Jump directly to the Content
Jump directly to the Content

Sermon Illustrations

Home > Sermon Illustrations

Mom Shows How Not to Help Kids with Social Media

It's difficult for parents who are trying to navigate how their children relate to social media. Here's one story about how NOT to do it. The following story ran in a British and then an Australian newspaper:

Taking away electronics is a common parental punishment, but this mother decided to take it one step further—and shoot up her children's iPhones with a rifle. "I hereby denounce the effects that social media have on my children," the mom shouts at the beginning of a YouTube video, a gun in her hand. "Their disobedience and their disrespect."
She then points the gun and the camera moves to reveal that she's not about to shoot a pheasant or a bottle, but is aiming straight for an iPhone perched on a tree trunk. With perfect aim she blows the smartphone to smithereens, as its pieces go flying into the grass.
"I also take back my role as parent to my children," she then yells … She then blows the remnants of the iPhone to bits, once again hitting it on her first shot. "My children's lives are more important to me," she begins, as the camera reveals she is standing over the iPhones with a sledgehammer, "than any electronic on this earth." She then hammers the remaining pieces a few times, her dog watching, before screaming: "I'm done!" And with that, she drops the hammer and walks away.

Related Sermon Illustrations

Inuit Hunters Losing Ability to Read Surroundings

The small island of Igloolik, in northern Canada is a bewildering place in the winter. The average temperature hovers at about 20 degrees below zero, thick sheets of sea ice cover ...

[Read More]

The Jekyll and Hyde Nature of Motherhood

Nancy Ortberg, in her sermon "The Jekyll and Hyde of Motherhood”:

A transformation occurred in me with the birth of my children. I traded in that professional look for sweatpants. ...

[Read More]