We parented 6 teens through adolescence spanning 3 decades (4 were teenagers at the same time) Our experience and study of the Scriptures convinced us of one very important thing: As parents we needed to know and anticipate the various kinds of traps that were being set for our children. This series of podcasts addresses The Deadly Traps for Teens. In the future we’ll feature two additional series addressing additional traps.
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Bob: The road along which a teenager travels has traps on either side.
Teenager: Dad? Dad? Slow down. I can't see. Well, I know you can. Dad, are you sure this blindfold doesn't come off? What traps? Huh? Where? Hey, Dad, I'm going to let go for a second. I'll be okay, don't worry. I'm just going right over here. See? See, I'm fine. There, see? Nothing happened. There weren't any traps. Huh? Where am I going? Just out. Dad, I know, I still have the blindfold on, and you've been down this – I know, I know – bye.
(footsteps and then teenager yells)
Dad?
Bob: Ouch. This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, July 9th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. The road to adolescence is paved with deadly traps. Stay tuned.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Monday edition, and there you have it. You heard the sound of another teenager in the snare.
Dennis: Yeah, and did you hear that cry – "Hey, Dad." Have you ever done that?
Bob: I've been off in some of those snares as I wandered my way through adolescence.
Dennis: That's right, and I've cried out, and sometimes I've been too far away from home, Bob, yeah, and it's a serious matter, though. We're laughing about it – these snares that are in existence today for teenagers are all too real and all too dangerous.
Bob: We're going to be talking this week about some of the deadlier snares that are laid for our teenagers in our culture today, and this is material that comes out of a book that you and your wife, Barbara, have written recently. In fact, Barbara is in the studio with us. Hi, Barbara.
Barbara: Hi, Bob.
Bob: The name of the book is …
Dennis: … oh, no, you've got to do more than that, Bob. I mean, she is denying all types of motherly and wifely duties to be in here, and I just feel like (applauds).
Bob: That's right. We're glad you're along, our listeners are glad you're along …
… good …
Dennis: … yeah, back by popular demand. You know, we were having dinner last night with a couple and they said, "You know, we really like it when Barbara is on the broadcast."
Bob: And I really appreciate, too, and I know Barbara does, that you have offered, Dennis, to do a lot of the laundry and a lot of the dishes as a result of Barbara …
Barbara: … yeah, dinner is the big thing.
Dennis: I don't remember that.
[laughter]
Bob: We're going to be talking about things that come out of a book that the two of you have recently written. It's entitled, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and remind us of what are the big concepts that parents need to be aware of as we go through the process of raising our children.
Dennis: Well, the book is really built around three underlying assumptions, and the first one is so important. In fact, over the next few days the listeners are going to hear us over and over again pound the table about being relationally involved in our children's lives – not merely being at their events, not just going with them but having our hearts connected soul-to-soul.
Bob: Barbara, if you don't have the relationship in place, you're really headed for some turbulent waters as you head into adolescence, aren't you?
Barbara: Yeah, because it's so easy for our teenagers to get involved in myriads of activities – just thing after thing after thing, and they're after school at practices, and they're going to ball games at night, and they're getting up early to do things, and you just don't see them anymore, and unless you've got connecting points, unless you're pursuing that teenager and asking questions constantly – where are you going? What are you doing? What's happening in your life? Who are you hanging out with? and pursuing that child to get to know that child and stay after it, you're going to end up going your separate ways.
Dennis: Yeah, in fact, last night Barbara and I were both up late with a teenager on our bed, and it was fascinating, because we were having a discussion around one of these traps that gets an adolescent. It's the trap of deceit. And our daughter was on the edge of the bed down near one corner, and I looked at her, and I said, "Sweetheart, you need to understand that it's not you in one corner of life and us in the other corner, and that we, as your parents are adversaries. We are in your corner, and we're fighting for you, and we want to keep you out of these deadly traps that are going to get teenagers."
And I just need you to know and need you to understand that, as parents, the reason we love you and are going to battle for you is because we want to save you from the pain that we just heard at the beginning of the broadcast of that teenager walking off into that trap.
And I said to that teenage daughter, "Do you understand what we're saying? We're really pulling for you? We're not against you. And, finally, all too late last night, she nodded her head and said, "Yes, Daddy."
And it was an acknowledgement that only came about after a 30-minute conversation, Bob, that ...
Peer Pressure
Episode 2
Sunday, November 3, 2019 • Duration 23:03
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 2 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Peer Pressure
Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. It's Tuesday, July 10th, and we thought we'd do something a little different today – we're broadcasting from outdoors here on the Montana prairie.
Dennis: It's beautiful out here, isn't it?
Bob: It is beautiful.
Dennis: Big Sky Country – man, the grass is so green and fresh, wow.
Bob: The wind is kind of warm.
