Prayerful Parenting ©
Summer-Fall 2001 Messages

Segment One: Internet Dangers

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. Imagine this scenario. Your 11 year old daughter is in the den, working on her social studies project. She is using the Internet to do research on the endangered Puma when you hear her call out, "Mom, come look at this". Thinking that you will find a fascinating picture of the endangered mammal, you are shocked to see the instant message on the screen, inviting your innocent child to take part in some adult’s twisted sexual fantasy. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone and this upsetting situation is becoming common. According to a new study from the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center, nearly 20% of children who regularly use the internet reported receiving unwanted sexual solicitations online. The study was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association and indicates that children are distressed by the solicitations and that in 3% of the cases there was an accompanying aggressive overture, in which an adult contacts and then pursues the child by telephone, mail, or in person. Ecclesiastes 7:12 reminds Prayerful Parents that "Wisdom is protection just as money is protection." Be wise. The Internet is both a grand research tool and a dangerous toy. Its use should be monitored by adults who are aware of the very real possibility that an online pervert is only a mouse click away.

Segment Two: Abortion

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. There is an old saying that truth is stranger than fiction, and it is usually more powerful. According to columnist Kathleen Parker, the truth about abortion in the United States lies in a history of lies and deception. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and in a recent column, it is revealed that the infamous Jane Roe of the Roe Vs Wade decision that legalized abortion lied about her circumstances. Now a born-again believer, the real Norma McCorvey sets the record straight. "I owe you an apology," she writes." I said I was gang raped and I wasn’t. I said I didn’t know who the father of my baby was and I did. I said I wanted someone to kill my baby. And what I really wanted was someone to help me. It was a nasty bald faced lie. And I knew it." Norma’s lie paved the way to 41 million abortions. That is the truth . For every young person listening, more truth. Abortion is murder, taking a life. The real Jane Roe never had an abortion, but her lie paved the way for millions of deaths. Now that you know the truth, what will you choose?

Segment Three: Internet Addiction and Teens

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. Is your teen an Internet junkie? Now I’m not talking about funny cigarettes or bottles of pills, I’m talking about a mental bondage in which millions of today’s youth have created online lives that drain life and energy from their real lives. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and a survey funded by the Pew Foundation found that many important social and emotional transitions that teens used to make in person, such as beginning romances, making new friends, and sharing hobbies are conducted online. This can lead to depression, obesity, and stunted emotional growth. Most teens who use IM, Instant Messaging, spend an hour per session and may have multiple daily sessions, leaving little time for study, sports, or family. There are other dangers. The study revealed that 60% of teens have received e-mail or instant messages from a stranger and 50% exchange information or messages with strangers. Isaiah 47:10 offers analysis of this Internet trend: "You felt secure in your wickedness and said, No one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge they have deluded you. But evil will come on you." Teens can hide online from parents, but not from God’s truth or His judgement. That’s my spam mail for the day.

Segment Four: Television Time

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. I remember Saturday mornings growing up with 5 brothers and sisters. We would get up, pile our pillows in front of the TV, make a whole loaf of cinnamon toast, and watch cartoons. My brother George, who is now a SWAT team officer loved Mighty Mouse and George of the Jungle, I preferred the classic Bugs Bunny. Maybe we watched too much TV? But can it compare with today’s kids? This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and Yale researchers report that today’s cartoons contain 20 violent acts per hour; that over the course of a year, children spend more time watching TV than they do in school; and that by the end of 6th grade, an average child has seen 8000 television murders and 100,000 acts of violence. Television is destroying young minds and is responsible for a great deal of the ADD diagnosis and anti-social behavior that we see in children today.Mark 3:27 says that "No one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man." Is evil in your house because the parents have been bound by laziness and their own television addictions?

