There’s a discussion on Facebook about how some commercials are teaching children bad behaviors such as defiance and lying to parents — and making them out to be good things.

It’s part of the reason we canceled our satellite TV in favor of Netflix: we now have complete control over what our son sees on TV.

Even with that we have to be extra vigilant over what our children are exposed to. It’s difficult with so much technology, especially if our children have un-supervised access on their own devices, at school and other people’s homes.

It’s also an opportunity. If we see our children exposed to examples of bad behavior, we can sit them down and tell them that although it’s glorified in society, why it’s bad nonetheless. It’s always been our job as parents to teach right from wrong. Wrong has always been glorified in society from the time of Genesis, so our responsibility to teach otherwise has never changed.

Parents have been and always will be the greatest influence on their children. To this day — at the age of 44 — I still remember my parents’ lessons on how to treat others and the true measure of success to name a few. Any commercials I’ve seen when I was little that encouraged bad behavior, I don’t remember. In the end they didn’t matter, because my parents were there to show me differently. Society didn’t mold me; my parents did. The only way that could be reversed is if parents relinquish their authority and responsibility over their children. It does happen, granted, but we can’t control what other people do.

Sure today’s society — and even our own government — makes raising our children in the way we want sometimes seemingly impossible, but there’s nothing wrong with having to work harder than we would like to meet our goals. As anyone who’s worked hard for something knows, succeeding is all the more sweet when we’ve had to struggle for it.