Youth Culture Today with Walt Mueller
1,238 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 22 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 10 ratingsYouth Culture Today is a 60-second daily radio spot from CPYU and Walt Mueller, now available as a podcast. It provides a quick glance into the world of teenagers and today's youth culture for parents, youth workers and others who care about kids and want to help them navigate adolescence in ways that bring glory to God.
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Episodes
Parents, Abide in Him
July 05, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIn John fifteen, Jesus uses a gardening allegory to tell his followers about healthy and vibrant spiritual growth and development. Jesus explains that when we enter into a relationship with Him there is a life-giving connection along with a sustaining maintenance procedure that we must willingly and actively pursue if we are to bloom, grow, and bear fruit as He intends us to. In effect, he describes how we are to be “hitched” or connected to Him as a branch is to a vine. Our fruit-bearing an...
The Gospel and Brain Development
July 04, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBI recently ran across another clear example of how secular science confirms what we know as Christians to be most beneficial to our teens as they navigate the difficult years of adolescence. Researchers at the University of Southern California have been looking how a teenager’s thinking influences their brain development, for better or for worse. Using interviews, functional mri’s, and ongoing surveys, researchers found that teenagers who engaged in what they called transcendent thinking sho...
Releasing Kids Into God's Hands
July 03, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBAdoniram and Ann Judson, were the first foreign missionaries from the U.S., departing for their work in Burma back in 1812. When young Adoniram approached Ann’s father to ask for her hand in marriage, he wrote these words: “I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure for a heathen land, and her subjection to the hardships and suffering of a missionary life; whether you can ...
Parenting Screentime Addicts
July 02, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBWhen we think about teenagers and addiction, it is important that we engage in preventive efforts in order to keep kids from getting addicted. This holds true when it comes to device and screen addiction, which will become more of an issue in years to come. Experts are telling us that if we would take time to set limits and borders now, we would prevent addiction and these marks of screen addiction: feeling uneasy or grumpy when you cannot use your device. Avoiding breaks while spending long...
How to Be Discerning
July 01, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBWhen difficult decisions. . . or even the little decisions of life. . . need to be made, what authority do you consult for guidance? All of us make thousands of choices a day, and every one of those choices is made based on some standard or authority. For the Christian, it is the authority of God’s Word that should form the basis of all of our decisions. The writer of Proverbs tells us that the discerning person deliberately “sets his face toward” or “focuses the gaze of his eyes” on wisdom....
What Teens Wish Their Parents Knew 5
June 28, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBToday, we come to the end of our week-long long look at researcher Ellen Galinsky’s new book about teenagers, “The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens”. In it, Galinsky lists five things teens wish their parents and other adults knew about them. As Christian parents, we should pay special attention to the fifth message she heard from kids: “We want to learn stuff that’s useful.” Galinsky lists these skills as understanding other’s perspectives, how to co...
What Teens Wish Their Parents Knew 4
June 27, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBResearcher Ellen Galinsky has released a brand new book about teenagers. It’s called “The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens”, and it includes five things teens wish their parents and other adults knew about them. All this week, we’re looking at what Galinsky heard from teenagers. The fourth message she heard is this: “Understand our needs.” Obviously, we have a parental responsibility to provide food and shelter for our kids. But from the biblical pers...
What Teens Wish Their Parents Knew 3
June 26, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBResearcher Ellen Galinsky has released a brand new book about teenagers. It’s called “The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens”, and it includes five things teens wish their parents and other adults knew about them. All this week, we’re looking at what Galinsky heard from teenagers. The third message she heard is this: “Don’t stereotype us.” Just like us, our teenagers don’t want to be pigeon-holed into stereotypes. For example, not all teens are anxious....
What Teens Wish Their Parents Knew 2
June 25, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBResearcher Ellen Galinsky has released a brand new book about teenagers. It’s called “The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens”, and it includes five things teens wish their parents and other adults knew about them. All this week, we’re looking at what Galinsky heard from teenagers. The second message to parents is this: “Talk with us, not at us.” As our kids develop through the adolescent years, their brains are moving from thinking in black and white te...
