Class 9 (Spring 2012)--Morality

Story: Family was getting ready for family activity night.  While the girls finished the dishes the Dad & Son went to rent a video.  The boy said, "Dad we should see _________ movie."  All the kids at school have seen it.  Dad said, "I think it's a PG-13 movie."  Son said, "What does that mean?"  Dad said, "Most of the movie is ok, but there is some violence, language, and/or sexual content."  The son thought about it for a few minutes and then said, "Dad we should rent that movie.  We are a PG-13 family."

How many of us are raising PG-13 families?

"Some...justify their viewing choices by comparisons such as “not as bad as” or “only one bad scene.” But the test of what is evil is not its degree but its effect. When persons entertain evil thoughts long enough for the Spirit to withdraw, they lose their spiritual protection and they are subject to the power and direction of the evil one."  Pornography by Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign April 2005

Video games, movies, etc...once it is invited in it cannot be erased even if we are washed clean through repentance.

Those single drops become cumulative.  We rationalize that it's not that bad. 

Question: Am I Parenting PG-13?

Satan has always been anxiously engaged in drawing men & women into his grasp.

We are as wicked today as Sodom & Gomorrah.  The only difference is that they were centralized.  Now it's everywhere.  We are just as wicked or more so than they were then.

Don't teach morality with gloom & doom.  Teach it with testimony and a desire to meet the Savior.  They need to get the feeling.  We focus on the don'ts.  Present it in a way that is exciting & desirable like Lehi partaking of the fruit.  Present it hand in hand with the doctrine of the family (which is a principle).  We don't teach that well enough in our home.

Plan of Salvation...we came to be parents and have children.  Everything related is of the Celestial kingdom.  The reasons to stay clean and pure is to be pare of the doctrine of the family.  We want to be worthy to have eternal increase.

"The Great Plan of Happiness"  (Book)

We have to get a testimony of the family the teach morality.

There are 3 things that keep kids moral....(1) Family holds to the standards of the church.  (2) Child has good relationships with Dad & Mom.  (3) Personal testimony, personal scriptures & personal prayer.   These fortify our kids against immorality.

Moroni becomes captain of the armies very young.  He fortifies his cities while they are not at war.  They dig trenches, put up barricades, built dirt embankments, put spikes on the walls, and watch towers on all 4 corners of the city.  When the Lamanites come they are shocked and they left.  Then they came back.  Then Moroni fortified the individuals with helmets, breastplates, & shields.  The Nephites were protected.  The Lamanites were open to injury. 

Birth to 8 years old is our "time of peace".  It is our time to fortify our children.   8-16 years old they are highly involved with the noise of the world.  They start to experience fiery darts of the adversary.   High School they are completely immersed in the noise of the world.

By the time your children are 8-10 years old they will have been exposed to pornography.  most of them at school.  Don't let that terrify you.  Help fortify them before they get there.

Our personal home because a safety zone.

We only have a partial fortification built if we parent like we were parented.  We need to step up the fortification.  The adversary is different now than when we were parented.  Our parents raised us in a non-cyber society.  We can't do what our parents did and expect to maintain morality in our kids.

You have sources in your home that are highly pornographic.

Watching media they aren't ready for can affect them the same as if they experience it first hand.

There should not be an computer or device in your home with access to the internet without a filter on.

Here is a link to a free internet filter, done by an LDS guy.  K9 Web Protection

Cell phones that send pictures...hackers can get into that, pull up pictures, with GPS can locate to the bedroom where the picture was taken.  You can disable that on your phones.

A police officer went online to a social media site and pretended to be a 15 year old girl.  Within 9 minutes 25 men had made sexual comments to "her".

You should be reading your children's texts.

Kids shouldn't have cell phones.  Maybe a family cell phone.  They don't need it.  Those  who already have cell phones guard the!  Check them regularly!  You can take their phone back.  It's a privilege not a right.  It is a "guarded" privilege.

Story:  Spencer has a new football coach in Kuna.  He is an amazing man.  They had dinner as a teach in Sunday.  The new coach is LDS.  Spencer wore his Sunday clothes with out a tie.  Spencer had sent an email to someone else saying he wanted to have the team pull together more.  The new coach got it.  He invited Spencer into a private space.  He said, "I got that email."  He said, "You are the reason I am here.  You are good.  Do you have a girlfriend?"  No  "Do you have a cell phone?"  No  "I love your parents.   I can make you a champion."  Do you know why???  He is not distracted.

LDS parents live in a bubble.  We think they will be immune.  There are bishops who say parents would be shocked if they knew what their kids were doing.

The kids need to feel safe.

Question:  What do you do if the girl won't let you get the door for her?
Answer:  Say to her why don't you get back in and let me open the door for you.  I would appreciate being able to do that for you.  It might be embarrassing for a minute, but that will get back to the other girls in the school.  You are building your reputation.  What do you want it to be. 

