Hal Young's Blog, page 6

Giveaway: Brinkman Adventures

Our kids love the Brinkman Adventures!

Brinkman Adventures is an exciting radio show that tells true, modern, missionary stories through the fictional Brinkman family.  Each twenty-six minute episode contains a Biblical theme, lesson, and compelling drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat.   Using modern sound effects, original music, and superb writing, Brinkman Adventures are ‘Movies for the Ears’.

Brinkman Adventures Season 1 includes over 4 1/2 hours of family audio entertainment that is sure to inspire young and old to follow Jesus wherever He may lead.

 

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Giveaway: Saddle Up Mini Reading Bundle

Our girls LOVE the Circle C Adventures and our boys have enjoyed them, too! Check out the Goldtown Adventures especially if you have boys!

This giveaway is a 28-week reading and language arts unit study based on books 1-4 of the Circle C Stepping Stones! Includes 4 books, 4-book lapbook packet with folders, and the language arts study guide with a daily schedule. Ages 7-10 and our older kids love them, too. This is an amazing giveaway!!

 

 

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Giveaway: Helping Your Children Become Prayer Warriors

Do you…

…teach a group of children of various ages?

… have a low budget?

… want the prayers of your children to move beyond, “Thank you for my dog. Thank you for my toys.” type prayers?

Discover how to practically teach your children how to pray.

Helping Your Children Become Prayer Warriors is a prayer guide that helps adults explain to children the power of prayer, how to pray, when to pray, and more! The last half of the book is filled with printable scripture cards that will help you lead children to practice prayer for many different types of situations. (Click here to find out more)

This book is donated by Future Flying Saucers Resources!

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Giveaway: Latin Reader

Students do not need any previous Latin to enjoy and learn from the Olim, Once upon a Time in Latin series from Laurelwood Books. Reader IV uses The History of Creating the World to gently introduce children to Latin. Stories are given first in simple English, then simple Latin (the Latin version has translations of words in sidebars). Sweet original illustrations help the reader understand.

 

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Join the Celebration and Grab Your Bonus, Too!

We’re celebrating our two most recent books for parents of Tweens and for Teens!

The dozens of bloggers who are members of the Homeschool Review Crew and our own blogger team are reviewing Love, Honor, and Virtue: Gaining or Regaining a Biblical Attitude Toward Sexuality, our book about Biblical sexuality for guys from their teens to twenties and our newest release (just this week!) – No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens with Grace and Hope! 

We want you to celebrate with us! Here’s what we’ve got going:

Join us for a New Book Celebration Facebook Party on July 31st! Talk about all things tween, preteen, and teen and enter to win great prizes. Sign up here so you don’t miss it!

Read the reviews! Read No Longer Little reviews here and Love, Honor, and Virtue reviews here.

GRAB the books and get a Bonus! Our publishing friends have pitched in for a Bonus Pack full of downloadable goodness for everyone that buys a copy of either book between now and August 1st! Keep scrolling to see all the great things you’ll get!

 

WALK THIS WAY: Ethics and Sanctification Lessons for Kids

from Future Flying Saucers Resources

In 20 lessons for home or church, you’ll help your K-6 students learn what a godly lifestyle is. They’ll learn to think clearly about life topics. And you’ll find fun extra resources and teaching posters, as well as tips to help you become a better teacher!

 

 

 

WALK IN LOVE

from Doorposts

A coloring book to teach your children about 1 Corinthians 13 in sweet, simple illustrations and examples that kids can relate to!

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

from Trivium Pursuit

This easy and gentle introduction to art appreciation, for children 4-12, will help them open their eyes and begin to understand great works of art, including how to really look at a painting and how to understand the artist’s intention or message.

 

 

MEET THALES, FATHER OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

from Home School Adventure Co.

In this download, your middle school and high schoolers can try out the first lesson of Philosophy Adventure absolutely free!

 

 

 

BRINKMAN ADVENTURE AUDIO DRAMA

from Brinkman Adventures

An audio drama download containing 3 free episodes of high-octane modern day missionary stories that will sure to inspire young and old to follow Jesus to the ends of the earth.

