At the well

Danger Ahead

The discussion questions are:

How important do you feel sheltering your children is?

What sort of things do you do to put protections in place for your children to shield them from the worldly influences around them?

Do you feel we have become to accepting of the world's behaviors and have accepted things as "normal" even for Christians?

I am very big on sheltering children. I don't hit the roof but I am quite strict in my own quiet way.

However, lately since Facebook and ipods etc. I am finding it more challenging. Perhaps I will have to get more involved myself? Any suggestions?

It seems they can put any music on their ipod, and I think the weak link is that my kids go to their Dad and he does it for them. I have started to be left out of the loop. I have lightly spoken to my husband about this, will have to try again.

Having said that, the kids went to a meeting called Youth Alive that had a band. So they have been listening to Christian music I think. New Empire. I am not sure of the lyrics for "If he hurts you, why are you in love," that bothers me a little. They are always asking me to play it in the car. I noticed on Idol there was a song played last night, possibly two that may have been Christian.

My daughter doesn't watch Neighbours and things like that. I did wonder if I should watch Australian Idol this year. They have already started on the Sex Sells message. The person they said it too probably needed to hear it though. He is stuck in a boring rut, and I suppose if he is not as boring he will be more sexy. Innocent when put like that. But it is an adult theme for people that are ready to hear it. The person won't see themselves in the same way after being away from their normal job for awhile anyway, let's hope.

The other thing is novels. There have been lots of discussions about fantasy novels with people sticking up for them, the witchcraft in particular, and others not. I think when kids know they are being looked after and understood they seem more open. It will be interesting after having such great experiences as a Christian lately if my daughter starts getting interested in other reading material. I wonder what that would be?

My big thing, and I waver on this is Queen. My husband plays lots of 60s music in the car. I suppose there are worse things around now with quite strong words. I was interested in listening to guitar hero and a particular song that my daughter sings. I only hear the singing which sounds OK. But when you see it on guitar hero you realise how bad it is. If anyone is interested there is also a Christian version of Guitar hero.

We don't watch the news, haven't watched it since my 21 year old son was little. We stopped watching lots of things then. It took me awhile to stop watching daytime soap, it was also upsetting the kids.

My children live in a conservative place. It is not where they were born, and blogging about it is a worry as one day someone from the community may read it. But we have, I in particular, have trouble with the attitudes of other kids who go to school with my teenagers. One boy one day sat near my eldest daughter and showed her, and also lots of awful things are said in her presence. One day the girls went to a toilet block in the bush, 1/2 hour from our home. It was night and they were on a long trip. There are deer and kangaroos and other nice things at this toilet block. Apparently there was an open magazine with shocking stuff in it, even for them. I suppose it is better for mothers to travel with their daughters, and living in a place that requires travel is hard for me to be with them as much as I should.

I have mentioned a photo that was done in another post, shocking. At least we don't have muck up days here, or schoolies, although I think some people get involved.

That brings us to the word prudish and today's post At The Well.

I don't buy magazines like AWW, New Idea or Woman's Day anymore. That is very prudish isn't it? I don't get upset much, but have been known to get quite aggitated after buying something like that. They used to be magazines you could read with your family.

What I find really bad are ads for TV shows. The ads are in a normal time slot.

I was very lucky in some ways. My eldest set the tone for our house. He knew just what to say to get past my guard. One of the more positive things perhaps was a game cube and games like Animal Crossing. We were able to avoid a playstation for many years.

As for the Mall (or what we call a shopping centre), my daughter and I went there a few weeks ago. I lose track of who has been to the Mall and who hasn't, as other the family is split in two for these activities because of our location. However on the whole we don't go there very often as it is 1 1/2 hours to get there.

The girls gave up dancing because we thought we were moving at the time, but I watched a practise night in one dance and it was very unladylike. I have been appreciating the things like that my Mum taught me, especially after reading The Modesty Survey, I think it was. I am hoping my daughter's trip to Malaysia will help her to think about clothes a little more. I know she was influenced by her friend and her outback style of clothing, she has changed to a different style now, but hopefully Malaysia will give another perspective and then she can make up her own mind. I expect in Malaysia there will be lots of modest clothes.

Shopping mall in Sydney, Australia, AllPosters