{"id":301397,"date":"2007-07-18T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/pornography\/"},"modified":"2007-07-18T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-18T15:00:00","slug":"pornography","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/pornography\/","title":{"rendered":"Pornography"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that the largest consumer of Internet pornography is the 12-17 age group?  Dennis and Barbara Rainey talk about the pervasive use of pornography among teens and the lasting damage that exposure can have on a young man or woman&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":294104,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/web.familylifetoday.com\/fl2007-07-18.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:","filesize":"9.53M","filesize_raw":"9993224","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2855],"tags":[2321],"podcast_series":[7528],"cwp_profile":[3051],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-301397","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teens","tag-sexual-purity","podcast_series-the-deadly-traps-of-adolescence","cwp_profile-dennis-and-barbara-rainey","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg?w=508","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/301397\/pornography","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/301397\/pornography","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"FHzfyWjOAZ\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/pornography\/\">Pornography<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/pornography\/embed\/#?secret=FHzfyWjOAZ\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;Pornography&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"FHzfyWjOAZ\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg",508,508,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"kfairris@familylife.com","author_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/author\/kfairrisfamilylife-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Did you know that the largest consumer of Internet pornography is the 12-17 age group? Dennis and Barbara Rainey talk about the pervasive use of pornography among teens and the lasting damage that exposure can have on a young man or woman's life.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylifetoday.com\/fl2007-07-18.pdf","transcript_content":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0A lot of guys today think of pornography of something that's essentially a harmless indulgence.\u00a0 I mean, it's not hurting anybody else, right?\u00a0 That's how they rationalize it.\u00a0 Whether it's sites visited on the Internet or magazines that are kept hidden away, pornography can have an impact not just on your heart, but it can also be visited to the next generation.\u00a0 Here is Dennis Rainey.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0I include in our book, \"Parenting Today's Adolescent,\" a story of a young man who found pornography because his father had a stack of it in his closet, and his dad was sampling this stuff, and the boy found it, and it started a pattern in this young man's life that impacted his marriage, his family, and almost destroyed him as a man.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, July 18th.\u00a0 Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 What can we do, as parents, to attempt to protect our children against the devastating damage of pornography?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.\u00a0 Last week and again this week, we have been talking about some of the traps that have been laid for our teenagers as they walk through the teenage years and about the things that we can do, as parents, to be proactive in trying to help our teens navigate around these traps so that they don't become ensnared. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And the trap we're going to be talking about today, Dennis, is a dangerous trap.\u00a0 It's the trap of pornography.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0You know, Proverbs 4:23 says, \"Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.\"\u00a0 What Solomon is talking about there is protecting the headwaters of the soul, because once you pollute the headwaters, the stream all the way out into the life of that person is impacted by that poison.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0You know, Bob, you came in one day when we were working on the book, and we'd been talking around this issue about pornography, and you shared a story about how a leader in a church had been impacted by pornography that found its way into his life through Christian families.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Yeah, this particular individual had grown up in a Christian home and had not been exposed to anything like this at home, but he'd gone to babysit for other families in the church and, again, his parents assumed these families were good churchgoing families.\u00a0 There was nothing to concern them there. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0But after the children were in bed, he found, hidden away in some of these homes, pornographic material, and it was his first exposure, and it grabbed hold of him and, Dennis, there is something about pornography that it just seems to get its claws on the soul of a man, and it won't let go.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0And it's that curiosity, I think, that the enemy uses with men and, I believe, with women as well, that hook them and where they develop a compulsive behavior that begins to habitually get into pornography and sample it, and it poisons the soul.\u00a0 It poisons the heart.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And what we have to do as parents, I believe, we are the guardians of our children's hearts.