Parenting Advice

TheDag

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Actually - I am reading your posts just fine.
I still see a problem with you ... that's as big as your son's behavior.
Sorry but yes you are reading the posts wrong. The OP has repeatedly stated computer games are not the problem. You keep accusing the OP of seeing computer games as evil. The OP has said the lies and deception are the problem. You may not think lies are a big problem but lets look at what God thinks of them. Read Acts and you will find two people struck dead by God for telling what we would call a white lie. Note that is in Acts so after Jesus death and in the new covenant!
 
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I haven't read all the posts, so forgive me if I'm just repeating what someone else has said...

But... I find setting limits on these things help a lot, limits they can't mess with. We have a blocker on our computer... One thing the blocker does is sets times the kids can be online. For example, we have it set for 9AM to 11PM. That way they can never go on when we're sleeping. We also have all our computers pass coded. That way they have to get us to put the pass code in to go on the computer. So they can't go on, again, if we're not home. This has solved most of the problems you mentioned. Now, he could still play games when he should be doing homework, but that smaller amount of responsibility, and reigning in the temptation for the rest of the issues, should be more manageable for him.
 
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hello Celtic, I am not a parent myself, but in case my input helps,

as you say, the gaming itself is not the problem, the problem is lying and deceit

and we (your son) need to know what God feels about lying and deceit...

Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

I know the words in the above verse seem harsh... but it shows exactly how God feels about the lying and deceit, He wants nothing to do with them...

But He is always ready to forgive those who admit their sin and repent...

Some questions to ponder:

Is your son a Christian? Has he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into his heart and made Him Lord as well as Saviour?

How is his relationship with the Lord?

When we truly love Him, we would want to please Him, and want to keep His commandments, and will be sensitive when we do wrong things, because we do not want to grieve His holy Spirit.

Perhaps the more your son loves Christ, the more Christ will be able to change him from the inside out.

It is our relationship with the Saviour which is what changes us. :)

It probably would help if you could talk with your son about Paul's experience in Romans 6, 7, 8.

The more Paul wanted to do the right thing, the more sin inside Paul keeps preventing him and making him sin. In the end, Paul recognised that:

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Ask your son, if that is what he is experiencing, the more he sincerely wants to change, the more impossible he found it to change, the temptation got greater?

That is exactly the reason why the Lord came to die on the cross - because we can't change ourselves, however much we want to, because of sin dwelling in us!

Christ took our place on the cross, we can't change ourselves, we are worthy of death, He said "I will die for you" and so we look to the Cross and admit our unworthiness, and accept the reason why He died for us.

Then after this, every time we struggle with temptation, we look to Christ and acknowledge our sin in us, and say, "Only You can help me, please help..."

You can teach your son how to practice 2 Corinthians 10:5

2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

This means that, once your son acknowledges his weakness, the lying, then teach him to recognise the thought which first pop up in his head, to lie, to recognise it as the idea of the devil (evil spirit) masquerading as his thought, to instantly take hold of it and present it to God, telling Him about this thought.

Have your son do this all the time, and soon his guard will be up and he will recognise lying thoughts as an outside invasion and reject it outright. He will become a soldier for Christ, strong inside, and it will show in all his actions outside.

All the best :)
 
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gideon123

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I think that before many of you offer an opinion - you should try being parents of teenagers. Experience makes a big difference.

Teenagers constantly test parents.
That's life.
They will deliberately push your buttons, they will find work-arounds when you give them rules, and sometimes they will disobey. These things do NOT make teenagers the equivalent of North Korea. It just means they are growing up and learning to make their own judgments. They will get it wrong many times ... before getting it right.

Any mature parent learns the art of give-and-take. You have to pick your battles and think about what is really enforceable and what is not. Those folks here who are saying - well they should always obey - wrong. That's 5-year olds. It's not 13 year olds. The parent has to adapt in the process too. Turning small rule infractions into WW3 is a good way to lose the battle permanently.

Big rules are a different thing. There are big deals, and there are small deals. The smart approach, which also preserves your sanity, is to know the difference.

blessings,
Gideon
 
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TheDag

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I think that before many of you offer an opinion - you should try being parents of teenagers. Experience makes a big difference.

Teenagers constantly test parents.
That's life.
They will deliberately push your buttons, they will find work-arounds when you give them rules, and sometimes they will disobey. These things do NOT make teenagers the equivalent of North Korea. It just means they are growing up and learning to make their own judgments. They will get it wrong many times ... before getting it right.