 

 

CHARACTER-BUILDING ACTIVITY SHEETS

from Susan K. Marlowe’s Circle C Adventures

Five fun character-building activity sheets for ages 7-10. Based on the illustrations in the Circle C Stepping Stones series

 

PLUS A SPECIAL BONUS!

Save $15 on our popular 5-session master class, BOOT CAMP 9-12! 

Regular price, $39 – With coupon, only $24

 

How Do I Get It?

If you order No Longer Little or Love, Honor, and Virtue from our website, we’ll send you the download links automatically! If you ordered from (affiliate link!) Amazon.com, then fill out this form with your receipt number, and we’ll send the links to you and add you to our great email community:

Email*

Name

Amazon Receipt

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Enjoy!

Hal & Melanie

Mythbuster: It’s Too Hard to Homeschool Tween and Teen Boys

“Could you talk about homeschooling boys? My son is driving me crazy! And you have six…” Back when we were on the board of our state homeschool organization, we heard that a lot from support group leaders. It’s how we got started speaking and writing about boys and it’s still something we hear all the time.

“Once boys hit puberty, they just won’t listen to their moms.”

“My son won’t sit still. He can’t focus. He’s impossible to teach!”

“All I get is pushback. He doesn’t ever want to do any school.”

Why do people think homeschooling boys is so hard? Well, it is challenging. Boys are active. They struggle to sit still. Their fine motor skills develop later, so writing is difficult. Their academic development in general has more variation than girls. Some are early birds, others are late bloomers. They just aren’t motivated by the same things their moms and sisters are, either. And then the hormones hit!

Those same things that make you want to give up on your boys, though, are the things that make homeschooling so good for them. A classroom environment just doesn’t handle the need to get up and move around, variation in skill level, and being motivated by real life very well at all.

When the hormones hit that will change our boys into men, it’s hard to remember those things. They get angry for no reason. They can’t concentrate for even a few minutes. They can’t remember what we tell them to do long enough to get out of the room! They feel like failures and so do we.

When people tell us that they’ll do better if we just put them in school and let someone else teach them, it’s easy to believe it. It’s easy to think that will solve all our problems, but it’s not true. It’s not true because that doesn’t address the really important issue — our relationship with them.

Listen. Many parent-child relationships are broken during the tween years and when they are, the teen years get worse and worse. It doesn’t have to be that way. If you can get through those years with your relationship intact, the teens tend to get better and better.

Homeschooling gives you a chance to protect your relationship. It gives you time. It leaves you in charge. It keeps peers in the right place. It’s worth it. It’s also doable. You just need a plan to manage school in the stormy sea of hormones.

Preserve the love of learning. People tell us all the time that their sons are unmotivated and uninterested in life. A boy like that won’t make much progress in school or out of it. How do you keep him interested in learning, though?

Incorporate his obsessions. They love learning about their passions at this age. Use those things for writing prompts and reading material.
Worry less about getting the worksheets done and more about reading real books and doing real things.
Give them interesting things to do other than gaming or watching movies. Things like these craft kits.
Do field trips and get out in the world. Start micro-businesses. Do life.

Protect academic confidence. Boys have a huge intellectual growth spurt in high school. A boy that seems destined to flip hamburgers at 14 will be getting academic scholarship offers at 18 … if he tries. Sadly, many boys struggle so much in the middle school years they just figure that they’re not cut out for academics, so they give up trying. What can you do?

Don’t compare them with other kids and especially not their siblings.
Encourage them that school will get easier. It’s hard to feel like things will never get better. Give them hope.
Praise them whenever you can. Look for things to praise, even if it’s just hard work.
Feed their strengths. It’s easy to focus on what they’re struggling in, but encourage and support their talents, too.

Get the work done. Yeah, I know, easier said than done. Math takes three hours and nothing else even gets done some days. We’re going through that with our eighth child now. It’s not much fun. You can both get through this, though.

Get rid of distractions. Music helps, sometimes.
Supervise them more. Even an independent learner might need some encouragement to focus.
Work with them. Sometimes you need to just pull them over and handhold them through it.
Use challenges, competition, and incentives.

