A Place for Parents of Teens to Connect, Learn and Find Help
Welcome to the Parent Connection Online. It is our hope that you will find this page a valuable resource as you endeavor to parent your teens and pre-teens through the confusing maze of adolescence. Scroll through our page to find articles, links, recommendations and information on upcoming events and opportunities for further connection and learning. If you ever have questions or need help, please do not hesitate to send us an email or give us a call.
Do you ever feel like parenting your teen(s) is as confusing and as an episode of 'LOST'? If you do, then we want you to know that you are not alone! Parenting teenagers is no easy task, it is filled with many joys but comes with its share of difficult challenges as well. Come, grab a coffee and a pastry and enjoy the evening as we share and discuss the challenges, joys and frustrations of parenting. Hope you can join us!
PARENT CONNECTION WEDNESDAY, MAY 13 7:30 - 9:00pm Classic Cup in Wavery Woods
About a year ago, a parent came to me because they discovered their child had sent extremely provacative photos of themselves to their boyfriend. What I didn't know then, was that this was the beginning of one of the latest cultural trends, termed "sexting". "Sexting" is the practice many middle school and high school students are taking part in where they photograph or video themselves partially or fully nude or in sexually provocative ways and send them to their friends/boyfriends and girlfriends.
CBS news has produced an interesting segment on this practice here.
Here are just a few thoughts to keep in mind.
1. If your son or daughter has a cell phone, then talk to them about this practice and monitor their texts. This can open up some great areas of conversation including talking to them about sexuality, body image, modesty, pornography and more. These discussions can often reveal the heart behind this behavior such as desire for acceptance, belonging and love. And because these desires are not foreign to us we can relate to our kids in new ways and see our need for the gospel together.
2. Remember, teens are impulsive and often make decisions with little regard for their consequences. This can be a way to talk with our kids about thinking through decisions and the consequences they can have both on their present and their future.
3. Don't assume your son or daughter is 'sexting'. It's always best to operate out of foundation of trust rather than skepticism. However, if you have discovered that your kids have been sending or receiving these kinds of texts, don't over react, respond with concern and a real conversation. Accompany this conversation with strict boundaries and accountability for the use of their phones as you re-establish and rebuild the trust in your relationship.
A friend and colleague of mine Walt Mueller recently wrote an interesting blog article on smoking, worth checking out. I'll start it here, but you can finish it on his blog....
A news story this week caught my eye and jogged my memory. The story was about a new trend that has parents and health officials concerned. It seems that a growing number of children and tweens are "smoking," of all things, Smarties. Not only that, but they're posting their Smartie-smoking videos on YouTube. They crush them up in the cellophane roll, open both ends, inhale the crushed sugar into their mouths, and then blow out sugary Smartie smoke.
Ahh, kids these days. . . . oh. . . . wait a minute. . . what about kids in those days????
All this talk about Smartie-smoking took me back to my childhood fascination with smoking. You need to know that I grew up in a home where nobody smoked. No cigarettes, no cigars, no pipes. Nothing. However, I grew up in a neighborhood where plenty of my friends' parents smoked, and they smoked all of those things.
Lucky me. I had a bit of a childhood fascination with the smell of cigarette smoke. Yep, I was one of those weird kids who liked the smell. . . sort of like the smells I liked when we pulled into the gas station and my dad would roll down his window to tell the attendant to "fill 'er up with regular." Come on. . . I know I'm not alone in this. I also remember the smell of cigars. . . mostly the smell of collective cigars as that smoke mixed with the odor of watered down beer in the stands at Connie Mack Stadium. I still think about baseball when I smell a cigar. And then there were the pipes. I had a few friends whose dads had pipestands on tables next to their favorite chair. They also had those ashtrays that sat on floor pedastals next to their chairs. I remember sticking my nose into those pipe's bowls to grab a sniff of scented tobacco. I also remember a couple of neighbhorhood dads who would walk behind the lawn-mower with a pipe clenched between their teeth. It looked kind of like a steam-engine puffing through the backyard.
Not only did we have real-life flesh-and-blood examples showing us how to smoke everywhere we turned, but the world of marketing did a good number on us. Back then we didn't know as much about the dangers of cigarettes. Smoking was presented to those of us who were Christian kids as a moral risk (yes, there will be lots of smoking in Hell! Can you say "sin sticks?"), not the health risk we know it as today. On the other hand, smoking was presented by marketers as manly, adult, and even the sexy thing to do. Liberated women smoked and they even had their own brand. . . Virginia Slims. Marketers knew back then that to grow the cigarette business, they had to cultivate new smokers. Even the Flintstones - a cartoon I loved and watched faithfully - marketed cigarettes to kids like me. More recently, there was Joe Camel. I've heard lots of statistics over the years regarding kids and smoking. The tobacco companies know that 80% of adult smokers started before they were 18. And, the tobacco companies know that they have to develop thousands of new smokers a day to replace those who either die off or quit. So, it makes sense to go after impressionable young kids.
A parent and good friend recently gave me an article from Newsweek Magazine entitled "Welcome to Elsewhere." The article written by sociologist Danny Conley from New York University, talks about the pressures of young professionals to always be "somewhere else".
Conley says..."Today's professional...is constantly dogged by a feeling that he or she should be 'elsewhere' -- back at the office, at a party full of potential clients, home with the kids or at a social function with the spouse. Always on the go, we feel like we are in the right place at the right time only when in transit moving from point A to B. (Dalton Conley 'Welcome to Elsewhere', Newsweek)"
As I read this I was reminded how true this is not only for young professionals but true for me and the many other families I know working to juggle the busyness of work, family, sports, social life, church , service and the many other things we end up involved in. Its no longer an issue of just being 'busy' but now even when we are where we think we need to be we feel guilty because we often feel we should probable be 'somewhere else'.
I am reminded in Proverbs where it says "The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the belly of the wicked suffers want. " We invest so much energy into finding satisfaction in places where it will never be found; ( i.e career, religion, status, success, our children.) However, in the midst of our longing for fulfillment and satisfaction the gospel speaks to our wandering hearts to tell us that we can be free from the pressure to be 'elsewhere'. It is our identity in Christ that allows us to live and be 'fully present' and 'fully satisfied' in whatever place and time life's path has taken us.
To read Conley's full article from Newsweek , click here.
Our next Parent Connection Gathering will be on Wednesday, May 13, from 7:30 - 9:00 pm at the Classic Cup in the Waverly Woods Shopping Center in Marriottsville.
As you continue to ride the roller coaster of the ever changing world of raising teenagers, we want you to know you are not alone. Join us as we connect with other parents of teens, grab a cup of coffee and a pastry and enjoy an evening of discussing and sharing the challenges, joys and frustrations of parenting. For more information email Steve Dallwig (sdallwig@chapelgate.org) or call at 410-442-5800 ext. 123
A husband, a father, a son, a brother, a pastor, a friend, a travel agent and a work in progress in daily need of The Gospel. Oh, and I'm also trying to figure out this blogging thing...
