Understanding freedom levels
- Dec 8, 2025
- 9 min read
Updated: May 1
Your Brain Is a Magnet — And That's a Problem (or a Superpower)
Read this together as a family. Seriously — it's better with snacks.
Here's the Secret Nobody Tells You
You already know what you want. More freedom. Less rules. More say in your own life.
Cool. Same as every teenager who's ever lived.
But here's the twist most teens miss: the way you get more freedom is by proving you don't need to be controlled.
That starts in your head.
Your Focus Is Your Future
Think of your thoughts like a magnet. Whatever you focus on — you attract more of it.
Focus on what you don't want? You'll find evidence of it everywhere. Focus on what you do want? You'll start moving toward it. This isn't magic. It's psychology. And it works both ways.
The joy and happiness we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. - R. M. Nelson
If you've got strict parents and all you think about is how strict they are — your brain will find proof of that everywhere. Every rule, every "no," every curfew becomes evidence. You'll miss every "yes" they ever give you. We call that confirmation bias in psychology.
But flip it: What if you focused on what you actually want your life to look like in 10 years?
Two Brothers. Same Situation. Completely Different Lives.
Two guys, same dad. He was mean, absent, and careless. He abandoned both of them.
Brother #1 grew up angry. Made the same choices as his dad. When asked why — he said, "Because of my dad."
Brother #2 grew up and built a great life. When asked how — he said, "Because of my dad."
Same father. Same wounds. Same reason. Two completely different focuses.
You will attract what you focus on. Not because of magic — but because focus shapes decisions, and decisions shape your life.
An Ancient Story That Still Hits
Around 600 B.C., two brothers were forced to leave their home in Jerusalem. No choice. Pack what fits on a camel. Leave everything else behind.
One brother — the younger — decided to focus on where they were going. He learned new skills. Built boats. Invented tools. Stayed curious. Made the most of a brutal situation. When they ran out of food...he just built a new bow.
The other brother? He couldn't stop thinking about what he lost. His house. His friends. His comfortable life. That anger grew for years — until he actually tried to kill his little brother. Twice.
The older brother did not want his circumstances. He focused on that for the rest of his life until he became consumed with hatred.
His focus cost him everything.
Even Jesus learned this lesson when he read about Lot's wife, and said to his apostles, "Remember Lot's wife" — the ultimate "don't look back" lesson. A wise man explained it this way, “With less than immediate obedience and more than a little negotiation, Lot and his family ultimately did leave town, but just in the nick of time. The scriptures tell us what happened at daybreak the morning following their escape: The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities… Apparently what was wrong with Lot’s wife was that she wasn’t just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before they were past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her…It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind...her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future…The past is to be learned from but not lived in."
When God warned her family to flee their doomed city, she couldn't resist one last glance. Instant pillar of salt. But here's the real twist: she wasn't just looking back — she was longing back. Her heart was still in the rubble. She resented what she was losing more than she trusted what was ahead. The takeaway? Learn from the past. Don't live in it. Grab the embers, leave the ashes.
Faith always faces forward — and the best is literally still ahead.
Agency vs. Freedom — Know the Difference
Here's something most teenagers don't realize:
Agency is your internal power to choose right from wrong. Nobody can take that.
Freedom is your environment — what you're allowed to do. That can be limited.
Agency is internal; freedom is external.
Here's the key: you can have agency even without freedom.
Governments, families, and schools all set boundaries on freedom — and that's by design.
Governments define the freedoms citizens have, for better or worse. Living in a free country is a privilege, but it comes with real responsibility.
Families tailor freedom to each child based on trust. And it's not just a family value — the law backs it up, giving parents final say over parenting and financial decisions until age 18.
Schools set their own standards too, varying by campus or even classroom.
That means even in a house with rules you didn't choose, you still get to choose:
How you respond
What you do with your time
Who you're becoming on the inside
A locked room doesn't lock your mind.
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." — Viktor Frankl
The Freedom Formula
Responsibility first. Freedom follows.
Better agency → more freedom levels.
In general, freedom grows naturally with age and earned trust. Even Jesus, as a boy eager to stay behind in the temple, quietly obeyed his parents and went home. He didn't begin his ministry until he was 30 — a reminder that timing and patience matter, even for the greatest among us.
It's not complicated, but it is slow. And that slowness is the point.
Think about Christian McCaffrey — one of the best NFL players alive. His parents were strict. Bedtime at 7:30 until 8th grade. No phone until high school. Phone confiscated at 9 p.m. No soda. Constant education on sleep and health.
Did he rebel? Did he obsess over what he was missing?
Apparently not. Because today he's one of the most elite athletes on the planet — with the habits to prove it.
His dad's rules weren't the enemy. They were the training.
Photo from allposters.com
We were set up to be in families for a reason.
Two teenage friends headed to a party. One had already made up his mind — he was going to drink that night.
Then the house phone rang. (Yes, a wall phone — no cells back then.) It was for him. Odd.
It was his mom. "Bud, I'm sorry — I just really need your help with something."
