Three Tips to Navigate Parenthood in the Modern Culture
Do you have a plan on how to navigate the difficult parenting challenges you will face raising children in a modern context?
Dr. Ray Guarendi sees it every day: parents who love their kids, want to raise them well, but feel worn down by the culture and unsure how to hold the line.
If you want your children to grow up healthy, holy, and resilient, Dr. Ray offers three parenting approaches that will strengthen your parenting and help you ward off the ways of the world:
1. Delay Based on Trust, Not Age
How do you decided when to entrust your child with new responsibility? Like when are they allowed to go on a date, own a smartphone or make decisions for themselves?
Dr. Ray says, the decision ought to be based on maturity not an arbitrary number. Here’s what he means:
Practical steps:
- Replace “What age?” with “How trustworthy?” Ask: Do they follow smaller rules without pushback? Can they be honest about mistakes? Do they come to you when they encounter things that make them uncomfortable?
- Delay technology as long as possible. Every year without a phone preserves more of their childhood for imagination, play, and moral development.
- When you do give new responsibility, start it at its basic level. Disable browsers, limit apps, and check settings regularly for a phone. Only let them date under your direct supervision. And so on.
- If they prove to not be ready, reset the clock. Don’t just offer a consequence for not following a rule. Pull back. Bring them back to square one until they prove they are ready for the next step.
2. Friends: Control the Environment, Influence the Picks
Children become who they hang with. Here’s how to be involved while also respecting their individual freedom:
- Decide who’s in the “friend pool.” If a child’s values or behavior are way out of sync with your family, they’re not an option.
- Host more often. Make your home the gathering spot so you can keep an ear on conversations and see dynamics firsthand.
- Use proximity rules. If friends come over, doors stay open, play happens in common spaces, and you can walk by at any time.
3. Boundaries & Consequences: Mean What You Say
Setting boundaries with consistency is essential to building a relationship of trust and respect with your children. If they believe your rules are negotiable, every boundary erodes and freedom along with it.
Here are three keys to setting healthy boundaries that preserves the relationship and limits the shared stress involved in the parent/child dynamic:
- Pick one consequence per misbehavior. Example: Disrespect = write an apology letter. No debates, no switching punishments midstream.
- Enforce it every time. If they refuse, “blackout” all privileges—no TV, games, playdates—until it’s served.
- Be calm, not combative. The less emotion you show, the more they’ll see it’s just the way life works.
Parenting in today’s culture means you will often be swimming against the current. It’s tempting to loosen your grip just to keep the peace or to match what “everyone else” is doing, but those are the moments that matter most. These lynchpin decisions—when to entrust responsibility, how to shape their social world, and how to enforce boundaries—are what form your child’s character for life.
You won’t always get it perfect, but you can be consistent, loving, and clear. Every limit you set is not a wall to keep your kids out of the world, but a guardrail to help them walk toward their God-given destiny. Hold the line with confidence. Your children may not thank you today, but one day, they’ll see the gift you gave them.