What Teens Wish Their Parents Knew 1
June 24, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBResearcher Ellen Galinsky has released a brand new book about teenagers. It’s called “The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens”, and it includes five things teens wish their parents and other adults knew about them. All this week, I want to look at what Galinsky heard from teenagers. First, teenagers say they want parents to “Understand our development.” I agree. We need to understand the different stages our kids go through as they grow. As Christians, w...
The Effects of Social Media on Kids
June 21, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThere’s a growing amount of research pointing to the fact that smartphones and social media are undermining the well-being of our kids when borders, boundaries, and safeguards are not enacted. Recently, the American Psychological Association released a report on the science of how social media affects our youth, specifically looking at the risks associated with content, features, and functions. One of the opening paragraphs of the report says, “Platforms built for adults are not inherently ...
God's Plan for Gender
June 20, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBAs followers of Jesus, we must go to and trust God’s Word as the spotlight that shines truth on our understanding of gender. God, the Creator of all things, pronounced everything He created as “good!” But when He finished creating humans He said “very good!’ And what He pronounced as “very good!” was male and female. . . the binary genders He designed and assigned. . . male and female only, that are both fully human and equal in dignity and value. This is the way things are supposed to be. J...
Parenting in Anti-Christian Times
June 19, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBWhen Christian missionaries go through training, they spend lots of time learning their message. Missionary training is centered on learning the Gospel so that it might be shared correctly. But the message is not the only thing they learn. They also go through lots of learning about the culture of those to whom they are being sent, along with how to best communicate in ways that can be heard and understood in that context. Parents, did you know that you are a cross-cultural missionary? As yo...
How to Talk about Sex and Gender
June 18, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBWhen one of our kids came home from school and announced that he learned on the school playground where babies come from, I asked him what he had learned and from who. Not surprisingly, what he had learned didn’t even come close to the truth, so it afforded us an opportunity to tell him the truth about God’s good design for sexuality. Parents, here are three essential elements to good and Godly teaching on sex if we want to lead them in the right direction. First, we must teach God’s creatio...
Pushing Back on Teen Anxiety
June 17, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBLast month, I read social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s new book, “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.” Over the past few years, I have found Haidt to be a trustworthy voice of reason regarding those issues that foster healthy growth and development in our kids, and those practices that are harmful. In his latest book, Haidt provides clear evidence of how smartphones have contributed in major ways to the teen mental health cri...
Fathers As Leaders
June 14, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBOn this weekend when we look forward to celebrating Father’s Day, I want to remind the fathers who are listening of their greatest responsibility in life. In Ephesians six four we read this: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” If we are taking the time to carefully, diligently, and correctly teach the Word of God to our children, we will have fulfilled our highest calling as parents. Writing back in eighteen eight...
Fat, Sugar and the Young Brain
June 13, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBYou’ve no doubt heard the phrase, “Garbage in, garbage out.” I remember my own youth pastor telling us that a car has been created with great care to run smoothly on the right kind of fuel. He used the illustration of what happens to car when someone maliciously pours sugar into the gas tank. It wreaks havoc on the engine, as it clogs the fuel filter and injectors. Of course, my youth pastor was teaching us about what we put into our minds. But I thought about his words when I read recently ...
Helping Kids See Their Sin
June 12, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBAdvances in neurological science point to the amazing complexity of our God-made brains. Because their brains are still developing, our children, teens, and even young adults have what is called an underdeveloped impulse control. This makes them less prone to resist behavioral impulses and more prone to engage in risky behaviors perceived to bring some kind of immediate benefit, but which could also bring long-lasting negative consequences. In spiritual terms, this not only means that our ki...
A Detransitioner Speaks
June 11, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIn a world where our kids are hearing that there is no such thing as the creational gender binary of male and female, and where they are hearing that they have the power to choose their gender based on their personal feelings and desires, there are a growing number of young voices who hope to turn the tide including nineteen year old Chloe Cole. As a young self-described tomboy, Cole was introduced to the idea that she could become a boy through social media. Parents, take note. After being ...
Youth Sports as Idol
June 10, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBEarlier this morning, I went online and purchased a book with a title that grabbed my attention. The book is Linda Flanagan’s “Back in the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports – and Why It Matters.” While I have yet to read the book, the overview describes how Flanagan lists some ways that this frenzy and obsession is changing things for kids and our families, and not for the better. Kids are being funneled into specializing year-round in one sport. The risk of physical injury ...
