Logged On and Tuned Out

Last night, as my husband and I were driving home from speaking at a church about 45 minutes from our house, we were listening to a Christian radio station.  The speaker being interviewed was Vicki Courtney.  She was speaking about how the generation of kids today are so tech savvy that it's hard for parents to keep up.  Most parents are "clueless" as to their children's online activities.  Consider all the temptations out there online for young kids!  You only have to be 13 or 14 to have a MySpace or Facebook account and any other number of social networking accounts.  Kids as young as 8 and 9 years old are lying about their ages and signing up for social network accounts.  Predators are well aware of this also and know where to look!  Most children, when they sign up for these accounts, aren't blocking or protecting their pages.  They can protect them so that only their friends can see the content on their pages, but how many do that?  Very few.  And when they get invitations to be a friend on their page, they indiscriminately "ok" them, whether they really know them or not.  The sad thing is that many parents know their kids have these accounts; some even know they lied about their ages to get them!  I've heard some say that they think it's good for their kids and it's helping them with some of their problems.  How is allowing your child to lie about his age and illegally sign up for a social network, which is against the policies of that network, 'helping' your child?  Come on parents!  Stand up and be parents!  I know it's very difficult today to keep up with all of the things your kids are into.  Some parents, roughly about 50% of them, are clueless and don't even know where to look or how to look.  They don't even know the names of these social networking sites that their children are participating in.  If most parents saw some of the pictures their under-age children are posting and the pictures that their friends are posting they would be shocked beyond belief!

It's a tough world we're living in.  The temptations that kids face today are overwhelming.  It takes extreme diligence for parents to keep up today! If you're not tech savvy... you need to GET tech savvy.  Ask someone to teach you; take a course; pay someone to teach you the ropes! You cannot afford to negate your responsibility today as a parent.  The outcome has the potential to be tragic.

May I suggest a book for you?  Go to this website and buy this book!

http://www.vickicourtney.com/books_resources.htm

Look for:  "Logged On and Tuned Out" by Vicki Courtney

The tragedy today is that too many parents are giving up.  They're tired.  They're overwhelmed.  They're into too many things themselves to keep up with all that their kids are into.  Let's face it:  parenting is extremely difficult today!  But God has gifted us with our children.  He has given us the responsibility to watch over them and guide them along the way and then to present them to Him, trained and fit for the Master's Use.

Don't give up your responsibility. It's TOUGH, yes!  But it's worth it in the long run!