\u00a0 We are the ones who are to protect them from this evil, but it starts all the way back with our model, what we watch, what we do, what we bring into our homes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI include in our book, \"Parenting Today's Adolescent,\" a story of a young man who found pornography because his father had a stack of it in his closet, and his dad was sampling this stuff, and the boy found it, and it started a pattern in this young man's life that impacted his marriage, his family, and almost destroyed him as a man.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Barbara, that's one of the challenges that parents face today.\u00a0 In Solomon's day, as we read in Proverbs, chapter 5, 6, and 7, you could pretty much warn your kids, \"Stay out of this part of town, don't go in establishments like this, and you'll be protected from these images and from pornography.\"\u00a0 It has been so mainstreamed today that we can hardly let our kids out of the house.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBarbara:\u00a0Well, we don't have to let our kids out of the house with the Internet.\u00a0 I mean, you know, that kind of stuff is everywhere, and that's what's so scary.\u00a0 But parents really need to be on guard, as Dennis was saying, in protecting our kids and watching where they are, where they're going, and even in letting them to go somebody else's house, like that story you told about that man when he was a young boy, finding it another Christian's home.\u00a0 We have to be so careful where we let our kids go and who we let them spend time with.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Then we've got to be asking a lot of questions at the same time, like the question you asked your son Benjamin one day when he came home from school.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Yeah, and I asked him if he'd been looking at anything he ought not to be looking at, and he was about 12 or 13 years of age.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0That's a pretty bold question for a dad just to grab his son and say, \"Hey, have you been looking at anything you shouldn't be looking at?\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Well, I think the spirit of God prompted me to do that, and I think what I want to encourage our listeners to do is when the Lord begins to burden you with something with your children, step on in there and ask the question. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Benjamin had come home from school.\u00a0 We were in the kitchen, and I asked him that question, and it was like he was struck with lightning.\u00a0 It's, like, \"Dad, have you been reading my mail or something?\"\u00a0 And he said \u2013 he looked at me after he paused for a moment, and he got this little grin that he has, and he said, \"Well, as a matter of fact, today at lunch I was sitting in the back of the classroom eating my sandwich, and some guys had some pornographic literature up front at the teacher's desk, and they were all huddled around it, looking at it, and they said, 'Hey, Ben, come on up and look at this.'\"\u00a0 And he said, \"I finished my sandwich, stuffed it all in the sack, and I walked up past the desk and on out into the hall and left the room.\"\u00a0 And I said, \"You did what?\"\u00a0 He said, \"That's right.\u00a0 I didn't look at it.\u00a0 I left the room.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Well, at that point, it was like my son had scored the winning touchdown \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBarbara:\u00a0\u2026 in the Super Bowl.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0In the Super Bowl, there you go, and I went berserk.\u00a0 I mean, I started screaming, yelling, going, \"Yes, way to go, son, that's a phenomenal step,\" and you know, I don't know to this day if he remembers his Dad going bonkers there in the kitchen over his choice, but I think if there's anything we ought to be getting excited today about, it's young men, young women, who are taking steps away from evil and toward that which is right.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0You know, Bob, I think what we're talking about here is parents being involved in their sons' and in their daughters' lives, because there are so many ways these images can gain entrance into our children's soul and poison the headwaters.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Barbara, when my son Jimmy was about seven years old, we were driving around one day, and there are a series of stores in our community that we've just chosen not to patronize because they sell pornographic magazines.\u00a0 And so as we drove past one of these stores, he said, \"Now, Dad, we don't shop there because of some of the magazines they sell, is that right?\"\u00a0 I said, \"That's right.\"\u00a0 And he said, \"What kind of magazines are they?\"\u00a0 And he's seven \u2013 and here's the tension for a dad \u2013 how much detail do you share in order to protect your son's innocence and keep him away from the destruction?\u00a0 How do parents navigate that kind of a tightrope?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBarbara:\u00a0Well, I think parents \u2013 again, it goes back to being involved, and it's the word we've talked about over and over again in the book, and as we've been talking through these traps \u2013 Moms and Dads have to be involved in their child's life, and that means asking questions all the time and then responding to the questions they ask us like you did with Jimmy, and saying, \"You know, it's something that is degrading to what God created.\" \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Or bring it back to the scripture to God's blueprint and God's plan for marriage and family and just let them know that this material is not wholesome, and it's not healthy.\u00a0 But we need to be careful that we do it in such a way that we don't increase their curiosity so that they want to go find out what this is.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And I think, as parents, as we continue to pray, that God will give us wisdom to answer these questions and to ask our kids questions, too, to find out what they're seeing and what they're hearing, I think the Lord will grant that wisdom.