Marijuana Use
June 07, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KB“We did it, and we turned out ok.” Perhaps you’ve heard that line of reasoning from other parents regarding today’s teens and marijuana use. In fact, a government survey indicates that since 2015, the number of parents who believe there is a risk of harm from using marijuana has dropped, from just over thirty percent of parents, to just over twenty percent today. But researchers and medical professionals will tell you that we should actually be more concerned about the risks from marijuana u...
God's Rainbow and Human Pride
June 06, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIn the story of Noah, a righteous man who walked blamelessly with God, we see God’s grief over humankind’s sin. And while God chooses to cleanse the earth through a flood, he also chooses to make a covenant with humanity to never again destroy the earth through a flood. The mark of this gracious promise is the rainbow. As a sign of God’s promise of grace, the rainbow should point us to exhibit a response of humble gratitude marked by obedience to God’s will and way for our lives, rather than...
A Compelling Witness for our Kids
June 05, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIn his book, “The Patient Ferment of the Early Church”, Alan Kreider offers an explanation of how Christianity took root and grew in the Roman Empire, even though the church was marginalized, despised, and discriminated against. The parallels to the world we find ourselves inhabiting as Christians today is remarkably similar. Kreider explains that four things happened to advance the faith, and I believe we can and should enlist all four in our Christian parenting. First, there was patience. ...
Neurological Science and Screen Time
June 04, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBAdvances in neurological science point to the amazing complexity of our God-made brains, and inform us about how best we can parent our kids in ways that lead to their healthy growth and development. Recently, the American Psychological Association released a report which reminds us that starting around age ten and continuing until the mid-twenties, the human brain is hypersensitive to social feedback and stimuli. You and I see evidence of this in how our kids become invested and even obsess...
God, Sex, and Gender
June 03, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBAs our culture continues to promote ideologies that leave so many questioning their gender and sexuality, it’s important that we as parents and the church continually remind our kids of God’s good and glorious creational design as put forth in Genesis one and two. God made humanity in His image, and He made us male and female, which is the gender binary so many dispute and deny today. Why should be keep reminding our kids of God’s Truth? A recent analysis of national survey results has found...
How Music Has Changed
May 30, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIf you’re like me and you lament the decline in the quality of popular music since the days when you were a teenager, there’s actually some new research indicating that your lament is not simply based on your personal listening preferences. Rather, there has been a change in popular music that’s not something we should be celebrating. Europeon researchers recently took on the task of analyzing the words in more than twelve thousand English language songs from the years 1980 to 2020, all from...
Teaching Discernment
May 29, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBAs followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to develop the skill of knowing, understanding, and applying the truths of God’s Word to all of life, so that we might distinguish truth from error, wisdom from foolishness, and right from wrong. And, as we develop discernment, we must also guide our impressionable young children and teens into doing the same, teaching them a skill which is desperately needed in a world where the winds of culture are furiously blowing our kids around in ways that s...
Should Phones Be Banned in School?
May 28, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIn his recent book, “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt recommends that our schools ban smartphones. It’s a common-sense move that at the very least would answer the concerns of just all about all teachers regarding how smartphone presence has diminished the willingness and abilities of our kids to pay attention in class and to each other. In Norway, the ban on smartphones in schools has allowed researchers the opportunity to gauge whether or not a ban is helpful. Th...
Remember and Tell
May 27, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBOn this Memorial Day holiday, we are encouraged to remember those who have gone before us, sacrificing their lives so that we might experience life in a free country. As you speak to your kids about the meaning of Memorial Day, use it also as an occasion to remind them that it is important to engage in the regular practice of thinking about past history, and the need to remember. The Bible tells us that one of our greatest responsibilities of parents and those who are older is to recount the...
Monkey See, Monkey Do
May 24, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBI remember my Dad uttering a saying that history tells us was already deeply entrenched in American culture in the late eighteen-hundreds. That saying was this: “Monkey see, monkey do.” While the saying pointed to the mimicry evident among monkeys as they would watch humans, the 1968 movie “Planet of the Apes” had the monkeys inverting the saying to “Human see, human do.” When it comes to parenting, the apes in the movie were spot-on. Our parental example will be imitated by our kids. A new ...
