What Are You Feeding Your Children’s Minds?

TV, movies, YouTube, Netflix are all available to us, and they are excellent babysitters. But what are they doing to your child’s mind?  Never before in the history of humanity have we had such entertainment at a second click. Pure filth and sin are ever near to pour into anyone’s minds that are open and willing.

Disney continues to produce movies that are full of corruption. “Turning Red” is one recent example, and if you don’t know what I mean, please take a moment to research the reviews. My heart aches for all the millions of children who will be exposed to much wickedness in that one film. Dear mother, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, I exhort you. Please take seriously the training and raising of your children. I don’t care what our culture says, you and your husband are the ones responsible to raise and teach your children. Your children belong to you, not the government or their schools. Your children’s minds will be fed, it’s just a matter of who will feed them. Their little minds are being shaped by what is put into them. Their worldview is being formed. Do you not want to be the sole teacher of this great work? The culture wants your child. They need their minds. They want to stamp out anything that resembles God and His truth. They are indoctrinating and they are persistent at it. So shouldn’t we be as equally persistent in shaping our children’s minds to the truth and for the glory of God? I hope you desire this. 

It will require sacrifice. 

Perhaps it will take quitting your outside job and coming home to educate your children. Look through your movies and books, is the content promoted there what you want to be feeding your child? Does your child have free access to YouTube and Netflix? Are you filtering it? Are the shows promoting godliness, truth, joy, peace, and sexual purity? Are they full of silliness and slap humor or teaching materialism and no absolutes? You need to be training your child to one day become an adult. Most kids shows promote nothing more but utter childishness. Is your child learning work ethic, creative imagination, critical thinking and hands-on skills? Give you children good books with stories that build character and teach real life scenarios. Lamplighter Theater has excellent audio dramas promoting godliness and showing historical examples from the past. What friends and influences are your children around? Watch over them and listen. Guide them with truth and integrity. 

Don’t be afraid to make change. Our culture, with Satan behind it all, is on the fast track like never before to take your children and turn them away from Christ. Be aware of their plans and take no offense when they look down on you for protecting your child. You will never regret it, but you will if you don’t. 

A word on legalism. 

The goal is to create your home into a beautiful place with the Gospel at the forefront. Teach your children that good works do not save them, only by Christ’s blood anointment for our sin can we be saved. We follow good works because it is the fruit of repentance and trusting in Christ. We do so now because we love Him. This is not about forcing your children with hard, cold frowns and depriving them of all things joyful and beautiful with laughter and love. Just show them God’s kingdom is where the true joy, beauty, laughter and love that they seek is at. Holiness and purity are fulfilling and good, so tell your child the truth.

“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Eph 6:4 The world is ugly and destroys lives. No true living is found there, but only with Christ and His kingdom. Give your children tools and show them how to use them. Teaching them may look like watching a movie together and discussing it afterwards, pointing out the sin and filtering little minds with truth on how to deal with what they just watched. It is such an awesome, terrifying responsibility to raise, train, and shape the worldview of your precious child. Spend much time in prayer and in the scriptures, seeking Christ’s help. He stands by approving and willing to assist.

I think Brian Sauvé summed this up perfectly in an excerpt from his talk “Indoctrinating Your Children”. 

“From the womb, we’re going to be praying for our children. We’re going to be sheltering our children in really deep bunkers, with really thick walls from the onslaught of the discipleship of demon gods. In the same way that I would not let my children play in the backyard, unsupervised, of a known pedophile, I will keep my children within three feet of armored concrete from these systems of discipleship. I know what I’m saying is unpopular, but this is what we need to do. These are our positive duties from the Lord to protect our children, to shelter our children from that which they are not equipped to handle. They are not equipped to handle the onslaught discipleship from their peers, the authority structures of the world and media. You can not let them near it when they are unformed. You hear all the time, “you can’t shelter your children, you can’t protect them.” 

Well, if we love them, we need to try. Would you use the same argument again for the pedophile in his backyard?, “well we can’t shelter our children, they can play in the pedophile’s backyard. Come on, you’re being a legalist.” 

Well I fully intend to shelter my children. 

When they get into a carseat, I buckle them in.

I don’t just hand them a laptop and walk away for a few hours then check back in and see what kind of pornography they are watching.

I don’t send them to the movie theaters with $20 bucks and say “watch whatever you want.” 

I’m not going to send them to whatever teacher, not knowing them and say, “yeah just teach them for six to eight hours, five days a week, hundred and eighty days a year, that will be fine. I’ll check in on Sundays, we’ll do some Sunday school and catechism. We don’t want to be legalist and shelter our children, they are supposed to be salt and light.”  

There is a reason we don’t put eight-year-olds on planes and say, “good luck evangelizing the Muslims in Iraq.” They are not quite ready for that. Our job is to form them, protect them and shelter them. Raise them in the worship and obedience to Christ, and then as a good father, begin to give them real interaction with the real world when they are equipped. And then let them swing the sword, let them test their strength and let them fail. Give them a rich humble culture that they can confess their sin.” 

Brian Sauvé