Cutting the Cord...

Two years ago we got rid of something that was slowly driving a wedge in the middle of our family.  It was making our daughter think she wasn't pretty enough, it was making our son violent, and it was making my wife and I distant, non communicative people living in the same house.

Every day it would suck the energy out of us and show us new, shiny things we should spend our money on.  It was talking to us all day, making us listen.  We listened so much that we weren't talking to each other any more.  It was slowly ripping us apart and we were letting it.

To make things worse, this thing was in our house by our choice.  In fact, we were paying a lot of money for it each month to stay in our house.

So, it had to go.  We kicked it to the curb and haven't looked back.

It's up to you...

Hey Moms and Dads, take a moment to read this:

There’s a lot of talk about kids and television. Ten years ago the average kid swallowed a daily TV dosage of three hours and 47 minutes. You may also know the total reached four hours and 29 minutes of daily viewing by 2009. 

Eye-popping numbers? Yes. But if that’s all you know, then you know less than half the story!
“Media” is a lot more than just television. Add two and a half hours of music/audio; then another hour and a half on the computer; now tally the one hour and 13 minutes of video gaming; factor in 38 minutes of print and (on average) 25 minutes of movie watching. It all begins to add up.

All told the grand total for exposure is ten hours and 45 minutes of media – that’s each and every day of your child’s life. (Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation “M2: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds”) 

Okay, nice. Now you know. So what? Mix in eight to ten hours of sleep and we’re talking around four hours left over for stuff like learning the values children need in order to deal with ten plus hours of God knows what. 

Well, God does know. But the question is, do you? 

So let’s talk about monitoring; what can we do to keep an eye on media in our children’s lives? 

  (taken directly from 10 Ways to Monitor Media in Your Child's Life on www.allprodad.com)

As you will discover, this is a little soapbox of mine :)

If our main job as Christian parents is to raise our children to love God with all their hearts, souls, and minds and to love others as themselves, then most of what we let our kids hear, see, and  mentally ingest is absolutely contrary to this.

This Top 10 List from www.allprodad.com is full of wisdom, truth and insight.

Read it, compare it to your own situation, make adjustments as necessary.

Remember, YOU are the parent.  Live into that!

Do you see what I see?

Ok.

I don't know if it's because I'm getting older... or because I'm slowly becoming my parents, but I've recently been noticing all the truly awful things in the mediasphere (TV, music, internet, movies, books, etc...) that are aimed directly at our kids' hearts, souls, and minds.

If Jesus said that the greatest commandment of all time is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:34-39)... I'm pretty sure not much of what is floating invisibly through the airwaves and directly into our homes, or is sitting on our kids' iPods is going to help us as parents instill this truth in our children very effectively.

I'm not just saying this as a children's pastor... I'm saying this as a father who is concerned about what my