You can do this! There’s too much at stake not to. It’s not too hard to homeschool tween and teen boys. It’s hard, but not nearly as hard as what can happen if you don’t.

We’ve graduated four of our son and they’ve not only done well in life, but they’re our best friends. That’s worth way more than any trouble they were.

Resources:

Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys, Christian Small Publishers Book of the Year, will help you understand how boys are different and how that impacts your homeschooling and parenting.

No Longer Little: Parenting Tweens with Grace and Hope, our newest book, will walk you through the challenging preteen years and help you lay a foundation to make the teen years great!

Read the other posts in this series here!

Your friends,

Hal & Melanie

 

 

 

 

 

Movie Review: The Incredibles 2

“This is crazy, right?” asks Helen Parr, a.k.a. Elastigirl. “To help my family I have to leave it. To fix the law I have to break it.”

“But you have to do it, so our children can make that choice!” says her husband, Bob – a.k.a. Mr. Incredible.

After all, it’s still illegal to be a superhero.

The Incredibles 2 is the long-delayed continuation of the story of the Parrs, a family with superpowers they’re not supposed to use. The first movie had a strong message of the value of marriage and family, teamwork, and working out the gifts which you’re given. Would the second film hold up to the standard of the first?

The Incredibles ended with the supervillain Underminer erupting through the stadium parking lot in his diabolical tunneling machine. The sequel begins when the Parrs assume their super identities to respond to the threat. They succeed at halting the machine, but the criminal escapes, the Parrs are arrested for violating the superhero restrictions, and worst of all, Violet’s friend Tony catches her in her supersuit without her mask. Uh oh.

What’s more, they learn that the superhero relocation program has been cancelled. They’ve been in a motel since a plane crash destroyed their home, and now they’ve only got two weeks to find a place to live – and a job.

An unexpected opportunity arises, though – Winston Deaver, a wealthy businessman, wants to repeal the law and bring superheroes back. He proposes to change public opinion by putting Elastigirl in the news as a sympathetic figure. She would start by publicly combatting whatever criminal action arises, and the businessman would use his media and government connections to build momentum for changing the law.

This puts Bob, a.k.a. Mr. Incredible, in a spot. Helen is chosen over him for the return of public derring-do because historically, her collateral damage is less. Although she’s surprised and he’s disappointed – after all, he was the one skirting the law in the first movie – Bob encourages Helen to accept the opportunity “so our children can make the choice” regarding their own powers.

And that casts Mr. Incredible in the role of Mr. Mom. “It’s easy,” he reassures Helen. “Easy?” retorts Helen. “You’re adorable.” Bob and Helen discover neither of their new jobs is going to be easy.

Themes to discuss

The Incredibles had several clearly-stated themes, but the sequel is not as straightforward. We had to think for a while before we teased these out:

An unjust law should be changed and may need to be ignored. This was the hard one; it requires some nuanced discussion. Although she accepts the proposal, Helen is in a quandary about Deaver’s offer. When Violet uncomfortably asks her dad, “Mom’s being paid to break the law?” Bob doesn’t have an answer, and he’s saved by the arrival of the school bus. But consider the gist of the superhero law: citizens with means and opportunity to help are forbidden to intervene in life-and-death situations. That’s not right. The supers are not flying around creating incidents, but responding to criminals’ initiatives or life-threatening situations. It is right to preserve life, even if there is a technical violation of a law in the process (for example, trespassing on railroad property to pull someone out of the path of an oncoming train) – even if there’s a consequence for the violation.

Develop your own gifts, and don’t resent the gifts of others. Bob is eager to get back into the fight, but he supports Helen’s opportunity to represent all superheroes for a time. Edna Mode, the costumer, is a creative genius who serves others with her gift. But in both movies, the center villain is a talented inventor who is blinded by resentment of other people, not even seeing the opportunities which lie open in front of them.