Teach your daughters to allow/and expect them to open the doors.

Girls are most prone to sexual impurity because we raise them wanting to be loved.  "Their desire shall be to their husband."  Especially if they have been raised in a bad situation they will do anything to be liked by a boy.

There should be no full on body hugs.  If they try to, put your hand out and stop them and shake their hand.  A side by side hug is ok once in awhile.  This begins by teaching your 2 or 3 year old they can't crawl all over the home teachers.

Teach morality starting at age 2.

Morality is....respect and reverence for the body and sacred things.

Lasciviousness = (Websters dictionary) "To wrongly celebrate the capacity to feel so that they lose the capacity to feel."  This is the wrong stimulation of sacred feelings.  It can come from standing too close, watching movies, touch.  The feelings aren't wrong.

Youth get involved in kissing, necking, making out, petting.  They need to repent.  They feel like if they don't have intercourse they are still clean.  They start, but then they stop before they have intercourse.  Then they get married in the temple.  As they start their marriage they go to that point that they always have before and they have conditioned themselves to shut down at a certain point.  Many women have struggles in their sexual relationship for that reason.

Your children will have these feelings.  Boys will be aroused at 11 or 12 and will have an erection and not know why they are having them.  "Twilight" has some highly inappropriate scenes that will stay in their heads.  Do you want your girls remembering that?

Violence in video games.  As bad at destroying the spirit as sexual scenes.  The more they experience the more desensitized they become.

When they see violence in the news we need to talk about it being part of the last days.  It desensitizes them to the spirit.  They feel guilty but they squelch that voice.  They do that over and over again.  Eventually they go where they won't even hear the voice.

Tattoos:  Depending on children's sports heroes they could be enticed.  Churches stand is no tattoos.

Piercings: Churches stand is 1 for girls, none for boys.

We live in a culture of "no dating until 16".  However our 14 year olds can go to dances.  This is to teach them proper behavior between boys and girls.  Our youth no longer date:  Dating is only 1-2x per year to dances like prom.  They just "hang out".  There is a problem with just hanging out.

Read:  Dating versus Hanging Out by Dallin H Oaks, Ensign, June 2006

14-15 year olds want to just "hang out" to watch a movie or play basketball.  We condone dating @ 14, but we think if they are just "hanging out" it's ok.  Once they get into that group they pair off.  Pairing off should only happen when they are ready to get married.  "Going together" 10 & 11 yrs olds or 15 yr olds it's the same thing as pairing off.

You can't just have a list of rules.  You need to approach the rules with joy in the doctrine of the family.

When their hormones are raging you really need to build your relationship with the child.

We need to teach our girls that we love them unconditionally, boys love them for what they can get out of them.

We have to do better teaching our children to follow through with hard things.

Experience:  Sister Tanner's younger brother has been a bishop with lots of kids.  They went on missions.  The oldest son married a beautiful drop-dead gorgeous girl. They were married in the temple. She was really focused on herself.  She was an anchor for a TV news show.  When he graduated and wanted to go to medical school.  She didn't want to leave her career so they go divorces.  She ruined the reputation of the son.   Their 2nd daughter got married in the temple and was divorced in less than 6 months.  He decided it was too hard.  He would go home after work to his helicopter Mom.  She would wait on him.  His wife was feisty.  She wasn't going to grovel.  He would rather go home to Mom.  Why didn't his parents tell him to go home. 

Marriage (real life) is hard work.  They need to stick it out and work it out.  It's not roses and happily every after isn't real, but they think it's real because that is all they ever see in movies and on TV.

For the Strength of Youth (new pamphlet came out)....Memorize it!

Church News "For Strength of Youth Updated"

PDF file of "New For Strength of Youth"

LDS.org has a video with specifics.... "Chastity: What are the limits?"  The church is getting more specific because of the world.

Read: "We Are All Enlisted" by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign, Nov 2011

RULES:
1.  Refrain from vulgar language.

• We teach "Don't take the Lord's name in vain"
• We use vulgar language
• Vulgar is anything that demeans the human body or it's function or refers to it in an unholy way.
• Using crud, holy crap, and @#!*% off are not ok.
• It will become common to them because they hear it all the time at school.  Don't let it become part of their nature.
• Listen to your youth
• Listen to you.
• It's more than avoiding swear words.

2.  Never give or accept back rubs from someone of the opposite sex.

• Teach this to your children. 
• Leaders of youth...if you see this put a stop to it.

3.  Do not lay next to anyone of the opposite sex.

• Question:  What if you were laying down first?  Answer:  Then you sit up.  You can't control anyone else.

4.  Never go into the bedroom of the opposite sex
5.  Dancing to close
6.  Never have full body hugs.
7.  Limit the time on cell phones.

