Keeping Them Safe
June 22, 2001

Our Thoughts:

All of us want to keep our children safe from things that will harm them. We teach them never to talk to strangers, never to take candy from anyone they don't know, and it's for their protection. We teach them all about fire safety and wearing seatbelts. And, the world keeps piling on things that will harm our children even more, and it's getting harder and harder to keep them from the unwanted evils in this life. Undoubtedly, some of the children will indeed come across things that we wouldn't approve, but hopefully, they have been taught enough, that these things will not make a bearing on their mind. In other words, we hope we've taught them right from wrong - what to pay attention to and what to discard.

The radio was never a factor in teaching children bad things, when I was home. We listened to some music and a few nighttime stories - all censored by our parents. Then, came the television. We didn't have one until I was in the ninth grade. Oh, we were about the last ones in our little town to have a television, I am sure. But, by that time, we knew right from wrong, and what was expected of us. We also knew what our parents approved for our viewing. We only had three local channels, so there wasn't too much of a choice. We also went to bed early, so there was no danger in watching late-night shows. Even back then, though, the television went off at a decent hour, not on twenty four hours a day. We now have not only local channels, but cable or satellite. There are so many varied packages, it's hard to keep count anymore. They range from all sports packages to all show packages - both good and bad. The shows now, even though lots are PG, or PG13, they have talk in there that I wasn't allowed to hear, and was only in X rated movies. So, it's not easy for a parent to just let a child watch television anymore. One has to be very careful on picking out a show. Some of the nicest shows still have a bad word or two in them - there's no getting around television shows.

Then there comes this thing we call the computer - all equipped to play music, even watch movies, and the internet, on which you inner-act with other people. There are all kinds of sites, from the best to the worse, from the clean to the nasty. There's also the choice of chat rooms, for both the young and old. So, there are many avenues down which an unexpecting child can go, if he/she is turned loose on this thing called the internet. And, don't believe just because you have taught your child about all these things to be aware of, that they won't 'investigate'. It's a child's nature to want to know about these things we teach them are bad for them. But, we pray that we have taught our children in a way, that, if they are subjected to some of the online smut that appears (unexpectedly, at times), they will have the knowledge and strength to want to pass up those sites again. We can't make our children do right, but we can place within them the fear of God. We teach them what His Word says about such things, and pray that their mind registers all of this as a warning that, to do these things is a sin, and that they won't willfully sin.

God's Thoughts:

All Scriptures are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

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