Protecting Boys after High School

Graduation wideHigh school graduations are upon us, and many of those graduates will be moving on to bigger and better things.  When they’re gone, they’re still your child, and you still have some responsibility for their sanctification.  Although they’re of adult age, and many will be out of the house, your parental role doesn’t stop, it merely changes.  How then do you help your college-aged, young adult children?  Well, here are a few tips.

  1. Don’t Lie to Yourself: Realize that they’ve seen more, done more, and have been exposed to more than you’d probably like. If they’ve seen any mainstream media, heard any popular music, or hung out with any other children who have done so, they’ve seen it, done it, and/or have been exposed to it.  The “it” is the junk, filth, and garbage that’s out there in TV, movies, music, magazines, and all over the internet.
  2. Be Aware: Most institutions of higher education don’t filter, block, or have regulations against pornography and other filth on the internet. Some do, but those systems are rare.
  3. New Found Freedom and Rebellion: Being out of the house lends itself towards rebellious views and ideas of invincibility, especially on the college campus. These institutions are typically not calling the boys towards authentic masculinity, but rather, allows and encourages on-going childishness and “cultural manliness”.

It doesn’t matter what they go on to do, they’ll be exposed to more and more than ever before.  Even faithful, Catholic schools have problems with protecting their students, and your child isn’t the exception to the rule.  Okay, okay… downer Dave here… as usual, killing the excitement and joy surrounding graduation.  Harping on the bad news and leaving everyone scared to raise kids in America.  Sorry.  Well, not really.  Instead of only harping on the bad, I’ve got a great tool to aid you in your parenting.  It’s called Covenant Eyes, and I fully endorse their products.

TM Covenant Eyes AffiliateCovenant Eyes is a filtering and accountability software for PCs, Macs, smartphones, and tablets.  It works on a plethora of devices and they continually develop the software to keep up with the latest and greatest gadgets.  Covenant Eyes does a number of things, and while I can’t tell you all of them in this short post, here are three of the most practical things it does, especially for your boy (or girl) heading off to college.

  1. Peace of Mind: Covenant Eyes lends itself towards giving parents peace of mind that the content that their child (even their young adult child) is protected from content that is bad for them. The filtering helps to block explicit, pornographic, and malicious content from entering the device.
  2. A Talking Point: Covenant Eyes is a gateway to conversation between parents and children. It gives a parent the opportunity to discuss the content, not ignore it.  It gives the child the responsibility of having the device, with the accountability to back it up.
  3. Keepin’ It Real: Covenant Eyes keeps everything honest, open, and transparent. The truth is the truth, and if a site has been visited that shouldn’t have been, or an app has been utilized that shouldn’t have been, or questionable online behavior is happening, it puts it all out on the table.  When it’s out there, it can be dealt with.

And it’s not only good for older kids, it’s great for everyone in the house.  Dads – you need this software on your devices to keep you honest.  Moms can benefit from it too!  (Did you know that 1 out of 4 church-going women admit to being addicted to pornography?!)  And our pure, innocent littles… it’s the least we can do for them.  The least.

So how do you start using Covenant Eyes?  Click HERE to go to the Covenant Eyes site to sign up for your free one-month trial.  That’s right, it couldn’t be easier, just head on over and they’ll let you try it out for a month at no cost.  (The link takes you to my affiliate page automatically.)  Once you’ve signed up, you’ll download the program on your computer(s), laptop(s), and iOS/Android devices (get the app), set up the functionality you want to utilize (in the setting portion of the account), and immediately, the device is protected.  If you have ANY problems, or struggle with technology (like so many parents do), simply call their customer service line and they will walk you through everything.  It’s totally worth it, easy to do, and gives you that all-important peace of mind.  What’s stopping you?  Do it today!

Covenant Eyes has a monthly cost after the initial free month trial.  Considering all of the junk out there, I find the minimal costs to be well worth the souls of our children.  One monthly cost covers ALL of your family’s devices.  Hard to beat.  I’ve tried tons of different blocks, filters, and accountability, and by far, this is my favorite.

TrueMan up!

Porn Gone Mobile

May 28, 2010 by  
Filed under Blog

It may not be news to some of you, but porn is everywhere.  When I first got my Droid phone, I searched through lists and listsphone stack of free apps to add to my phone just as most people who have app-enabled phones do.  Obviously, we want to utilize the machine for what it can do, right?  In those lists, I came across apps that were quite scandalous… these apps served up porn (of varying degrees).  It’s porn gone mobile… as if porn wasn’t easy enough to access on the web, the porn industry had to add it to web-enabled phones as well.

This was all brought to mind today when I saw a thread about Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, and his comments to a hack-job blogger on the topic of “the ‘freedom’ that iPad offers.”  Currently, to the best of my knowledge, there are no apps for the iPad that support pornography.  It’s hard to say that porn isn’t accessible on the iPad because porn is still accessible via the web browser on iPad, but not directly via any apps.  Some porn companies are frustrated with the inability to have an app for their porn site(s).  What it comes down to for the porn companies is the almighty dollar.  Totally disgusting.

steve jobs ipadHere’s the whole point… and I’ve said this before, but will repeat it as many times as is necessary.  PORN HUNTS FOR US!  It’s not like the ‘ol days’ when you had to be ballsy enough to walk into an ‘adult store’ and purchase a magazine or VHS.  Now, porn is accessible in places we can’t even imagine.  Porn is everywhere and it doesn’t wait for us to find it, it comes after us and doesn’t stop.

Parents – don’t assume your kids aren’t looking at, watching, using, distributing, streaming or buying porn.  Get into their media, including their mobile media… basically anything that has access to the web or a signal, and put a stop to it.  It will destroy their lives!

Many people wonder (and debate heavily) why porn is so bad.  I’ll leave that for next post.  Until then, fight the giant.

If you are addicted to pornography, please click HERE to start getting help TODAY.

TrueMan up!