Isolated Children

From the double-edged sword of new technologies to the omnipresent media, today's children are facing unique challenges. And they often face those challenges alone—without input and guidance from adults.

Today, children and teenagers can go through days, if not weeks, without ever spending meaningful time with adults. The typical child wakes up, goes to school, and then to an extracurricular activity. They spend the majority of their waking hours interacting with other kids or teens. If your child is like many today, he or she may not even eat with the family, but instead eat dinner while watching TV. After dinner, there is homework or chatting on the phone or online with—again—people their same age.

And what about Sundays at church? Even there, your child may attend a youth worship service, attend Sunday school, or go to kids church—again, away from the influence of adults.
The result is that children and teenagers—who desperately need the input, modeling, molding, and love of adults at this critical stage of life—are almost entirely devoid of meaningful interaction.

But even when we adults do interact with our teens and children, are we providing the kind of love and truth that is vital to their lives and to their souls? Of those teens in high school who profess faith, surveys by the George Barna group indicate that somewhere around 85 percent of "born again" teens do not believe in absolute truth. Nearly 50 percent said Jesus sinned during His earthly life.

It is no wonder we are losing them. Voddie Baucham, author of Family-Driven Faith, suggests the reason: "Their religion is largely ambiguous . . . due in large part to the lack of time and attention devoted to spiritual matters compared to other activities." Baucham quotes from the National Study of Youth and Religion, which says, "When it comes to the formation of the lives of youth, viewed sociologically, faith communities typically get a very small seat at the end of the table . . . dominated structurally by more powerful and vocal actors."

That's the reason teens can tell you more about the lives of their favorite TV characters than about David, Jesus, or Paul. It is why they may know more about global warming and STDs than about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Meanwhile, parents may show more concern over their child making good grades than on forming Christ-like character. In fact, another George Barna survey found, astoundingly, that only half of the Christian parents surveyed thought that their children having a relationship with Christ was as important as a good education. My goodness.

Clearly, it is time to knock down the walls that separate us from our children and teenagers—both at church and at home. As moms and dads, you must reclaim the God-appointed role of spiritually parenting your children and teens in a biblical worldview. What are you going to do about it?