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0You know, a number of years ago, one of my sons had a friend come over and spend the night, and Mary Ann and I had gone on to bed and, of course, they stayed up later.\u00a0 I think they were watching something on TV or watching a video or something.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And the next morning when I got up, I was on the computer, and I saw a site that I didn't recognize in our history file.\u00a0 I went there and as soon as it popped up, I went \"Uh-oh,\" and clicked out of it, and then I realized that this had to be something that the kids had gone to while we'd gone to bed.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And so I called to my son, and I said, \"Son, can you come into the other room for just a second?\"\u00a0 And I sat him down, and I said, \"Did you guys look at something last night on the Internet that you shouldn't have looked at?\"\u00a0 And he realized immediately that he'd been found out, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, so he just kind of dropped his head and said, \"Yeah, we did.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And I said, \"Well, tell me about it.\u00a0 What happened?\"\u00a0 And it turned out that someone at school had given my son's friend an address for the Internet and said, \"You ought to check out this site.\"\u00a0 And they didn't know what was there, they didn't know anything about it.\u00a0 It had been, I think, relatively innocent, at least that when we called the other young man in, and I asked him about that, that's what he told me.\u00a0 He said, \"I didn't know all that was going to be there.\u00a0 Somebody told me I should look at it, and so we looked at it.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And I said, \"Well, I've got to call your dad and let him know what we looked at, and we've just got to be on the same page, and he allowed that that would be okay.\u00a0 And we didn't make a big deal out of it because I think they had come across this relatively innocently, but we did say, \"Look, there is danger here.\u00a0 It's not just something innocent it's not harmless.\u00a0 You've got to be very careful.\u00a0 You don't want to be going to these sites.\u00a0 Looking at this stuff can damage your soul.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And, you know, when we think about this issue of pornography, we typically think about our teenage sons and the pictures and images that they're seeing, but, I'll tell you, there is a growing trend of teenage girls going on the website to look at particular kinds of pictures or images.\u00a0 And even if they're not looking at what we would technically refer to as pornography, they are going to sites, or they're reading literature, or they're viewing things that can have the same kind of influence on their soul.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBarbara:\u00a0Yeah, I think there are two things that girls are most susceptible to.\u00a0 One would be magazines and the kinds of images \u2013 the way they portray women and teenagers in magazines, the kinds of things that they wear.\u00a0 And all of that can desensitize their perspective of who they are as young women and how they are to act and what their standards need to be. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And the other thing would be novels that girls read, because there are a lot of novels out there, even Christian novels, that are romance novels that stir up all kinds of longings and passions and desires and interests along those lines that are not necessary for these girls to be experiencing.\u00a0 It's not something that they need at this age in their lives.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0They need to be doing things that are much more wholesome and relational with girlfriends and family, rather than feasting their eyes and their minds on these magazines and books that are all about things that they have no business being involved in.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Some of the magazines that you subscribed to when you were in high school and had hoped you might subscribe to someday with your daughters you found were wholly inappropriate.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBarbara:\u00a0Yeah, I remember discovering that and what a shock it was when our oldest daughter was a teenager and I thought, \"Well, I'll just subscribe to this magazine for her,\" and went and bought a copy at the newsstand for her to have and was just amazed at how it had changed over those years from when I was a teenager to when she became a teenager, and that was even about 10 years ago, and the content was awful, it really was.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Dennis, in the same way that men are stimulated visually, women are stimulated emotionally \u2013 what they read in romance novels and magazines can gain a grip on their soul.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0I think it's the wise parent who understands that this problem is not just a male problem.\u00a0 I think many of the soap operas today, a lot of advertising, other things, are trying to gain entrance into a woman's soul and pollute her much as diabolical forces are trying to do the same thing with men, and it's why we've got to maintain a good connection with our daughters as well as our sons and be tracking with them, asking them how they're doing.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0One of the things, Bob, that I think is very important to discuss with our teens and preteens, is just a good definition of what pornography is.\u00a0 I think a lot of times we can classify pornography at such an end of the spectrum that we fail to recognize where pornography starts, and our definition that we use is that pornography is any type of media \u2013 words, photographs, movies, or music, that stimulates sexual excitement.