(rumbling noise)
Dennis: What's that? What is that, Bob? Did you hear that?
Bob: I do hear that.
Dennis: Bob, the ground's shaking.
Sex - Part 1
Episode 3
Sunday, November 3, 2019 • Duration 22:14
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
Bob: If you're a parent, have you challenged your son or your daughter to wait until marriage to become sexually active? Barbara Rainey says maybe you haven't given enough of a challenge.
Barbara: We've realized with our kids that the standard of maintaining their virginity is not enough, because when a young girl and a young boy get together, and they decide they like each other, and they begin holding hands and hugging and kissing and other things, what's happening is they're damaging their purity; they're losing their innocence.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 11th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. As parents, how can we challenge our teenagers to a high standard of moral purity? We'll talk about that today.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. This week we are spending some time looking at the traps that have been set for our teenagers throughout our culture and what we can do as parents to help steer our children around these traps so that they don't become ensnared. And what we're talking about comes from a book by Dennis and Barbara Rainey called "Parenting Today's Adolescent," and Barbara joins us in the studio today. Hi, Barbara, nice to have you back with us.
Sex - Part 2
Episode 4
Sunday, November 3, 2019 • Duration 24:57
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 4 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Sex
Bob: Parents often wonder – when should we have "the talk" with out children? Dennis Rainey says it shouldn't just be "the talk," it ought to be "the talks."
Dennis: I've really found that there are different segments that we go through with our children, whether boys or girls, that I've certainly taken our boys through. First of all, it's just the ABCs of sex – it's the birds and the bees, it's the biological facts about sex, and I honestly believe today that has to be in place by age 10. If you've not had that conversation with your child, the world is having it.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, July 12th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We'll talk today about the big talk parents need to have with their children – what, when, and how?
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. We have been wandering through a field full of traps this week on the program because, as parents, we need to visit and learn where the traps are so that we can be about our job of leading our children through a field of traps that they're going to face as adolescents.
Dating - Part 1
Episode 5
Sunday, November 3, 2019 • Duration 24:02
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 5 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Dating
Bob: There are times when a conversation between a father and his daughter can be a little awkward.
Dad: Hi, Jules, how was gymnastics?
Julie: Good. I landed the double tonight.
Dad: All right, way to go. Jules, how are you doing with the guys?
Julie: Okay.
Dad: You know, your mom and I have been talking about you and all those boys who call on the phone.
Julie: Great.
Dad: Your mom and I just want to make sure you know what you stand for as you get old enough to date, you know what I mean?
Julie: I know, Dad.
Dating - Part 2
Episode 6
Saturday, November 2, 2019 • Duration 22:43
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 6 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Dating
Bob: If you're the parent of a teenager, you may have noticed that your son or daughter during the teenage years is paying a lot more attention to members of the opposite sex. Barbara Rainey says you need to parent with a strategy in mind.
Barbara: What we're trying to do through these years of junior high, but particularly high school, is to help our kids see what it is they're looking for in a person to marry. What are the standards they want? What are the criteria that they would like to be there? What are the values that they would like for this person to hold? So we begin talking about those kinds of things and helping them begin to think, "What's best for me? What does God want me to have someday in a mate?"
We've tried to teach our kids that the best way to find out those kinds of things is through having a friendship with another person, it's not through a dating relationship where everybody is on their best behavior; you only see each other in ideal situations and circumstances, but rather we're trying to train our kids to observe one another in ordinary situations.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. As long as your teens are noticing members of the opposite sex, make sure they're looking for the right stuff.
Media
Episode 7
Saturday, November 2, 2019 • Duration 24:06
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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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.
Pornography
Episode 8
Saturday, November 2, 2019 • Duration 20:48
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 8 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Pornography
Bob: Hi, this is Bob Lepine from FamilyLife Today. The subject matter we'll be dealing with on today's broadcast is of a sensitive nature and probably not one that you'll want to have children listening to. It's really aimed at more mature audiences, so let me encourage you to usher your children away from the radio and then join us for today's edition of FamilyLife Today.
A lot of guys today think of pornography of something that's essentially a harmless indulgence. I mean, it's not hurting anybody else, right? That's how they rationalize it. Whether it's sites visited on the Internet or magazines that are kept hidden away, pornography can have an impact not just on your heart, but it can also be visited to the next generation. Here is Dennis Rainey.
Dennis: I include in our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," a story of a young man who found pornography because his father had a stack of it in his closet, and his dad was sampling this stuff, and the boy found it, and it started a pattern in this young man's life that impacted his marriage, his family, and almost destroyed him as a man.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 18th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What can we do, as parents, to attempt to protect our children against the devastating damage of pornography?
Substance Abuse
Episode 9
Saturday, November 2, 2019 • Duration 24:53
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 9 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Substance Abuse
Bob: Have you heard about a new drug called cheese? Have your teenagers heard about it? If they have, and you haven't, then we've got a problem. Here is Dennis Rainey.
