Dr. Linda Mintle

Blog

  • Do Something About Cyber-Bullying

    Because of the recent teen suicides reported in the news, our national attention has once again been focused on cyber-bullying. No longer do we worry about the loud mouth school bully who pushes kids in the hall and name calls. Now, the academically bright and capable kids can use cyberspace as a weapon for jealousy, envy, and shear meanness. Taunting others with text messages, Facebook slandering, and yes, throwing energy drinks in the face of hall walkers are just a few of the ways bullying now happens.

    Today’s bullies work in groups and focus their attention online. As they target specific kids, they are less overt than their predecessors and more anonymous given the cloak of cyberspace. Their methods include humiliating teens through gossip, rumor, videos, and nasty text messages. Bullying can be relentless because of 24/7 access to the Internet.
    No one really knows the direct causes of the rise of cyber-bullying but we can certainly speculate on what seems to make sense. For years, we have witnessed the loss of supervised play in schools due to budget cuts—no recess and physical education. When kids lose the opportunities to engage in structured and unstructured play, they don’t learn to get along and work out their peer-to-peer issues.

    Teens are bombarded with violence and rudeness in the media they consume.  Marketing is self-focused. It is all about what you deserve, want, and must have –raising the level of entitlement and selfishness to a new high. Religious education is waning, moral standards are relative, and many parents are ignorant as to what is happening online with their teens. Add to this the unwillingness of teens to “judge” someone or report bullying behavior and you have the potential for trouble.

    The result: A culture of teens who think meanness gets you a reality TV spot; imitation of violent and inappropriate behavior often glamorized in media; and unsupervised cyber behavior that is out of control.

    How many teens will commit suicide before we wake up and realize we don’t laugh when someone teases the underdog? We stand up to the bully using “the swarm” tactic.  There is strength in numbers. We don’t sit by idly when someone is bullied because we don’t want to “judge” or rat on the person. We discipline our children for rude and mean behavior when they are young and stop making excuses for them. We control adult behavior so teens don’t model entitlement and meanness. We take a zero-tolerance approach to bullying and stop justifying it as an act of passage. We write complaint letters to irresponsible media distributors. We embarrass the bullies by making the public aware and outing them. We get online and check our teen’s social media. We are willing to report problems to authorities and encourage our teens to do the same.

    What are your ideas to stop cyber bullying?

    ~ Dr. Linda

    Dr. Linda Mintle is the author of Raising Healthy Kids in an Unhealthy World. While the focus of this book is on children and weight control, the chapter on media also discusses the saturation of media our children face and the impact it has on their development.

  • Neglecting the Elderly

    What happened to pastoral care?

    About three months ago, my 84-year-old mom received a letter from the church she has been a member of for more than 60 years. The letter informed her that she no longer had voting privileges because of her lack of attendance on Sunday morning. Her absence is due her being bound to a wheelchair, which prevents her from being able to attend church on a regular basis. My 89-year-old father is her full-time caretaker. Since July 2009, she has suffered multiple medical problems and been in and out of hospitals. In the past nine months, not one of the five pastors in her church have called or visited. The senior pastor came to the hospital once after my aunt called and begged him to come. This is shameful. My parents’ spiritual needs are being completely ignored by the church.

    Mom and Dad have faithfully served at the church for decades. Every singing group, evangelist, speaker, and guest was housed by my parents’ place. No matter who died, got married, or had a baby, my mom sent meals and food to help with every occasion the church hosted. My dad served as an usher, never missing a Sunday. He and his relatives built the camp grounds and fixed whatever was broken when called upon. For years, my mom baked the pastor’s favorite fruit pies and sent them to his house, per his request. Now, in their twilight years, we never hear from the church. And we aren’t alone.

    Many churches have become so focused on numbers and youth, that meeting the needs of their senior members are not even on the radar. My parents’ church has 450 members and five pastors, and not one pastor does pastoral care. There is an older gentleman who gets paid $100 a month to hold a senior service. Other than that, the elderly seem to be forgotten. And during this time in their lives, when a call or visit would mean so much, the pastors are not taking the time to minister to them.

