Parent Top Ten January 2025

Welcome to the Rooted Parent Top Ten, a curated list of resources from across the web that we believe will be helpful to parents raising teenagers. Here you’ll find articles, podcasts, and videos to support you in gospel- centered discipleship and interpreting youth culture. While most are gospel focused, others are included because they include a message of common grace. (The opinions presented in these articles do not necessarily reflect the position of Rooted Ministry.) At the end, you’ll find Rooted resources compiled from the last month’s new offerings. We hope this resource is helpful!

Gospel- Centered Parenting

Surrendering Them to God by Vanessa Doughty, FieldsandValleys.substack.com. “There’s nothing you did or didn’t do as a parent that Jesus didn’t die for.”

What Dostoevsky Taught Me About Sending My Son to College by Vika Pechersky, Christianity Today. “A letter from the Russian writer reminds me of the purpose of Christian parenting.”

Parental Regret: How to Move Forward When You’ve Let Your Kids Down by Lauren Whitman, TGC. “Let your regrets move you toward the Lord, toward other Christians, and toward your kids.”

Three Reasons Why Kids Need Theology by Sam Luce, New Growth Press. “You don’t have to be an expert, you just need to be faithful.”

From Comparison to Calling: Embracing God’s Parenting Vision by Katie Polski, The Promises and Practices of Scripture. “The purpose of our parenting is far more profound: to be faithful – to point our children to God, to teach them His love, and to demonstrate His grace in the rhythms of daily life.”

Lessons from Caring for a Disabled Child by Jamie McGregor, byFaithonline.com. “Hannah always reminds us of the hope of heaven, the full restoration of all that is broken, and the expectation that formerly disabled bodies will dance with joy before the Lord.”

Teen Culture

“They View It As Harmless, But It’s Not”: Teens Are Sharing Their Parents’ Most Toxic Habit by Hannah Loewentheil, Yahoo Lifestyle. Some food for thought here. “”I”‘m an adult now, but it was definitely my parents second-guessing anything adventurous I wanted to do…. Just a constant burden of worry and warning for anything I wanted to do. And that burden became so heavy I just stopped trying to do things after a while or simply would do things without telling them.”

Parents Can’t Fight Porn Alone by Clare Morell and Brad Littlejohn, First Things. “A dystopia of full access for all ages, gate-kept only by exhausted parents, is a scenario we have rightly rejected in the cases of guns, drugs, alcohol, gambling, or tobacco. But it is exactly what we have embraced in the case of the internet and digital technology.”

In Defense of Childhood by Brad Littlejohn, Commonwealth Dispatches. “ In other words, if we cannot guard childhood as childhood, neither will we have adulthood as we have known it, and as civilization requires it: fully-developed agents capable of restraining their desires, making commitments and following through on them, and distinguishing fantasy from reality.”

About a quarter of U.S. teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork – double the share in 2023 by Olivia Sidotie, Eugenie Park, and Jeffrey Gottfried, Pew Research Center. “29% of teens say it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT to solve math problems, while 28% say it’s not acceptable. 18% say it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT to write essays, and 42% say it’s not acceptable.”

For Those Who Are Parenting While Caring for Parents

At My Mother’s Deathbed, I Discovered the Symmetry of a Long Life by Jen Wilkin, Christianity Today. One of the loveliest, and wisest, articles I have seen in a long time. “Remembering that seasons of life follow a patterned order helps us inhabit the season we are in and prioritize how to use the time we are given… Perhaps God, in his infinite kindness, gave us a chiasm, a patterned measuring rod, to number those days rightly.”