Dennis: Do you think we have a problem with substance abuse? We've got a massive problem, and the problem is not a teenager problem. In my opinion, it's an adult problem. It's the failure of parents to be involved in their children's lives – guarding, protecting, and keeping them away from this type of substance that can destroy their lives.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, July 19th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What have you done to warn and protect your children about alcohol and drug abuse? Stay with us.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition. Last week and again this week, we have been talking about some of the pitfalls, some of the traps that face our teenagers as they walk through their teen years, and we've been talking about the need for proactive parenting; the need for us to pass along mature, godly wisdom to our sons and our daughters as they go through their adolescent years, which is something that the Bible talks about over and over again.
Unresolved Anger
Episode 10
Saturday, November 2, 2019 • Duration 23:24
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete.
The Deadly Traps of Adolescence
Day 10 of 10
Guest: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
From the series: Unresolved Anger
Bob: What does a parent do when he or she hears these words?
Child: I hate you, Mom. I hate you, Mom. I hate you [echoes].
Bob: Wow, that's hard to hear. That's something no parent wants to hear. Welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Friday edition. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. I think we've got parents who have probably heard those words from an angry son or a daughter in their home and, as we have talked this week about the traps that face teenagers, one of the traps that I think can take a parent by surprise, Dennis, is the trap of unresolved anger.
Dennis: You know, James, chapter 1, verse 19 directs us: "Let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger," slow to wrath. I think there's a reason why the Apostle James exhorted us thus. It's because every human heart that's ever been made is not quick to hear, is not slow to speak, and is certainly swift to be angry.
We have within us that natural tendency to get ticked off at other people. In fact, Barbara and I, on more than one occasion, have just kind of pushed back and go, "Why is it that there is so much conflict in our family?" And it's because we have so many people in our family. We have a lot of human beings.
Bob: There's a little bit of a …
Dennis: … feel it?
Bob: Uh-huh, it's coming. Look over on the – on the horizon!
Dennis: Bob, it's a bunch of them.
Bob: It's …
Both: The herd!
Dennis: That was kind of fun – we survived the buffalo stampede here.
Bob: I'm not sure we'll survive the teenage stampede.
Dennis: Oh, man.
Barbara: It lasts a little longer.
Dennis: It sure does.
Bob: We are talking this week on the broadcast about some of the traps that are laid for teenagers, some of the deadlier traps that are laid for young people as they go through the teenage years, and one of the traps that they face is the trap of the herd, it's the trap of peer pressure, Dennis.
Dennis: You know, Jeremiah, chapter 5, verse 26 says, "Among my people are wicked men who lie in wait like men who snare birds and those who set traps to catch men." That's peers – evil peer pressure can snare our children and can ruin their lives.
Bob: You know, Barbara, everywhere you look and listen and read and watch, you hear about peer pressure and its influence, and yet it's almost like we've heard so much about it that we've forgotten that it's real, and we're not sure how to define it or what to do with it. From a mom's standpoint, practically, what are the issues around peer pressure that are real issues for our families?
Barbara: To me the big issue for peer pressure is for mom and dad to stay involved. You need to know who the kids are that your child is hanging out with, who their friends are, and you need to be watching how those friends of your child are beginning to change, because all of our kids, as they move from elementary school in those early years of when they still like Mom and Dad.
But they move into junior high, all of our kids are going to change in some way or another, and we can't assume, as parents, that the kids that our children have been friends with since kindergarten, first grade, second grade, are still going to be the same kind of influence, the same kind of child, in junior high and high school that our child is going to be.
We can't assume that they're going to have the same value system, the same convictions, the same beliefs. We've seen it with all of our kids that some of the children that they've grown up with have taken a different fork in the road in junior high and that friendship changes, and if parents assume that those kids are going to just be the same kids, then we get blindsided.
Dennis: You know, in that passage I read in Jeremiah, chapter 5, it says "among my people are evil men." The most dangerous form of peer pressure will not come from the non-Christian audience. It will come from the youth group, from children who have been on the right path until they hit 13 or 15 and, all of a sudden, they steer down the wrong path, and they begin to take a group with them.
In fact, there is a larger group in most youth groups heading down that path than there is down the path to righteousness and following Jesus Christ and, as parents, Barbara and I have spent a great deal of time being very careful analyzing who are our children hanging out with? What's their spiritual condition? Where are they headed – constantly monitoring who our children's friends are.
Bob: The bad kids are kind of obvious, even to our teenagers. It's the good kids who are starting to dabble in some bad things that can be the ones who pull our kids off into the ditch with them.
