Influences

It scares me to think about what may influence my little girls. Look at the influences years ago to now. They have all seemed to get worse; the clothes, the lyrics to songs, movies, tv shows. The whole POPULAR image. Its all about sex. Sad but true.

One of the biggest music Icons is Rihanna
(cant post links or pics)
another one is Beyonce

These two girls, are Gorgeous. They have amazing voices.
But they are sex icons.

Look at the clothes today. At what 16 year olds are wearing. The clothes barely cover anything!
(I wish I could post pics)

It just saddens me. But I'm grateul too, because I know that the end is near.... But I hate, YES hate, to see so many people falling, and they dont even know it, or choose to ignore it.

It is hard when kids get to middle school. My children have been exposed to so much over the past two years in middle school. However, when you model your beliefs and take time with your children, you will have influence over them. Just think about the amount of time most parents have to influence how their children see the world, all we have to do is utilize it. Our children only get as much media time as we allow them to get. With public schools, there are some things we cannot control but we get to have amazing conversations about how to be in the world and not be of the world.

My kids know a lot, without having experienced it all.

Hang in there and don't worry! When God is for us, who can stand against us?

As an uncle to two wonderful girls I am truly concerned, especially as a man, let me explain. It's almost a uniform practice amongst men to "disrespect the other sex", I have friends who BRAG how they treated their other half, how they got away with cheating, who they slept with, what they did etc etc, and it does disturb me deeply. You mentioned Rihanna and Beyonce. I ask? What levels of self respect do these women have? I would say very little, I cannot imagine someone with self respect dressing like that. If you manage to instil a high value of self-respect, I am pretty certain that they will be absolutely fine

the bible says to teach what is right and they will not stray from path later in life. I also saw a article which had done a bit of research and found that when kids are adults later in life even though they had all different kinds of idols when younger actually consider parents to be the biggest influence on them So I think that verse is true and even though it may look like they are getting bad influences later in life when they mature they will realise what is important.

I know it isn't easy as a single parent to be that good influence all the time. Several times I have had to apologise to my son because I have been struggling to cope but I try. Once I had to call my sister and ask her to take him for the day so I could spend the day with a friend to help me calm down. So having plans in place really helps in those tough times.

If society didn't over sexualize like we do today we wouldn't have this issue.

Just because there are negative influences in the world doesn't mean they have to be part of your children's lives. Yes, they have to go to school, but honestly how much exposure do you think they get to pop culture? They're not listening to music, watching TV or being exposed to movies in class. Their peers may dress immodestly, but that doesn't mean their own wardrobe has to emulate those values. We have tribal cultures in warm tropical regions that wear very little clothing, and middle eastern cultures that don't allow women to expose their faces. But these cultural differences in clothing don't have much influence on how women are treated.

I was disgusted by a lot of commercials and even kids programs on TV, so we got rid of it. My kids don't watch anything except what I put in the Netflix queue or purchase. They don't listen to the radio, because we hand-pick the music that plays in our household. It is the same with movies. There is a lot of wholesome stuff out there to fulfill viewing/listening pleasure. So why worry? There are all kinds of horrible things in the world, and always has been. Christian families don't need to be a part of it. It's not a problem unless you invite it into your home.

Yes, the world is a messy, sinful, rotten place at times, but that's why we need to be PARENTS. You are in control of what your child is exposed to, to a very large degree, especially when they're little. That is the time to fill their lives with wholesome, godly influences. It's YOUR job to monitor what they watch on TV, what music they listen to, and who they spend time with. Don't just tell them what NOT to do, give them fun alternatives! If they can't watch secular TV, give them fun, age-appropriate Christian cartoons and movies to watch. You can also find tons of things to watch that aren't "Christian" in label, but are harmless as well as educational (science shows, nature shows, documentaries). For example, my son absolutely loves shows about things exploding, or natural disasters, so we buy lots of science-y stuff for him. There's lots of music out there that he isn't allowed to have, so we do OUR part as parents and seek out awesome Christian music alternatives, and he loves it.

You can't control them forever, and you can't watch over them 24/7 (especially once they start school), but you can make sure that their home environment is a safe, godly haven, where the truth permeates their minds and hearts, and they can be "deprogrammed" after spending all day in the secular world. Remember, our job isn't to shelter them forever (though we DO need to do that to the best of our ability and what is reasonable), but to equip them to venture out into that messy world on their own someday.