Any mature parent learns the art of give-and-take. You have to pick your battles and think about what is really enforceable and what is not. Those folks here who are saying - well they should always obey - wrong. That's 5-year olds. It's not 13 year olds. The parent has to adapt in the process too. Turning small rule infractions into WW3 is a good way to lose the battle permanently.

Big rules are a different thing. There are big deals, and there are small deals. The smart approach, which also preserves your sanity, is to know the difference.

blessings,
Gideon
For me growing up as a teenager lies and deceit were big things. By the worlds standards they aren't. By God's standards they are. Other things that may seem major in the worlds eyes are minor things as the hidden reason behind it is what was looked at. Oh yeah I am a parent with experience dealing with teenagers.

The reason deceit was considered worse is what it covers. When I did something as a kid which could have injured hundreds of people while there was some punishment the focus was on why I did that and how to avoid falling to temptation like that in the future. Telling lies and being deceitful however allows no room for growing as you are refusing to admit there is a problem and therefore it could not be dealt with in a healthy way.
 
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Inkachu

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Celtic

Actually - I am reading your posts just fine.
I still see a problem with you ... that's as big as your son's behavior.

Before continuing though, let me add that parenting is not a simple game.
I am dealing with real problems with one of my own children right now. Like most things - it's solvable. But it requires attention.

Having said that - my impression is that you've drawn battle lines where no battle needs to exist. Playing computer games is NOT a crime. Neither is skateboarding, watching TV after 10pm, or texting on a cell phone. I'm not saying your 12-year old is doing all those things. But at various times I do notice people coming onto this Advice forum and mentioning stuff like that.

If you declare that playing computer games is a "bad thing" ... then your son is going to think your have "lost it". Why? Because none of his peers are getting that kind of feedback from their parents. So you are an isolated case. Therefore, you are vastly over-reacting. There is nothing inherently evil about a computer game. It just means that as a parent you have drawn "battle lines" over a behavior which isn't a big deal.

Once you define things that way - you force your son to respond in one of a few ways. You are actually forcing him to do this because he talks to all his peers and compares situations. So he could obey ... but since he's 12 he is starting to think for himself. Or he could decide that your rules make no sense whatsoever - which is what has happened. And hence he simply CUTS you off. From his point of view, if you force him to obey unrealistic rules then his choice is to either cut you out completely, or become a social outcast with his friends. So guess what? He cuts you out. Therefore he now has no choice but to lie to you - since you are asking him to do things that simply make no sense in his world.

So I go back to what I said before. And you may not like this.
But YOU are as much the problem here as he is.
If you don't recognize that and re-evaluate now - you run the risk of really losing contact with him altogether in future years. That is potentially bad, because he will need to make judgments about things like illegal drugs, alcohol, and relationships. My suggestion is that you instead adopt a course which keeps the channel of communications open.

blessings,
Gideon

Gideon, I thank you for offering your advice, and I'm sure it's well intentioned. We'll have to agree to disagree.
 
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Inkachu

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I haven't read all the posts, so forgive me if I'm just repeating what someone else has said...

But... I find setting limits on these things help a lot, limits they can't mess with. We have a blocker on our computer... One thing the blocker does is sets times the kids can be online. For example, we have it set for 9AM to 11PM. That way they can never go on when we're sleeping. We also have all our computers pass coded. That way they have to get us to put the pass code in to go on the computer. So they can't go on, again, if we're not home. This has solved most of the problems you mentioned. Now, he could still play games when he should be doing homework, but that smaller amount of responsibility, and reigning in the temptation for the rest of the issues, should be more manageable for him.

Morethan - thank you for your response :) We've tried all of the suggestions you mentioned above. The trouble is that our son is so computer-savvy that he knows how to bypass these controls. We've used a great program called Time Boss that used to log him off at specific times. But eventually, he figured out our passwords for controlling that program, and changed the settings. He's done a myriad of other things, like figuring out the password to the living room TV-computer, and then downloading games and playing them in the middle of the night with the volume turned down. Or if I've allowed him to use my husband's computer for homework, and then left the room (my fault in retrospect), he changed the log in settings so he could log in without a password, then he could sneak on at night and play games, which is what we caught him at the other night. He admitted he'd been on the computer, but said he was studying... we found out otherwise with some investigation, besides the fact that he was using a computer without permission which is always against the rules.