Segment Five: College Bound Kids

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©.. This is a message for those parents who are sending their babies off to college this Fall. It is a time of mixed emotions, pride and a sense of completion competing with fear and a sense of loss. That’s just the parents. What are the kids going through? This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone and in my role as a university professor, I counsel a lot of mixed up teenagers, many of them from good Christian homes. How can we help our kids make a success of the freshman year? Here are some tips: 1) Encourage them to attend campus worship services and Bible study groups 2) Talk frankly to them about the risks of alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity. Don’t shy away from tough topics. Lay the facts on the table 3) Set expectations for grades and be firm about consequences and 4) Strongly encourage your child to attend a small Christ-centered college if you can. The interactions with faculty, the close supervision,the life-style in the dorms all combine to give your child a smooth, supportive transition into adulthood. Finally, rely on the wisdom of Psalm 55:17: "Evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud and He shall hear my voice."

Segment Six: Real Moments

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. My 17 year old daughter has her first job, working at a county park. She has many interesting stories to share, but one of them moved my heart so much that I wanted to share it with you. It is a story that makes me think of our Lord Jesus. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and one hot summer day, Carolyn was working the ticket gate to the water park. Four teen workers had already collapsed with heat illness that day and it was only 2:00. She told me that one of her colleagues, a young man who has chronic lung disease and who carries a portable oxygen tank with him, spent his break time bringing water bottles to other teens. "It was so hot, mama," she said, "and he really needed to rest, but he told me that he wanted to bring me water. Nobody else thought about it." I thought of Matthew 10:20: "For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of the Father who speaks in you." We heard that Father’s voice that hot June afternoon.

Segment Seven: Girls and Smoking

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting© By the time I was in my mid-twenties, I could easily tell the difference between women who had been smokers and those who had not. By age 40, and I’m telling my age now, smoking women routinely look a decade older. Vanity at work? Perhaps. Or just God’s provision for good health. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and smoking alongside obesity are competing to kill wives and mothers at an earlier age and Christian women are not exempt. Prayerful Parents can make a difference, for it seems that girls make the decision to become smokers at an early age. By early adolescence, girls are forming peer relations based on behaviors and a new study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development says that if 2 or more of a girl’s friends smoke or drink, she is 9 times more likely to do the same. In short, if your 12 year old daughter chooses friends who smoke, she is very likely to smoke. Proverbs 12:1 says that a "wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands." Smoking is a form of personal destruction that often starts early in young women.

Segment Eight: Single Fathers

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting© According to the 2000 census, the shape and form of the American family is changing. Fewer families are traditional, with a mother, father, and children. Single parent families continue to grow, but with a twist;in 2.2 million households, fathers raise their children without a mother. 1 in 45 homes. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and the trend of single parent homes headed by dads is interesting. The number of single father households rose 62% over the past decade, and though they make up only 2% of households, their stories are compelling. More and more, fathers are fighting for and getting custody. Recently, I met a single dad who had become a Christian and was seeking custody of his two young children because his wife is a practicing witch. Single fathers often feel alienated, thrust into their new roles without preparation. On one website catering to single fathers, I found a list of crock pot recipes that dads were sharing in order to have nutritious meals ready for the evening. Other single dads struggle financially, afraid to seek child support from wayward wives because it may mean a chance for the courts to intervene and give the children back to the mother. Reach out to single parent families of all kinds and share a meal, an outing, a friendship.

Segment Nine: The Cost of Being a Stay at Home Mom

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting© I remember trying to teach one of Newton’s immutable laws of physics to elementary school students. I crashed toy cars into a shoebox wall to illustrate the fact that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Pretty good, right? This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and here’s another rule of economic law that is powerful. Professional working mothers who choose to stay at home for a few years to raise their children and establish a family will lose $1 million dollars in income, retirement, and savings. According to a shocking new book by economic’s writer Ann Crittenden, the most valuable career choice is the least valued in our culture. There is a huge cost for professional women who stay at home. For women with less education or training, staying at home may not be a big loss. A woman who makes less than $25k per year may actually lose money if she has young children. Still, the cost is high. As Christian parents, we must be prepared for the cost and know that we are working as mothers at home for the fringe benefits and the insurance that come in the form time to breastfeed infants, quality time to get toddlers ready to learn, and the opportunity to impart our values to our children.