Teen Smartphones - Yes or No
May 23, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBA friend recently told me about a conversation about smartphones that happened at her family dinner table. She and her husband had established a wise policy for their son and daughter: you cannot have a phone until you turn fifteen. Their son, age seventeen, had had his smartphone for two years. Their daughter, age fourteen, was very much looking forward to her upcoming fifteenth birthday so that she could enter the world of the smartphone. At one point during the meal, the daughter excitedl...
Be True to Who?
May 22, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIn his wonderful little book for teenagers, “Do Not Be True To Yourself,” Kevin DeYoung quotes a bit of advice Pulitzer Prize winning writer Anna Quindlen once gave to a group of graduating seniors. Quindlen said, “Each of you is as different as your fingertips. Why should you march to any lockstep? Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue because it ...
Wizz App
May 21, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBRecently, the Canadian Center for Child Protection issued a warning to parents regarding an app called Wizz. . . that’s spelled W-I-Z-Z. The app bills itself as the ultimate online platform for connecting young people from all over the world. It’s a place of self-expression, camaraderie, and genuine human interaction. The app tells users that it’s a vibrant space to build new friendships, boost self-esteem, and embrace the joy of social interaction. Like the Tinder app, Wizz users swipe the ...
Am I Who I Decide to Be?
May 20, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBWhen I was in college, I took as many Anthropology classes as I could. Simply stated, Anthropology is the discipline that studies the nature of humanity, including human biology and behavior. As Christians, we should be embracing a biblical anthropology, which is the study of our humanity as it relates to God. When we read the Bible, our understanding of who we are is rooted in the Creation narrative, where God differentiates us from everything else in Creation, making us in His image as mal...
Helping Hurting Kids 5
May 17, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThis week we’ve been looking at some of Dr. Marv Penner’s strategies and skills for helping hurting kids. Marv has developed a set of skills based on the acronym L.O.V.E. The letter E calls us to quick action, by taking steps to eliminate immediate dangers. Many hurting kids are involved in behaviors and relationships that require early intervention. Furthermore, we need to empower adolescents as people with the power to choose. As long as they feel like helpless victims, they won’t move for...
Helping Hurting Kids 4
May 16, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThis week we’re looking at some of Dr. Marv Penner’s strategies and skills for helping hurting kids. Marv has developed a set of skills based on the acronym L.O.V.E. The letter V calls us to validate what’s happening in the lives of hurting teenagers. Many kids in pain have been told that their perspectives are inaccurate, their emotions are illegitimate, and they need to “get over it.” Our relational commitment validates them as people of worth. Our supportive words validate the courage it ...
Helping Hurting Kids 3
May 15, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThis week we’re looking at some of Dr. Marv Penner’s strategies and skills for helping hurting kids. Marv has developed a set of skills based on the acronym L.O.V.E. The letter O refers to what we offer students who choose to risk sharing their hearts with us. They’ve come to us because they believe we have something they need. It’s important for us to offer hope in what they often consider to be hopeless circumstances. Offers of encouragement, support, wisdom, and advice can all express thi...
Helping Hurting Kids 2
May 14, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThis week we’re looking at some of Dr. Marv Penner’s strategies and skills for helping hurting kids. Marv has developed a set of skills based on the acronym L.O.V.E. The letter L concerns listening, the most fundamental skill needed by anyone working with wounded kids. Many teenagers are convinced that no one is listening to them. Everyone is either too busy, preoccupied, stressed, or selfish to give kids the undivided attention they need. We must learn to listen beneath the words – at the l...
Helping Hurting Kids 1
May 13, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThis week I want to talk about responding to hurting kids, and some great lessons that I’ve learned from my good friend, Dr. Marv Penner. For years, Marv has been equipping youth workers, counselors, and parents to understand and help kids who are experiencing brokenness in their lives. The fact is that a growing number of adolescents today are hurting deeply – often more deeply than they or many of the adults in their lives are willing to acknowledge. Most have nowhere to turn with their pa...
Honor Your Father and Mother
May 10, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThis weekend we celebrate Mother’s Day. As Christians, this day should bring to mind the fifth commandment, which reads, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” Over 40 years ago, Dr. John Huffman wrote this about the 5th commandment in book, “Liberating Limits: “God pity the society led by brash young people who have the answers but very little respect for their elders. Anarchy comes quickly. Allow young people to be aliena...
