There is a brilliant saying, “as soon as you say ‘my child will never,’ here they come nevering like they never nevered before!”
I thought we had successfully avoided the YouTube trap. I knew I had been nevered by my child when I found them watching a film of a car wheel running over an infinite number of random objects to see what would happen; tubes of paint, aerosol cans, small plastic toys, small teddy bears, felt tip pens, pots of slime… you get the gist.
Here’s the thing; YouTube is not inherently bad. In fact, as a teacher, children’s worker, hobby sewist and amateur plumber who refuses to give up when the washing machine or boiler stop working, I have found many high quality, useful, creative and professional clips to use which have entertained and educated me and those in my care. So instead of writing it off or demonising it, how can we have, and help our children to have a healthy relationship with youtube and other similar online services. (see an article on Instagram here).
1) Set before my eyes no vile thing.
Of course, King David would never have imagined the things our children have access to when he wrote his pledge in Psalm 101, but I remember Ishmael applying this principle in ‘The TV song’ (available on ‘Worship songs for little children). “Lord be in my mind, be in my eyes, especially when I watch TV, help me to know what’s right and wrong and switch off the things I shouldn’t see.” This has been a great tool for us when we have helped to teach our children to put their own boundaries in place to decide what they should and shouldn’t watch. As responsible parents, we will have safeguards in place to protect our children from seeing the vast majority of age-inappropriate content, but there may well come a time when the filters fail, or where our own Christian parameters are different to those offered by the software. Talking honestly and openly with our children about why we protect our eyes and minds and then giving them tools to do so, without a culture of judgement is really important. Of course, the minute we ban our children from seeing something, we make it like the forbidden fruit they want to seek after, far better to give them tools and understanding to put up the boundaries and protect themselves.
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