Manipulating other people hurts everyone. The villain Screenslaver hypnotizes others and causes them to act on his behalf. This makes them speak and act against their own interests and even to turn on their friends and family members. Even the well-intentioned Agent Dicker, trying to protect the Parrs’ secret identity, causes problems when he erases too much memory from Violet’s friend Tony. We need to avoid trying to trick and maneuver other people – either persuade them or leave them alone!

Family life is a challenge but worth the effort. “Done properly, parenting is a heroic act,” says Edna to an exhausted Bob. “– Done properly,” she adds. It reminded me of the scene in the first movie when Bob admits to his family, “You are my greatest adventure, and I almost missed it.” Mr. Incredible struggles with the unfamiliar task of 24-7 parenting, and small wonder – grappling with a hormonal teenage girl, a struggling learner, and an insomniac baby with weird emerging superpowers. The struggle is real.

But Bob grits his teeth and tells his friend Lucius, “I’ve got to succeed! So she can succeed! So we can succeed!” We see him up late studying his son’s “new math” so he can explain his homework. His efforts to help Violet’s emotional upset are more fraught, but he tells her “I just wanted to be a good dad.” She says, “You’re not good – you’re super,” as the exhausted father dozes off. Bob’s journey is central, but you see the children growing in maturity as well, recognizing that everyone’s contribution is critical – even if they’re “just watching the baby.”

Questions

We were concerned how the stay-at-home dad and working mom theme would play out. In the first movie Helen was fully invested in her life as a stay-at-home mother, but she was clearly an emotional and intellectual match for her husband – and able to act in a firm, courageous manner when needed. She’s not mousy; she chooses to be the full time Mom.

In this movie, she’s flattered that Deaver picked her, but feels the stronger pull to stay with her family. Yet Bob encourages her to take the opportunity for the good of the family, as well as all the superhero community. Even in the middle of the job, when she’s enjoying the opportunity to use her powers for crime fighting again, she’s ready and willing to ditch the “career” and return home if the family needs her. And while Bob is supportive and encouraging to Helen, he yearns to be on the job himself – though he believes that for this time, his place for daily heroics is at home. It was good to see the husband and wife looking at the whole situation, asking how it would impact their mission to their family, and then moving forward in agreement together.

It would probably be good to remind your children that young children, especially babies, need their mothers and that being separated from them takes a toll. Bob and Helen felt like they had no alternative in their situation, but a decision for a mom to be away from her baby should never be made lately.

Cautions

Mild language – Bob and Edna both say, in separate scenes, “OMG” when they observe Jack-Jack’s weird powers. In one rant, Bob says, “I eat thunder and crap lightning!”

Visual effects – The villain uses strobe lights and visual patterns in his hypnotic process. Some viewers might find the flashing images overstimulating or for epileptics, even dangerous. Except for the fight scene between Screenslaver and Elastigirl, these are brief scenes.

The peculiar short …

A bao is a meat-filled Chinese dumpling. The Pixar short “Bao” starts with a Chinese-Canadian mother making dumplings for breakfast; after her husband bolts his food and leaves for work, she is startled to see one of the dumplings come to life.

The story follows the growth of the little dumpling, much like the story of the gingerbread boy, as he grows up and pulls away from his “mother” to her increasing distress. When the full-grown dumpling-boy comes home with a girlfriend – wearing an engagement ring – his mother locks the girl outside and swallows up her little bao – glump!

Troubling? Not if you understand it’s a dream and it’s allegorical, as the conclusion makes clear. The mother is conflicted about her real-life son, who is now full grown and independent – and has a non-Asian fiancée. When she wakes from her nightmare, her son is there, reaching out to her. At the end, you see the young woman respects their Chinese customs – notice she takes off her shoes when she comes in the house — and she has a knack for properly forming dumplings. This might work out after all!

The director said she wanted to portray some of the struggles of her immigrant community fitting in to their new culture, and patterned the woman after her own mother.

Conclusion

The Incredibles set the bar pretty high in 2004, and we were concerned whether the sequel would fall flat. The Incredibles 2, though, keeps up the energy and the style of the first movie, with better animation and a more nuanced story line that takes more discussion. “Done properly,” as Edna says, this can be a profitable movie night for your family, too.

