This article originally appeared in the print journal Spring 1995.

Normally a mild-mannered professor of communications, arts and sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Quentin Schultze becomes an emotionally charged activist when it comes to popular culture’s impact on young people and families.
An acclaimed Christian intellectual, Schultze has written scores of books and articles on Christianity and popular culture. He believes he has identified a deadly disease destroying families, murdering relationships, and stunting young people’s emotional growth: media addiction.

“Americans are media rich and communication poor,” says Schultze. Repeated like a mantra, this phrase conveys the recurring theme of his five-part video curriculum kit, Winning Your Kids Back from the Media. His passionate concern for his subject springs from his own troubled youth and deepening commitment to family values.

Schultze is no Roseanne. He dislikes talking publicly about his private pains and horribly troubled childhood, saying it sounds manipulative. But now at 42, old skeletons still rattle in the dusty closets of his mind and his memories. The child of an abusive, alcoholic father and a mother who was in and out of mental institutions, Schultze never had a “normal” childhood. Things only got better when he left home.

Now married and a father, Schultze’s happiness with his family nearly overpowers him. “One day it dawned on me that God had answered my prayers for a normal family,” he says. “With God’s grace, I vow daily not to take my wife and children for granted. I’ve got a better family life than I ever dreamed possible.”

But Schultze’s own love and intimacy with his family stands in sharp contrast to some of the families he comes in contact with. “In counseling students at Calvin, I get the sense that many parents don’t even know their kids,” he laments. “Some students can’t remember having a single discussion with their fathers. They grew up in homes where television filled the silence, where the radio was always on in the car, where parents read the newspaper at the breakfast table.”

Schultze sees in this type of contemporary American family life a cruel, even demonic irony. “We are surrounded by an amazing amount of high-tech communication, but how close are people’s hearts? American middle- and upper-class families have an absence of communication in a society of information excess. The erosion of family life through this kind of media abundance is a bigger problem than anyone realizes.”

Although critical about much that passes for news and entertainment in the popular media, Schultze is not a media basher. A big fan himself of what he calls “quality contemporary Christian music,” he still believes Christian people must do more than replace tons of bad secular media with tons of less destructive Christian media.

“Even with quality, theologically good material, it’s easy to consume too much,” he says. “It’s a mistake for parents to think media can substitute for quality time spent communicating with kids.” Yet family media nevertheless should be brough into family relationships, Schultze believes. “Peer groups and the media are doing much of the nurturing of our kids. I want to see parents get back in the system.”

Want to look like a media expert? Try out Winning Your Kids Back from the Media, a five-unit package of video sessions and lesson plans designed to help parents redeem the duties they’ve abdicated to slick, high-tech media productions. But like all programs, it has its limitations, as Schultze readily admits. Families need to come up with creative, intentional ways to spend time together, away from the media’s embrace. Youth workers need to instill a sense of community in their young people, perhaps in service activities that draw kids out of themselves and help them reach out to others. Getting youth and adults involved in activities together is equally important to promote intergenerational communication.

The Media-Friendly Family

A critical consumer can balance media use with interpersonal communication—something that’s terribly out of balance in many homes. Together, family members can incorporate their media consumption into their relationships. Here are Schultze’s recommendations for combining sophisticated high-tech media with low-tech communication.

• View films. Schultze attends films with his son and brings the stories into their relationship. “Family film viewing has increased Stephen’s ability to critically evaluate movies,” says Schultze. “He’s quite a film buff. He can spot a Spielberg film in about 15 minutes.”

• Enjoy family drama. As contributors to the Grand Rapids Civic Theater, the Schultze family frequently attends plays together, later discussing the characters’ motivations in the story. Special events, such as a Shakespearean festival, are worth the extra effort.

• Play the parts. Don’t leave the drama at the theater. Schultze and his family read through plays together, each member taking one of the major parts.

• Consume what the kids consume. Spend some time reading adolescent fiction. Although not preferable to adult novels, your kids’ reading material opens an avenue for communication with kids about the stories.

• Maximize drive time. Schultze strives to take at least one family member on every trip he takes. On driving trips he listens to audiotapes with his kids. Focus on the Family’s Adventures in Odyssey series, for example, lends itself well to this habit.

• Tell a story. Dinner at the Schultze house is a marathon session compared to a typical family routine. Meal time blends into a family time that lasts two hours or more. They read and discuss at least one chapter from Scripture, update each other on current activities, and discuss important events in their lives.

• Walk that talk. Opportunities to communicate opened up when the Schultze family started exercising the dog together. Walking through a wealthy neighborhood one night, Schultze’s son noticed the houses were considerably more sumptuous than theirs. “Dad,” he asked, “Are these people going to heaven? Doesn’t the Bible say that rich people won’t go to heaven?” Schultze recalls what followed was an irreplaceable time of talking together about camels, eyes of needles, and the ways of God. He’s convinced that the conversation would never have happened if there hadn’t been an intentional effort to get away from the reach of the media to create an environment for communication.