School has started in many places and with it is a new campaign to stop bullying. As usual, there is an educational component and some sort of pledge to sign. While I applaud any efforts to change something for the better, the solution may be simpler than we think. Drastically limit or eliminate screen time for children and teens. Sounds simplistic and a little extreme? Keep reading.
The other week my teenage daughter came home horrified. She had watched in shock as a parent gave a child about a year old an iPhone to play with for an extended period of time. She has regaled me with stories from her acquaintances of parents encouraging their children to watch multiple hours (6-8+) of television during the day or children watching totally inappropriate media at very young ages. I thought television viewing was bad in my day, but between television, video games and other “screens” the average child spends most of their waking, non-school hours looking at some sort of screen.
My daughter just started her freshman year at a Christian college on the West Coast. The minister at her church on campus is a wonderful Australian surfer dude preacher (not his real name). The last time we worshipped there, he shared something I thought was profound.
Electric fences amaze me. You can’t see the lines, but even very large animals soon learn to avoid them. I like to think those fences are to protect me when I walk by the animals. Actually, the owners install those fences to protect their animals. They know if the animals leave the safety of the yard or field, bad things can happen. If the animal stays far from the fence, it enjoys easily found food and water in abundance. It is protected from cars and hunters. Even though life on the other side of the fence may look more interesting, in reality it is fraught with dangers the animal is unprepared to handle.
People greatly underestimate what kids are capable of learning and understanding. Even very young children can begin learning basic ideas and concepts about complex things. Unfortunately, many parents want to wait until children are older to begin exposing them to God and the Bible. Oh, they may take them to church, but often the child just ends up playing in a nursery classroom or running up and down the halls.
I blame Anna Wintour. Okay, the infamous editor of Vogue is not the only contributor to the problem, but she has definitely done her part. At some point in time, models went from the clean cut, natural looking Audrey Hepburn types to the hyper-sexualized photographs you can find today in almost any fashion magazine.