Guarding Your Teen with Boundaries
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Well, teens are under so much pressure these days, and they learn so much so fast. But one thing that doesn't seem to happen fast is learning boundaries. I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Danny Huerta, who heads up our parenting team. And we're going to kick off this episode with a conversation that Focus president Jim Daly had with Jodi Berndt as they discussed driving and sexual temptation.

Let's go to one of the root moments in raising teenagers, driving the car. Oh, yes. Teaching them to drive the car. I mean, everybody's got a funny story on this one. But how about you and Robbie? How did that work out in your household? Oh, well, you know. Who had control? Well, hopefully the Lord. Yeah, I remember when our eldest, Hillary, began to drive, one of her classmates who thought of her as somewhat scatterbrained or whatever, he gave her, he said, I'll bet you 20

$20 that you can't go the first week or the first month without an accident, without hitting at least a mailbox. There's a challenge. Yeah. And you know what? I was so grateful to that kid because she wouldn't have done it for me, but she did it for him. She took that bet and was super careful. And at the end of the month, I think I thought, I want to slip the guy another 20 and say, see if she'll go double or nothing. That's a whole nother topic. Oh,

Exactly. Exactly. But that is an area where, what is it, Psalm 91? They say a lot of times it's the soldier's psalm, the one that talks about angelic protection. I think I prayed verses from that. God, give your angels charge over Hillary. Guard her in all her ways, especially as she's behind the wheel. I remember when Troy got his permit and he could drive. And we got back from the DMV and we go into the house. I said, do you want to just go drive the car in the neighborhood? He's like, can I?

I said, "Yeah."

And, you know, stay out for an hour and just kind of drive the car around. And he was like, really? I was like, yeah, we got to bite the bullet at some point. So let's go. Oh, good for you. Good for you. So he went. And I could tell it was this freeing experience for him. Yeah. You know, think about it. As a 15-year-old, I mean, you're locked in the house all the time and, you know, the whole bit. And then dad gives you the keys and go. There you go. It was a little fearful, but I don't want to make it sound like I really had it together. Well done. Well, proud of you.

Families today, you know, they live in, we're jumping from one kind of lighthearted topic, the driving experience, to more serious topic and how sexualized the culture is. Yes. And I would say, you know, for Jean and I, this was a big issue. Very, Jean was very tender about this. She was really concerned about it with smartphones and friends' phones and pads and all the stuff they could access. Sure.

I guess the question is how do we talk about the standards and enforce the standards? This is probably one of the number one questions parents will contact us about is technology and limiting technology. Absolutely. They say, I know Andy Crouch wrote that book, The TechWise Family, and he says in there that technology is the number one reason why parents are

more nervous today than ever before. It brings every bit of garbage from outside your home in. And it changes. Like the minute you think you've figured out Instagram, say, okay, well now there's TikTok. And when you think, okay, you know how to text. Well, they don't text anymore. Now they Snapchat. And even while I'm talking to you, I'm sure they've invented something else that's going to make what I've just said sound dated. And the kids will be there way before you will be. Exactly. So we can't keep up. Yeah. So what were some of the things that you did and what do you recommend? Well,

you know, it is tough, as you said, especially the easy access to things like pornography. And, you know, there are studies that show that today's teens think it's way worse if you don't recycle than it is if you look at porn. You know, it's just a whole mindset that thinks of things so differently. But I'll tell you, I really drew encouragement from the story of Nehemiah,

He was trying to rebuild that wall and he was under attack, just like we can feel as parents, things coming at us all the time. His people, his laborers were getting weary. And there's this beautiful verse that I think all families can cling to, Nehemiah 4:14, when it's coming at them from all sides and they're afraid, just like we're afraid as we're looking at all this technology, everything else.

Nehemiah says, don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord who is great and awesome and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.

And I look at that and I go, "That's what we're doing." We fight for our families. We fight for our kids in prayer. And I love the plan that Nehemiah did. He... And I think you can boil it down to three steps. I'm sure a Bible scholar could add to this. But I think what he did was post a guard, and we can do the same thing as we set boundaries in our family's technology. Filters. Filters, certainly filters, passwords, time limits for social media use.

But then also, he put that guard up, but then he made a plan. We want to model good behaviors. You know, it's a lot easier for a parent to let a kid spend time with the screen than it is to come up with some advantageous

outside the home or some game. Way easier to just say, okay, kid, take your phone, take your computer, whatever. But parents can think about things that we can do as families and get other families involved in doing it with us because your kid's going to say no, maybe if it's just you saying, but if you say, oh, the Johnsons and the Smiths, they're going too. Oh, and they have a cute daughter, whatever, you know, bring that together. Yeah.

We can make it fun to get out there and do those things, prioritizing connection and communication over that. So that's our plan. And then we can pray. And you know what Nehemiah did. He made this buddy system where he would protect Jerusalem during the rebuilding. And parents can do the same thing. We can partner with other parents. I know that we talk often about moms in prayer and the groups they have that allow you to pray with other moms.

