Hello, and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner, and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, hey there, friends, and welcome to my favorite part of the afternoon, getting to spend time with you, prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. And today, our prescription for hope is to exercise your civic duty. It is election day, friends, and if you have not gone out and voted, voted, I encourage you, I ask you, I'm just going to ask you plainly, go and vote. Will you please go and vote? Go after you pick up the kids from school, go on your way home from work, go on your break, go and vote. All across the country, there are important issues on the ballot. And a lot of times when we're not in a presidential election year, it can be easy to think, oh, does that really matter? Let me tell you, these issues matter so much. Now, Scripture calls us to love our neighbor. We can do that by voting for policies that are good for our neighbors. It also tells us to seek the welfare of the city and to be salt and light. And civic action is a way of loving our neighbor, stewarding our community, voting our values. And that is important to do. We are so grateful to live in a country where we can vote, where we had the founding Fathers, that we did that set up a country where we have the freedom that we do. And I also am so grateful to all of the veterans who are there who are working, working to keep our country free, veterans who have fought, who have died, who have paid the ultimate sacrifice so that you have the freedom to engage. So I ask you to go and vote. Now, there's a lot of people who think, well, does this really impact me? Well, one thing you may not know about me is that I, you know, I'm a nurse because we say it every time. But actually, one of the things that I love to teach the most and that I'm an expert at is public policy. So I am frequently on Capitol Hill, I'm frequently in the state legislature, and I am talking to young people every single day and talking about how to influence public policy. Now, all politics is local, you may have heard that phrase. But there are policies going on in your community that are definitely impacting your everyday life. That may be school policy, deciding the curriculum for your children, healthcare policy, deciding on coverage and regulations for how and when and from who your, you and your family can get healthcare. There's economic policy that's impacting your paycheck. There's safety policy that's impacting safety from the community level to the state level to the federal level and even online. And I'm really excited to bring to you today, MD Perkins. You've heard him on here before as the director of Culture Warrior and other fantastic films for American Family Association. He is the research fellow of Church and Culture here at AFA Action. And recently I saw an email from AFA about a really big victory that AFA had on your behalf. And one of the things that I've learned about policy as a professor, as a nurse, as an influencer is that public policy absolutely impacts you before you even know it's going to impact you. And so that's something definitely to consider. so MD I would love for you to tell us about this, ah, about this victory that we had.
M.D. Perkins: Yeah, good to be with you, Jessica.
American Family Association helped lobby Apple to address child privacy concerns
so this, this whole issue with Apple is something that Walker Wildmon, the head of AFA Action, of course vice president of American Family association, has been working on for about a couple of years now. And this is, you know, you mentioned there's all kinds of different ways that people can engage in activism and making, letting their voice be heard. And one of those ways is actually something called shareholder activism, which is you as an individual or as a company, you hold shares of stock of a certain company, you have access now to shareholder meetings and the opportunity to help voice concerns about things that are happening within a company and hopefully be able to shape or influence policy decisions that are being made at the corporate level. And that's something that AFA has been involved in through our AFA Action arm. Because what was discovered is that as shareholders of Apple, and taking an interest in this company, there was a recognition that Apple had a communications and safety standards that applied for specifically for children ages 13 and younger that were automatically enabled. So this means that when a child 13 or under had access to a device that there were certain things that they were unable to access or see because of their age. But between the ages of 14 and 17 there was kind of this black hole that was really addressed by the, by the communications policy which meant by default they had access to things that only adults should have access to, on their devices, you know, specifically already set up. And so once this concern was voiced, of course, you know, there were a lot of back and forth meetings and things. I wasn't involved in this personally, but I've had had these conversations. I understood that AFA was involved in this. And what happened was that and by Harmful things, I mean things that could be, you know, sexually explicit content through imessage specifically is one of the major ways, one of the major concerns that was there. And so two changes resulted as a, as a function of this activism on AFA's part. One was that the things that we were requesting regarding these 14 to 17 year olds, the protections that were there would be automatically enabled. That is that by default setting when a 14 to 17 year old set up their phone, all of these things would automatically be be blocked. And then some additional step would have to be taken by parent or guardian to unlock that function. But another ancillary benefit came through this which was that minors before were able to see but not download certain adult only apps. So they could actually see the apps that were there even though they weren't able to download them. But Apple ended changing their policy related to this because now those, those apps are actually hidden from view if you were a minor so that you're not actually, some people may not realize that there's hundreds of sexually explicit or sexually suggestive apps in the app Store and those may even pop up because they're popular. They may pop up in just some of those lists of most downloaded or what's new or all those different things. And so children were having access to be able to see that even if, even if they weren't able to actually download and use those apps, there was still something degrading about them being able to see some of the imagery and things there. So that was a major victory for afa and we're grateful to God that all of those things kind of came together that corporate leadership was able to actually hear the concerns and then make some policy changes that at a very base level will actually benefit and protect children.