    Fortunately for my parents, they have strong friendships and dedicated family members who step in, visit, and bring meals. But, they’re mostly elderly and are also in need of a little pastoral care. My 81-year-old aunt who called the pastor to come is now in the hospital and no one from the church staff has visited her either. 

    God is meeting the needs of my parents. We know our dependence is on Him and that He is always present. But is it asking too much for a church leaders to call once in awhile and check on these saints and offer to pray with them? Is it too much to expect someone to organize a meal or bring a card of encouragement? What has happened to pastoral care? The church has been the center of my parents’ lives for 60 years and now it saddens me that they are being neglected by the very body they so faithfully served. God is their reward, but the church needs to do a better job of caring for the elderly.

    Are the ministry needs of the elderly being neglected in our churches?

    ~ Dr. Linda

  • Where’s the Hope of the Resurrection?

    Last week, I watched one of network television’s popular medical dramas. I felt incredibly sad at the end of the show because of one particular storyline: a wife was dying of lung cancer. Because there is no cure, she made the decision to end her life by physician-assisted suicide. In the state of Washington (where the drama is set), physician-assisted suicide is legal. 

     

    As the story unfolded, one the doctors struggled with this legality as he flashes back to the death of his fellow army officer on a battlefield in Iraq. After all, the Hippocratic Oath says, Do no harm (interestingly that was never mentioned in the story).

     

    Regarding the dying wife, the husband can’t face the reality of what the wife wants to do, but eventually succumbs to her wishes. She asks for a glass of wine to swallow the pills that will cause her death within 45 minutes. There is no talk of God, no hope of resurrection, no after life mentioned—just the desire to not die alone or feel pain. We are left to believe that this is the best option. The story ends with the wife downing the pills and curling up to her husband in her hospital bed to die.

     

    Honestly, I wanted to cry. The motivating factor for choosing death was that the wife did not want to suffer or die alone. Our culture’s response to this is to offer physician-assisted suicide, not Jesus. How sad! As we somberly remember Good Friday, I can’t help thinking about Jesus, who suffered and died on the cross to give us a hope and a future and to remind us that we are never alone. One day, suffering will end and our resurrected bodies will be pain free and glorified because of what He did for us.

     

    Why does our culture refuse to show this hope? Why can’t we see a husband hold his wife’s hand, acknowledge the suffering and pray for God’s mercy, allowing God to decide the moment of her death? Why can’t the room be filled with God’s presence so that we can see that even in death, Satan has been defeated? Why can’t we give the hope of eternity and let a dying world know that this world is not our final resting place? Why can’t we offer Jesus, so that the moment of death is a transition to a pain-free eternity?

     

    This Easter weekend, remember you are never alone. He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Death is not the final answer. We have the promise of life eternal because Christ rose from the grave. He sits at the right hand of the Father and intercedes for you. Don’t give in to despair, hopelessness, and secular solutions to pain. Know that you are loved no matter what you face. Life is sacred. God gave His Son to die so we can live. Now, that’s a storyline I would like to see on network television!

     

    How has your faith in Christ given you hope?

     

    ~ Dr. Linda 

    Related resource: Get a copy of Dr. Linda Mintle’s book, Breaking Free from Depression. For more help, go to: www.drlindahelps.com.

  • Men Who Do Housework Have Happier Marriages!

    Feel like doing some spring cleaning? Well, rev up the vacuum cleaner. Pull out the dust cloth and get to work men. You might be surprised to learn that all that dusting and vacuuming have marital benefits. According to marital researcher, John Gottman, you will have a happier, less lonely and more involved marriage than men who don’t help around the house. Yes, you read that correctly. Men who do housework can claim a host of marital benefits.

    Housewives all over America are applauding this finding. Finally, research that makes sense! Does it sound too good to be true?

