The moment I turned sixteen years-old, my top priority in life was to get my driver’s license. Armed with my brand new learner’s permit, I couldn’t get enough practice time in on the road. And when I passed my driver’s test on the first try, there was a feeling of freedom and liberation I experienced that I look back on as a major rite of passage. As I think back, I don’t remember one high school peer who didn’t think as I did, and we all were eager to get that signifier of being one-step closer to full-fledged adulthood. But something’s changed. Researchers tell us that almost forty percent of teens delay getting their license by one or two years, and thirty percent are delaying by more than two years. What’s driving this shift? (No pun intended!). Today’s kids say they’re overscheduled and too busy, they are staying home and socializing online, and some are too depressed and anxious to drive. If your kids are holding off for any of these reasons, take steps to ease the unwarranted pressures which they find paralyzing.

One of the questions we often hear from parents relates to the appropriate amount of screen time which they should allow for their kids. Generally speaking, research, surveys, and the observations of parents themselves indicate that our teens spend way too much time focused on their screens. This means that they are spending less time on what once were the normal activities of childhood, including things like outside play, socializing with friends, and spending time with family. Researchers in Sweden are reporting that kids ages twelve to sixteen who spend excessive time engaged with their screens experience multiple negative impacts on sleep, including decreased duration of sleep, decreased quality of sleep, delayed sleep until later hours, and greater incidence of depression. Let’s be responsible parents who set and enforce strict time limits on screen time so that they will get the amount and kind of sleep for which God has made them.

As a father and now grandfather, I often think about the wise words of instruction found in Proverbs twenty-two, six. “Train up a child in the way he should go; and even when he is old he will no depart from it.” Training our children is not a once and done task. Rather, it is an ongoing project that in many ways lasts a lifetime. Neither is the training we are called to only verbal in nature. While the verbal instruction is necessary, equally necessary is the example we pass on to our kids. Let me share with you some great wisdom from the Puritans on the power of example. John Boys writes, “If both horse and mare trot, the colt will not amble.” Consider these words from Thomas Brooks: “Example is the most powerful rhetoric.” If we are to raise and train our children to follow the Lord, we must be eagerly following Him with every ounce of our lives. Remember, Jesus has called us to deny ourselves and follow Him. A heritage of faith is the most valuable inheritance we can pass on to our kids.