“So I totally think it’s fine to steal from Target because they’re a big corporation. I mean, who is it really hurting? They make tons of profits and they’re just greedy anyways.” This is something I heard straight from the mouth of a teenage client a few weeks ago. The parents don’t believe stealing is appropriate in any circumstance. They definitely aren’t training their kids to be envious, which is the sinful character flaw that leads to the belief, “You have too much so I deserve to take it from you.” Envy is much more destructive than jealousy.
The problem is this child’s parents aren’t paying any attention. Their teenager is learning from Tik Tok videos, Instagram, and whatever other corner of the internet they’ve found. The kid didn’t even realize what she was saying because she has not been provided enough moral training to recognize a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It was a big wake-up call for the family that they have to put more time and effort into moral training.
We grew up in a time when not stealing was a given. Society did a lot of the moral training for us. It’s not the case anymore. Your child can wind up in the company of people (via the internet) who continue to perpetuate bad ideas because social media helps us find like-minded people. We no longer have to rub shoulders with people who think differently than we do. While we may be more comfortable this way, we definitely don’t grow as humans. Like it or not, it’s just the way it is now.
This means you as parents have to be EXTREMELY intentional about training your kids up in what is right and wrong. You cannot let the current trends or dictates of society make that determination for them. History shows us how incredibly wrong many trends end up being. Of course this means some of what is popular to believe today will not pan out to be good.
For the teenage Christian there are many challenges. Image Credit: Iamnee and freedigitalphotos.net
Because I am very serious about my Christian faith I tend to get referrals from churches and families seeking a therapist who is also a Christian. I would estimate though that at least half of the teenagers I work with are either of a different faith, or do not practice a religion at all. This is fine in the context of a counseling relationship because compassion, care, understanding and guidance are aspects of counseling that transcend any religious or cultural differences between me and my clients.
Today though I am writing to my clients, both present and future, who are Christian teenagers. I want you to know you are not alone in walking a path that feels incredibly difficult at times. You are called to have the highest level of integrity, and that often means you do not end up in first place. While you have plenty of friends who find ways to cheat on tests or homework assignments, you are asked not to behave this way. Sometimes you probably give in to this temptation as I did several times in high school. Afterwards you might get the grade you were hoping for, but there is no satisfaction in it. You are left with a sense of guilt that can only be remedied by admitting your fault. This is even harder to do- face up when you know you’ve done wrong.
You also are following the moral and emotional guidance of Christ. These days some of your beliefs are culturally unpopular. You might find yourself dealing with some mild form of verbal persecution among your peers. While it is extremely unlikely you have faced physical abuse for your beliefs, if you are strong in them, you have very likely been called a name or two. This happened to me in high school as well. I was called mild things like naive, to completely inappropriate and incorrect names such as bigot, and one time I was even called a neo-Nazi. In no way did I ever have even the slightest inclinations towards white supremacy. This came from the mouth of someone who was angered when I said Christians believe there is one way to Heaven. I did go home and cry though because it felt terrible to be so completely maligned when I was trying to live my life in a very loving way towards others.
Another challenge you will most certainly face is moral dilemmas when you hang out with your non-Christian friends. A great number of them probably party, drink, lie to their parents sometimes, and are sexually active. It is really easy for you to attend youth group and go to church on Sundays, but still partake in these other things. In high school I had one foot in my faith and church, and one foot in the party scene. I justified it by saying I wasn’t the worst one there. I very rarely drank, and instead usually chose to be the designated driver. The problem was that I was lying to my parents about where I was going, and was tempted by other things as well. I was moral shades of gray. I know A LOT of Christian teenagers who do the same thing. It is tough for you to keep your non-Christian friends if you never do the things they like to do. But, this is exactly why it’s so important to understand that you walk a challenging road.
I think the most important thing you can do right now is keep a daily connection with God. Read your bible regularly, pray and stay involved in a small group. If you do these three things the desires of your heart will more likely align with Christ. That makes it a lot easier to follow Him than if you are trying to use your own will-power to be a “good kid,” but you don’t actually know a lot about who Jesus is. Then it becomes a religion of right and wrong instead of a relationship of love.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Feeling left out really hurts. Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Today I was at the park with my daughter. We saw our neighbors there. They had their 6 year old daughter, a cousin of about the same age, and were meeting a friend who also had a 6 year old daughter. While the three girls were playing together, another mom brought her 6 year old daughter to the park. It was clear the kids all knew each other from school because greetings were exchanged. Despite this, there was no effort to include the new girl. I watched as she played near the other three. They never made eye contact with her. A couple of times she contributed to the conversation and the other three girls acted as if they couldn’t even hear her. Finally she gave up and enlisted her mom to play with her.