Dennis: Exactly, and it's important for our children to know when it's okay to run with the herd and what kind of herd they can run with and when it's time for them to graze alone. Paul warned in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 33, he said, "Don't be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals." All of our children have memorized that verse prior to going into adolescence, because they have to understand that peers are going to influence them, either for good or for evil.
Bob: You illustrate this principle in a really powerful way with your sixth grade Sunday school class that you taught for many years. How did you do it?
Dennis: Well, I brought a shiny apple into class, and I said that this apple is about to fall under peer pressure, and I let it spend some time with a couple of buddies, and these two buddies were bad apples, and they had bruises on them, and to make sure that the experiment worked, I'd actually bounced them off the floor a couple of times, so these were truly bad apples, okay?
And I actually hid the br...
Barbara: Thanks, Bob.
Bob: Dennis, these traps that face our teenagers can be invisible to us, as parents, but they can also be deadly to our kids.
Dennis: They can, in fact, I think that's why much of the scripture is warning us about snares and traps. There are more than 50 references in the Old Testament and New Testament to avoiding the snare of the enemy, or the trap of the evil person, and over in Proverbs, chapter 7, there's the warning against the adulteress, and although it's talking about a married man, I think it relates to our teenagers as we help them navigate the dangers of all the traps set before them.
It's speaking of the adulteress here in verse 21, "With persuasive words, she led him astray. She seduced him with her smooth talk. All at once, he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose, 'til an arrow pierces his liver like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life."
Then Solomon says, "Now, then, my sons, listen up, listen to me, pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her path." Why? Because there's a snare there – there's a trap there, and it may cost you your soul. It may destroy your life.
And, Bob, I think, as parents, we need to assume the responsibility that Solomon was with his son when he penned this book and sought to instruct his son in the way of righteousness. We need to help our children isolate and determine what those snares are, where the traps are being laid, and then help them understand how it happens, and he described the harlot here of persuading the young man with her words and then with her eyes, and he explained to his son how it all happened, and, you know, that's a picture of how we, as parents, are to help our children around these traps.
Bob: And, Barbara, the trap that Dennis has illustrated from the scriptures for us is the one that we're going to be spending time with today and tomorrow – it's the trap of illicit or premarital sexual relations, and whether it's a young lady who is subtly enticing our sons to be sexually involved with her, or a young man who is putting pressure on our daughters to be sexually involved with him, our kids are undoubtedly going to experience, going to face this temptation, this snare, of how involved they're going to be with a member of the opposite sex.
Barbara: And it starts earlier than many of us would ever expect, and that's what I think catches us, as parents, off guard, is that it begins in junior high, and our kids, our girls and our boys, our sons, are faced with this temptation very early on by children who are more grown up, who are raised in a more promiscuous background than we were, who have been exposed to more things in the sexual area than our children have been, and our kids are exposed to that, and they need to know what to do, they need to know what their standards are, they need to know how to make a decision about it.
Dennis: One of the reasons why we have come up with this material, Bob, is out of our sixth grade Sunday school class. We taught that class for more than 11 years and taught more than 500 11- and 12-year-olds. Now, that's a lot of sixth graders, and when we started teaching that class, we looked out over them, and we made a wrong assumption.
We thought, "They're little, they're small, they're young, they're not ready to be challenged in some of the most fundamental areas of life." And I’m going to tell you, over the 11 years we taught that, if those children taught me anything, it was that assumption was dead wrong. Eleven and 12-year-old children, and I believe even down to the age of 10, are capable of beginning to hear some very mature material around building their own convictions and beliefs and taking a stand for certain things.
In fact, one of the things that shocked me was, one of the times when I was teaching about sex to these kids, and I wouldn't talk about the birds and the bees – I always talked about the character issues – your choices and what are you going to do with the opposite sex when you get alone with them?
I asked them how far they would go with the opposite sex, and I'll share later on, in the next couple of broadcasts, what they said, but what shocked me was they already knew. They had already drawn some lines in their mind of how far they were going to go in terms of physical involvement with the opposite sex, and what hit me about this is that, here they are, many of them haven't even broken into puberty yet. They haven't experienced electricity, and they're already figuring out how to turn on the light bul...
Dennis: Yeah, I thought you were going to the field of dreams there – you know, adolescence is no field of dreams – it's a picture, I believe, of a parent walking through this trap-infested field with a teenager having a blindfold on and being barefoot, scooting along very closely behind the parent with his hands on the parent's shoulder, and the parent guiding him around all these traps because they're dangerous.
Job, chapter 18, describes the scene, I think, beautifully – verse 8 – "His feet thrust down into a net, and he wanders into its mesh. A trap seizes hold by the heel; a snare holds him fast; a noose is hidden for him on the ground; a trap lies in his path." Now, listen to this summary – "Terrors startle him on every side and dog his every step. Calamity is hungry for him, disaster is ready for him when he falls."