He left, frustrated but worried. When she picked him up, he asked what was so urgent.
"I didn't have a reason," she said. "I just knew you were in trouble."
He hadn't told a single soul what he'd planned that night.
Sometimes moms just know. And sometimes, that's God finding a way to reach you — quietly, unexpectedly, through someone who loves you.
He knows.
Short-Term Pain → Long-Term Game
Here's the real equation:
Instant Gratification | Delayed Gratification |
Less freedom later | More freedom later |
Negative consequences | Positive consequences (blessings) |
Focus on what you're missing | Focus on where you're going |
Positive consequences are often called blessings — but they don't come for free. They come from obeying the laws that produce them. Natural laws. Eternal laws. The same laws that let a surgeon stop a heart and restart it again — because he understood how hearts work.
When natural laws are obeyed, blessings follow. Every time.
A big truth about agency is that you can choose your path, but you cannot choose your consequences.
There is a law, irrevocable (unchangeably) decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
We invite you to choose long-term gain over short-term pleasure.
Of course we all have desires, we all have dreams for the future, but do we let our current desires ruin our future? This applies to adults too. We recently heard of a football coach who had three kids and a wife, who had a 5 million dollar contract, but he had to be fired from his job and was charged with three crimes, including felony home invasion and stalking. We also heard about a college football player who had just gotten engaged to his fiance. Before he could marry her, he got kicked off the football team and charged for attempted sexual assault on another girl. We just cannot escape consequences, and they come when you least expect. Even these individuals are fortunate to have a compassionate Savior who offers forgiveness if they choose to repent and transform their hearts, yet no one can avoid life's consequences.
The Technology Warning (Read This One Carefully)
Tech companies are not your friends.
They've spent billions of dollars studying the psychology of addiction — specifically your addiction — to keep you scrolling as long as possible. Because your attention makes them rich.
Addiction means you can't stop, even when it's hurting you. The science behind too much dopamine is alarming, and you can discover more about that science in our self-restraint classroom here.
Here's the real question: Can you see your future self? What kind of person do you want to be? What skills do you want to have? What kind of relationship do you want?
Is three hours of scrolling per day building that person — or slowly erasing them?
Expect yourself to need guardrails around technology. All of us are prey to algorithmic doom scrolling. If parents don't set boundaries around technology, the world will set its own consequences. And those consequences aren't gentle.
Start Here: Three Layers of Change
1. Identity — Decide who your future self is. Be specific. Get honest with it.
2. Process — What does that person believe? What do they do every single day?
3. Outcome — Live like that person now. The seed becomes the tree.
"Do you want to change the shape of your life? Change the shape of your day. Do you want to change your day? Change this hour." — Dieter F. Uchtdorf
What skillsets are you trying to grow personally in life? Which activity each day will get you to that priority? Your whole life has the same shape of a single day! It actually becomes fun to understand natural laws to follow, and God's laws to keep, when you realize they create happier freedoms later in your life. If you do the hard things first, life eventually becomes easier.
Sometimes your path will take more disciplined freedoms and choices to get there!
Freedom is lost, if your agency is used to choose the wrong habits, desires, and priorities.
The Bottom Line
You want freedom. That's not wrong — it's good. It's human. But freedom isn't taken. It's built. It's built one good choice at a time. One habit at a time. One honest conversation with your family at a time. The teenagers who end up with the most freedom as adults are almost never the ones who fought hardest against every rule as kids. They're the ones who got curious about the rules — and figured out what values those rules were trying to build in them. Get curious. Get future-focused. Get going. Your future self is waiting. Do the hard things first, and life eventually gets easier. Do the easier things first, and life eventually gets harder.
BONUS SECTION:
Your private choices produce public consequences.
Not only is your agency something that can change your life, but it can change the world. Have you ever learned about the butterfly effect? Watch this video to understand how much YOU and YOUR agency matters:
Think about your future posterity. Every habit you form today affects your great, great, great granddaughter. We highly recommend that you read this short, quick and fun book as a family:
"Do you want to change the shape of your life? Change the shape of your day. Do you want to change your day? Change this hour. Change what you think, feel, and do at this very moment. A small rudder can steer a large ship. Small bricks can become magnificient mansions. Small seeds can become towering sequoias. Minutes and hours well spent are the building blocks of a life well lived."
- Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Wherever you find yourselves on this journey through life, whatever trials you may face, there is always a point of safe return; there is always hope. You are the captain of your life, and God has prepared a plan to bring you safely back to Him, to your divine destination. -Dieter Uchtdorf
Look at your future self and decide what you need to do right now to build block by block, minute by minute, and hour by hour to build your lives. Each day well spent, is a block on your tower.
Resources For Younger Kids:
Teaching consequences to younger kids is easy. Read this story with your younger kids:
This consequence chart was a fun easy way for our family to stay consistent on teaching natural consequences to younger kids without it requiring too much brain work for mom and dad. Fill out as a family and have some fun with it!
It looks like this:
We included consequences like cold plunging, blowing off the leaves, doing the dishes, sweeping the kitchen floor, etc. Have fun with it.
