingers of the longbowmen in response to a French before-battle threat to cut off the string fingers of all the longbowmen after they won.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Henry V, William Shakespeare

“What purpose do you think God had in making you big brother to your little brothers and sisters? What do you think He wants you to accomplish in their lives?”

"Keep them safe."

and

“Why do you think God gave you as little brother or sister to your older brothers? What role do you think you should play in their lives?”

"Share memories."

Our six year old daughter was the first to respond, it’s usually easier for girls to think about relationships, it’s the way they are wired, but everyone eventually participated.

"Show them how it's done."

I was very interested to see their encouraging response when right after we broke up, a younger sibling cut himself with his pocketknife and got an emergency trip to the doctor. You know, telling about a missionary who gave himself an appendectomy wouldn’t have occurred to me as a way to calm down a boy getting stitches (guys really are different than girls , but it sure worked! Glad we had that talk!

"Teach them to love the Lord."

I’m not an “early adopter” of whatever comes down the road–I think I didn’t upgrade to Windows 95 until Windows 98 came out. Movies are a little different, and there may not be many days left in the theater schedule for this one. My two-word recommendation: GO NOW. The extended recommendation: GO NOW, AND TAKE YOUR SONS.

“Courageous” is the story of five men in a small Georgia town, each of them grappling with issues of fatherhood–their relationship with their fathers as boys, and their own performance as dads now that their turn has come. Each of them has issues to confront, and some are seriously troubled; there are situations with divorce and joint custody, abandonment, unwed parents and absentee fathers. The central character, a sheriff’s deputy named Adam Mitchell (played by Alex Kendrick), is a basically decent man with a defective relationship with his son and obvious favor for his younger daughter. He is wrenched into facing his complacent–and inadequate–approach as a father; his soul searching spreads to his friends, and you see how God’s grace and a commitment to honor Him in their roles as fathers and men plays out in different families, situations, and temptations.

There are discussions, examples, and warnings on a range of family issues. How can a man reconnect with a son who’s become alienated toward him? What can a father do to protect his daughter’s heart? How do you hold on to faith in a loving God in the face of death, poverty, fear, and shame? What can you do when the father is absent–or when you find yourself in that role?

None of these can be explored in detail in the short compass of a feature film, but the important thing is the basic themes and principles which are displayed: Fathers are critically important for a child, especially a son. A man has to take responsibility for his wife, his children, and his own actions. God expects a lot from us as men–and He will provide the guidance and strength we need. And a father must “Never let go of the wheel,” as one character learns to his sadness–not to tyrannize his family (this is never implied, even in the more defective families shown), but to keep guiding them toward the place God would have them go.

Four of the men are sheriff’s deputies, and this is a way to explore the problems fatherlessness is creating in many communities–gang membership, drug use, and generations of irresponsible behavior. It also shows how no one is immune to similar problems; Adam is faithful to his wife, a generally upright man, at least nominally Christian, but through conflict with his son and distraction of his high-pressure, dangerous occupation, is slipping into patterns of the absent father even while he’s home every evening. This is important to emphasize; it’s too easy to point to the illegitimacy rate and criminality in some areas, or the infidelity and worldliness wrecking other families, and say, “Thank you, Lord, that I am not like other men.” More often, we need a prophet Nathan to catch our lapels and say, “Thou art the man.”

The film has some pretty intense action sequences–they’re deputies, after all–and sometimes there are children in danger (none are ever shown hurt). There is a pretty brutal gang initiation scene and some serious fights between the deputies and suspects. One suspect is wounded in a shootout (it didn’t seem to slow him down much!) and there is a very little bit of blood after a fight scene (about the level of a bruise and a busted lip). My nine-year-old son has a sensitive spirit and a few scenes made him uncomfortable, but okay with Dad’s arm around him. He did say he was glad the movie was made from a Christian perspective, so he knew it would turn out okay.

Frankly, there were several scenes which caught me emotionally. As someone once told me, and as I told my sons afterward, once you’re a husband and father, you never read the newspaper the same way again–any time a woman or child is in danger, it tears at you in a way you never knew as a single guy. And the conflicts these men come through are pretty familiar territory for us guys.

One that doesn’t play much part here is sexual. There are things in the backstory of some characters — one confesses he had “a hookup with a cheerleader” in college and when he told her to “take care of it,” she chose not to have an abortion. One man mentions his father “had an affair” and another that his parents never married–in fact, that his father had six children with three different women, and he never met him. However, there isn’t any overt sex in the movie–some quiet expressions of affection like the kids might see in the kitchen, but nothing to hide their eyes from. I thought I heard one profanity in the climactic scene, and it was indistinct enough I probably misheard it; again, not something I’d worry over.

There is a presentation of the gospel during the film, but I think the power of “Courageous” is more for waking up the sleepy, lackadaisical men in the pews rather than direct evangelism. On the other hand, an awful lot of people in our part of the country (here deep in the “Bible Belt”) who consider themselves Christian never seem to engage with Christ’s real calling on their lives, so maybe being challenged to live what they claim to believe will show them where they’re missing.

My recommendation–go see it with your teenagers, and if you miss it in the theater, get the DVD. It’s a good film. It may be too intense for younger children (and some of the older girls might find it distressing) but for the older ones, it’s worth seeing and discussing. Kudos to Sherwood Pictures for another well-made, thought provoking experience.