Lead Your Kids

You’ve likely heard the statistics and seen the headlines: “Technology is rewiring our brains.” Especially our children’s brains. We've already talked about when and how to limit screen time for your children. But today, the conversation I’d like us to have is about the necessity of modeling healthy tech use for our children.

The reality is that if we don’t model how to set boundaries for ourselves, neither will they. Here are three ways you can begin to model healthy tech use for your family. 

When we talk about parenting infants, it’s all about survival mode. Being strategic is too much to ask, right?

There’s no denying that the first few days or weeks feel like you’re just hanging on. If we just make it through the sleepless nights, the endless diapers, and the incessant feedings, then we can get on to the business of raising our son or daughter, or so the logic goes. But that logic instills a destination mentality to our parenting practices ...

One Sunday morning on our way to church, my son asked, “Where are we going?” 

“We are going to church, buddy,” my wife replied. 

“Why are we going to church?” 

“Well, we are going to church to worship God and be with our church family.” 

“I don’t want to go to church to worship and be with church family.” 

As a kid, I did a lot of drawing, mostly of baseball cards, and mainly of Ozzie Smith, the legendary shortstop of the St. Louis Cardinals. He was my favorite athlete, and I wanted to play ball just like him—everything from wearing #1 to turning double plays without opening my glove. I would draw him at the plate, running the bases, tracking down pop-ups—whatever he was doing on the cards I had in front of me. I drew him because I wanted to imitate him. It’s the same reason my kids draw me. And yours draw you.

Most every dad knows what this is like. Whether it’s a school assignment or doodles during a church service, our young children have a knack for drawing us. Can you recall the last picture your children sketched of you? Do you have it nearby, maybe close enough to study for a minute? Don’t write it off as mere childishness; there’s something deeper going on.

There’s a lot of good stuff online—and a lot of not-so-great stuff. Once a month, to help you dig through the depths of the internet and find what’s worth your time, we will send you a couple of things that have been helpful to us as dads. Here’s our June list ...

In the first moments of meeting my first child, I specifically remember thinking, “What a gift! What a miracle!” I was blown away by the way God uses nature and humans to create new humans—little miracles. “God, you made that little child through us...wow!”

But my second thought was, “Oh God, you are entrusting me with this miracle? Me? I can’t even be trusted to drive a car well, and you are giving me a boy?

As fathers, our instinct is to provide strength and grace for our children—to guide them, to speak up for them, to speak truth to others on their behalf, and to make things right when something goes wrong. I am the father of two wonderful girls. My wife and I have tried our best to encourage them to try new things, work hard, and recognize that their value is from God, not from what others think. This has been our plan, but occasionally this plan takes us in an unexpected direction.

Most of us are good at achieving goals. We know where we want to go, and we map a route to get there—whether we are planning our careers or pursuing our hobbies. Our strategies can be simple and practical, and they can be comprehensive and long-lasting.

We carefully plan out our work and our workouts, but how often do we think about our goals and plans for our parenting? Our kids are so much more important than our job title or our fitness. Let’s give our children the strategic attention they need to help them be truly successful.

"Can I have a smartphone?” “Just one more hour of Fortnite?” “Why can’t I be on Instagram?”If you haven’t fielded these questions from your kids yet, you’ll hear them soon enough. And part of what it means to parent strategically is making a plan for how you’ll answer.

We want our children to face the world with courage. We want them to speak honestly and tell us what’s really going on. We want our children to be confident. But a lot of so-called confidence is all about us. So how do we help our children grow in real confidence?