The Remarkable Potential of Teenagers

The oncologist looked at Hal skeptically.

“Well,” he conceded, “if you feel up to it, you can travel. And you can speak from the platform. But you can’t stand around shaking hands afterward – your immune system is going to be completely shot.”

The results had come back from the biopsy – he had advanced lymphoma, and he was about to start chemotherapy. The good doctor from Duke had listened while we explained what we do in our ministry, and travel was a concession – no compromise on the personal contact.

We had hardly gotten this far explaining it to our family when our teenagers burst out, “Don’t worry, Dad – we’ll take care of the book fair!”

Our oldest still at home were 16, 14, and 12. We might have been a little skeptical, but at the time, we didn’t have a choice. Hal was sidelined, Melanie would be busy counseling and praying with parents, and somebody needed to handle the business part of our resource table. If teens are who we had, then teens would have to do the job.

And it has made a world of difference!

Don’t Underestimate Teenagers

So many people consider the teen years and react with alarm, “Batten down the hatches! Duck and cover!” And yet, we look back and history and wonder. Laura Ingalls Wilder was put in charge of a school before she turned 16. John Quincy Adams was 14 when he became the sole translator for America’s embassy to Catherine the Great of Russia. Paul Tripp calls it “The Age of Opportunity;” why shouldn’t we expect more from the teenage years?

What started as a necessity in our family developed into a tradition – ever since that day, our teenagers and their younger siblings have managed our booth and many aspects of our travel. They shoo us out into the aisle, telling us, “You need to be talking with the parents that need help! Let us take care of this stuff.” They load and unload, set up and manage. They deal with customers of all ages, polite or combative. And they take turns in charge of the booth and their siblings, watching the younger ones and passing on job skills to the middle group.

Sometimes they even challenge us! Our third son made it a point of honor to learn to drive our 15-passenger van and trailer in any situation – threading night-time traffic alone in downtown Phoenix, backing the trailer into a tight parking space, or turning the whole rig around on a one-lane road that suddenly became impassable. Hal had to step up and improve his own skills to keep from calling the 16-year-old to get us out of a spot!

They became so involved in the business and support of our ministry, we naturally included them in all our planning. “We need some products to keep the younger children quiet while you talk with their parents,” they told us. We challenged them to come up with ideas, and they located sources for the swords and rubber band guns we sell alongside our books on parenting and marriage.

Three of our teens took what they were learning from our own business and bought another for themselves. The one who took the greatest part at the age of 13 is majoring in entrepreneurship in college and has already attracted venture capitalists to the businesses he’s started.

One of our teens became a freelance journalist at the age of 17 and was writing investigative articles for a statewide magazine before he left for college.  Another taught himself guitar and mandolin and joined a bluegrass band at a local coffee house; his elderly bandmates used to tease him, “I’ve got blue jeans older than you, Curly,” and he’d smile and reply, “But I’ve got more hair than all of you, combined.”

What made the difference? For all our teens, they found an area where they could serve, then we encouraged them to step up. By the time they were ready for college, they’d already been participating in grownup activities for two or three years, and they were unafraid to face the new opportunities which opened up in college and their early careers.

It’s Not Magic

It doesn’t just happen, though. We had to teach and train and coach and supervise at first – not to stage-manage like they were infant prodigies, but to help them develop skills and confidence to move ahead on their own.

We’ve often camped our way across the country between conventions – both because it’s an adventure, and as a practical matter to save hotel costs (they add up when you take seven kids on the road). Our guys always took charge of setting up the campsite when we arrived … but to be honest, sometimes the older guys did more of the work, and the younger ones drifted and played around.

Then one trip, the two older teens left the group in Arizona to fly back for a summer job they’d accepted. Suddenly our two youngest guys were “The Crew” – the whole crew — and they weren’t quite on board yet!

The first couple of stops, Hal had to work alongside them and keep calling them back to the task when they dragged behind or drifted away. It was coaching and training time! But by the time we were back in the Carolinas, they had figured out the job and established a pattern for getting it accomplished. The next trip, they were fully capable and looking ahead for the next step – taking initiative like they owned the whole business.