That's the picture of a teenager moving from childhood through those perilous adolescent years to adulthood and maturity, and it's our responsibility, as parents, to go ahead of our children and guide them through this process.
Bob: Barbara, there are too many 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 15-year-olds, and 18-year-olds out wandering in that field with the blindfold on and nobody leading them at all.
Barbara: Except the culture.
Bob: Yes.
Barbara: And the culture is doing a good job of it, and they're out there alone, or they're out there with a bunch of their buddies, a bunch of their friends, and they're wandering around, just looking for direction, for anybody to tell them what to do, and that's why they get sucked into these traps all the time.
Bob: Where are Mom and Dad?
Barbara: Mom and Dad have usually abdicated. They've just pulled back, and they've either decided they can't handle this kid, or they've decided this is too much, and he's just going to do what he's going to do, anyway, and I'm just not going to worry about it.
Bob: Dennis, that's part of the reason you and Barbara sat down to spend the hours writing this book to call Mom and Dad back to their post.
Dennis: I think a lot of parents are losing heart in this culture. This is not an easy time to raise a child, and especially not an easy time to raise a teenager. The culture doesn't reinforce our standards, if we have standards. In fact, the culture is attacking those parents who have standards.
And so, frankly, this is a time to call parents to be courageous, and that's what we attempted to do in this book – kind of put our arms around a parent or a single parent and say, "You know what? You can do it with the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit with God as the builder of your home, you know what? You can raise a child to make it through this trap-infested field, and he can make it to maturity and not be maimed or injured for life as a result."
Bob: Yesterday on the broadcast we talked about the trap of sexual immorality, and you encouraged us, as parents, to raise the standard higher than the current cultural standard. Even within the Christian community, we've set the bar too low, as you see it.
Dennis: That's right. I've got a letter here that was passed on to me by a grandmother who worked in our ministry here for a number of years. Her name is Pat Orten [sp], and Pat is a dear person, but she wrote about how her mother helped draw lines and boundaries around her life.
Now, you can tell by the sound of this letter that this is from another era, but I don't think all of what's represented here is a bad era at all. I think we need to return to some of the standards represented in this note that she slipped me.
She writes – "I remember my mom drawing the line for me when I began to date. She instructed me about how a guy should and should not touch me with his hands. For example, she said to never let a guy place his hand on my knee. I see so many dating couples with their hands on each other's knee or with his hand in her back pocket of her jeans, and I always remember my mother's words.
Because that line was drawn, my husband and I remained pure in our four-year dating relationship before we were married. I can still recall more than 40 years ago the pleasure we both experienced when my husband put his hand on my knee as we drove off on our honeymoon. He laughed and said he'd been waiting for four years to do that." I love it.
Barbara: I do, too.
Dennis: I really do love that.
Barbara: &n...
Dad: I want to ask you a very personal question and, listen, you've got the freedom not to answer if you don't want to, okay?
Julie: Sure, Dad, why not?
Dad: Have you thought through how far you're going to go physically with the opposite sex?
Julie: Uh-huh.
Dad: Well, then, would you mind telling me how far you intend to go?
Julie: I know, Dad.
Dad: Where are you going to draw your boundaries, Jules? Your limits?
Julie: Dad, I know what's right and what's wrong, okay?
Dad: Okay, I'll take that for an answer – for now.
Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Friday edition of our broadcast. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and, Dennis, your wife Barbara joining us this week as well. I'm Bob Lepine, and the tension in that car between that dad and that daughter …
Dennis: … did you hear her keep turning that radio up?
Bob: She did not want to talk.
Dennis: I've been there.
Bob: I've been there, too – got a few radios turned up on me in the conversation. This is a particularly difficult issue for parents to deal with, with their children. We've talked on the last couple of broadcasts about how we've got to press through some of that negative static we get from our kids, and get to the core issues around physical involvement, sexual involvement.
But one of the other traps facing our children as they walk through the teenage years is a trap that is right alongside the trap of sexual intimacy. It's the trap of dating. In fact, it may be the gateway. I think you probably have to step in the dating trap before you usually ever get to the sexual relationship trap, and that's where a lot of parents have got to be shrewd in this culture.
Dennis: You know, parents have got to realize that as our children grow up and into the teenage years, there are going to be these hidden traps, these hidden snares, that will be set for them, and I think one of the biggest ones that they will face is this issue of dating.
I think of the verse over in Psalm 142, verse 3 – it says, "When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way. In the path where I walk, men have hidden a snare for me. Look to my right and see no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge. No one cares for my life."
Well, the psalmist didn't feel that, but a teenager ought to be able to say, "I have a parent. I have a mom and a dad. I have a mom, a dad, and a grandparent who care about my way and who are looking out for the hidden snare of dating and the attraction to the opposite sex."
