Youth Culture Today with Walt Mueller

Remember the amount of time you spent looking in the mirror when you were going through your teenage years? We wondered what was happening, wondered where it was all going, and usually lamented the fact that we weren’t “shaping up” the way we thought we should. It’s still the same for today’s teens, but also very different. When they look in the mirror, they’re also looking over their shoulders at...

Pastor Seth Hedman is a millennial who has done something very un-millenial-like with technology and social media. He has led his family through a process of incrementally unplugging from technology and social media to focus more on their spiritual lives. In an article in a recent edition of Touchstone Magazine, Hedman reminds readers that social media and our smartphones are designed to grab our...

Late last year, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of almost fourteen hundred teens, ages thirteen to seventeen, and their parents, to come to an understanding of our teenagers’ experiences and attitudes around social media and their mental health. One of the most interesting findings is that both parents and teens have concerns about teen mental health these days. Only twenty-three percen...

The headline of a recent New York Times article caught my eye. It reads, What Teenagers Are Saying About Cursing. This question was posed to teenagers: Is there too much cursing these days? How did the kids respond. Among other things, many of the kids surveyed said that cursing is an ever-present reality in today’s world, and it is problematic. Others wrote cursing off as being just the way peopl...

Late last year, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of almost fourteen hundred teens, ages thirteen to seventeen, to come to an understanding of our teenagers’ experiences and attitudes around social media and their mental health. One of the most interesting findings is one that helps us to understand that the world has changed since we were kids, and that there are aspects of their lives t...

All this week we’ve been looking at the powerful role Dads play in their teen’s lives. Our kids will mess up. For some, their poor decisions will result in consequences that last a long time. Others may enter into a rebellious period that leaves you hoping and praying that like the prodigal son, they’ll return home. It’s at these times when we need to realize that loving our kids, means being comm...

This week we’re discussing what teens need in a dad. When my son Josh was still in his preschool years, he opened my eyes to the power of my example. While riding together in the car I had to swerve and skid to avoid an accident. As we screeched to a halt and the other car went whizzing past us, Josh looked out his window in the direction of the other driver. While raising and shaking his fist, he...

This week we’re focusing on Fathers. Sadly, the experience of many teens indicates their fathers fail to listen. Research shows that mothers are far more likely than fathers to discuss problems and have close personal talks with their teenage children. As a result, both teenage boys and girls say they feel freer to go to their mothers, rather than their fathers, to “talk about anything,” to “talk...

This week we’re talking about fathers. In his book The Seven Secrets of Effective Fathers , Ken Canfield tells Dads that the first secret to fathering effectiveness is commitment. Commitment involves much more than claiming your child as your own. This commitment requires a conscious choice to be your child’s father, along with resolving to work for your child’s benefit. Fathers who choose not to...

This week I want to talk about fathers. Research indicates that tonight, 40% of America’s children and teens will go to bed in a home where their father does not live. Countless millions more will go to bed in a home where their father is physically present, but emotionally or spiritually detached.  Father absence is a contributing factor to virtually every social problem and pressure facing our t...

With anxiety off the charts as a growing epidemic among children and teens, we’ve spent all this week looking at strategies you can employ to prevent anxiety in the kids you know and love. Today I want to share a strategy that can push back against social anxiety, which is one of the most prominent forms of anxiety we hear about in the youth population. While its essential that we all involve ours...

With anxiety off the charts as a growing epidemic among children and teens, we’re spending all this week looking at strategies you can employ to prevent anxiety in the kids you know and love. Research is showing that one of the greatest catalysts for anxiety is immersion in social media. The use of technology has created an expectation that things should happen fast, in fact, immediately. When tec...

With anxiety off the charts as a growing epidemic among children and teens, we’re spending all this week looking at strategies you can employ to prevent anxiety in the kids you know and love. One of the best ways to prevent anxiety is to stop overscheduling your kids. Research on today’s culture points to the fact that our kids are so over-involved and feeling such incredible pressure to achieve a...

With anxiety off the charts as a growing epidemic among children and teens, we’re spending all this week looking at strategies you can employ to prevent anxiety in the kids you know and love. One important step we can take is to teach our kids that the nature of living the Christian life is like running a race. The writer of Hebrews tells us to run with perseverance the race marked out for us. And...

With anxiety off the charts as a growing epidemic among children and teens, I want to spend this week offering some strategies you can employ to prevent anxiety in the kids you know and love. Perhaps the most effective strategy is to teach them to preach the Gospel to themselves. Teach them to speak to their hearts, telling their hearts to follow the Gospel rather than allowing their hearts to spe...

In Ephesians 5, Paul tells us to look carefully about how we walk, “not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” With the summer months approaching and the kids soon getting out of school, we want to encourage you to work with your kids to get off their screens, get out of the house, and make the most of the time rather than wasting their time on foolish...

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...

Recent research from Lifeway tells us that “the single greatest influence over spiritual health is regular Bible reading while growing up. Plainly put, the parents of young adults indicate that regular Bible reading as children yields the greatest influence over spiritual health.” Any of us who are Bible readers know this to be personally true, as the Holy Spirit works to change us, conforming us...

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid drug that is approved by the FDA for use as a pain reliever and anesthetic. It is approximately one hundred times more potent than morphine, and fifty times more potent than heroin. It carries with it a high risk for addiction and dependence. When taken in high doses or when combined with other substances like alcohol or heroin, it is known to cause respirat...

I recently read an editorial piece written by Steve Rosenbaum of The Sustainable Media Center. The title of his piece caught my eye: “Snap, Shame, Repeat: Inside the New Adolescent Reality.” Rosenbaum writes these words: “Social media hasn’t just reshaped adolescence – it has reprogrammed it. And we are only now starting to realize how deep the damage goes.” He recounts reading a headline in The G...

Those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ are called to bear each others burdens. We are to pray for each other. As friends, we are to love at all times and be there for others during their times of adversity. One thing I’ve learned as I’ve spent time with Christian kids is that so many of them battle with loneliness, anxiety, and depression. Even though they are followers of Christ, their ado...

I was recently walking through a local retail establishment and passed a mother pushing her young son in a shopping cart. The boy, who I guessed to be either two or three years old, was not sitting up in the normal spot where kids sit, but down in the cart with a small amount of merchandise. As we passed, the little boy, sitting cross-legged, never looked up. Instead his eyes were focused on an ip...

Have you ever found yourself basing your mood and happiness on your teenagers mood and happiness?  I’ve learned that that’s not a good thing to do. If you do, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. We’ve learned that even though we began our parenting adventure with a wonderfully written script. . . a script written by us that looked quite a bit like a Norman Rockwell painting. . . Go...

Most of us can remember those pit-in-the-stomach times we experienced as teenagers when we realized we had been left out. I remember a summer day in the neighborhood when I couldn’t find any of my friends at home. I couldn’t figure out why they were all gone until somebody spilled the beans later, telling me that they had all been invited to go to a home in another neighborhood to swim in the fami...

The story I’m about to share is not unique in today’s online digital world. USA Today recently reported on what happened to fourteen-year-old Elliston Berry in October 2023, when she received a text telling her that nude images of her were being passed around at her high school. A classmate had used artificial intelligence to create deepfake photos by putting a nude body on pictures of Berry that...