You shouldn’t expect a sleepy-headed teenager to suddenly snap to attention when his 18th birthday rolls around. You need to give them opportunities and responsibilities along the way, helping them get their heads around work and service before they reach voting age.

But at the same time, you can’t expect them to leap into the harness when they turn 13, either. The teen years are a time of growth and transition, and it’s a gradual transition. Will you have to give your 14-year-old more supervision than your 17-year-old? Of course. And they’ll both need guidance about how to interact as grown-ups – what should they be practicing in thought, judgment, speech, and conduct, for when they stand on their own as young adults. That’s where the “coaching” comes in.

Ultimately, we have to prepare our sons and daughters to live without us. Obvious? Yes, but harder to put into practice. It means we have to give them principles to live by, not just directions, and give them practice “discerning both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:14). They need opportunities to act in the adult world. We need to let them experience consequences while the consequences aren’t life-shattering.

And we need to remember we’re not just training our kids – we’re preparing someone’s future husband or wife. We’re training the parents who will raise our grandchildren. Think about that a while! And then let’s embrace these last few years at home as our time to start taking off the safety bumpers and the water wings, giving our young men and women room to stand and go forth for themselves – to the glory of God!

This article first appeared in Connect, the magazine of Florida Parent Educators Association. To learn more about FPEA and homeschooling in Florida, visit FPEA.com

 

We talked about this on episode 205 of

Making Biblical Family Life Practical

CLICK HERE to go to the podcast!

Staying Pure in Engagement

Someone recently asked, Now that we’re engaged, it’s increasingly hard to stay pure. I mean, we’ll be married soon, right? I know it’s wrong, but it doesn’t seem as big a deal now that it’s just a matter of weeks or months. Can you help us think about this the right way?

We’ve been there. The temptation is real and it only grows. You can’t take this lightly. God designed us to have desires that draw us toward marriage. A romantic relationship grows closer and closer until you can hardly stand not to consummate it. Of course you are thinking, ‘Well, what difference does it make? We’re going to be married soon anyway.’ It does make a difference, though. It matters big time. Here’s why.

Recently Melanie asked the moms in a private group on Facebook what they wish they had known about marriage before they were married. She was shocked to see how many women said they wish they’d understood how indulging in sex before marriage, even with the man they would marry, would affect their lives together after marriage. They spoke about how hard it was to trust their husbands. They talked about how the guilt persisted and came between them.

Gentlemen, when it comes to love, your actions speak more loudly than your words. If you decide to go ahead and have sex before marriage, you are in effect saying to her, “I care more about myself than I do you. I care more about satisfying this physical urge than about protecting your conscience and your reputation. I care more about satisfying my lust than I care about our baby being born without clearly being conceived in marriage.” In essence, you are saying, “I do not love you,” because love puts someone else’s needs ahead of your own. That’s not a good message to send to someone you want to marry.

This sin undermines your role in marriage, too, guys. God made you to be the head of your home and the protector of your wife and family, especially spiritually. Having sex before marriage says, ‘As your spiritual leader, I will lead you into sin if I want to sin.’ My friend, that destroys your leadership and her trust in you to be her protector. That can damage your marriage for years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ladies, it can be tempting to think that we can trade virtue for security. Sometimes women think that if they have a sexual relationship with a guy, it will tie him to them. Yet if he doesn’t have to wait or commit to have sex with you, what guarantee do you have that he’ll take that formal step? “I’ll respect you in the morning,” is the oldest line in the book. Instead of bonding a huaband and wife in a pure and exclusive shared experience, pre-marital sex places a pall of guilt over what should be a relationship full of joy.

There comes a time to be as iron sharpens iron. We are to challenge one another to good works in every friendship, but it’s especially important in marriage. Now is the time to encourage each other to do right, not give in to desire when in just a few weeks or months, those desires can be satisfied rightly.

You both need to embrace it as your personal responsibility. You have to make a commitment here. Are you really a Christian? Do you really love this person? If so, if you want to please God, if you love your mate-to-be, if you want what’s best for them, then you need to set some rules for yourself to make sure you stay out of temptation. You need to make sure you handle this time in a godly and honorable way.