Segment Ten: Day Care Bullies

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting© In mid-March of this year, a powerful new study done by a huge federal agency, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development reported that children who spend extended periods in day care each week are more likely to turn into aggressive bullies by age 4. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and this study has turned feminists rabid. Others believe that it is a way to bash hard working moms, especially single moms. I just know that it is true. For years, my students, who are future teachers, have told me that they could pick out the "day care kids" in a classroom by their level of aggression. I get frequent calls from parents about overly aggressive little boys, especially those who bite. When the parent takes the boy out of large group day care, the biting and other aggressive behaviors usually stop. Moreover, the study found that day care kids are more fearful, shy, and sad. Psalm 41 says: "How blessed is he who considers the helpless." Young, helpless children should not be raised in a herd. If you choose to work or you must work while children are under age 4, then find a creative solution to avoid large group day care or your children will suffer.

Segment Eleven: Make a Joyful Noise

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting© Psalm 147 announces, "Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God: For it is pleasant and praise is becoming." This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and once again, research affirms what scripture teaches. Singing praise actually reduces stress and makes you more healthy. In a study published in the scientific journal, Music Perception, researchers from the University of California at Irvine found that choir members had a 150% increase in the protein Immunoglobulin A, which fights disease, after they had sung sacred music in a performance. Other studies have found that both singing sacred music and simply going to church raises this important disease fighter. Research also suggests that the stress of daily life is making us age faster, succumb to cancer, and become depressed. Perhaps singing praise to God is His way of keeping us healthy, happy, and whole.

Segment Twelve: Common Sense Parenting

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting© As the host of a national radio program, a frequent television guest on parenting issues, and an experienced mother, I get a lot of phone calls from troubled parents. Some calls are about serious issues, requiring an expert referral. Most calls, however, require a hefty dose of common sense parenting. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and today’s parents seem to have lost their good sense. I’m not kidding. Here are 5 top mistakes that parents are making. Mistakes easily solved by common sense.

Teens should not be dating at age 12, nor driving alone at age 15.
Toddlers should not be allowed to choose their bedtime, your bedtime, nor the restaurant in which your family eats if it a nice place catering to adults.
Boys who have no dad at home, watch lots of TV and play video games will have a hard time listening in school and it isn’t ADD.
Working full time is hard on mothers of young children and day care makes things worse.
You cannot expect to have a happy marriage if you put the children or your career ahead of your spouse. Proverbs 14: 8 says that "The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way." God wants us to use common sense in our homes.

Segment Thirteen: Hard Choices

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. There has hardly been a more horrifying story in the news since South Carolinian Susan Smith strapped her two babies into carseats and rolled them into a lake to drown. A Texas mother of 5 little ones, ages 6 months to 7 years systematically drowned them in the family bathtub. Initial reports suggest that post-partum depression is the cause, but I wonder if that’s all. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and I have spent much of the past decade studying children and families. Post-partum psychosis is very rare, but very real, and most often, the mentally ill mothers harm themselves. While this Texas mom, whose case is very public because she killed 5 children, is unusual, 200 parents killed their own children last year alone. I think Prayerful Parents, especially future parents, need to take a hard look at why and when and how they grow families. Simply saying: "We’ll have as many kids as God sends us" is irresponsible. Being pregnant a lot, having lots of cute babies is fun for a while, but the physical, emotional, and mental stress of raising a house full of children is not for everyone. Children are a blessing from the Lord, not a way to satisfy our own desires and human needs. While some families are well equipped to handle lots of children and that is God’s plan for them, having one baby after another in order to "get a boy" or to "get a girl" or to save a shaky marriage, or to have your own softball team is not wise, it is selfish. And sometimes, the outcome is tragic.