Phones and Loneliness
May 09, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBNearly half of today’s teenagers say that they are on their phones and online almost constantly. The Pew Research Center surveyed a cohort of teens, ages thirteen to seventeen, along with parents, back in the fall of last year. The findings are interesting and helpful as we consider how to best help our kids live to God’s glory on the digital frontier. You might be surprised to learn that seventy-two percent of our teens say that they often or sometimes feel peaceful and/or happy when they h...
Why Kids Say They Use Drugs
May 08, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBIf you grew up through your own adolescence ten, thirty, or fifty years ago, you remember what it was like to encounter and try to navigate peer pressure. Throughout the decades, peer pressure was often a top or the number one reason teenagers gave for choosing to experiment with alcohol and drugs. Now, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are telling us that the number one reason today’s teens cite for using drugs and alcohol is to reduce stress, anxiety, and e...
Parental Spiritual Progress
May 07, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBI recently read these words from pastor Alistair Begg: “No church of Jesus Christ progresses beyond the spiritual progress of its leaders.” While those words are important for those in church leadership, I got to thinking about just how true they also are for leadership in the home. As parents, we can restate Begg’s words this way: “No family that hopes to disciple and nurture kids into following Jesus Christ, progresses beyond the spiritual progress of its parents.” As a father and grandfat...
Boys and Eating Disorders
May 06, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBA study published late last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that there has been sharp increases in the rates of hospitalizations for boys with eating disorders. This is news that we all must pay attention to, as historically, eating disorders have been portrayed as a disease of adolescent girls who desire to lose weight out of concern for their appearance. This is not at all surprising considering the body image pressure that marketing and social media continue ...
Leading Kids Onto the Path of Life
May 03, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBThe famous theologian, Augustine, once said this: “This is the authentic happy life, to set one’s joy in you, grounded in you and caused by you.” After many years of wandering and struggle as a young man, God took hold of Augustine’s heart and called Augustine to Himself. It wasn’t long after that Augustine took to writing the volume that we know as his Confessions. This quote is one of the ancient gems we should be sharing with our kids. You see, in today’s world, our kids are led to believ...
You Want To Be What When You Grow Up?
May 02, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBI was recently thinking back over what I had planned to do when I grew up. Why? I was reading about what one survey calls one of the most desirable career options kids are thinking about in today’s world. Are you wondering what that job is? It’s a job that wasn’t even an option just two decades ago: Social media star or influencer. We now live in a world where there is what is called a “Creator Economy,” an industry now valued at over two-hundred and fifty billion, with some influencers maki...
Delta-8 THC and Our Kids
May 01, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBImagine walking today into a twelfth grade English class at your local high school. You stand in the back of the room, undetected, and look around at the twenty students who are seated at their desks. According to the latest research, you can correctly assume that two out of these twenty students have admitted to using what’s known as delta-8-THC in the last year. Delta-8 is a psychoactive substance that is derived from hemp, which is a variety of the Cannabis plant. Delta-8 products can be ...
Puberty Blockers and Gender
April 30, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBAs conversations in our culture continue over how to navigate the increased traction the transgender ideology is getting among our kids, we should be paying attention to what is happening across the pond in the U.K. The world’s largest gender clinic has been the Tavistock clinic in Britain. Health officials are closing the clinic this spring as more and more is being learned about the dangers to our kids regarding what’s labeled as “gender-affirming care.” Not only is the clinic being shut d...
The Benefits of Suffering
April 29, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBParents, what are you teaching your kids about the presence of pain and suffering in their lives? Are you preparing them to face whatever difficulties life may bring by immersing themselves in what the Scriptures teach about the formative role adversity plays in our lives? In Psalm one-hundred-nineteen verse seventy one, the Psalmist writes, “My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.” Theologian J.I. Packer writes these words about suffering: “The fact ...
Parents and Phone Distraction
April 26, 2024 04:00 - 1 minute - 944 KBEver since the smartphone debuted back in 2007, I have encountered a growing number of parents who lament how much time our kids are spending on their smartphones, and the way that time has undermined their teenager’s well-being. There’s a growing amount of data that supports these concerns, and which should cause us to wake up and pay attention so that we are more diligent in setting screen time limits, along with monitoring where are kids are spending their online time. But we’re now learn...