Topics to discuss with teens before prom

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” As a parent and youth pastor, I have seen many kids fall by the wayside because parents waited too late to instruct them in the areas of temptation and Satan’s attacks. We had the discussion the other day about alcohol in my home…with my 12, 10, and 8 year old. Why? Because we are dealing with a man in our church who is absolutely dominated by alcohol and continues to make sinful decisions. It was a perfect opportunity to talk again about the dangers of submitting control to a chemical and how devistating that can be. Deuternonomy 6 tells us that we should be teaching the precepts when we are rising up, going down, sitting by the way, at breakfast, at lunch, when on walks…always taking time to teach God’s Word. If topics such as morality and alcohol (the typical prom night discussions) are reserved for that night of temptation, then the results will probably be less than acceptable. It would be like putting a basketball player into a game after having drawn out the offense on a small white board, and then not understanding why that player didn’t meet expectations when he went into the game.