It was a bit of a shock to me how early this all starts. As a therapist I should know this, but since I mainly work with teenagers, I don’t encounter the cliques of young children on a daily basis.
However, I do know both personally, and from my clients, how devastating it feels to be on the outside during teenage years. I experienced being left out mostly ages 11 through 12 and it was painful. Many clients I work with continue to feel this pain through high school.
For the boys and girls who come to therapy because they are disincluded, we work hard on assertiveness (not to be confused with rudeness or aggressiveness). It seems kids who are not included lack the ability to confidently assert themselves. They express a weakness in their opinions that leaves them open to ridicule. They don’t defend themselves when they are teased, they struggle to tease back, and they personalize the off-handed things their peers say. It is hard work, but not impossible work, to help these teenagers change how they relate to other teens.
On the other hand, I think there is a responsibility parents have to work with their teenagers on being inclusive. Kindness is natural to some, but for most it is learned. We all like certain people better than others, and are drawn to certain personalities more than others. It takes maturity to include the people who are not as likable for whatever reason. This doesn’t mean your teenager needs to be best friends with someone they don’t mesh with. However, it’s really important for your child to make an effort to be inclusive in group situations.
Here are examples of situations where you get the opportunity to help your teenager practice being inclusive. If your teenager is on a sports team there is always one or two other teens who don’t quite fit in with the team. If your teenager is in a high school youth group or small group, when the whole group is together help your teen practice making an extra effort with the ones who struggle to flow with the group. These are important skills to learn because they teach empathy, awareness, and compassion. Besides this, your child just might make a world of difference for someone else who feels dejected and rejected.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
“Hooking up” has become normalized, acceptable and even preferred to dating among today’s teenagers. Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In a culture that has the shortest attention span in recent history, it’s no surprise our teens are “hooking up” more often than they’re dating. Parents, this should scare the bejeezus out of you! It scares me to death and I’m not even fearing for my own child (she’s still small), I’m worried sick about the teenagers I work with.
On the more obvious level, I worry for their physical health. It’s not new news that diseases spread through kissing, sexual activity and sexual intercourse. It’s also not new news that girls who participate in this type of activity with boys they don’t know very well are much more likely to be sexually assaulted. In that case, sometimes the situation gets away from them. What began as consensual activity progresses farther than they intended. Actually, this goes for boys too. While your sons aren’t as likely to complain about it aloud, I hear it in my office ALL THE TIME. An adolescent male is “hooking up” with a girl at a party and she doesn’t seem to be stopping when things really heat up. He wants to stop, but knows that culturally he’s not supposed to. Before he really knows what’s happened to him, he’s squandered the virginity that he did actually value. He wasn’t assaulted per se, but he didn’t really want to be with that girl either.
Side bar: I keep putting “hooking up” in quotes because this has become a confusing term. In my generation the term “hook up” always meant sex. Teens use it now to mean anything from making out to intercourse. It’s not a very descriptive term. If you hear your child using it, make sure to ask for clarification.
The other part of “hooking up” that really bothers me as a therapist is the lack of personal connection, self-respect, respect for commitment, and respect for the other partner- all the emotional stuff. Most of the teenagers I work with who “hook up” have been deeply hurt by this activity. They do this believing it will help them walk towards having a relationship, but actually makes them disposable. There is no earning the right to a kiss after being taken on a nice date because all he has to do is give your daughter a drink or two and then they’ll become sexual (feel free to interchange he with she and daughter with son). I realize this type of thing has been going on for years, but I’m telling you that it is more prevalent than when I was in high school in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At least at that time we tended to be “dating” before anything would happen. One client complained to me that the majority of her friends have a “hook-up” or a “friend with benefits,” but that nobody has a boyfriend or girlfriend. She said she’s commonly called prude, old-fashioned, and a tease because she isn’t sexual with her male friends; she insists on being taken out for a real date. I pointed out to her that although she is called names for this, she does actually have the respect of her male and female friends. She agreed. Can you believe she is made fun of for having self-respect?!?
Parents, I’m begging you to have multiple conversations with your teenagers about this. Please, please, please teach them that their bodies are to be treasured, not given away. Please set a strong example for them yourself. I realize that given the statistics today, half of you reading this have gone through a divorce. That means there are a significant number of you trying to date. For those of you in that situation, set the example for your teens of how you’d like them to handle sex. If you’re casual about it, they probably will be too; if you take it seriously and see it as a big deal, they probably will too.