    Dr. John Gottman at the University of Washington studied men who did housework and child care. He discovered that men who do housework are not only happier in their marriages, but also have lower heart rates, better sex lives and better health. And the men who pitched in with household chores were less stressed and physically healthier in the four years following the initial research meeting. Do I hear an “Amen” to this conclusion?

    Now I wish I could stop here and let you think that housework has curative powers– that doing housework is the key to fabulous relationships. This certainly would liberate a lot of women and encourage men to share in the exciting work of mopping floors and cleaning showers, but it isn’t housework that cures troubled marriages.

    Even though doing housework was tested as a separate factor in the marital study, housework wasn’t the issue. It turns out that husbands who do housework tend to be mutual and supportive partners. And spouses who act in mutual and supportive ways have satisfying marriages with good sex lives.

    So the take away from this study is this: Engage in mutual and supportive acts with your spouse. According to women, one of those mutual and supportive acts appears to be housework. Women like it when men pitch in to help. You might even say that a man who does housework puts his wife in the mood to celebrate later!

    Men, the next time you see your wives struggle to keep up with all the housework, turn off that basketball game, pull out that toilet bowl cleaner, pat yourselves on the back and say, “I’ll be less lonely, less stressed and less likely to be sick if I scrub this commode.” Your wives will give you a big smile and say, “Now there’s the man I’m glad I married!”

    Do you or your spouse show support and mutual respect by helping with housework?

    Check out Dr. Linda Mintle’s book on marriage, I Married You, Not Your Family (Siloam Press, 2008). Also available in Spanish, Me Case Contigo, No Con Tu Familia.

    ~ Dr. Linda

  • Counteracting Lady GaGa’s Influence


    My 16-year-old daughter called me to the computer last night to watch something she saw online. It was Lady GaGa’s new nine and a half minute music video, “Telephone”, with Beyonce. The video skyrocketed to No. 1 on Billboard. My daughter was so disturbed by the video that she needed to talk about it. She couldn’t understand how Lady GaGa was allowed to prance around almost completely naked and be so disgusting. I watched the video. It was porn. I was shocked at the nudity and raunchiness, and am glad that my daughter was too! In a culture with high rates of pornography addiction, violence, eating disorders, depression, and anxiety, these videos only contribute to those problems. 

     

    It is getting increasingly more difficult to shield our teens from the onslaught of pornography and violence that characterize many music videos. The popularity of artists like Lady GaGa is mainstream. Just go into your youth group, ask the kids who sings “Poker Face” or “Just Dance”. They know and can sing you the lyrics. (I’ve done this exercise at many youth groups.)

     

    Youth groups need to address this trend of nudity, violence, and sexual objectification that is becoming the norm of teen viewing. Parents can’t fight this battle alone. We need the church to wake up to the onslaught of images that are assaulting our kids and desensitizing them to the things of God. Together, we must address how pop culture influences our teens. The conversation must be on-going and relevant. 


    Parents, get online and take a look at the top 10 music videos. Spend a few hours watching MTV.  Listen to lyrics of songs on iTunes and watch the movies your kids are renting. It will drive you to intercession and wake you up to the spiritual battle our teens face. Start discussing media in your family and talk about the impact of passively viewing sexual and violent media. Work with your teens to make godly choices and to resist temptation. And if you are struggling yourself, get help!

     

    Ask your youth group leaders to discuss media, lyrics and how much is too much. A number of months ago, I worked with a youth group and dissected the lyrics to Katie Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” song. The teens knew all the words but had not considered the message (same sex experimentation) in terms of how it might influence their thinking and Christian walk. It was a productive conversation. The church needs to work with families in this area and be another voice to reinforce Christian values and help teens question their exposure to certain media.

     

    While the battle seems overwhelming, our best defense is prayer. God is on our side. Pray, talk and be in the lives of your teens. They need all the help they can get.

     

    Are you and/or your teen’s youth group discussing pop culture, especially music?

    ~ Dr. Linda