Be More Present Than the Algorithm

THE DEVOTION

Proverbs gives parents a command and a promise: 'Train up a child in the way he should go.' The word is chanak — to train, to dedicate, to intentionally initiate someone into a purpose. It is hands-on, deliberate, personal work. And this ancient word confronts a very modern parenting crisis, because we have quietly outsourced the training of our children to screens. We give them Wi-Fi, devices, endless content — and somewhere in our hearts, we hope it's enough. It isn't.

A device can connect your child to the entire world, but it cannot train them for it. A screen can teach them facts, entertain them for hours, and babysit them when you're exhausted — but it cannot chanak them. It cannot instill character, point them toward God, model integrity, or dedicate them to a purpose. Those things require a present parent doing intentional, hands-on work. The tragedy of our age is a generation being raised BY screens while their parents wish, deep down, that the screens were doing the parenting for them.

And here's the honest, sugar-free reckoning: the algorithm is training your children whether you are or not. 🏿 Every hour they spend absorbing content is an hour they are being discipled — shaped in their desires, their values, their sense of what's normal and good. If you are not intentionally training them in the way they should go, something else is training them in the way it wants them to go. The Sugar-Free Gospel™ says it plainly: you cannot outsource the discipleship of your children to a device and expect them to arrive where God wants them.

Proverbs offers wisdom, not a guarantee that a parent can control an adult child’s outcome. Children possess agency and differ in temperament, disability, development, and circumstance. Technology is a tool with real benefits and risks. Parents need grace, shared support, age-appropriate limits, honest repair, and curiosity about the child in front of them—not shame or surveillance disguised as formation.