Youth Culture Today with Walt Mueller

The latest “State of Today’s Family” report from Barna includes some interesting insights into how Gen Z is thinking about and practicing marriage. In the years since nineteen fifty, the average age of first marriage has increased by about eight years for both men and women. The average age now for men is thirty, and for women it’s twenty-eight. They seem to be waiting longer in order to become mo...

Recently, I was reading through a list of projected youth culture trends for 2026 published by the fashion media platform, Qui Talks. One trend that caught my eye is actually quite hopeful, and it’s one that we should not only take note of, but work to facilitate. The Qui Talks site calls the trend “The Cozy Comeback”, explaining that it’s all about a generation that increasingly finds itself burn...

Way back in the year 1750, the famous preacher and theologian Jonathan Edwards preached his farewell sermon in Northampton, Massachusetts. We all know that when people give their parting words, they say things that they deem of the utmost importance. Guidelines that they want to be remembered. Edwards spoke these words that have absolutely no expiration date: “Every Christian family ought to be as...

One of the most encouraging trends regarding kids and smartphones is the fact that a growing number of school districts are banning phone use and engagement during the school day. Some schools have installed cell phone lockers where kids place their phones at the beginning of the school day, and where they retrieve them when school lets out. Support for cellphone bans in school is on the rise amon...

Now that I have grandkids entering their teenage years, I’ve got a front-row seat to see what’s popular among kids, especially when it comes to shopping and spending money. In today’s world, the top categories for teen spending are clothing and other accessories, food and snacks, entertainment and gaming, and experiences with friends, like concerts and other outings. Marketing’s push for the maint...

When Kentucky mother Holly LaFavers looked at a charge that popped up on her bank account, she panicked. What she found was a Forty-two-hundred dollar charge. Upon further investigation she discovered that her eight-year-old son Liam had ordered seventy thousand dum dum lollipops from Amazon when using her phone. And yes, Liam did it all on purpose as he wanted to share them with his friends. Holl...

If you’ve got any suspicions that social media is increasing the body image pressures our kids feel, your suspicions are correct. An internal study conducted by Meta, the parent company of Instagram, found that the algorithms were pointing users who already have body image concerns to a disproportionate amount of “eating disorder adjacent” content, which is feeding the pressure these kids already...

Are your kids cheating in school? Have you talked to them about what it means to honor the Lord in their academic pursuits? You might be surprised to learn that according to the International Center for Academic Integrity, a survey of over seventy thousand high school students found that ninety-five percent of students admitted to some form of cheating. Sixty four percent admitted to cheating on a...

On this weekend when we look forward to celebrating Father’s Day, I want to remind the fathers who are listening of their greatest responsibility in life. In Ephesians six four we read this: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” If we are taking the time to carefully, diligently, and correctly teach the Word of God to our...

In a recent interview with NPR about her new book, “Dopamine Kids”, Dr. Michealeen Doucleff, spoke about the tricks and tools that tech companies use to hijack the brains and dopamine systems of our kids. Her book offers up a science-based plan to rewire the brains of our kids, which have been captured by screens. Doucleff tells us that these tricks and tools have been developed and utilized by th...

In the past, we’ve issued warnings about how kids are consulting with non-human AI chatbots online to get advice on all sorts of things, including mental health issues. The trend is dangerous, as so many of the news and research reports are now telling us. A new peer-reviewed study published on PubMed reports on how these AI chatbots are responding to the questions kids ask about appearance, body...

In First John two sixteen we read these words: “For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father but is from the world.” Those words offer some great directives related to how we present ourselves on social media. I got to thinking about that when I read this directive in a recent edition of TableTalk magazine: “Selfish...

The structure, complexity, and functioning of the human brain gives glory to God, our Creator! With the advancements being made in brain scans, researchers are seeing just how incredibly magnificent the human brain really is. Recent findings indicate that the brain changes its wiring of neural circuits over the course of our lives. The phase of change known as adolescence kicks off around age nine...

Eric Liddell, the subject of the movie “Chariots of Fire” came to mind recently as I read a news story about a decision made by a 16-year-old teenager from Satellite Beach, Florida. Liddell, a devout Christian, chose not to run his 100 meter heats in the 1924 Olympics because they were being held on a Sunday. Last fall, high school swimmer Michael Alexander Shapira, gave up his place in the Florid...

During the months of spring and early summer, suicide attempts among young people tend to rise. Pastoral Counselor Karen Mason offers some great advice on how to interact with a person who you think might be experiencing depression and considering suicide. She says that our job is to recognize when a situation is serious and to take action according to the seriousness of the crisis. Listen non-jud...

One of the great concerns regarding the growing presence and use of Artificial Intelligence has been labeled as “surveillance capitalism” by writer Shoshana Zuboff. Zuboff defines surveillance capitalism as a system that claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. AI takes this raw material, analyzes it, and then harnesses it to nudge, coax, tune, and herd be...

Becky Kennedy and Sheryl Zielger are both psychologists who are raising teenagers themselves. I discovered their names in an article they had written for CNBC’s online site. The article’s title caught my eye: “If you want to raise stronger, more independent kids, give them this: They need it now more than ever say psychologists.” Kennedy and Ziegler cit how many parents today are so filled with th...

The word “precocious” comes from the Latin word that is translated as “to ripen before.” In our day and age, the word precocious is used to describe something that develops early or before the usual time. We often pair precocious with the word puberty to describe the process of physical maturation in children long before the average age of onset. Now, the word precocious is being coupled with the...

In a recent article in ByFaith magazine, author Katie Polski share three things that each of us needs to keep in mind as we seek to raise our children to love the church. First, Katie tells us that it all begins at home. She writes, “If we want our families to love what Jesus loves, our children need more than occasional or vague spiritual intentions.” Because they learn from what they see in us,...

As our children enter the teenage years, more and more of their world begins to revolve around their peer group. While parents remain important and influential, our kids look increasingly to their peers for clues on what to believe, how to behave, and what to do in order to fit in. New research from Florida Atlantic University has found that different types of peers influence different aspects of...

Parents, think of the brains of your children and teens like you think about your email accounts. If you are like me, your email box is pounded with more junk, spam, scams, and phishing schemes than legitimate, trustworthy, and truthful communication. I hope that as we've become more experienced we've learned how to recognize, block, and delete all the garbage that floods our inboxes literally hou...

I was recently reading about the Old Testament king of Judah named Asa. In Second Chronicles two, verses two to four, we read this about King Asa: “He took away foreign altars and the high places and broke down the pillars and cut down the Asherim and commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to keep the law and the commandment.” Asa was commended as a leader who did what was...

As parents, we are called to be diligent about monitoring the attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and health of our children and teens. One recent study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association reports on one type of behavior that we to be aware of, and which requires our intervention. The behavior is self-injury. Non-suicidal self-injury is the act of harming your own body on purpo...

All this week we’ve been looking at AI and the potential role it will play in the lives of our children and teens. Specifically, were looking at some conclusions made by the Brookings Institution and their new report titled, “A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect.” The report issues a clear warning regarding the implementation of AI into our lives, that we need to...

All this week we’re looking at AI and the potential role it will play in the lives of our children and teens. Specifically, were looking at some conclusions made by the Brookings Institution and their new report titled, “A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect.” One of the main conclusions offered in the report meshes well with God’s calling on our lives to pursue wh...