Learning how to love and be loved is like archery lessons that teach us how to cast out fear: aim for the bulls-eye, where the love of God rests and there is peace. Hopefully we are all learning how to become better versions of ourselves, holding one accountable with a mercy and a heart full of hope and faith that the grace of God carries us forward closer to Him when we seek His face.

By my faith I know that something is only true if I allow it be so in my own mind. For I know that the only free society on the planet emanated from acting on one mustard seed of faith that God grants every human being intelligent life and free will. This is power that can never be taken, but is easily surrendered. This is the hope for all generations. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Psalm …

Certainly for families technology can be a very disruptive influence. The power crisis of mobile connectivity landing in the hands of youth, happening today at earlier ages, can be summed up in one question: when it is easy to believe that you can simply google anything you think you need to know, who needs a parent, teacher, coach or a benevolent deity to impart wisdom?

What do tech-savvy teens need from parents? They need parents to provide a safe place where they can talk about the real pressures and insecurities they face.

Do you remember the first time you experienced shame as a child? I do. When I was about seven years old, a neighbor’s child brought out a Polaroid photo of his mother, taken by his father, and showed it to all of the children gathered on the sidewalk. He had found it in her underwear drawer.

When to say yes and how to say no to friend requests is an important life skill for youth growing up with the intensified peer pressures of social media. In his book, Hurt.20: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers (Youth, Family, Culture), Dr. Chap Clark concludes that the modern teen, with all of the on-line connectivity to peers and family is an incredibly lonely and stressed out generation of adolescents. And according to Student Society For Science, a recent study finds that youth with too many friend connections in their social networks are at risk for increased levels of stress which floods the brain with cortisol thus impacting learning as well as quality of life and mental health.

The William Glasser Institute offers insights about human nature that has practical application for raising tech-savvy kids. Glasser’s Choice Theory describes how every individual has command and control over thoughts and actions, while feelings and the physiological responses (the senses and emotions) to life’s events and experiences individuals do not control -they just happen. This means that we can easily be deceived by the feelings inspired by experiences on and off line.

Cross Roads Church Next Generation Pastor, Dan Britton, has invited me to speak to parents of teens at the South Placer Teen Center about the challenge of parenting tech-savvy teens.

Teens today are digital natives (they cannot imagine the world without the internet), and they do not necessarily perceive the distinction between virtual and physical reality.

The most challenging “banana moment” for the modern parent is when to issue your child a smart phone. It is a rite of passage that carries with it privileges, responsibilities and dangers tantamount to handing over the keys to the car. And it happens typically around middle school or upper grammar school grades. One of the reasons why it is so challenging to parent youth with mobile devices is that they are empowered by the feeling of no limits to communication, and they will naturally be resistant to parental oversight – especially when shame-inspired content transpires (i.e., sexting, bullying, gossip). And it is easy to keep secrets because cyber connectivity is so clandestine.