Sheltering Your Child’s Daily Life (Part 2): How to Expose them to Temptation

Strategically sheltering our kids is a matter of saying yes to some things, while saying no to others— all to purposefully protect and prepare them. By that I mean, protect them from the world, but also prepare them for the world. This is a very strategic venture. But so very necessary.

When it comes to exposing them to the world in order to prepare them, here are a few practical ways we can make sure to do so thoughtfully.

**How Not To Expose Your Kids:**

1) Unattended

Have you ever noticed the numerous warnings in pubic to not leave children unattended? You can find them at parks, public pools, on shopping carts, and more. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why—capable adults need to be nearby in case of danger.

Spiritually, it’s not much different. If we are exposing our kids to the world even a little bit, danger lurks. Which means, we should be nearby to give wisdom as needed. This may mean literally nearby, or it may mean we’ll soon be with them to debrief. The point is, we are not just throwing them out into the world and hoping for the best. Instead, we are actively using various situations for their training and benefit.

The truth is, exposing our kids to the world is creating work for ourselves. It might seem convenient to let them join some club or hang out with some friends (to expose them to the world), but with the pre-teaching you should do to prepare them, and then the necessary follow up, it’s more work, not less.

For example, maybe you’ll allow your child to join a team even though you know there’s a few teammates who have terrible attitudes. This is you creating work for yourself.

If you know you are walking into a situation with inappropriate behavior, you should be doing all you can to front load your kids so they know what to expect, and know how to respond. Then after the exposure to this negative behavior, you need to follow up to see how they processed what they experienced. And most importantly, you will need to be ready to correct any bad behavior they picked up along the way.

We have to remember this is hands-on training, so it’s going to feel like training. Or said another way, If we are putting our kids in situations in order to prepare them to successfully live for Christ in the long run, we need to make sure we are right there helping them successfully live for Christ in the short run.

2) Via Entertainment

No doubt our kids could be exposed to everything under the sun from the comforts of the couch. But this is probably not the best idea.

We might use media to educate our children at times, but if we do, it should feel more like a classroom than a cozy evening with pajamas and popcorn. In fact, strategic exposure is nothing like casual entertainment. We do not want to normalize what the world normalizes. We don’t want to laugh at it. We don’t want to sing the lyrics. All in all, we don’t want our kids learning to put their guards down when encountering ungodly ideas. Actually, we need to do quite the opposite.

Are there times to watch movies or shows or listen to secular songs? Yes, appropriate God-honoring entertainment is a blessing to be enjoyed. But we are never entertaining our kids with ungodliness in the name of strategically exposing them.

3) Excessively

You might remember in the last post I compared sin and temptation to germs. And in that sense, a little germ exposure helps our body learn to fight disease. But we also know, too much is likely to take us down. Similarly, when we expose our kids to the temptations of the world, it should be in small increments. If most of their activities involve large amounts of ungodliness — we are not strategically exposing them to the world, we are inoculating them into the world.

Most of our kids’ lives should consist of people and activities that push them towards godliness and good character. Sprinkled in should be opportunities to see what’s in the world so they can learn to fight the inevitable temptation.

Put it this way, our kids should not be so deep into the world that they are clearly surrounded by “bad company.” Because we know, “bad company corrupts good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Needless to say, exposure to worldliness should be a small part of their life.

So if that’s what we should not do if we want to strategically expose our kids to the world, what should we do? Here are some ideas…

Some of the Best Ways to Expose Your Kids:

1) At Church

Some of us are ignorant of it, while other’s fear it — but let it be known: your child is being exposed to the world at church. There are kids from families who haven’t trained their kids in godliness. Some kids have older siblings who’ve taught them things they ought not know. There are kids with unlimited internet access on their phone who will choose to access it at church. There are kids from all kinds of backgrounds, and your kid is bound to meet some of them.

But that’s okay. This is the kind of exposure you can afford.

Assuming you’re at a good Bible-teaching church, God wants you and your children deeply connected to it (Hebrews 10:25). And it’s at church (and often only at church) where the majority of people are pulling the right direction, and only a few are doing otherwise. This is actually the perfect place to knowingly let your kids be exposed to temptation. They are surrounded by accountability and by those who will gladly partner with you in guiding your child.

All that to say, don’t freak out when your child is being exposed to worldliness at church. It’s bound to happen, and it’s okay. The benefits of church outweigh the danger by 2000%. Plus we need our kids to be exposed and tested to some degree, so why not happily embrace church as the perfect means. (Note: I am not saying it’s good that the world has infiltrated the church in anyway. I’m just saying there will be inevitable worldliness, and we can utilize this reality, rather than fear it).

2) In Your Home

Sometimes there are influences and relationships in our children’s lives that we have to navigate extra carefully because of their potentially negative influence on our kids. For example: there might be a neighbor kid that you want to be kind to, but he has a massive potty mouth. Or perhaps there’s a team mate that you want to share the gospel with. Or a cousin that you want to keep a relationship with. And sometimes those relationships can come with unwanted exposure. These kids may watch shows your kids don’t. They may have access to media beyond what your kids have experienced. They may say words your kids have never heard. But at times, these relationships are still appropriate to maintain. This is when the home is the perfect place.

Bring these kids into your domain, where it’s not neutral — it’s known that you and your family are committed to serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15). Navigate the harder relationships in this setting. While you do, listen to what your kids are hearing so you can converse about it later. Watch how your kid responds so you can know how to better instruct him. Your home is a safe supervised place to bring in outsiders for the good of all (loving the outsider, and training your child in the process).

Plus, there’s a bonus: we want our kids to be able to not just interact with the world, but be a light in the world, and the home is a natural place to do this. Show your child how to use their home to be hospitable, kind, gracious, and bold with the truth.

3) Surrounded by Godly People

I recently witnessed thousands of salmon swimming upstream to spawn in the icy cold rivers of Alaska. There were literally thousands upon thousands of salmon. They seemed to be doing a very hard task, swimming upstream, jumping into and over waterfalls. Yet it seemed not only normal, but natural, because all the fish were doing it. In fact, it would have been weird if one salmon started swimming down river with the tide. While swimming downstream is normally easier, it surely isn’t when crowded out by so many going the opposite direction!

This picture illustrates how we want our kids to feel in daily life. They should be consistently surrounded by friends and adults and leaders and family going the route of godliness. Though following Christ is often the more difficult route (it’s like going “upstream”), it should actually feel like going downstream would be more difficult because very few around them are doing it.

Applying this illustration even more specifically, when there’s a particular less-than-godly influence in your kid’s life (one going “down stream”), make sure your kid spends time with this person surrounded by those going the right direction. We all know it’s easier to pull someone down than it is to pull someone up— however if there is only one pulling down and 5 pulling up, it’s a different story.

Will your child eventually be surrounded by ungodly people? Perhaps. But while they are young and moldable, it’s time to strengthen them. And then eventually they will have developed the character and wisdom to know how to handle the inevitable worldliness that will surround them.

All that to say, we should expose our kids to some things, and we should do so thoughtfully and carefully. And yet, there is clearly a line we don’t want to cross so as to not over-expose them to the world. So the question is, when do we pull back in order to protect our child? …More on that in the next post!