And if you just can’t – if the temptation is becoming too much to handle – Paul gave a very simple instruction: It is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Corinthians 7:9) It is better to move up the wedding date, than to let down God’s standard.

Let’s just strip off the enemy’s deceit and highlight the real issue. If the only thing keeping you holy is the fear of getting caught by getting pregnant, then of course you’re wondering, “Why not?” now that any baby conceived would be born after the wedding. If the goal, though, is to obey God, then He is pretty clear.

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man…  Matthew 19:19-20

Don’t start your marriage by defiling one another! Instead, practice the fruit of the Spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.  Galatians 5:22-23

Now, there’s a good way to start out a life together!

You might enjoy reading our book on marriage. It’s called My Beloved and My Friend: How to be Married to Your Best Friend Without Changing Spouses. Read more here. It’s available in audiobook, too, which might be easier in this busy time of life!

Your friends,

Hal & Melanie

Five Things You Need to Know About Your Boys & Internet Porn

“I don’t know who else to talk to. My little boy has been watching horrible stuff. I don’t know what to do.”

There are five things we wish all parents knew about internet porn. If they did, there would probably be a lot fewer of these heartbreaking messages for us to answer!

(Note, this post contains affiliate links which support our ministry, but we only link to things we wholeheartedly recommend!)

1. Your kids will probably be exposed to internet porn at some point. Very few aren’t: only about 3% of boys and 17% of girls are never exposed to porn.   So, how can that be? With kids with smartphones and Kindles, it only takes a few seconds with cousins or friends to introduce your child to porn – and nobody went close to a “computer.” You’ve got to prepare them to fight it.

2. It’ll probably happen sooner than you think. The average age of first exposure is 12 years old.  That means half of kids who’ve seen porn encountered it before they were 12. If you wait until their voice changes to talk to them, you may be too late. You’ve got to start young.

3. This isn’t the porn of your youth. It’s much, much worse. This shocked us, but 83% of boys have seen group sex online, 69% have seen same-sex intercourse, 39% have seen bondage, and 32% have seen bestiality.  Folks, this stuff is vile. Your boys need your help!

4. Talking about sexuality in a Biblical context will not destroy your children’s innocence. Moms tell us they are afraid to talk with their kids “too soon” about sexuality, but in this world, the risk is much higher that your children will be exposed to sexuality in a very damaging way if you don’t start early. Be age appropriate. Watch them carefully to be sure you share enough and not too much, but always make certain they know that God created sex for marriage before the enemy teaches them otherwise.

5. Your boys need your protection. They need to know that God expects them to stay pure. They need to know about the dangers of indulging in this stuff. They need to know about repentance and grace if they fall. They need to know they are going to get caught. We put Covenant Eyes on every internet-capable device in our home. That way they know if they’re tempted that Mom will know if they went there by Thursday when she gets the report. Then they’ll be busted, for sure. Sometimes Often a  boy’s conscience needs that little boost.

Can a programming-savvy teen get around it? Sure, he can get around most anything, but he’s going to be caught when his hours of use don’t match the time you see him on the computer.

People tell us all the time, “We’d been meaning to get something, but we weren’t sure what was best.” Then they tell us about some horrific thing their son got into. Get some kind of internet protection now, then figure out what’s best later. ()

Try Covenant Eyes FREE for 30 days.  Go ahead, try it.  Covenant Eyes will support our ministry as long as you are members, but we recommended them for years before they ever offered to do that because that’s what we use ourselves. If you don’t go with Covenant Eyes, go with something, though! Protect your family.

Would you like to read five more things you need to know about boys and porn to protect your sons? We would love for you to join our community of thousands of parents raising boys to be godly men! Subscribe to our newsletter and you’ll get immediate access to a bonus article on this topic.

Even in this sin-soaked world, it is possible for young men to become honorable, godly men. They need our help, though.

For more help with how to talk to your son about these things, how to protect him from predators, or how Covenant Eyes works, head over to our Purity Guide.

Yours in the battle,

Hal & Melanie

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