As we come bring our kids before the Lord on all these things, technology, anxiety, depression, the pornography, all that stuff. When we have a buddy that will pray with us and for us, that's a powerful thing right there. I think we want to post a guard. We want to make a plan. And every family is different. So your plan is not going to look exactly like my plan. And then pray for it. Yeah, those are good things. My, you know, Jean was wonderful.

and did a great job in that area. She was vigilant. I give her credit because I was more passive about it, saying, you know, what can we do? And she really stepped up and did a lot of great things to help the kids stay away from screens and use their imagination. And it takes effort and it takes intentionality. We had a group of friends when our kids were coming along

And we each made a movie and showed it together one night. And we would do this once a year. And the movies were terrible. You know, we're not professional actors. We're not script writers. But all the kids got in to making a plot and doing their part and recording it and then showing it with everybody. And it didn't matter whether you were three years old or 13 years old. You were willing to get involved and do that. Well, Dani, as we talked about boundaries, pornography, it's so pervasive. Yes.

it seems almost ludicrous, but is it possible? Cause I, I think I have this right. If you really want to break a habit, you kind of need a substitute. Yes. That's a little better for you. Uh,

There's not a good substitute for pornography. What do we do? How do we offer our kids kind of an off ramp from all that temptation or a better way to cope? That's a great question. There's two parts to this. One is I think a teen needs to understand the impact to their brain chemistry from pornography. The why. Why would you stop something that they're doing?

And in that, a teen may say, well, everyone else is doing it. I'm not hurting anyone. I've heard these things in the counseling office. Where does it tell me that it's bad? Does Scripture really talk about that? It never talks about pornography. So there's all these beliefs that you're needing to go into with your teen to help them understand why is pornography a boundary in our home?

And they need to learn that it robs them of something. Psalm 119 is a fantastic psalm to read with your teen sons and daughters, because this is an issue for both boys and girls now today in different ways. And so this is not just a boy issue. It's a both issue, a teen issue for sure.

Ask them, what are you actually looking for? What is pornography satisfying inside of you? It could be pleasure. It could be excitement. It could be affection. It could be looking for love because the brain is thinking that it's experiencing whatever's on the screen. And the mirror neurons help that experience happen for a person. And so there's some things here where the biology of our body is trying to satisfy something through the experience of pornography. Mm-hmm.

And so with the teen, explore that and say, hey, there's some other things that are healthy that meet that biological need. It could be climbing. It could be someone may love to do skydiving. They may love to fly airplanes or want to explore that. It could be exciting things that they're looking for. And this has been something that helps distract them from life and puts them in a more exciting place. Another one may be looking for affection. So you say, hey,

This is actually not affection. Let's find a way that you can find that deeper affection in your friendships, in your relationships, and why you feel it's lacking. And go into that emotional conversation with them. Right now, our tendency is to go into the fix-it mode with pornography. There's an emotional undercurrent where you need to ask the more emotional questions with your teens and say...

Hey, what feeling, what thing deeper are you trying to satisfy with this? And then listen into that and say, hey, I wonder what we're going to do because this is here to destroy you and to rob you of things.

I can't let that happen. So we've got to figure this out. There are filters out there. There's counseling. So know that there's a lot of help around this, but the conversation definitely needs to be driven by you as you're talking to your teen on this. And for the parent who can't imagine having the conversation,

what's a way to kind of get into this? I mean, just role play it. I've got a 15-year-old, and I used to struggle with pornography. How do I share? Well, you have a lot of knowledge. You know the underpinnings as to the struggle. And so it can begin with...

What is it that you're struggling with? Tell me some of the things that you're wrestling with. If the parent knows that it's pornography, you have to just call it out. I know that you are struggling with pornography. I get it. This is something that could really get you off track, could divide us, could take you away from all your relationships. I've got to step into this. We can go to counseling and start talking about this.

But we do need to open up the discussion, the conversation. Well, if you're finding this is really uncomfortable for you, then please know you can have a one-on-one phone consultation with one of our caring Christian counselors who can give you some perspectives and insight. Danny, you used to be on that team. You used to talk to people. It's a confidential phone call.

You get 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes, whatever is needed with that counselor. And they're there to pray with you and for you, but also give you some very practical resources to the situation you're in. Yeah. So whether it's pornography or some other situation you're dealing with with your teen or in your own life, our number is 800, the letter A and the word family.

800-A-FAMILY. We'll link over to that in the episode notes. And just a shout out to our donor community because you make that phone call possible. You contribute either monthly or on a one-time basis, and you're putting fuel in the engine for Focus on the Family. And we're able to reach out to people and provide this counseling service because of you. So thank you.

And if you're in a spot where you haven't donated to Focus, but you'd like to, you'd like to make it possible for people to get a free phone consultation, make that donation today. The details are in the show notes. We'll say thank you for joining the support team by sending a copy of Jodi's book, Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens.

Next time, we'll talk about homeschooling with Cynthia Tobias. For now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and the entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.

Culture is changing so fast. How should Christians respond? At our next Lighthouse Voices event, you'll hear from John Stonestreet with the Colson Center. We live in what is called a civilizational moment. Civilizations ebb and flow, and we are at a pivotal moment. I think a lot of us have felt that existentially for a long time. Learn how to face this moment with clarity, confidence, and courage.

Lighthouse Voices is on April 15th, and you can register for the free live stream at lighthousevoices.org.