Sometimes I like to call upon the collective wisdom of the women who read this site. Today is one of those days. A couple of things have happened in the past few weeks that make me wonder how other people make decisions regarding the safety of their tweens and teens.
The New York Times had an article recently about Pastor Matt Chandler and The Village Church regarding a lawsuit that is being brought against the church: Her Evangelical Megachurch Was Her World. Then Her Daughter Said She Was Molested by a Minister. Here is the beginning.
Christi Bragg listened in disbelief. It was a Sunday in February, and her popular evangelical pastor, Matt Chandler, was preaching on the evil of leaders who sexually abuse those they are called to protect. But at the Village Church, he assured his listeners, victims of assault would be heard, and healed: “We see you.”
Ms. Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out.
Exactly one year before that day, on Feb. 17, 2018, Ms. Bragg and her husband, Matt, reported to the Village that their daughter, at about age 11, had been sexually abused at the church’s summer camp for children.
Since then, Matthew Tonne, who was the church’s associate children’s minister, had been investigated by the police, indicted and arrested on charges of sexually molesting Ms. Bragg’s daughter.
Ms. Bragg waited for church leaders to explain what had happened and to thoroughly inform other families in the congregation. She waited for the Village to take responsibility and apologize. She waited to have even one conversation with Mr. Chandler, a leader she had long admired.
But none of that ever came.
“You can’t even take care of the family you know,” she remembered thinking as she walked out of the large auditorium. “Don’t tell more victims to come to you, because you’re just going to cause more hurt.”
I’ve been thinking about these kinds of things lately because we have to make some decisions about activities where we are not present. We’ve also been directly impacted by the choices of others regarding these issues. I’m being purposefully vague, but absolutely nothing bad has happened. We’ve simply run into some situations that have perplexed us.
How Do You Protect Your Tweens and Teens?
How do you make decisions about what to do in areas such as:
- church activities
- birthday parties
- youth group
- camps
- going to other people’s homes
- volunteering
- jobs
- homeschool activities
- extra-curricular activities
when you are not going to be present and the adults in charge are not people you know well or even know at all?
Short of locking up your child or turning into the ultimate helicopter parent, we can’t be with our child all the time. And yet it’s clear that all the procedures and such put in place by churches and other organizations that work with minors don’t necessarily protect the child.
Even more disturbing, there is a clear pattern that when caught in a difficult situation, church leadership often prioritizes protecting the church’s reputation over doing the right thing by the victim. It’s really sad that as parents we feel we can’t trust even churches to do the right thing, but that’s where we are in our culture today.
Beyond the threats to physical safety, there are also the complications of bullying, significant ideological differences, etc. I’m assuming anyone who reads my website is already committed to keeping open the lines of communication and preparing their child for ideological differences they will encounter. But how do you decide how long you will “‘protect” them and when they are ready to face the world as it is?
And then there is the entire online and social media thing.
What is Your Thought Process?
So what do you do? What is your thought process?
- Are there things that you absolutely will not let your tweens or teens do? Are there things that are absolutely a “no” in your home?
- Or are you on the other end of the spectrum and you keep very loose reigns on your children, who they interact with, etc.?
- Are there tools that you find especially useful?
- Have you made a mistake and would be willing to share the story to help us learn from your experience?
- Are there choices you’ve made that were really good ones and you can see how you and your child reaped the benefits of them?
I sincerely want to know and I’m guessing there are other parents who would like to know how others make these decisions.
Pruned To Yield Fruit | Streams in the Desert
Hi Sallie……I have been remarried for 7 years and have a stepdaughter, no other biological children. I am speaking from past experience now…I homeschooled sd from age 12 to 18. She is now 19. There are mitigating circumstances here that affect the outcome but I want to share what I would do differently. I would NEVER let her have a cell phone again until she was legally an adult. I would not let her have the internet anywhere except openly in the living room. We waited until she was 18 to get her driver’s license but she lost it due to breaking the law in several ways. I had a rule no sleepovers ever. I regret to say that we should have absolutely LOCKED her life down…she is an only child and curious and I can’t even begin to describe the heartache it is now. I would rather her be mad at us for lack of freedoms than deal with her now police record/lifestyle of sin. – Kelly
I wanted to add to my comment also that unfortunately church was no better. We left 2 churches due to ungodly behavior in the youth group…she always migrated to the troublemaker in each group. I was shocked to learn what was going on and these were conservative churches. Sad times we live in.
I think this is such an important topic, Sallie. I also agree 110% with Kelly about cell phones and tweens/teens. My husband and I have four adult children, ages 27, 25, 22, and 19, a girl and three boys. The older two in particular came into the cell phone age at its beginning, and I still say to my husband that this was where we began to lose their hearts. We didn’t allow them to get phones until they were older teens, and could afford to pay for them with money they earned themselves.
That being said,I think the whole digital age has ushered in the Brave New World Aldous Huxley wrote about. The culture our children are moving into is so radically different from the one we experienced, it’s akin to a second generation gap. I’m not sure if it’s more of an issue of training them to defend themselves against it and gaining stamina to continually swim upstream against the torrent, than trying to isolate or protect them.