Dr. Jessica Peck: MD This is a huge win. I was so happy to see this and so impressed to see this because it's another example of parents are busy MD You know, they are trying to put food on the table, they're trying to keep up with the tech use in their own home. But it's really, really hard to, to keep up with all of those things. And even so the power of one parent writing in is not going to have the same kind of pool as an organizational power. I have always been a very big proponent of the voice and the collective activism of professional organizations. And I'm so grateful that AFA did this. And here they're working on behalf of famil protect them. And one of the messages that they sent, and this is in quote is 0 minors should have access to nude images or videos via imessage without a parent's knowledge. I mean, I think every parent listening can say right, yeah, like that wasn't already a thing. And I think we see companies pushing the boundaries on a lot of different things because at the bottom line it's often always about money and about the bottom line and about advertising and about access to our. And so I'm so appreciative.
American Family Association has been involved with boycotts in the past
Do you want to share any other examples of advocacy that AFA has on behalf of the American family?
M.D. Perkins: Well, you know, I mean in the movie Culture Warrior we talk about this whole concept that one person can make a difference, you know. And AFA has been involved on kind of the consumer side of this with boycotts and things that we've called in the past. And thankfully because of the way that things worked out with Apple, there was never a call that came to that level because we were actually able to have those conversations and make some headway with, with corporate officials there. But I mean there's, there's numerous examples through the years. People, people wonder are those things really effective? Do those means really bring about any results? And the truth is they do. And that's why we keep doing them. And that's why people resist when you bring it up is because they are actually effective. they're not effective in every circumstance. Boycott is not the answer to every issue that pops up, but it should be a tool in our toolbox, can pull on from time to time in the right circumstance, in the right situation, with the right company, you know, all of those things, all of those parameters kind of being in place. And we actually released a recent a, I guess it was a cultural institute that we, we do a number of different video projects here at American Family Association. I'm involved in the video team and one of them was a conversation between myself and Vice President Ed Vitagliano about the use of boycotts and how that can be an effective means for Christians. Some of the history of AFA's involve and use of that particular tool as well as just some of the bigger picture of what does it mean to be active and and help your voice and your concerns to be heard by those in in these various sectors of our, of our economy and within our society.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's really encouraging to see this change happening when Christians engage their voice and when leaders use their influence strategically. Just like you just described in this case example of AFA doing. And when believers advocate boldly but respectfully and use the power of the purse. That's definitely an effective tool that can happen. And I think this just, this goes to a larger conversation about faith based, constructive civic engagement and the way to influence culture. That is so much more is so important.
How can people support American Family association and AFA Action
And one of the things that you were talking about, even in looking at the access that kids have, things are always changing. So one of the things that changed with the new updates of the phone was they did have access to explicit content and imessage that they didn't have before. And so with things constantly changing, how would you encourage people to support afa? Because they may think I can't do this on an individual level. I'm not sure what to do. We'll talk about some ways to engage individually a little bit later. But what would you encourage them to do to support the work that you're doing?