•  Parents monitor their emails, shat rooms, cell phones, and texting.
• Are they pairing off?

8.  Dress

• Model what you want your girls to wear
• If you bed down and can see down your shirt it is too low
• If you raise your arms you shouldn't see your belly.
• Don't wear pants that are too tight.
• Model the type of girl you would like your son to marry.
• Boys have standards too....pants pulled up, don't show your underwear.  Wear your shirt.
• Question: When playing basketball what about shirts & skins?  Answer:  Playing shirts & skins is like swimming, but don't leave your shirt off while you are not playing.
• The standard of modesty is the garments from birth to death.  The Lord has one standard.

9.  Oral sex and french kissing are not acceptable.

• If you have ever done that you need to meet with the bishop and repent.
• Kissing need to be learned by self restraint.  If it arouses those feelings you need to stop kissing them until you have a license.

 10.  No marathon dates

• You have breakfast together, then and activity in the afternoon, then prom all evening.  This is not ok.  They become too familiar.  They are too tired by evening and their guard is down.  
• Teach them to have more dates.  Shorter ones more often.
• Parent will be unpopular

11.  Answer the "W's"

• Who are they with
• Where are you going
• When will be you returning
• What will you be doing
• Boredom creates trouble

12.  No Sleepovers

• Nothing good comes from sleepovers
• When you are tired and you have group pressure you do things you shouldn't
• Let them stay until 10:30 or 11:00pm then pick them up and return them in the morning for breakfast. 
• My responsibility is to safeguard my children from spiritual trauma.  

Read: Reconsidering Sleepovers by Wendy Green  LDS Living Nov/Dec 2004

• Girls camp and scout camp are ok, but do training before they go.

STORY:

I recall an event described by a man I met at a stake conference in the Midwest more than a decade ago. The setting was a beautiful campus in central Illinois. My informant, a participant in a summer workshop, saw a crowd of young students seated on the grass in a large semicircle about 20 feet from one of the large hardwood trees that are so common and so beautiful there. They were watching something at the base of the tree. He turned aside from his walk to see what it was.

There was a handsome tree squirrel with a large, bushy tail playing around the base of the tree—now on the ground, now up and down and around the trunk. But why would that beautiful but familiar sight attract a crowd of students?

Stretched out prone on the grass nearby was an Irish setter. He was the object of the students’ interest, and, though he pretended otherwise, the squirrel was the object of his. Each time the squirrel was momentarily out of sight circling the tree or looking in another direction, the setter would quickly creep forward a few inches and then resume his apparent indifferent posture. Each minute or two he crept closer to the squirrel, and the squirrel apparently did not notice. This was the scene that held the students’ interest. They were silent and immobile, attention riveted on the drama—the probable outcome of which was becoming increasingly obvious.

Finally the setter was close enough to bound at the squirrel and catch it in his mouth. A gasp of horror arose, and the crowd of students surged forward and wrested the beautiful little animal away from the hound, but it was too late. The squirrel was dead.

Anyone in that crowd of students could have warned the squirrel at any time by waving their arms or crying out, but none had done so. They just watched while the inevitable consequence got closer and closer. No one asked “Where will this lead?” and no one wished to interfere. When the predictable outcome occurred, they rushed to the defense, but it was too late. Tearful and regretful expressions were all they could offer.

That true story is a parable of sorts. It has a lesson for things we see in our own lives, in the lives of those around us, and in the events occurring in our cities, states, and nations. In all these areas we can see threats creeping up on things we love, and we cannot afford to be indifferent or quiet. We must be ever vigilant to ask “Where will it lead?” and to sound appropriate warnings or join appropriate preventive efforts while there is still time. Often we cannot prevent the outcome, but we can remove ourselves from the crowd who, by failing to try to intervene, has complicity in the outcome.  "Where Will It Lead" by Dallin H Oaks, New Era Aug 2007

 ________________________
Other Articles....
"To The Young Women" by Jeffrey R. Holland, Ensign Nov 2005
"A Parent's Guide"  What to teach at what ages
"Pornography" by Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign April 2005
"Sanctity of the Body" by Susan Tanner, Ensign October 2005
"Truths of Moral Purity" by Terrance D. Olson, Ensign, October 1988
"Making the Right Choices" by Richard G. Scott, Ensign, November 1994
"Making the Right Decisions" by Richard G. Scott, Ensign, May 1991
"Helping Youth Choose Sexual Purity" by Joy Saunders Lundberg, Ensign, October 1991
"Of Souls, Symbols, & Sacraments" by Jeffrey R. Holland, BYU Devotional, Jan 12, 1988
"Bridle All Your Passions" by Bruce C & Marie K. Hafen, Ensign, February 1994
"The Shield of Faith" by Boyd K. Packer, Ensign, May 1995