With the barrage of bad news in the country right now, it’s easy for parents to feel increasingly frightened. Many have told me over the past months that they feel like giving up. Raising kids—especially teens—in a world filled with violence, sexual imagery everywhere, and stories about kids taking meth can just about put a parent over the edge. We seem to do pretty well until our kids hit age 8. Then, the fear begins to settle in, and we start to feel the loss of control over their lives. Our daughters refuse to wear cute dresses. Our sons don’t want trucks; they want video games. Their friends invite them for the afternoon and a parent pops in a PG-13 movie for them to watch. Bad stuff streams at our kids all the time.

When our kids hit the teen years, we hear about sex, drugs, and alcohol. Deep down, we think that there’s really nothing we can do about these things. We believe that our kids are going to do what they want, and we should simply pray for them to get through those tough years relatively unscathed. Fear takes over and causes us to think like crazy…