M.D. Perkins: Well of course you can always give to American Family association and AFA Action. You know, we're, we're constantly involved in the nuts and bolts of these battles. You know, I'm a research fellow, so a lot of my, my time is spent in trying to understand different, some of the, the new shifts that are happening in society and culture or infiltrating the church. And help us to think about these things in light of history as well as what are the theological implications of some of these things. And So I mean AFA action, as a, as a group that is a 501C3 it's distinct from, from the American Family association because we have a political action oriented focus with that one that deals with the center for Government Renewal, the Center for Judicial Renewal and I Voter Guide. So if you've heard advertisements for ivoterguide, that's a function of AFA action to help believers and really just any citizens understand what are public officials saying? What are these people on the ballot? What do they actually believe? What are their statements? How have they voted? Where is their money coming from? All of, of those sorts of pieces of information are available there within the I, Voter guide. So especially today on a voting day, if you've not, if you've not gone out and voted yet and you're kind of not really sure, you know, what are the issues even on the ballot. You know, take a look at what I voter Guide for your specific region might look like. That's a very easy quick way. It's free to access. you just got to put in a little bit of your specific information so that they can hone it for your particular region and geographic area and your voting district. But, that's, you know, picking up ivoterguide, you know, on your phone or on your computer is a very quick way that you can help support the work that we do. Because we create resources in order to be used. We want people to take these things in hand, to take articles that we've written or share, you know, podcasts and radio, interviews that we've done, and to be able to use things like the Avoter guide. So that's even if you're not giving directly to the ministry, just using the resources, sharing the resources, that's incredibly helpful and encouraging for us because we make them to be used, we're giving them away so that people can use and be helped by it.
American Family association is helping parents keep their kids safe online
Dr. Jessica Peck: Thank you so much for sharing. MD and as people are listening and thinking, does this really impact me? I want parents who are listening to think to answer this question. Does your child have a smartphone? Do you have a child between the ages of 14 and 17? Do you have a niece, a nephew, someone that you know and love between the ages of 14 to 17? This advocacy on behalf of you that was done, by American Family association is literally keeping your kids safer online and preventing them from seeing really damaging material. And that is definitely a win in my book. When we come back, we'll talk more about civic engagement and what you can and should do and how you can talk to your kids and influence them for good. Go out and vote. Go find out where to vote. It's not too late. We'll see you in just a minute.
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Come Jesus Come by CeCe Winans : Sometimes I fall. To my. Knees and pray Come Jesus, come. Let. Today be the day Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna break But I'm holding. On. To a hope that won't fade. Come. Jesus, come We've been waiting so long for the day you return to heal every hurt and right every wrong. Come.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Jesus, come welcome back friends. That is Come Jesus Come by Cece Winans and I want a lot of credit right now actually, because that took a lot of discipline to turn that song off. I wanted to leave it on because, wow, it is just expressing the sentence of my heart and what I feel so often when I look at the news and when I see all of the things that are just so tragic in the world, I see the pain and the trials and the traumas and the tragedies that people are facing. And some days it feels like all we can say is just come Jesus, come Come quickly, Lord Jesus. But until he does, he has given us a mission and we can can enact that mission. We can share our faith by voting our values. And today is election day. I did go to vote today. I usually like to vote early, but I voted today. I was so happy to wait in a line because I was happy to see people there who were voting. It's not an election year for presidential election, so sometimes people think, well, is there anything really important? Absolutely there is. I live here in Texas. There were a lot of constitutional amendments on the ballot. We had a lot of school boards issues on the ballot. You can go to I voter guide.com I voter guide.com all you have to do is put in your address and it will bring up your ballot, tell you what is on the agenda for you and give you information to help you go and vote. It's not too late. I encourage you to go and vote. Your vote really does matter. And we just had MD Perkins on who's the research fellow of Church and Culture for American Family Action. And he was sharing