Half of parenting is shaping who or what your children look to for approval.

Christian parents: if you can train your children not to give a fig what the world thinks — which will include the vast majority of their peers — you are doing well.

This doesn’t predominantly happen through assertion, although that is necessary. It happens through your example, through intentional denial of even some things that may seem “benign,” and through exposing them to enjoyment of the permanent things, which will shape their appetite away from cheap thrills and ephemeral pop culture and toward the good, true, and beautiful.

You want them to struggle with and embrace the “weirdness” of not doing what everyone else does — under your roof. This means your family should stand apart in some “weird” way from their peers’ — I.e, We don’t have a TV; or we don’t watch that, or we don’t say that, or we don’t have _______ that literally everyone else my age has. (Delaying smart phone ownership will be one of the best/easiest ways to do this.)

Their friends will notice this, and peer pressure will come. You want to be the one guiding them through that conversation — again, under your roof. And you want that conversation to happen before it gets into something really harmful.

I’m convinced that besides their loving Christian example, this is one of the best gifts my parents gave me and my brothers.

P.S.: By peers, here, I don’t necessarily mean those in the Christian community, although at times, sadly, the world has its influence there too. I mostly mean their generation.