So we're moving forward again, one day at a time. Trying to balance how "locked down" we need to be with paying more attention to the root of the problem, praying about it, etc.
 
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Inkachu

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hello Celtic, I am not a parent myself, but in case my input helps,

as you say, the gaming itself is not the problem, the problem is lying and deceit

and we (your son) need to know what God feels about lying and deceit...

Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

I know the words in the above verse seem harsh... but it shows exactly how God feels about the lying and deceit, He wants nothing to do with them...

But He is always ready to forgive those who admit their sin and repent...

Some questions to ponder:

Is your son a Christian? Has he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into his heart and made Him Lord as well as Saviour?

How is his relationship with the Lord?

When we truly love Him, we would want to please Him, and want to keep His commandments, and will be sensitive when we do wrong things, because we do not want to grieve His holy Spirit.

Perhaps the more your son loves Christ, the more Christ will be able to change him from the inside out.

It is our relationship with the Saviour which is what changes us. :)

It probably would help if you could talk with your son about Paul's experience in Romans 6, 7, 8.

The more Paul wanted to do the right thing, the more sin inside Paul keeps preventing him and making him sin. In the end, Paul recognised that:

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Ask your son, if that is what he is experiencing, the more he sincerely wants to change, the more impossible he found it to change, the temptation got greater?

That is exactly the reason why the Lord came to die on the cross - because we can't change ourselves, however much we want to, because of sin dwelling in us!

Christ took our place on the cross, we can't change ourselves, we are worthy of death, He said "I will die for you" and so we look to the Cross and admit our unworthiness, and accept the reason why He died for us.

Then after this, every time we struggle with temptation, we look to Christ and acknowledge our sin in us, and say, "Only You can help me, please help..."

You can teach your son how to practice 2 Corinthians 10:5

2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

This means that, once your son acknowledges his weakness, the lying, then teach him to recognise the thought which first pop up in his head, to lie, to recognise it as the idea of the devil (evil spirit) masquerading as his thought, to instantly take hold of it and present it to God, telling Him about this thought.

Have your son do this all the time, and soon his guard will be up and he will recognise lying thoughts as an outside invasion and reject it outright. He will become a soldier for Christ, strong inside, and it will show in all his actions outside.

All the best :)

Susyan, thanks for your thoughtful post :) Yes, my son is a Christian, and he knows how serious lying is in God's eyes. He knows about repentance and forgiveness. He's been broken over his sin before, so we know he has a very tender heart, and he knows that temptation is not from God. He knows that the choices he makes are ultimately his, he can't blame anyone else, he can't blame the devil, and I try really hard to impress upon him that telling the truth may be hard to do, but it's SO important, and ultimately it's what will free him.
 
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gideon123

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Here are a couple of thoughts about teenagers.
These comments are strictly about teenagers.
They are not "aimed" at Celtic Heart in any way.

First off - my home is Teenager Central.
I have LOTS of teenagers in my house every week. I bet on any given week I see at least 10-12 teenagers. They are all generally friends of my daughter, but it's a pretty wide group. On any given weekend 3 or 4 teenagers may be crashed out on the floor and the couches in our living room. Otherwise they are heavily involved in doing all the things that teenagers normally do - which includes listening to music, playing music, playing computer games, and ENDLESS hours spent on computers. I used to joke that if I had a dollar for every time my daughter turned on a computer then I could retire and be a millionaire. No kidding.

This is also the reason why I am pretty sure that Celtic will lose her battle over computer usage. In the lives of modern teenagers computers are as important as breathing. Getting a new computer is SUPER-important to them, and it needs to have all the right connections. Computers are not just used to play games (although that is common) - they are used for music, videos and mostly importantly communication. It is how they plug into their own "teenage world". Taking away their computer would be equivalent to disconnecting them from that world - as I said earlier it would cause them to become a huge social outcast in their own world. This is a very bad thing for them, and as a result they will simply rebel against anyone who makes such rules. Pretty much every teenager I know would respond in the same way under those rules - it's not limited to any specific person.

I communicate with the teenagers a lot. I enjoy talking to them - even though their world is crazy and mixed up. NONE of the teenagers who come to my home are Christians. They all decided that Christians "are stupid" a long time ago. That's not an uncommon attitude. I decided I would respond to this by not being excessively defensive and instead listening to their points of view - occasionally making corrections if they misunderstood stuff. When the teenagers realized that I wasn't actually criticizing them for having their own views - they stopped making many of the negative remarks. No doubt that's why so many of them come over to my home - they know I will listen to them.

