Rooted Parent Top Ten: January 2024

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

One Piece of Parenting Advice by Jen Pollock Michel, A Habit Called Faith. “What I’m learning now is how important it is to stay hopeful for our children. To believe, in faith, that all things are possible by the grace of God which makes possible our children’s own faithful response.”

Why We Pulled Our Kids from Club Sports by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra and Ross Douma, TGC. “I’m very passionate about youth sports… I believe they play a significant role in the development of young children. And I know young parents mean well and want to serve their children. But this is a path that doesn’t end well.”

Grace for Lonely Dads: 5 Lessons Learned While On Parental Leave by Joshua Mutter Gritter, mbird.com.”But I know that in this time of ceaseless isolated head-space, I’ve caught myself growing more and more certain of my ideas and view of the world. In-person church community isn’t just good because, you know, Jesus liked relationships. It’s good because it forces us to see how captive we are to our own minds.”

We Must Decrease: Letting Our Children Grow through Taking Risks by Thea Rosenberg, Risen Motherhood. “Our children need to experience those moments of right-sized challenge so they can grow through them, but here is why it’s truly so important that we allow our children to do things that unsettle us: when we sweep in too quickly or too often to catch them, we may reinforce the idea that, when our children are in crisis, they need us first. But these are the times when our growing children most need the Lord.”

Help! I’m Raising a Legalist by Ginger M. Blomberg, Crossway.org. “When we as parents fall short, we can teach our children about goodness by apologizing to them and teach them about grace by telling them how God’s love gives us the courage to confess our own failures and need for him.”

Taking the Long View Revolutionized My Parenting by Laura Spaulding, TGC. “With Scripture as our guide, we know the road that the faithful travel is always full of suffering and sins, fits and starts—wrong turns, getting lost, missing exits, scenic routes, collisions, pit stops, and wandering through deserts. But in an age where children beginning at 5 years old are graded on knowledge, achievement, and performance, how do we train them to be good travelers?”

Letters: Dear Mom and Dad by Michael Park, SOLA.com. “Just as much as we want to tell you about what we are struggling through, we want to hear about your struggles and brokenness. We will always be your baby, but as emerging adults, we want our relationship with you to evolve too. It doesn’t have to be just a relationship where you are pulling us to reach a destination, but one where we can both sit in the safety and protection of the good news and confide in all that we fail to be.”

Teen Culture

Why Young Men Are Failing to Launch by Russell Moore, Christianity Today. “For Gen Z men who feel purposeless and lost, the way off the couch is the way of the Cross.”

What Parents Can Do About Tik Tok by Mark Bauerlein, First Things. “The Center for Countering Digital Hate reported in a study that in the United States, when thirteen-year-olds set up new TikTok accounts, they were shown suicide content within 2.6 minutes and eating disorder content within eight minutes. This stands in stark contrast to the Chinese version of TikTok, where children are limited to forty minutes a day on the app and shown content like science experiments, museum exhibits, and educational videos.”

Today’s Porn Industry: 5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know by Kristen A. Jensen, MA, defendyoungminds.com. “The porn industry is following a typical playbook that the tobacco industry used decades ago to deny, disinform and defame.”