If you’re a sports fan, October is a premier month on the calendar. Football is back in full swing. The baseball playoffs provide nightly drama. And even hockey, basketball, and European soccer are all revving up a bit. It’s a most wonderful time of year. Yet, as it turns out, October can also be a bit dangerous for viewers.

During just the first quarter of a football game recently, I sat through several political ads smearing opponents, multiple trailers for two disturbing horror movies, and at least six gambling ads, three of them featuring essentially a naked woman walking around the entire time. I caught myself almost shamefully looking over my shoulder each commercial break, wondering if my five kids were going to see what I was watching on the television.

I feel like I could sound the alarm in a dozen different directions. I’ve done that with gambling just recently. And social media is awash with posts like this one criticizing the disturbing commercials and the toll they take on young minds. Even Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Alex Call spoke out on the problem.

We could definitely dive more into what the normalization of these ads says about the state of our nation, but as I considered my kids, I was drawn back to my shepherding role as a parent.

The ancient Israelites had it right about leading your family thousands of years ago (Deuteronomy 6:4-8). It’s a diligent work. One where you have to be ready morning, noon, and night, whether you’re in the house, on the go, or, nowadays, just enjoying a night of playoff baseball.

It’s easy to shake your fist at culture and decry how darkness will always promote dark things. But even that’s not the direction I want to fully lead my kids. I want them to be salt and light, pursuing those around them with grace and mercy, all the while being wise and innocent (Matthew 10:16).

So sure, I can turn off sports, or I can lean in and engage with my family while we go along the way. But that’s far easier said than done sometimes. That’s why I want to offer a game plan for how this can be done through a method I call filtering, framing, and forming.

Filtering: curating the environment

I have 4 daughters between 8 and 17 years old, plus a 19-year-old son off at college. Navigating questionable commercial content is nothing new in our house.

Filtering isn’t fear. It’s recognizing that different ages and different kids require different levels of protection.

When my children were younger, I was quick to mute commercials and even pause them so I could curate what they watched if need be. My middle child has a very anxious heart, specifically around personal safety, and thus horror movie trailers immediately scare her. Filtering what my kids can and cannot handle (especially for my 8-year-old) is still a large part of how I help manage my household well.

Framing: processing culture together

Yet, the older my kids get, the less my job is simply to block what they see and the more it is to help them understand, or frame, what they’re seeing. I want to teach them how to think about something, not simply what to think.

For example, when a discouraging political ad comes on, I could use it as an opportunity to tell my kids exactly what Mom and Dad believe. Or I can stop and ask what they noticed, what bothered them, and what they think the ad is trying to make them feel.

Inevitably, they want to know what we think, too. Now we’re doing something more meaningful than handing them a black-and-white answer. We’re learning together how to discern what our hearts are sensing and feeling.

Here’s another example. As my son has gotten older, our conversations about gambling and pornography have grown deeper, too. And now we see commercials that essentially marry the two. So we talk about the lure of sex and money. We talk about why those things are so powerful. In doing so, we have developed empathy for people caught in those struggles and even for ourselves as we face similar temptations, recognizing how aggressively our culture markets the very desires that can enslave us.

Jesus often taught in ways that required people to wrestle, discern, and locate their own hearts. His parables didn’t simply hand listeners conclusions; they invited them to see, hear, search, question, and respond. There is something formative about discovering truth rather than merely being told what to think.

And so yes, commercials may be an indictment of our culture, but they can also become a window into our own hearts. Something in them appeals to us. Why?

The more we can have those conversations, the more we move from rigid judgment toward developing a shepherd’s posture, first toward our own hearts, and then toward others.

Forming: redeeming the narrative

I also sense my kids aren’t just watching the commercials, they’re watching me too. They know my story. They know my struggles with gambling, pornography, and even how to be a faithful follower in such a highly politicized, divided culture.

We see this concept described in the final verses of Deuteronomy 6:

“When your son asks you in time to come, “What is the meaning of [all this] … then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand … to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive’” (Deuteronomy 6:20–24).

I am quick to tell my kids that I allowed myself to be formed by this world, and it had devastating consequences. Today, by God’s grace, I’m allowing God to re-form me continually into His image. It’s almost as if these commercials are an opportunity to remind my family of the power of God’s redemptive work in my own life.

I know well the lure. To act as if it isn’t there would be dishonest. But my kids also know that temptation doesn’t get the final word in my story. They have watched God redeem, restore, and continue to re-form me. So now if I pause a commercial about gambling, they know why. If I skip a sexualized commercial, they can see that as evidence of God’s ongoing work in me.

The ultimate goal

To be clear, I do lament today’s commercials. Advertising has probably never had our best interests in mind, but much of what surrounds sports now feels especially excessive and concerning, particularly for young minds.

Sometimes wisdom means turning off the television. Sometimes it means muting the commercial. And sometimes it means leaning in and using what we’re seeing as an opportunity to filter, frame, and form.

The goal isn’t to raise kids who never encounter a broken culture. It’s to help form kids who know how to recognize one and faithfully live within it.

Denison Forum