some incredible news that that Tim Wildmon just shared with us, shared widely with American Family association family about a victory that they had for advocacy to Apple and basically to recap what he said, we had protections for younger teens from seeing some explicit, material or to see explicit apps or adult only apps. They could still See those, even they couldn't, they couldn't download them. And this is a real concern for me because kids can access stuff in social media messaging and an messaging that is really, really concerning. And if you think this isn't happening, as I shared with you, I work in health policy. And the majority of the work that I do as a professor, as many of you know, is actually in human trafficking. And I advocate for kids who are impacted by that exploitation. And during the first three months of the pandemic, the national center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that the reports of children exploited through social media messaging went up from about 300,000 to over a million in the first three months of the pandemic. This is absolutely happening. And what we're seeing here is a public policy battle between adults rights to privacy and kid safety. That is what is on the balance here. That is what the, the, the gist of most of this argument is coming about. And I think we can all agree the kids need as much safety as we can possibly give them. And there are a lot of innovative solutions that can protect freedom of speech, that can protect adult privacy while also protecting kid safety. Now, I am not going to side with adult privacy on right to view explicit material when that harms kids. That's going to be me. I'm a mom. I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner. I have lived my life advocating for children. And I'm so grateful that American Family association advocated for children as well. This is something I've been writing about and talking about, and we have a lot of laws that are coming on the docket to try to govern this, because this tech is way ahead of policy. It is happening. And then we're trying to retroactively, reflexively put policy in place to keep our kids safe when it's already out there in the world. One example of this would be with AI, there was nudifying technology. This means that there are apps that will remove the clothing of people. Now, these are not apps that are generated, restricted to buy their apps. You can buy, download in regular app stores. And, when they first came out, there was very little regulation of those. This is concerning. We cannot use our children as an experimentation ground for technology. That is something that's really concerning. And so I'm appreciative of American Family association and other organizations that are working on behalf of the family who are watching for you, who are being vigilant for you, who know about these issues even before we do, and they are advocating on behalf of your family. That is very important. And so for parents, we need to know about what's happening in these spaces. We need to know about issues that are on the ballot and our local and our state races. When you're going to vote, what do you have a voice in? We cannot outsource our parenting to technology companies because especially with technology, with smartphones, with social media, with apps, these are not just tools that our children children are using, these are tools that are discipling and shaping our kids worldview and that warrants our attention. We have absolutely got to be engaged and it's not about fear, it's about faith. It's but it's really about faith in action. We've got to put our faith in action. I wanted to give you a couple of other examples of public policy that really you should be aware of that impact the life of your everyday kids. One of those that is being debated in Congress right now is the Kids Online Safety Act. It's called, called cosa. Now the purpose of this act is to protect children and teens online by requiring platforms to have some sort of accountability to reduce harm and to make a good faith effort that they really do genuinely care about minors well being. And so COSA is seeking to address, we know that social media is, is associated with rising rates of depression, anxiety, self harm, eating disorders, abuse, exploitation, you name it. The harm is there and I have seen it with my eyes that I can absolutely assure you. And right now platforms currently design an algorithm for engagement. It is not by default made for safety. This is not a safe place for your kids to be without some safety features, without some training, without some preparation. And even then it is not really a safe place to be. We've got to be aware of the risks that are there. And we know that platforms, their job, they want to keep kids on the platform. So some of the key provisions of COSA include a duty of care, meaning that platforms have to have action showing that they're trying to prevent content that harms kids. In other words, they're not feeding kids an algorithm of showing them things that are ways to harm themselves. Now I have seen this, I want you to adjust your listening audience because this, these are things that are tough to talk about but the parents should know.
