The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place

by Andy Crouch

I want to suggest a pretty radical idea about what family is for. Family is about the forming of persons. Being a person is a gift, like life itself—we are born as human beings made in the image of God. But while in one sense a person is simply what we are as human beings, we are also able to become—to grow in capacities that are only potentially present within us at first. Family shapes us in countless ways. But I want to

Honestly, I get it. When you’re just trying to get the groceries home while they’re still frozen, without dealing with a meltdown in the third row of the minivan, a little bewitched silence is close to heaven (or, more accurately, nirvana—the realm beyond all being where our earthly passions are extinguished). Who wants to turn every trip home from the store into an opportunity to build character? Except, of course, that’s exactly what character is made of—daily, slow, sometimes-painstaking steps toward handling everyday challenges with courage and grace. And these opportunities are not just for our children but for us too, figuring out how to cultivate our own patience and spark our own creativity as we deal with their sometimes unreasonable or impossible desires.