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Now, if you start with that definition, all of a sudden, that opens the door to all types of advertisements, whether it be on TV, whether it be on the radio or in print media and, frankly, some of the advertisements that are used even in major news magazines or even in the newspaper is absolutely pornographic.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And, as parents, I think we've got to start with our own basic conviction of what is pornography?\u00a0 What are we going to classify as pornographic literature?\u00a0 Pornographic images?\u00a0 And I believe pornography is that which perverts the beauty of what God said was very good.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0The sex drive and sex in marriage is all appropriate and good and blessed by God, but pornography is an appeal to the fantasy.\u00a0 It calls men and women away from real relationships to these fantasy relationships that don't exist.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0A second thing that's very important is, without being explicit, you talked about this with your son, Jimmy \u2013 we have to explain to our young people that pornography has certain steps associated with it.\u00a0 There's a slow, gradual, slippery slope that you start walking down, and it starts with just a little bit of curiosity, and then there has to be more stimulation to satisfy that curiosity, and it can be so powerful, so alluring that it can take an innocent encounter like I had one time of opening a trash bin to dump our garbage in the trash bin, and there was, opened in the trash bin, a pornographic magazine.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Well, at that point, I could either decide to walk away or pick it up and stuff it in my trash bag and take it back into my home.\u00a0 I left it where it was and didn't look, but it's those types of little steps that determine who we become.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0We were driving along the other night with a friend of my daughter's, and they have an Internet service, one of the large, national Internet services, and we were talking about e-mail, and she said, \"We routinely get e-mails sent to us inviting us to visit all these icky-sounding sites,\" and it's happening innocently where your children are a click away from an image that will burn into their soul and will never leave.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Yeah, and that's why parents have got to be involved, and they've got to use some of the resources that are being created to protect our families.\u00a0 There's an Internet service that we list in the book that is filtering out pornographic sites from ever even making it to your computer.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0There's software available that's mentioned in the book as well to talk about how to filter these images and words from ever making it into your home, and I think, as parents, we've got to use all these resources that help us protect and guard our children's hearts, because we've been given that responsibility, and your child doesn't have the maturity to be able to discern what to do with that Russian sex site that pops up on your screen.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Dennis, what should a mom or a dad do if they come across files that they know have been downloaded onto the computer that they realize are inappropriate?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Well, first of all, you're making the assumption that they found them casually.\u00a0 I would empower every parent listening who is raising a teenager to take the freedom to look.\u00a0 I wouldn't hesitate to look in my son or my daughter's room or where they've been tracking on the computer if I suspected anything and you know what?\u00a0 Even if you haven't suspected anything, it might not be a bad idea if you just go and look and just check it out.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, is that invading the child's privacy?\u00a0 I don't think so.\u00a0 That child is under your care.\u00a0 You are protecting that child.\u00a0 If you came home and were afraid somebody was hiding in your child's room, wouldn't you go look in that room first to see if somebody was in there, if there was evil in there, if there was harm going to come to him?\u00a0 You wouldn't think anything about that.\u00a0 Well, I think the same thing is true of this.\u00a0 I think we need to look at see if our children are sampling.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Secondly, if you do find it, I think immediately you offer grace.\u00a0 You know, that's at the core of the Gospel.\u00a0 Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, \"For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast.\"\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0We're all sinners, we've all broken God's laws, we need grace to be able to rightly relate to God and to one another.\u00a0 You forgive your child, and you go armed with that grace and forgiveness, but you take a step beyond that, and you call that young man or that young lady to be accountable.\u00a0 You ask them to step forward and to submit to some actions like not being on the computer late at night after Mom and Dad have gone to bed; not having a computer in their bedroom with the door closed.\u00a0 The idea is, is bring their lives out into the light and let them walk in the light.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Then, I think, third, ask your child questions \u2013 are you looking at anything you ought not to be looking at?\u00a0 Are you allowing your mind to feast on anything that could pollute your soul as a young man or as a young lady?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0I think it can be helpful for parents, too, to have software on the computer, things like on our computer at home, we use something called \"Safe Eyes,\" that's a program you buy, and a service then you subscribe to that provides a level of safety.