COSA calls for greater transparency into how algorithms are affecting children
So here's something that I've seen in influencer culture that comes into an algorithm them. I see teenagers trying to help teenagers with their mental health. One of the ways that I see this is in self harm. Now you probably know that there are a lot of kids who engage in self harming they may cut themselves or hurt themselves in some other way to elicit some pain that then makes your brain have endorphins, and then it makes you feel good for a minute. And so in a very paradoxical kind of way, they're using, they're hurting themselves to try to feel good, to try to deal with emotional pain. What I saw with my own eyes on influencers was people trying to say, hey, here's how you can do this in a safer way. So I saw an influencer who had a very big, thick rubber band and some red food coloring and was snapping it really hard on the wrist, saying, hey, this looks like you're harming yourself. It feels like you're harming yourself, but you're really not. Problem solved. This is incredibly dangerous because influencers have a lot of vicarious credibility. If they have a large platform, if they have a lot of followers, if they have engagement with people that your teen knows, then all of a sudden they have a lot more credibility than someone in their life who is maybe their counselor, their parent, of course, first and foremost their healthcare provider. That is really important. And so COSA is saying, there should be a duty of care here. If you have this product, there should be a duty, duty of care. The COSA also provides for safer design requirements, making sure that the most protective settings are by default for minors. This is exactly what we were just talking about, that AFA advocated for. It should have already been done. But by default, many times those protections are not in place. So for example, by default, a map may be public so that someone could track your child's whereabouts. We need the most restrictive, most private settings on default for kids. COSA also provides for parental tools. It means that parents. I know you'll all cheer for this. Parents would gain access to any controls, any reports. They would gain visibility into how platforms are interacting with their children. It's basically saying you have to have some transparency there. And when you do research, which we've seen in the news, widely reported, how some of that research that may be detrimental is withheld, it would say you have to share this information. COSA also provides for independent audits and transparency, meaning tech companies must share data with researchers and allow oversight into how, how algorithms are affecting children. Now, I've been concerned about algorithms impacting children for a really long time. Now I'm way more concerned, ten times, a hundred times as concerned with the, with the advent of AI companions. I've been talking about this, about the influence that they can have, how difficult it is for Children to differentiate between real people and robots. And because AI, companions, opinions simulate human emotions, they simulate care. They never forget something important. They are trained to ask about events that are upcoming because their algorithm prompts them to ask them about that. They're trained to learn your child's preferences. They're not trained to give your child truth and love. They're not trained to provide limits. They're not trained to tell your kids no when they should be told no. No. They're trained to be their friend to try to please the child. This is a dangerous thing. Cosa also, enacts some features that will limit the addictive features that are on social media. So that's some guardrails on autoplay where you just can't binge watch something for hours and hours and hours. This is happening again. I look at that influencer culture that's on social media. One of the trends to come out of that is bedrotting, saying, hey, a good way to take care of yourself is just to get in your bed, snuggle up, get real cozy, get under your covers, get in your jammies and get your phone and put your face in your phone. I am talking. I have spoken to children directly who have told me, yeah, I was bedrotting. I looked up and it had been 18 hours and I had not stopped watching the content on my phone. This is absolutely concerning. So we're concerned about autoplay, about infinite scrolling, and about the algorithm amplifying harmful content because the algorithm doesn't differentiate curiosity and safety. If you're curious about something, it's going to feed you more of that. It doesn't have a soul, it doesn't have discernment, it doesn't say, perhaps this isn't the best content for this 15 year old who's struggling with issues of identity. It just says, oh, you want more of that? I will give you whatever you want. I don't know if anyone's in this, generation. If you'll remember the original Willy Wonka movie that has Veruca Schultz in it, I want it now, don't care how, I want it now. That's what I think about when I think about social media and the algorithm saying, don't care how, just give it to me. I don't care if it's harmful. I just, I, need more of that. So this matters because it helps put some of that responsibility not just on the shoulders of parents, which some of it is just too hard for us to navigate. But it also makes the tech companies have some responsibility, the tech companies that are profiting from the addictive design that our kids are experiencing. And it also creates some safer baseline standards across platforms rather than relying on each parent to feel like they're fighting that battle all on their own. It's just them versus their kid's phone. We've got to have some resources on our side, some support on our side. And it also amplifies awareness that, really what I want you to know is that digital discipleship and parental discipleship go hand in hand when we're talking about discipling our kids. We really need to talk about the realm of digital discipleship. Now, there's a lot of people, a lot of critics of COSA who worry about overreach, unintended censorship, and supporters emphasize that the bill targets harms, not those viewpoints. And so it's continuing to evolve in Congress. So that may be something that you really want to look into and write to your legislator about it. That is a really powerful thing to do. Just write them an email, write them a letter, call their office and say how you feel about that. Their job is to represent you in the legislative bodies in Congress. And so call them and, tell them, tell them to get back to work and to look at that act.
