Posted on Aug 16, 2006 | by Andrea Higgins

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (BP)--Interviewers often ask Vicki Courtney if she thinks tracking her teenagers’ IMs (instant messages) is an invasion of their privacy.

“Absolutely not!” Courtney responds, cognizant of the hardcore pornography and/or solicitations for sex that youth may encounter online.

Because she keeps up with teen culture, Courtney is unapologetic about knowing where her three teens go in cyberspace and makes it a point to know what an IM is.

Courtney is the author or coauthor of several resources for parents, including “Your Girl: Raising a Godly Daughter in an Ungodly World”; “Teen Virtue: Real Issues, Real Life ... A Teen Girl’s Survival Guide”; and “Teen Virtue 2: A Teen Girl’s Guide to Relationships.”

The Virtuous Reality Ministries that Courtney founded is an outreach to inform parents about teenage trends that seem to change at warp speed and often warp teens’ attitudes in their wake.

Girls today are more afraid of getting fat than they are of cancer, nuclear war or losing their parents, Courtney told fellow mothers at a “Your Girl” conference earlier this year at Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“What is a mother to do?” Courtney sighed after sharing various trends that parents find hard to hear.

A distorted self-image and obsession with outward appearance is only one of the alarming effects of a “culture gone mad,” Courtney noted.

Becoming Internet savvy is the least parents can do to guard against the smut that can barrage kids online, Courtney said. Meanwhile, the millions of teens with Myspace webpages often reveal way too much in their online blogs -– or worse, photographs -– without understanding the consequences.

Song lyrics labeled “explicit” have skyrocketed in recent years, with teen girls often becoming more promiscuous than boys, Courtney also noted.

While commiserating with the hundreds of women sharing her plight in the audience -– as mothers of pre-teen or teen girls –- her message is one of hope, not despair.

“The goal is not to just scare you out of your wits, but so we can come up with some solutions,” Courtney said.

Against the fast-changing trends apparently bent on the destruction of today’s youth, Courtney reminded moms of the unchanging truth with which they can defend their children. The greatest parenting strategies a mother could ever know are still found in the Bible -– specifically Deuteronomy 6, she said.

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength,” Courtney stated simply.

Instead of denying the mounting pile of dismal statistics and the loss of moral values that threatens to overwhelm a generation, Courtney chooses to expose it.

“Our mothers used to say the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Now it seems the way to catch his eye is by showing your stomach. And we should be angry,” she said, referring to the midriff-baring fad of recent years and the sexually aggressive female teen idols who impose false images and expectations on impressionable girls.

“We’re seeing the air-brushed, digitized images of what’s not real,” Courtney said. “Our girls need to be exposed to what true beauty looks like,” she said, calling for parents to model virtue and teach their daughters that beauty on the outside is far different than true beauty on the inside.
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LifeWay will sponsor one more Your Girl event in 2006, Sept. 16 at North Jacksonville Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla. In 2007, LifeWay will offer You and Your Girl events with Courtney designed for mothers and daughters. For more information, go to www.lifeway.com/women.