“This is such a complicated time to be a parent.” If you are a father or a mother bringing up a girl, chances are good that you have recently said that.
One of the phenomena that makes parenting in our time so complicated is social media. Interactive digital platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok simply did not exist when many of us parents were growing up. Nowadays, however, smartphones and the social media they feature have become ubiquitous. According to a 2022 study from the Pew Research Center, up to 95% of teenagers surveyed (ages thirteen to seventeen) said they use social media, with numerous teens using it “almost constantly.”
This is not a small or glancing part of modern parenting, although Christians rarely talk about it. But it is important that we do so, because while social media usage is not sinful in itself, neither is it as neutral as we might have once thought. Studies are showing that social media has significant, specific effects on young women. According to a Harvard report, “The more teenage girls are on social media and exposed to image-based social media in particular, the more likely they are to have poor body image.” The report also states that social media exposure contributes to eating disorders, mental health issues, and suicidal behavior in young women.
When used a lot, social media is an amplifier of many negative perceptions, to the point of making those perceptions seem like reality. A Yale article noted that teens who are on social media for over three hours each day “faced twice the risk of having negative mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms.” This is to say little of many other dangers, including the presence of malevolent manipulators and sexually abusive phishers who prey on young women. In the simplest analysis, social media is a real danger to girls. Wise Christian fathers and mothers who study it will practice a conscientious approach to it.
How Do We Help Our Young Women Today?
I have laid out some rather uncomfortable truths about modern social media. But all this begs the question: How can we help our girls? I have offered three simple suggestions.
First, we want to be biblically wise about social media. We will not find explicit material about social media in the Bible, our spiritual authority. But we do find clear examples of loving parents who seek to train their children in wise ways (see Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs 1). This includes the duty of protecting our daughters in many different ways.
Godly couples must pray together about how to approach this gray area. At minimum, however, it is wise to restrict social media usage in the childhood years. As a girl experiences maturity and enters adulthood, she will have her own decisions to make about digital technology. But until then, fathers and mothers are responsible to make those decisions as they prepare her for that time.
This may be difficult for some girls. However, Christian parents must not be shy about establishing clear, protective boundaries in the home. We must do so, however, from a gracious, loving, and communicative perspective. As our girls develop, we should talk with them honestly and openly about social media. As much as we can, we should help them understand our decisions, and we should be clear about why love motivates us to exercise caution even when other parents do not.
Secondly, we want our girls to get a lot of healthy family time. As moms and dads, we have to say “no” regularly. If we do not, we are not really worth our salt as parents! But our even greater goal is this: to say “yes” to our children in all sorts of happy ways.
We do not want a tough, severe Christian home where rules have been elevated to such a degree that every family interaction devolves into a pedantic lecture. Such a home—what I call a “cold” Christian home—drives girls away from us. Intended to help them, it actually primes them to find acceptance, affirmation, and stability from unsound influences. Social media is not inherently wicked, but a major reason why so many turn to it is expressly because they do not have what God intends for girls to have in a loving family.
Instead of a cold home, we want to have a warm home. By this I mean that we want to cultivate a joyful family that draws our girls close to God and to us. As men, we want to be fathers who put a tender arm around our girls, protecting them in God-given strength even as we communicate to them that they are beautiful, gifted as God made them, and greatly loved. As women, we want to be mothers who forge real bonds with our daughters and establish a connected relationship that encourages them to talk with us about their highs and lows.
In general, we want to have fun together as a family as we pursue the Lord in formal and informal ways. Toward this end, we should seek to build rhythms that bring peace and happiness to our girls. We want them to see their home as a refuge, a place where they are known, forgiven, encouraged, and loved unconditionally.
Thirdly, we want to point our daughters to identity in Christ. The greatest gift we can give our girls is this: to raise them to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We cannot save our daughters, but we can train them to understand that, for believers, Christ is not simply a part of us but He is our very life itself (Colossians 3:4). This is not a restrictive fact; this is the most liberating truth there is.
Such spiritual care will present a sharp contrast with the world. As God works in their hearts, our daughters will not need people on Instagram to tell them they are beautiful, because their identity is in Christ, not in their physical traits. They will not need to be seen as funny or glamorous on TikTok, because Christ is their identity, not their popularity or personality. They will not need to be affirmed by a “community” on X, because the place of belonging for Christians is within Christ’s church.
Identity in Christ is a liberating doctrine. It is not a highbrow fact to be debated in classrooms. Instead, it is ruggedly practical. When a girl understands that her self-worth and purpose are anchored in her Savior, she will be freed from trying to find such things in the world. Because of this, let us pray for our daughters to know and receive their identity in Christ.
Conclusion
Of course, we cannot make our girls receive these truths. God’s Spirit must work in them in order for them to follow Christ in repentance and faith. But we can point our beloved daughters to godly realities, live out authentic and humble discipleship before them, and draw them closer to us in a warm Christian home.
Let us protect our girls, as fathers followed by mothers, setting the tone in the area of social media. These are indeed complicated days in which to raise girls. By the grace of God, however, they can be wonderful days full of happiness, closeness, and deep affection.