Segment Fourteen: Halloween

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone and I love the season of Autumn. It is my favorite time of year. Crisp weather, tart apples, colorful leaves. The only part that brings me down is Halloween. What is Halloween anyway? It is the remains of an ancient pagan ritual, re- packaged as a family event. Don’t be fooled. Witches are real. The devil is a dangerous force to invite into your home and Halloween is a waste of your time and money. Ephesians 6:12 says it best: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." As Christians, we need to use discernment in dealing with Halloween. I have allowed my children to make simple costumes such as bunny rabbits and ballet dancers and knock on next door neighbor’s door for candy. Beyond that, I have some real concerns. Scary costumes scare children. That is psychologically damaging. Scary talk of the devil and witchcraft scare me. Halloween is spiritually dangerous and I’m not afraid to admit it.

Segment Fifteen: Humor in Marriage

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. If you want to stay married, you had better develop a sense of humor. That’s right, a sense of humor. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and while intimacy and sensitivity are critical to marriage, a sense of humor seems to be what keeps couples from imploding. When researchers at the University of Washington’s "Love Lab" studied video tapes of 130 couples over a 6 year period, they found that couples that survived and thrived learned how to take a break from rising anger and to interject humor into almost any situation. A spouse’s annoying behavior becomes endearing or at least tolerable when one begins to see it as a funny idiosyncrasy instead of a personal attack. These findings are consistent with scripture. Luke 11:17 says: "Any kingdom filled with civil war is doomed, so is a home filled with argument and strife."

Segment Sixteen: Abundantly Autumn

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©.Psalm 90 reminds us to ask God to "Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are." In the short, quickly darkening days of Autumn, there is an abundance of blessings to remember. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and this autumn, why don’t you take your toddler to an orchard or a market and pick out a bushel of apples? How about going walking through the autumn leaves with your spouse? Take a group of teens to a country fair and eat some shamelessly fattening elephant ears or cotton candy. Autumn is a good season to thank God for your family, for their health and for your opportunity to be a wife, a husband, a parent. It is a time of harvest and a time for thanksgiving. Don’t forget to thank our provider for all of His blessings to your family.

Segment Seventeen: "Fear the Lord."

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. Jesus came to earth to bring love and peace and joy and most importantly, salvation. That is a wonderful thing for us to teach our children. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and I want my children to choose Christ, just as He as chosen them. But to make that choice, they will have to learn to fear the Lord. Perhaps my theology is a bit simplistic here, but I really believe this to be true. Unless we teach children to fear the Lord, to fear the consequences of sin, to fear the emptiness of life without the comfort of the Holy Spirit, to fear the chaos of living without God’s Holy word, then why would they seek and choose to walk with Jesus?

Proverbs 9:10 says : "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." Teach your children the healthy fear of God. It is one of the most neglected jobs in parenting.

Segment Eighteen: Harry Potter Books and Wicca

Welcome to Prayerful Parenting©. If you want to get a flood of negative mail, have your magazine column threatened, and be portrayed as a right wing religious nut, then please do what I did, and dare to suggest that the wildly famous Harry Potter books celebrate the occult and might not be the best reading choice for children. This is Dr. Linda Karges-Bone, and I teach children’s literature, among other things, at a Christian University. I also write stories for children, so I know my kiddie lit, and the Harry Potter books scare me. True, they are lively, full of wonderful prose and fascinating characters, but they are set in a school of witchcraft and wizardry and there are many dark, witchcraft driven situations that make the occult look inviting. When I suggested this in my column in a teacher’s magazine, the result was predictable, but what concerns me most is the response from kids. They were very honest and a typical letter said that "Yes, there is witchcraft or the occult, but not everybody thinks that is bad." One teacher chastised me for not noting that witchcraft is a well respected religion and another child told me that while it was true that there is witchcraft and the occult in the books, there is also "lots of other good stuff", so don’t worry about it. Kids acknowledge that the occult is the mainstay of these books. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says to "Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good and abstain from every form of evil." That may include one of the best selling series of books of all time.

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