Five Challenges Facing Parents Today

From time to time my dad verbalizes just how difficult it is to raise children in today’s world. Like many older folks, he remembers the relative innocence of childhood back when he was raising his boys in the 1960s and 70s. I recently ran across an online article that listed the five worst challenges facing parents of teens today that weren’t relevant twenty years ago. These challenges include rising college costs, engaging with inappropriate online content, fake news, social media addiction, and finally, academic pressure and burnout. Parents, we cannot put our heads in the sand and ignore the cultural realities shaping our kids. Instead, we need to educate ourselves regarding these issues, and then respond by prayerfully crafting God-honoring and biblically-informed strategies that will enable our kids to navigate the landscape of childhood to the glory of God. Reality always demands a response. We can either ignore what’s happening, or we can act.