All of the kids who come to my house are pretty good people - I am confident they will turn out just fine. At various times most of them have been in wars with their parents ... which is one reason why they spend so much time at my place. If teenagers decide that adults are "out of it" they will just label everything you do as "stupid" and they will completely disconnect from your world. It's pretty standard stuff. I enforce a few simple rules at my home (no drugs, no alcohol, no profanity), but otherwise I don't criticize their music, allow them to watch their videos and listen to what they have to say. Overall - it's been a lot of fun. I feel sorry for all the parents who missed those years - especially 13-16 - but chances are that your kids were over at my house :)

The only teenagers who have really got into serious trouble are the ones who became complete social outcasts. Life as a teenager is actually pretty difficult these days - especially if you get into serious problems. It goes without saying that these kids had disconnected from their parents long ago - their Moms and Dads had no idea what they were into. Forcing them to try to integrate back into the family would not have worked. But generally that was actually not the problem - since plenty of other kids also have fights with their parents. The real problem is that they also got disconnected from their own peer group. That's how they became outcasts. It generally led to really serious personal problems. I know 2 or 3 kids who wound up that way, but they stopped coming to my home some time ago. They were ostracized amongst their own peers. In retrospect I regret not getting more actively involved in finding a solution for those kids. But it's kinda' a slow-developing problem and it's not immediately obvious when it's happening that things are serious.

The same things manifest themselves for every generation.
Adults are out of communication with teenagers.
And teenagers have decided the adult world is stupid.
These days it's even more easy for them to draw that conclusion.
But cutting them off and turning them into outcasts is not a good idea.

blessings,
Gideon
 
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Inkachu

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Just a thought: I understand some people are discussing the behavior of "teens", and the way you deal with a 16 or 17 year old is vastly different than how you deal with a 12 year old. Advice on dealing with teens is welcome, but may not apply in my current scenario, since my son is still very kid-like in many ways. The "tweens" as they now call them (eyeroll lol) are the super-awkward phase between little-kid-dom and teenager.
 
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gideon123

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Celtric - true. The worst age in my experience is 13.
That was really gruesome for parenting. A year I wanted to forget.
But they are changing so fast thru Middle School ... it's an unbelievable rate of change.


TO ALL TEENAGERS (Christian and Non-Christian)

I talk to a lot of teenagers.
I just talk. I don't yell, I don't rant.
I listen.

If you need to talk to someone and your parents are NOT listening,
just send me a message.
I wont freak out at anything you've done.
I will just be calm and listen.

Over the years I've known teenagers who were trying drugs,
OR were way deep into Heavy Metal and Punk,
OR decided they were gay,
OR didn't know what kind of job they wanted to do,
OR hated the fact that their parents only gave them chores,
OR were left out,
AND pretty much always their families never listened to them.

The important thing for you to know is this -
these problems are NOT as big as they seem right now.
Talk to somebody who will listen to you.
And just know that tons of other teenagers have been to the same place
And they turned out just fine.
SO WILL YOU!!

blessings,
Gideon123
 
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Inkachu

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Gideon - I agree that many of the "woe is me, the world is ending" drama of the teen years does sort itself out in one way or another as adulthood progresses, thank God lol. I don't believe it's a given that ALL teens will go through terrible things; many of them, yes. But I'll still do my darndest to spare my son some of the stuff that other kids go through. To do any less would make me ashamed of myself as a mother. I'm not going to over-protect him and send him out into the world a naive ignoramus; we talk about worldly things and why we should avoid them and how to choose healthier alternatives.

I remember 13 was a very difficult year for me, too; one of the most awkward and uncomfortable in so many ways. I didn't start rebelling until I was closer to 15 and 16, though. I wince to think of what I put my poor mother through; stuff no mother should have to endure. I'm encouraged that my son has already had a much healthier and solid foundation in his childhood, and I pray that his teens will NOT resemble mine in any way.
 
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homeofmew

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The harm isn't in the games, it's in the lying and disobedience. He was given an allotted time to play games, and an allotted time to do homework or project research; we caught him playing games during homework time, lying about it, and trying to sneak around the rules we'd set. That's the problem.


I understand, I don't have any really good advice to fix this,
the internet/computer can be a very... addictive thing, I know I have my computer in my room xD.

That's why he's lying about it I think because he wants more game time.
 
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