It does seem that the internet at their young fingertips does try to shorten the age of parental influence.
Cheryl you are spot on. Even with homeschooling I realized things like a checkbook were becoming obsolete…everything on every level has changed with technology. I do have a wonderful friend who has 9 children and they are very well insulated…not isolated, but insulated. I was raised in public school and no church. I thought things were tough in the 80s, but with legalized marijuana here in Colorado in 2014 we have LOST SO many more children to drugs. We are the worst state for vaping. I honestly don’t know how a person can keep their child’s heart and have them “out there” in this tangled wicked jungle of a world. I mean, I totally isolate myself and am very happy about it. I have chronic illness and have left the house 3 times in 5 months. I love my home and my hubby is a cozy home fella too. We are working on getting step daughter out permanently.
Kelly,
I too was sent to public school as a child. My family attended church, but not regularly. Many times my Dad just dropped me off for Sunday School, which I am grateful for.
We homeschooled our four all the way through. We were ineligible for the Post Secondary Education Option here in Ohio, which many families in our homeschool co- op took advantage of, with mixed results.
Right now, we’re believing that what we’ve worked so hard to instill in our children will come to fruition in their adult lives.
Kelly and Cheryl,
Thank you so much for sharing your stories. I confess this is one area where I am really listening to the moms with older kids.
There has always been “stuff” for kids to be exposed to, but it was never potentially delivered right into their hands every minute of every day. I have a true love-hate relationship with the internet. So much there for genuine good and so much potential for horrifically bad things. I don’t want to be driven by fear when making choices, but there is plenty of reason to do so.
I will say one thing that works for us in trying to share our worldview and help Caroline understand the absolute lunacy out there is using absurdity to illustrate our point. I know this won’t work for all kids, but it works well with her. We’ve been discussing the whole “my truth” thing the past few days because so much of the error kids are confronted with today is simply buying into this false idea that everyone has “their truth” to demand that everyone else comply with. We watched a couple of videos about it today. She can’t really grasp all of it, but I think it’s starting to make more sense to her.
I’m really saddened by what you have both gone through with your kids. I wonder how many people really escape it now. The evil is simply so in your face in our culture that it takes constant work to beat it back from your own life and the life of your family.
Sallie
Sallie,
You are right about that. Evil has seeped into every crevice of our culture. I don’t think anyone escapes really either. As I said, we’re holding on to Proverbs 22:6. We did train them up in the way they should go. Now it’s up to each of them to choose for themselves and live with their choices. One thing we strive to maintain as parents is our own walk with God. We also don’t minimize or negate any of the things we stand for. It’s heartbreaking sometimes, but necessary.
Stepdaughter had been in church since age 2….she had a major trauma at age 6 when her biological mother took her own life. My husband was an amazing single dad but that is no ideal situation. He even had Christian women from the church watch her while he worked before she was school age. These are good women I know them. I believe her paradigm was set up at the trauma BUT she can make different choices as an adult and chooses not to. Her constant mantra is….”That’s your truth, I have my truth” just like Sallie said. She has embraced hippie lifestyle to the fullest extent. My fibromyalgia and CFS went off the charts with her massive rebellion. Now I don’t talk to her or see her…..she is here a few days a week but that’s going to end. Both husband and I are trying to return to some form of health.
Our children are entering these years. The biggest thing, for me, is that our children belong to God, and that He watches over them when we can’t.
It is our duty as parents to educate our children, and to advocate for them when necessary, and to help them recognize and get out of an unsafe situation. We eased our family out of one group that had some problems beginning to develop.
We’ve been drawn toward smaller institutions rather than larger ones; the advantage with smaller and more local groups is that we are much closer to the adults involved, but the disadvantage is that there are fewer protective procedures in place.
For visiting neighbor kids’ houses, we’ve mostly allowed it, after we have at least spoken with their parent on the phone. These kids were a bit younger than ours, so we had less worry about them being a bad influence.
Some books have been helpful, at the right age: Grimms’ fairy tales have many stories about the existence of evil and ways of facing it; Corrie ten Boom’s accounts of life under the Nazis provide real-life examples of the same.
For media, we’ve severely limited television and cell phones and internet, while still trying to allow positive experiences that God might build on later, and pointing out any errors or lies as we see them. DVDs and books from the library are sometimes a problem.
Individuals and institutions that are working with children really need to be protecting themselves against false accusations these days.
Peggy,
Thank you for taking the time to share how you are approaching things.
The Grimm’s fairy tales is an interesting one. I had not thought of that and we’ve not read them. Corrie Ten Boom’s story is amazing, but I would not attempt that at this point with a highly sensitive child.
It’s such a challenge to make sure your child is informed before she confronts something in real life with other people and not introducing topics before they are necessary. Homeschooling makes it a bit easier, but it doesn’t solve it entirely.
Good thoughts. Thank you!
Sallie