Another act that was signed is the Take It down act
Another act that was signed is the Take It down act, and that was, that gave minors and adults who were victims of exploitation a legal race right to remove those images, including AI generated content. This is something also that I've been following because it may not even be really your child. It may be AI generated, but still, do you want AI generated explicit content of, you up there? It gives some key protections. This was a, big win for families and I'm very glad to see that it was signed into law by probably President Trump. When we come back, I'm going to give you some advice on how to get your kids civically engaged. It can be really, really hard to influence them because sometimes they can think, ah, you're just talking politics again. How do we get them engaged? And one way that you can get your family engaged for the holidays is through Operation Christmas Child. I did my boxes this week. National Collection Week is coming up. Visit samaritanspurse.org/occ to pack your boxes and send to a kid somewhere that needs a Christmas gift. I'll see you on the other side of this break.
The war against biblical principles rages on numerous fronts
Buddy Smith: We live in a day when America's families are under attack like never before. Buddy Smith, senior vice president of the American Family Association. The war against biblical principles rages on numerous fronts. The Internet, Hollywood, Washington, D.C. america's corporate boardrooms. And the list goes on. At American Family association, we're committed to standing against the enemies of God, the enemies of your family, and we recognize it's an impossible task without God's favor and your partnership. Thank you for being faithful to pray for this ministry, to give financially, and to respond to our calls for activism. What you do on the home front is crucial to what we do on the battlefront. We praise God for your faithfulness, and may he give us many victories in the battles ahead as we work together to restore our nation's biblical foundations.
I Believe by Phil Wickham: I believe there is one salvation, one doorway that leads to life, one redemption, one confession. I, believe in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in the crucifixion. By his blood, I have been set free. I believe in the resurrection. Hallelujah. His life is death's defeat All praise to God the Father. All praise to Christ the Son. All praise to the Holy Spirit. Our God has overcome the king who was and evermore will be in Jesus mighty name I believe.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is I Believe by Phil Wickham. let me tell you, my team picked some great songs today. Those are two in my top 10, and they're really in my top 10. Not in my top 10 of, like, 147. But I hope that wherever you are, that lifted your spirits. And I hope wherever you are, you've gone to vote or you're going to vote. It is not too late. We have important issues, very important issues on the ballot. And when we think, does public policy impact us? I think how many of you are going to the airport and seeing TSA is not there? We are seeing the impacts of the government shutdown. These are ways that are impacting our everyday life. And we need to get engaged. Now. I want to tell you a quick story, actually, because you may be thinking, can I call my congressman or congresswoman's office? Yes, you absolutely can. Now, for me, I graduated from an associate degree program. I was the first woman in my family to go to a university. I never imagined myself testifying in the halls of Congress. Never, ever, ever in a million years. But as I started to work my way through nursing education and realize how much policy impacts family health, I realized I needed to speak up in that. And so I ended up writing my very first publication about public policy. And I got invited to come to a nurse event Washington, and to speak to our state senators. Now, our, U.S. senators from the state of Texas. Now, at that Time I was assigned to speak with Senator Ted Cruz right after he had just been elected the first time. This was quite a while ago, but he had just been all over the news. Maybe you remember this reading, Greene Eggs and Ham. I'm going to be honest with you, I was so nervous. I thought, how am I going to go in and talk about these things? And, you know, I just, I was shaking in my Texas boots. And as I walked in, I saw Senator Cruz come in. And I, as a nurse, I started to assess him, of course. And so I looked and I noticed that right across the knees, his pants were very, very wrinkled like they had been. Sorry, I'm just saying it like it was. This was the truth. Like they had been over a hanger and not been bothered to be ironed. And at that moment, I had this thought and I thought, this is just a guy who puts his pants on one wrinkled leg at a time. And he may know about being in the US Senate, but I don't think he knows nearly as much as I do about nursing, about what I am doing day in and day out to serve the children of Texas. And that really started something. And when I started thinking, okay, I can go, I can say, this is what I believe, this is what I'm advocating for, I started working in anti trafficking advocacy. And that really gave me a fire. Because once I realized, realized that children in my community, children in my country, children in my state, children in the world were in, were impacted, were being abused and exploited through human trafficking, I realized I had to speak up. And so I have done that. I have. I do call my legislators regularly. I do write to them. I do go and visit their offices in the district, in the Capitol, in the state Capitol and the United States Capitol. And I've been really proud to be a part of legislation like House Bill 2059 in Texas, which required all direct care providers to take education about human trafficking. Now I'm going to go out on a limb and think there may be some healthcare providers in Texas listening, even right now, thinking, wait, is that why I have to take that education? Yes, it is, and I'm very proud of that. And now we have educated hundreds of thousands of healthcare providers in Texas to recognize and respond to human trafficking. I cannot even imagine the impact that that has had. And that is really a testament to the freedom we have in this country to exercise our right to vote, our right to engage in the public square.