Bob: I think the big question, Barbara, for a lot of kids, as they approach junior high, and they start to develop some interest in members of the opposite sex is – when can I start? How soon can I start dating? And that question might creep up on you.
Barbara: Oh, I think it does creep up on you, just like a lot of this other stuff creeps up on parents of adolescents. We discovered that early on with Ashley, our oldest. We were at a conference, and we were there with another family, and this other family had a son who was a year older than Ashley, and they had been friends for years, and we just didn't think a whole lot about it. But they decided one day they wanted to take a walk together and go get a Coke, and we let them go, and then kind of later on we realized they spent some time together alone. They're 12 and 13 years old.
Dennis: Yeah, she was 12 years old.
Barbara: Yeah, and she kind of likes him, and he kind of likes her and, gosh, I think she just had a date, and we just kind of realized, all of a sudden, that we had allowed her to spend time alone with a boy, and that seemed to be a good definition of a date, and we weren't prepared for that. But, in essence, that is what happened with Ashley, is she was alone with a boy that she liked, and he liked her, and she really had her first date at 12.
Bob: Dating today has become just the accepted practice of American teenagers. It's just what you do when you're in junior high and in senior high, and many parents have said, "Well, I guess that's the way it is, and yet you all see some real dangers in the way we do dating today with our kids, don't you?
Dennis: ...
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us. One of my all-time favorite movies is one that I know a lot of people have seen – the movie "The Princess Bride." You know, there's a scene in that movie where Wesley and the princess are moving through the forest, and I forget whether she falls into the quicksand first, I think she does, and then he falls into the quicksand or dives in to pull her out. But nobody saw the quicksand as they were walking through the forest. She just, all of a sudden, fell right into that trap.
And I was thinking about that movie when I was thinking about what we talked about last week and what we're going to be talking about this week, and that is the traps that are in the middle of the forest that our teenagers are walking through.
In your book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," you outline a number of traps that have been laid out for teenagers, and, by the way, Barbara Rainey is joining us this week on our program as well and, Barbara, we're glad to have you here.
As parents, we need to be guiding our children on their journey through the dark forest because we know where the traps are. We've been down this road before, and we can point out the spots to them to avoid so that they don't become ensnared.
Dennis: You know, it is interesting – we do know where the traps are. We were all teenagers. We experienced it, we experienced the peer pressure, we experienced the temptations of dating, and yet isn't it fascinating that parents can just kind of stick their head in the sand, and we can say, "Well, kids will be kids. They can just kind of make it on their own."
When we do that, we set our children up to get their marching orders from peers, from the world, from the culture, or from the enemy, and if I understand the scriptures correctly, we, as parents, are to form a partnership with God – Psalm 127:1 talks about the "the Lord building the house."
And the person who ignores the Lord labors in vain, and what we've got to do, as parents, is we've got to seek the Lord, determine what we believe around these issues, and then begin to take some courageous stands, and what we're talking about here is radical, radical stuff with teenagers.
You're not going to be voted in as the most popular with your teenagers as you raise them, but you know what? You're not running a popularity contest. You're a parent, I'm a parent, and I don't want my children to hate me, I want my children to love me but, more than that, I want our children to grow up to become God's man and God's woman, and that may mean for a period of time, whether it be a few hours, a few days, maybe a few months – that child may not like Dad very well.
Bob: Barbara, last week we talked about the trap of peer pressure that our children have to navigate around; we talked about sexual intimacy, and its inappropriateness outside of marriage; and then we began talking about the subject of dating, and you all have developed some strong convictions in this area with your children that are a little bit out of sync with the culture, but they're things you feel passionate about.
Barbara: Yes, we've decided for our kids that we want to protect them from getting involved in exclusive relationships that are going to stir up their emotions and potentially get them involved physically and sexually with the opposite sex, and we know that's not healthy. So in order to protect our kids, we've sort of redefined dating for our family. We've set some different standards for our kids in hopes that in the outcome our kids will be protected, and they'll be pure, and they'll be holy.
Dennis: The conviction we're talking about here is that, as parents, we have the responsibility and the authority to set the rules and boundaries for our children.
I'm going to say that again – we have the responsibility and the authority to set the rules and boundaries for our children.
The culture doesn't, the youth group doesn't – and I know I could get into trouble there – the youth group needs to reinforce, I believe, the standards of the family. That's the way it was intended to work. I think it needs to hold the standard up, call us to that, but I think it needs to be reinforcing what's being taught at home.
I don't think the youth group ought to be a surrogate parent for the child. I don't think the schools ought to be setting the boundaries or the rules for children. I don't think they've got the responsibility. ...
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...
And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition. Last week and again this week, we have been talking about some of the traps that have been laid for our teenagers as they walk through the teenage years and about the things that we can do, as parents, to be proactive in trying to help our teens navigate around these traps so that they don't become ensnared.
