We're Not in 2005 Anymore

About 14 minutes ago, or what seems like it, I dropped my son off for his first day of kindergarten. Today, his car loaded with sisters, he drove off for the first day of his senior year. Wow, that was fast.

But then I think about how much has changed since that day in 2005, and I realize what a long time ago it was. I did not whip out a cell phone and take a picture of Braden on his first day of kindergarten. I did not text or vox any of my friends. It did not occur to me to pray against teen suicide in our community. I doubt "cyberbullying" was even a word.

While there have been some positive changes since Braden started kindergarten, it also feels like the world is a darker place. I believe it is an especially hard time to be a teenager, and an especially challenging time to be a teacher or school administrator. There's been a story in the news lately that drives this point home and reminds me that parents today need to be more "on it" and more intentional than ever.

In June, a sixth grader from New Jersey took her own life. Sadly, that story alone is so familiar that it would not make headlines. The news here is that this girl's parents have charged her school with negligence and are demanding that administrators be held accountable for their daughter's death. Like dozens of other grieving parents who have made similar charges against their children's schools, these parents say that for months, their daughter received menacing messages via social media, with other sixth graders telling her that no one liked her, that she had no friends, and that she should just kill herself. They say they complained to the school, but the bullying continued, until it got so bad their daughter ended her life.

While my heart aches for anyone who loses a child, I've got to ask the obvious questions. Who was responsible for the safety of this little girl? In their demands for accountability, have these parents  ever considered their own negligence? Their own lawyer, in one of many nationally televised interviews, held up a cell phone and said, "This small device can be a lethal weapon in the hands of the wrong child." And yet they put it into their daughter's hands at such a young age, and they loaded it with Instagram and Snapchat. When they saw the trauma it was causing, did they ever think to take it away? Is that option considered too outlandish by today's parents to even consider?

What have we done to our children? Billionaires sit in offices creating poison for our young children, advertisers shove it down our throats, peer pressure demands that we bring it into our own homes, and parents, assuming they have no other choice, toss it at their kids and leave the room.

The world has changed drastically in the past 12 years, and we parents have got to do a better job being the adults and protecting not only our children's bodies, but their hearts and minds, too. We can't expect schools to clean up the messes created by poor parenting decisions. Schools exist to educate our children, not to police their online behavior. Parents are responsible for their own children. How can this be revolutionary or controversial?

Are there students using social media successfully, unscathed by its potentially lethal effects? For sure. But I would bet good money that very few of them are in the sixth grade. And yet the age at which kids receive their first phones is getting younger and younger, and where there is a phone, the apps are sure to follow.

As we start this new school year, let's be intentional with our own kids. Let's be very slow to say "yes" to new technology, especially with our young kids, let's exercise our parental rights to check their phones and see what's happening in their online worlds, and let's not be afraid to pull the plug on anything that has become harmful to them. Let's show our gratitude to our children's teachers and principals, and for heaven's sake, let's be down on our knees praying for them.