Youth Culture Today with Walt Mueller

In the past, you’ve heard me mention the results of initial research regarding the difference between reading text on a printed page, versus reading text on a screen. Researchers found that there is a fundamental difference between the two, as eye scans show that those who read on the printed page read line by line, and those who read on a screen tend to skip over text while looking for keywords....

Why do so many parents tiptoe gingerly around their children in today’s world? More and more parents are afraid to step up, take the reins, and assume their God-given position of authority. Instead, parents have become like butlers, available to wait on and serve their kids’ every desire and whim. Fearing rejection, we sometimes go against our better judgment and God’s design to say yes when we sh...

With the advent of the internet and online pornography, the male to female gap on pornography exposure and use has been closing. The latest research indicates that fifty-seven percent of females ages fourteen to eighteen have viewed pornography. Pornhub states that over one-third of their global viewership was female in 2022, which is an increase of fifty-one percent since 2014. A survey conducted...

There are two phrases in Scripture that we must pay attention to, understand, and teach to our kids. They are, “In this life”, and “In the end.” These two phrases are so helpful in giving us a proper perspective on the difficult things we will face in this world. When we read the Bible we learn that in this life there will be pain, sorrow, disease, discord, decay, death, and a host of other realit...

One of the greatest gifts I received in my life was the gift of an active and involved father. My father not only took the time to be around and spend time with me, but to teach me about Jesus and what it means to live with Christ as the Lord of my life. Those were great benefits to having a loving and involved father. But there’s more! Researchers tell us that when a dad gets involved in his chil...

The Bible speaks from beginning to end about the presence and benefits of suffering. James tells us that we’re to “consider it all joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance,” which then leads to maturity. The teenage years bring difficulty for both teenagers and their parents. As a result, we can experience the joy of going de...

In our good and necessary efforts to teach our kids God’s good creational design for sexuality and gender, I’m afraid that we can oftentimes unintentionally leave our kids less than compassionate towards those who are struggling with sex and gender confusion, or who are choosing to believe and live into the current cultural narrative. One of the things I tell parents is that we do not have a good...

Ever since teenage drug abuse ramped up in the nineteen sixties, schools, mental health professionals, the government, and parents have all been working to stem the tide of abuse and addiction. One of the greatest concerns has been the very real risk of death from drug overdose. I’m guessing that all of us have been touched by overdose death, perhaps in our families or circle of friends. Sadly, th...

I’ve always been fascinated by reports that deliver data on how values, attitudes, and behaviors have changed from one generation to another. The American Enterprise Institute recently released a report that had some discouraging and some encouraging news. For my generation of baby-boomers, fifty-four percent, reported drinking alcohol or smoking pot or cigarettes occasionally during their teen ye...

Over the course of the last couple of years, I, like you, have seen countless television commercials for law firms inviting viewers to engage in lawsuits for a variety of causes, many times because of exposure to contaminants at Camp LeJeune, or for illnesses like Mesothelioma. I’ve often times turned to my wife to tell her that we are not far from seeing the same kinds of ads pop up for those who...

For our kids, especially our girls, there is an ever-present pressure  causing them stress and anxiety that is undermining their mental and physical health. The pressure I’m talking about is the pressure they feel to conform their body shape and weight to appearance standards that value thinness as the passport to acceptance. Because this pressure is so strong during adolescence, our teens are vul...

In the past you’ve heard me say that roughly seventy-percent of our kids who play organized sports drop out by the age of thirteen. One of the main reasons cited is the pressure they feel from parents and coaches, a pressure that becomes unbearable and which drains the fun out of playing the sport. Now that we live in a social media saturated world, there seems to be a new reason for our kids to d...

I remember what a qualified parenting expert I used to be. In fact, I was at my best in knowing how to parent correctly before I even had kids. And then our kids came. I had a lot of repenting to do, and I also needed to know where to look for the best advice. My bookshelf is filled with Christian parenting books that helped us along the way as we were raising our own kids. We also went to our par...

I recently had to double-back to my office after leaving for the day. I found myself in a bit of a panic as I had left my smartphone on my desk. Truth be told, there was a part of me feeling that if I was not reunited with my phone, things could go bad very quickly. When I came to my senses, I realized that I had spent roughly two-thirds of my life without a smartphone, and the reality was that li...

As a dad, I remember the concern I felt as my daughters started to enter puberty and transform according to God’s good design, from little girls into women. I knew that with the shift through adolescence they would face new pressures in a world that puts a premium on body image, sexuality, and appearance. We worked hard to prepare them, buffer them, and guide them through this stage, all the while...

One of the best lessons I learned from my parents is that there is more to life than sitting around and doing nothing. My parents were available to us on those quiet evenings when it would have been easy to plop down in front of the tube. But they always had something fun to do. We would play board games or cards, wrestle or box with my dad, build models, work in the basement woodshop, etc. Sure w...

I recently read a Touchstone Magazine interview with Princeton University professor Dr. Robert George, where he warns Christians about buying into the concepts of sexual orientation and gender identity. He says that these categories are modern inventions. He goes on to say that it has very bad consequences if we enable Christians who experience same-sex desire or gender dysphoria, which as a matte...

I recently read a piece in the New York Times written by Callie Holterman. The headline read, “In candy shades and eggy shapes, many of today’s most popular vaping devices look like toys. Experts worry they will hook a new generation of users.” After reading the article, I went online to look through one of the many online vape outlets that serve as clearinghouses for a host of vaping devices and...

The law of cause and effect is a universal law which states that for every single action in the universe, a reaction is produced no matter what. I’ve seen the principle of cause and effect active in my own life in so many ways. For example, when I eat more, I gain weight. And conversely, when I eat less and exercise more, I lose weight. As we approach the twenty-year mark since the advent of smart...

In today’s world, one of the ways in which we divide people into groups and rate their value is according to their jobs. Parents, we have to teach our kids something different. I love these words of truth from Abraham Kuyper: "Preachers and plumbers aren't any different. What God requires of them each is the same: not a dime's less than everything. Missionaries are no more holy than factory worker...

The Genesis eleven story of the tower of Babel is one we need to pay attention to in our social media saturated world. In his book, This World is Not My Home, Mark Johnston writes that man’s motive behind the vast tower of Babel efforts was, as we read in Genesis eleven four, “to make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” Johnston continues, “the Babel insti...

“Are you in a relationship?” “do you have boyfriend?” “Do you have a girlfriend?” “Are you dating anyone?” These are all questions from curious friends and relatives that teenagers have historically had to navigate as part of the adolescent and young adult experience. It’s not unusual for the answers given to leave members of the older generation scratching their heads. You see, the nature of roma...

Parents, there is some interesting news about teenagers and sex coming out of the University of California, San Francisco. Researchers asked four thousand adolescents from seven hundred and fifty one neighborhoods and one hundred and fifteen schools in Alabama, Texas, and California questions about the quality of their relationships in their homes and in their neighborhoods. Questions focused on h...

If you attend a church that has coffee available on Sunday mornings, you might have noticed that there are more and more children and teens heading to the pots for a cup of the caffeine-infused beverage. Researchers at the C.S. Mott Children’s hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan are telling us that surveys of parents indicate that thirty-one percent of thirteen to eighteen year olds are drinking coffe...

In a recent edition of Salvo magazine, physician Bruce Woodall describes a conversation he had with one of his patients, a young middle school girl named Jessica. Struggling with how her body was changing Woodall had the opportunity to talk through Jessica’s sense that she was born in the wrong body, and that she was actually transgender. Woodall asked lots of questions, listened intently, and ans...