One of the best things you can do as a parent is demand the respect your teenager deserves, and force them to give the respect their fellow teens should have. I realize that sentence wasn’t very clear, so this is an example of what I’m talking about. If you have a teenage son, require him to knock at the door and shake hands with a girl’s parents when he takes her out. If you have a teen daughter, don’t let her leave the house until her date has come to the door to pick her up and shaken your hand. If he’s clearly uncomfortable beyond the nerves any teen boy would feel standing face to face with a girl’s parents, don’t let her go with him! Hold very firm boundaries around teen dating while still letting them figure out what it’s all about. For goodness sake, talk to them about the destructiveness of just “hooking up!” We want our kids to grow up healthy and free of the burdens that come with sexually transmitted diseases, wounded hearts from sex that happened too young, and the pain of being cast off after giving everything to another person.
Bullying can cause your teen to appear depressed. Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
6th grade was hell for me. The girls in my carpool used to get out of the car and shut the door before I could get out. They’d walk off as fast as possible so they didn’t have to walk with me. When I’d get on the campus and try to stand in the circle of other 6th grade girls who were talking, they’d squeeze together so that I couldn’t stand with them. If I wore a shirt that any other girl had, they’d call me a “biter,” whatever that means. I came home crying all the time. Finally, my mom had had enough. She didn’t call the school. She did lock all the doors when the carpool got to school and told them sternly to stay put. She firmly told them their behavior was inappropriate and rude. She expected them to walk with me onto the campus, and always smile and wave when they saw me. She said if they said anything rude behind my back, talked about this little chat with other kids, or made me cry one more time she’d take it up with their parents. I was embarassed, but the rest of the school year was tolerable after that.
Your teenager comes home in tears. You ask what’s wrong and at first they don’t want to tell you. Then, after some prodding, they tell you there are some kids being mean at school. You ask what they’ve said or done. You’re teenager lets you know he’s been teased in the locker room because he’s hit puberty early, or late, or really it could be anything. Anything that’s a little bit different about your child is fair game. Adolescents are wonderful in so many ways; they’ve begun to have a sense of humor, take responsibility for themselves, and assert a lot of independence. However, adolescents are just awful in other ways.
Your daughter is in middle school, typically the worst age for bullying for girls, and she seems really down. Again, she won’t tell you what is wrong. It’s almost always a safe bet that there is something going on at school with friends. This is an age where pre-teen and early teenage girls are extremely sensitive to what others think of them. Your daughter tells you that at lunch her usual group of friends were all looking at her and whispering. She is certain they were saying mean things behind her back.
Some of the situations your teen children deal with are very normal. The two situations described above are extremely uncomfortable for your teenager to live though, but are typical. The situation I dealt with was a little bit more extreme, but still borderline bullying. In these situations try your best as a parent to help your teenager cope. The kids who fare best in these situations can laugh it off and dish it back out. If you teach your teenager to banter with other teens, remind them repeatedly not to curse, use physical force, or say anything mean. Help them know the line between what is being said in good fun and what is being said to just provoke. Teach them not to provoke, but to joke back enough that they are perceived as having a good humor. Teenagers are constantly chiding one another because they’re just discovering sarcasm. They try it out on each other and in the process of learning its limits, can sometimes be mean. If your kid seems to let it roll off, and even laugh at the things being said about/to them, the other kids will genuinely like them. On the other hand, if your adolescent is defensive, overly emotional or enraged, it will encourage more teasing and make them a bit of an outcast.
There are circumstances that qualify as true bullying. Don’t call the school’s vice principle to complain that your child is being bullied because it seems there might be a few people whispering about her. However, if she is being called names on a consistent basis, being physically threatened, or in any other way harassed, it is time to step in and take action. Your teenager may resist your involvement for fear of being even more disliked, but you have to recognize that teenagers don’t always know what’s best for them. The sooner it stops, the easier it will be for your child to go to school without distress.
In summary, to help your teen navigate the social politics at school, including bullying, keep in constant conversation. Help them to know home is a safe place where they will never be teased in a mean way, and where they will be loved no matter what. Be vigilant to see if your child is the bully, and put your foot down immediately to stop it if they are.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
We all mess up. Sometimes it’s accidental, and sometimes we make a bad choice. Whatever the case, once we realize there’s a problem with our behavior, honestly is the best way out. Yes, you will likely have a consequence, but it’s nothing compared to the consequence you’ll face if you lie about it or try to cover up your misdoing.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Hello, I’m Lauren! If you notice your teen struggling, you might be feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated or concerned as a parent. Try to remember, there is hope. I want to help your adolescent feel better. My hope is for them to enjoy their life again. I want them to feel confident they can handle whatever situations arise.