And the trap we're going to be talking about today, Dennis, is a dangerous trap. It's the trap of pornography.
Dennis: You know, Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life." What Solomon is talking about there is protecting the headwaters of the soul, because once you pollute the headwaters, the stream all the way out into the life of that person is impacted by that poison.
You know, Bob, you came in one day when we were working on the book, and we'd been talking around this issue about pornography, and you shared a story about how a leader in a church had been impacted by pornography that found its way into his life through Christian families.
Bob: Yeah, this particular individual had grown up in a Christian home and had not been exposed to anything like this at home, but he'd gone to babysit for other families in the church and, again, his parents assumed these families were good churchgoing families. There was nothing to concern them there.
But after the children were in bed, he found, hidden away in some of these homes, pornographic material, and it was his first exposure, and it grabbed hold of him and, Dennis, there is something about pornography that it just seems to get its claws on the soul of a man, and it won't let go.
Dennis: And it's that curiosity, I think, that the enemy uses with men and, I believe, with women as well, that hook them and where they develop a compulsive behavior that begins to habitually get into pornography and sample it, and it poisons the soul. It poisons the heart.
And what we have to do as parents, I believe, we are the guardians of our children's hearts. We are the ones who are to protect them from this evil, but it starts all the way back with our model, what we watch, what we do, what we bring into our homes.
I include in our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent," a story of a young man who found pornography because his father had a stack of it in his closet, and his dad was sampling this stuff, and the boy found it, and it started a pattern in this young man's life that impacted his marriage, his family, and almost destroyed him as a man.
Bob: Barbara, that's one of the challenges that parents face today. In Solomon's day, as we read in Proverbs, chapter 5, 6, and 7, you could pretty much warn your kids, "Stay out of this part of town, don't go in establishments like this, and you'll be protected from these images and from pornography." It has been so mainstreamed today that we can hardly let our kids out of the house.
Barbara: Well, we don't have to let our kids out of the house with the Internet. I mean, you know, that kind of stuff is everywhere, and that's what's so scary. But parents really need to be on guard, as Dennis was saying, in protecting our kids and watching where they are, where they're going, and even in letting them to go somebody else's house, like that story you told about that man when he was a young boy, finding it another Christian's home. We have to be so careful where we let our kids go and who we let them spend time with.
Bob: Then we've got to be asking a lot of questions at the same time, like the question you asked your son Benjamin one day when he came home from school.
Dennis: Yeah, and I asked him if he'd been looking at anything he ought not to be looking at, and he was about 12 or 13 years of age.
Bob: That's a pretty bold question for a dad just to grab his son and say, "Hey, have you been looking at anything you shouldn't be looking at?"
Dennis: Well, I think the spirit of God prompted me to do that, and I think what I want to encourage our listeners to do is when the Lord begins to burden you with something with your children, step on in there and ask the question.
Benjamin had come home from school. We were in the kitchen, and I asked him that question, and it was like he was struck wi...
Dennis: It does. In fact, Proverbs, chapter 13, verse 14 says, "The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life to turn aside from the snares of death."
You know, the Book of Proverbs was written by Solomon, I think, primarily to teach his son. Proverbs 13, 14 really exhorts a child to listen to the teaching of a wise person, because it brings forth life, but it also warns that, as parents, what we're helping our children do is turn aside from a snare that would produce death.
Bob: And the trap that we're going to be talking about on the broadcast today is one that has tragically claimed the lives of countless thousands of young people.
Dennis: Well, listen to these statistics, and these come from the PRIDE, which is the National Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education, which, Bob, is an incredible survey of more than 129,000 students in the sixth grade all the way through the 12th grade, done in more than 26 states across the country, and they found that of all sixth through twelfth graders, 29.5 percent of them had used an illicit drug at least once in the past year.
Bob: Three out of 10?
Dennis: Three out of the 10 – marijuana, of those in grade 6 through 8, 13.6 percent used marijuana at least once this past year. And then you take alcohol, of those who are in middle school – 44.5 percent have used alcohol at least once in the past year. Then there's smoking – of those in middle school, 31.1 percent have smoked cigarettes at least once during that school year, and of those in high school, 48.2 percent.
Do you think we have a problem with substance abuse? We've got a massive problem, and the problem – this is going to sound radical – the problem is not a teenager problem. In my opinion, it's an adult problem, it's the failure of parents to be involved in their children's lives – guarding, protecting, drawing boundaries around their children's lives, and keeping them away from this type of substance that can destroy their lives.
Bob: I've got to confess to you my own naivete in this area. When I was in the 9th grade, I was standing at my locker one day, and a fellow who was on the football team with me came up and leaned up against the locker next to mine, and he said, "Hey, Bob, you interested in a bag of marijuana?" And I said, "No, I don't think so." He says, "Okay, it's cool," and walked away.
