Did you get your kids Porn for Christmas?

By Kevin Outland

I bet you never thought to ask yourself, “Did I get my kids porn for Christmas?”. I’m pretty sure you didn’t wrap up a stack of Playboy magazines and put them under the tree or put porn DVD’s in your kids stockings. Or did you?
Sometimes we don’t think or don’t know about the unintended consequences of the gifts we give our kids. For instance, did you get any of your kids a new cell phone for Christmas? Does the cell phone have Internet access? If so, you gave your kids porn for Christmas. Did you get any of your kids the iPod Touch for Christmas? If so, you gave them porn for Christmas. Did you get your kids a new computer for Christmas? If you didn’t buy a filter to go along with it, you gave them porn for Christmas. Why did I pick Cell Phones, the iPod Touch and Computers? They’re popular gifts and can crack the door open to the world of porn.
Cell Phones: Most cell phones have Internet access and filtering porn on cell phones is a real challenge. Some cell phone carrier’s, like AT&T or Verizon, have parental controls available but you may have to pay extra (AT&T charges $4.99/m per line) for the service and each cell phone may have a different way to implement the filtering. So grab your kids Christmas cell phone, call your carrier and find out how to block porn and other inappropriate websites on their phone.

iPod Touch: The iPod Touch has parental controls but it’s pretty much having Internet access turned on or turned off. So grab your kids’ iPod Touch, access the Parental Controls and turn off the Internet. There is a company, SafeEyes, that’s coming out with Internet filtering for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. So when that comes out get it so your kids can safely surf the web on those devices. For more information about this mobile Internet filtering software from SafeEyes follow this link: www.safeeyes.com/iphonedemo.

Computers: Without Internet filtering software on your kids PC they can access a ton of porn and other inappropriate content. And if you got them a laptop they can access that type of content just about anywhere. So grab you kids PC and load up an Internet filter from SafeEyes by clicking here. Then go download X3 Watch from XXXChurch for extra protection. It’s not a filter but will tell you, via email, if your kids are going to inappropriate websites (click here).
Now that you have a little more information ask yourself, “Did I get my kids porn for Christmas?” If so, now you know what to do to make your Christmas gifts porn free.

I was reminded again of this in a reading I was doing for grad work. Clinton and Ohlschlager, in their book, Competent Christian Counseling, state:

Within a community committed to acceptance, education, and appropriate discipline and consequences for conduct unbecoming a disciple of Jesus Christ . . . people are brought to maturity.

The spiritual reparenting required is often best accomplished through cell (life) groups, that assemble for the purpose of Bible study, encouragement, exhortation, worship, and the practice of a series of spiritual disciplines within a circle of accountability (Foster, 1988; Willard, 1998).  In keeping with our giftedness, no member of the believing community is excused from involvement with these groups or the means of personal spiritual growth they seek to establish (Ephesians 4.14-16) (p. 113)

Our Pastor of Discipleship, Tom Houser, does an AMAZING job fostering and training our community of believers on the importance of the Life Group community.  For more information on Tom’s thoughts and guidance check out, http://runinsuchaway.com/.

Walk into the EPIC Room (the student ministry room at Grace Point Community Church, Lewis Center, OH) on a Sunday morning at 11:00 am and instead of seeing 40-50 Middle School students screaming and being loud, you will see students sitting quietly next to each other engrossed in texting their friends.  What amazes me most is when students, who are sitting RIGHT NEXT to each other are texting each other.  I recently asked two girls why they were texting and not talking to each other while sitting on the same couch elbow to elbow.  Their response:  it was easier to text!!!

Our society is developing a non-verbal communication which we have seen for the past few years but it is only getting worse.

Here are ways we can began changing this in the lives of our teenagers:

1.  Schedule regular MEDIA time outs.  It can be for only an hour or an entire evening.  I even knew a family that would go MEDIA-FREE for one whole Saturday a month.

2.  Sit down and have family game nights.  Use some of the classics like Sorry or MY favorite, Candy Land.  Better yet, play games that focus on being verbal (Scattergories, Taboo, etc.).

3.  Take time, either at dinner or in the car running your student to an event, to ask your teen questions.  Alternate from SILLY questions (what is your favorite TV character and why?) to some pretty DEEP questions (If you could change one thing about you what would it be?).  A great resource to help with this is Table Topics Cubes.

What ever you can do to get your student to drop the cell phone and actually speak is worth writing down and redoing over again.

As a parent, please read the Today show article by clicking here: Teens and Cell Phones

Pay careful attention to the end of the article where they give practical ways to monitor your teens cell phone usage.

For a better look at the survey taken go to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

NOTE:  This year’s High School Winter Retreat will be on Purity.  Please get your student signed up.

Also, a Parent Forum (P.A.T.H.) is scheduled for January 18th from 3:00-5:00 pm at Grace Point.  This month’s topic, Unraveling the Internet.  Parents–DON’T miss this event.

So far I love the phone and its features:

Outlook

E-mail

Texting

Windows Mobile

I am a little disappointed though, because I don’t think it has actually made me "SMARTER"!!!!!!