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThere is also monitoring software.\u00a0 We've talked before about a program called \"Desktop Surveillance,\" that gives you snapshots of where your children have been, where anybody has been on your computer.\u00a0 And all of these kinds of computer programs can be helpful but, again, we have to remind ourselves that there is no computer program that will keep a teenager away from something they shouldn't be looking at if they really want to look at it.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThey can go to a friend's house or a cyber caf\u00e9 somewhere, they can find a computer that's available and, I guarantee you, if they go off to college, unless they're in a situation where the college actually filters the Internet, they're going to have access wide open.\u00a0 You've got to make sure that you're not just dealing with the problem by putting boundaries around your teenagers, but you're helping your teenager cultivate the personal boundaries, the personal convictions, the self-discipline to stay away from these sites that we've talked about today.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd to do that, you need the kind of guidance that the two of you provide in your book, \"Parenting Today's Adolescent.\"\u00a0 I think you give us, as parents, a good game plan for how to address these issues, how to have an ongoing conversation with our teenagers so that we can raise this issue regularly as our children go through the teen years.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThis is one of the more than a dozen traps you talk about in the book \"Parenting Today's Adolescent.\"\u00a0 And I think it's a particularly helpful resource for parents who have preteens.\u00a0 You're right on the verge of your children becoming teenagers.\u00a0 Maybe you're not dealing with these issues now, but they're just around the corner and now is the time for you to be engaging in these issues, developing some convictions and being ready to have some standards in place that you can interact with your teen about as they start to move into their teenage years.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAgain, we've got copies of the book, \"Parenting Today's Adolescent,\" in our FamilyLife Resource Center.\u00a0 Go to our website, FamilyLife.com.\u00a0 In the middle of the home page, you'll see a red button that says \"Go,\" and if you click that button, it will take you to an area of the site where you can get more information about the book, or you can order a copy online, if you'd like.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAgain, the website if FamilyLife.com, click the red \"Go\" button so that you can get a copy of Dennis and Barbara's book, or call 1-800-FLTODAY, that's 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY, and someone on our team will make arrangements to have a copy of this book sent to you.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tYou know, a common theme that we've had throughout this week as we've talked about the traps that are facing our teenagers is the theme of how important it is for parents to be proactive, to be involved, and to make sure you have a relationship in place with your teenager as you move into the teenage years so that you can have some of these challenging conversations.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI was just thinking about the book that you wrote recently, Dennis, called \"Interviewing Your Daughter's Date,\" and if a dad is going to step up and take on that responsibility, he needs to do it on the foundation of a healthy relationship with his daughter.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tThis month we wanted to make a copy of your new book available to any of our listeners who could help with a donation of any amount for the ministry of FamilyLife Today.\u00a0 We are listener-supported, and so we depend on those donations to be able to continue the work of this radio ministry and the other outreach ministries of FamilyLife Today.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tAnd if you can help us this month with a donation of any amount, we want you to feel free to request a copy of the book, \"Interviewing Your Daughter's Date.\"\u00a0 If you're donating online at FamilyLife.com, when you come to the keycode box on the donation form, just type the word \"date\" in there, and we'll know to send you a copy of Dennis's book as a thank you gift.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tOr if you call 1-800-FLTODAY to make a donation over the phone, just mention that you'd like Dennis's new book, \"Interviewing Your Daughter's Date.\"\u00a0 We're happy to send it out to you.\u00a0 It's our way of saying thanks for your partnership with us in this ministry.\u00a0 We appreciate your financial involvement, and we're also glad you listen to FamilyLife Today.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tNow, we hope you can be back with us tomorrow for FamilyLife Today.\u00a0 We want to talk about one of the other issues that faces teenagers today \u2013 it's the issue of drug use, substance abuse, alcohol, marijuana \u2013 what can we do, as parents, to try to proactively deal with this issue and help our teen avoid that trap?\u00a0 We're going to talk about it tomorrow, I hope you can be with us for that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tI want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.\u00a0 On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We'll see you next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tFamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t_____________________________________________________\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts for you. However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/donate\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCopyright \u00a9 FamilyLife. 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