I went home and told my parents, and we called the police, and the police captain came out to our house and took a report, and then I got to thinking, "I've got to go back to school the next day, and the word is going to get around, undoubtedly." Well, the word didn't get around as to who, but we did hear later on that this young man had been expelled from school. Obviously, I was not the only target of his interest in selling marijuana.
But that's about the only time in my life that I've had any kind of a run-in with illicit drugs, and throughout high school and college I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, and I was pretty square.
Barbara: Yeah, I was, too, Bob. I didn't do any of that stuff and, for me, it was primarily because I was afraid to. I just didn't – I was just chicken. I didn't want to get into alcohol, and there were kids who started drinking when we were in high school and started smoking when we were in high school. Drugs, I don't think, were much of a problem when I was a teenager, however, it was starting to make inroads into college. But I just didn't want to have anything to do with it, because I just was afraid of it.
Bob: Afraid of what it would do?
Barbara: Afraid of what it would do and afraid of the consequences, and I knew it wasn't right, and I just wasn't going to mess with it.
Dennis: You know, I had enough choices when I was a teenager – I'm glad I wasn't a teenager in this era, because between alcohol, marijuana, the pills that people have to numb them, I mean, children today have a lot more alternatives when it comes to substance abuse, and parents have a bigger task, I think, because they're available, in many cases, in people's homes.
Bob: And in some cases, Dennis, the problem that our kids are facing really stems back to what's being modeled for them, again, by their parents.
Dennis: Yeah, I look back to some of the decisions that Barbara and I made early on in our marriage, and this is one of them. We were going to model a life that didn't bring this stuff into our home, and I can't help but wonder toda...
Bob: Barbara, welcome to the broadcast. There is something about childish anger that we see displayed in a three-year-old or a four-year-old who doesn't get his or her way and, as adults, we almost smile at some of those expressions of anger just because they're so immature. But we quit smiling when it's a 13-year-old or a 15-year-old who is expressing some mixture of childish anger and adult response.
Barbara: Yeah, because it's a lot more difficult to handle. A little three-year-old or a four-year-old, you're still bigger than they are, you can reason with them, you can put your arms around them and love them, and you know you can probably make it okay pretty quickly as a parent. You know you can fix it.
But with a teenager you don't know that you can fix it, you don't know what the problem necessarily is, and the volume goes up and the rage goes up, and because of their size, they can do more damage, not only to someone else but to themselves, and so it's a much more frightening prospect to have an angry teenager.
Dennis: And many times the source is not the child. The source is the parent.
Bob: What do you mean?
Dennis: Well, I want to read you a story from our book, "Parenting Today's Adolescent."
We begin by asking the question, "Have you ever had a scene like this at your house? Two of our teenagers were asked to clean the kitchen together. Over the next 45 minutes I came back in to inspect their work three times. The first time they were arguing about who had done the most. I asked them kindly to keep on working. The next time I came back they were bickering about who had to sweep the floor. I calmed their emotions and encouraged them to finish the job. Finally, after I'd inspected their half-hearted work, the two of them gave me this lame excuse that they didn't know what a clean kitchen should look like."
Bob: Now, hang on. You're sounding angry even as you read the story.
Dennis: As I relive this, this makes me mad. Well, I write in the book – "That did it. This normally unflappable dad flipped. The anger that I controlled during the prior visits erupted and spewed out like lava. I went on a tirade about how they were so disrespectful and how they were conning me and just generally being disobedient.
I picked up a box of Kleenexes, and in an unsanctified flurry of rage, flung the box near their feet – hard. I whirled around, stormed out of the kitchen, stomped out the front door, slamming it shut. Standing there on the front porch with my blood pressure higher than the stock market, two profound thoughts dawned on me.
First – 'It's really cold out here. Why am I standing here freezing and those two teenagers are inside warm as toast? I'm the father, I'm the one who is paying for this house, and I'm supposed to be in charge.' The second thought settled like the cold in my bones and pierced me – 'My anger has gotten the best of me. I'm acting like a foolish child.'"
I conclude the story by writing, "I don't recall how long I stayed outside, nor do I recall the exact words of my apology to our children that followed. I do recall coming to an important realization – if I'm going to do my part in helping these children grow up emotionally and know how to appropriately express their anger, then I've got to finish the process of growing up, too."
Bob: And, you know, there's not a parent listening – okay, maybe there's one or two, and I want to meet them someday …
Barbara: So do I.
Dennis: Yeah, really, I do, too.
Bob: But most of us have been pushed right up to that point by our kids, where we just get so frustrated that all that comes out is the lava that you described as you shared that story. We just erupt in anger. What's at the core of an angry response, whether it's on the part of a parent or a child?
Barbara: Well, I think, a lot of times, the core is a feeling of hurt. I think our kids get hurt at school, they get hurt by one another because siblings are just unmerciful to one another.