There is a difference between advocating in the public square and discussing politics at home
Now, there is a difference between the way we should advocate in the public square and the way that we should lead our family and conversation at home. This difference really matters. I talk to kids all day, every day, and they tell me about this. Let me share with you a little of their perspective and my perspective on the science of this, of how this works. When we're advocating in the public square, we want to influence public policy, we want to influence laws, we want to influence, influence school board, educations, elections, all of those things. We vote, we contact our elected officials, we may serve on local boards, we may write op eds, we may engage in coalition building, we may go to a city council meeting that is public, it is communal, and it is argument based. You go and you present your position and hopefully you will do that in a very compelling, very powerful, in my profession, a very evidence informed kind of, kind of way. At home, the goal is not to present your argument. The goal is relationship building, to cultivate influence on these issues. The goal is character formation. The goal is biblical worldview development. The goal is discipleship. Now we do this in a different way. We do this by listening, by storytelling, by teaching. And at home we're shaping character, character, whereas in the public square, we're shaping public policy. So these require two separate approaches. And oftentimes we mix them up and we mix them poorly. Because how many of you, we're about to go into Thanksgiving, how many of you are already dreading political talk that might happen or arguments that might happen around your table? And these things, we don't want our homes to be political battlegrounds, we want to influence them. And when they perceive us as anger or hostile pedestal, it really decreases their civic interest. They want to be far away. What's making their parents so upset? I've shared this story before, but when my kids were young, we had a minivan, of course, because what mom of four doesn't? And all four of my kids are in the back of the minivan. My husband and I were discussing something political and we were fired up. I mean, we were very passionate about this issue, completely on the same page, completely aligned. But we were talking about what was going on in the public space square. Well, all of a sudden it got really quiet in the back seat and I turned around and my kids are all staring, just horrified. And a couple of them were even crying. And they said, why? Why are you fighting? And we said, oh, we are not fighting. We're not fighting at all. We, we are just passionate about this. They didn't interpret it that way. And that really stuck with me because the short version is when we use anger and we Use moralizing, preaching, kids are going to tune out. So when we start shouting, when we start, you know, really just not listening, just going in right away to tell them why that view is stupid. Well, that's not the greatest way to influence them. And research shows actually that chronic hostility pushes kids away from the content of that message. And it makes them cynical or it makes them just angry because they're trying to mimic us, but they don't really understand why. And if every political conversation is a fight, our, kids are going to start to avoid it, and we don't want that. And why does this anger cause them to tune out? Well, there's actually some brain science behind it. Because when kids sense hostility, when they sense anger in their parents, their brain automatically shifts into a mode that tells them instinctively to protect themselves. That's not a place where they learn when they're in that fight or flight mode. Like, what's making them so angry? Did I do something to cause this? Because we have to remember, kids can't think very abstractly about. They can't think, oh, well, that issue out there is making my mom upset, not me. They think, is it me? And it activates a part of their brain called the amygdala, which is the fight flight, freeze, fawn. Ah, reaction. That can happen. And kids are focusing on protecting themselves. And so when we, when also when we just start to give them electricity lecture and makes them feel somehow that they've done something wrong, they start to feel shame, like, well, you're lecturing me to. I obviously didn't get this right. And they associate politics with negative emotion. Because if every political topic is accompanied by just this angst, they think, okay, politics means conflict, it means anxiety, it means tension, and they just disengage. Sometimes that can happen. And when we preach to them, it sounds like, well, only stupid people believe that or, you know, that. Like, this is just, this is exactly what's ruining our country. When we start talking in ways like that at our home, I'm talking about in our homes with our families, it shuts down their curiosity, it shuts down their critical thinking. It shuts down their ability to learn because they think, okay, certain questions are off limits. I'm not going to ask that, because that triggers an unpleasant reaction. And they think, okay, if I, if I, if there's disagreement, maybe that's interpreted as disrespect. And it's just this adverse, adversarial, point where they don't know where they fit. And anger really models the wrong tools for engagement. Because kids learn so much from tone. And if all they see in the public square is name calling and contempt and those kinds of things, then they can imitate that. Now, there is a whole nother side to this, on how do we respond when you're sharing in the public space square and you are, attacked for that? Really, really, terribly. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about in your home. In your home, you don't want to breed that anger. Anger also creates a hopelessness where they just feel like the world is terrible. This is a message I see being delivered to younger generations. That makes me concerned. We don't want to tell them the world is so horrible. I'm so glad I'm not growing up in your age because. Because this is a terrible time to be alive and there is no hope. We, we know better than that. Because kids start to think, well, why get involved? It's, it's obviously done. It's a done deal. The world is going to end. I'm just going to try to enjoy it as much as I can. A better way is curiosity and calmness. If you have a calm approach, you foster curiosity. That makes kids leave, lean in. If they're curious, they want to hear more, they want to engage. When their brain is curious, it's in a space where it's willing to learn, where it's more able to be shaped. And so you can ask them questions, ask your kids questions, even young kids, you can ask them questions. What do you think about this? And what would you do in this situation? How would you solve this problem? And just talking about those things can be really, really helpful. Helpful. And one of the most powerful things that we can do is connecting action to hope. Highlight those positive change makers, those people who are out there really making a difference, who are doing things that are amazing. Share those victories. Share those things. I see often kids advocating in legislative forums, and it's amazing to see their wisdom and the strength and the courage that they have. Those can be things that are encouraging. So celebrate those wins. That is really important. And so the bottom line is that if our political conversations at home are driven by anger, are driven by lecturing, our kids can really be afraid to lean in to that conversation. But if we want to influence their values, we can model calmness and curiosity and really conviction that is ultimately grounded in love, that is grounded in a biblical worldview, so that we can raise children who are capable, capable and eager to engage thoughtfully, to engage with courage, and most of all, to share Their biblical worldview. Now you may think, okay, what are some ways that I can get my kids engaged? There are a lot of ways that you can get your kids engaged in seeing your faith in action, in voting your values, in speaking out in the public square, and, and being an advocate in your community. The first thing that you should do is pray. Pray that God will give you wisdom, that God will give you courage, that God will grant you favor, that those are, really important. Pray for your country, pray for your family. Study the issues. You can do this by going to ivoter guide.com seeing what's on your ballot. Pray through those issues and pray through the information that you're given. Then register and vote and make it a family practice. Go together. Even when my kids were really little, I would take them with me, let them see the voting machines, tell them what I was voting for, why I was voting for it, why it was so important. And I would tell them, I am here for you. I am here because I care about the future of our country. I care about the state of our state, and because I care about you. I am here to speak my voice, to let my voice be heard. That is really, really important. I encourage you to attend local meetings. you've heard me say, you've probably heard it said, all politics is local, but school boards are a place where we absolutely need Christian parents to be engaged. The city council, even things like zoning meetings or other community committees that are there, city committees. It is so important to do that. Oftentimes when you go to those local precinct level meetings, there may be one or two people there who are engaged. The opportunity is absolutely great. And volunteer or serve. It's just take. Put faith to action. Volunteer in a, in a, in your community or in an organization that's working to influence this. But I pray that wherever you are today, the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you. And I encourage you to get out there and vote. If you're thinking, I don't know if I had time. Here's your sign. Here's your reminder. Here's your friendly accountability check. Go out and voice and vote your values. Your voice has never mattered more. And I'll see you right back here tomorrow.
Jeff Chamblee: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
