My daughter has always been very into Jesus, rereading the Bible, going to church every week, but all of the sudden she has stopped.
I am worried people at her school are having effects on her. She has been watching evil stuff like American horror story and such. She talks about a ‘Shane Dawson’ who apparently posts conspiracies.
She is always on her phone playing a game called BitLife. I am very scared for her and I do not know what I can do to get her back into Jesus.
Please help.
My reply here is from the perspective of a 25 year old millenial who has experienced a childhood where technology was absent and prevalent in the household due to the sudden spike in technological advances in the early 2000s. I'm not a parent but I have been parented and became an adult in 2011 so I'm not too behind on the times.
I will say that Shane Dawson is just a youtuber that has been famous for comedy since the early 2000s but is now famous for making video series (one of them being on conspiracy theories). The conspiracy theory videos are not really serious, though he does do his research, and he does stress that they are in no way to be taken as fact. I watch them and find them interesting food for thought but that's all they are is food for thought. If your daughter has trouble distinguishing this from actual facts and reality then it might be a good idea to talk with her about them and maybe impress upon her that it might not be a good idea for her to watch them.
As a parent, you probably have some control over her phone privileges. Bitlife is a game where you basically control a simulated life from start to finish, making decisions and such without the risk of real life. It can be fun much like the computer game The Sims but I can see where it might get obsessive. You as a parent have a right to either limit your daughter's phone time (there are apps you can use to help with parental controls) or take the phone away from her. The latter I would only recommend if her being on her phone is disrupting her schooling, chores, or her obedience to you.
I understand that a lot of this has to do with technology and the internet and might be outside of your area of expertise or knowledge but I do want to stress that technology and the internet, when used wisely and correctly, are not evil incarnate and/or something you have to avoid like the plague and keep away from your child. On the contrary, our world is rapidly getting more technologically advanced and it is good for today's children to know how to work with technology in order to work and live comfortably in the future.
As for turning her back to Jesus, you won't be able to do that by force. You can make her attend church and do bible study with you but you can't remote control her thoughts, much as you might wish you were able to at times. What you can do is show her the love and understanding of Christ (and not panic or "flip out" on her) and remind her of how much God loves her and how much you love her. It's easy for teenagers to associate parental discipline with the parent not loving them (we even do that with God sometimes) but letting her know how much you love her helps. Eventually, when she's an adult, she'll come to understand why discipline and parental guidance is important.
You're doing awesome as a mom! There's many children in the world who don't have parents that care about them as much as you care about your daughter
TLDR; Show her God's love, show her your love, talk with her calmly and with understanding, don't freak out over the use of technology and the internet.
