Tag: adolescence

  • 4 Ways We Hold High School Students Back

    Photo by Megan Ann via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    In reading Robert Epstein’s book, Teen 2.0, the one thing that fundamentally shifted my thinking is that adults lament about childish behavior while simultaneously funding and celebrating it.

    Politely, Epstein says we have infantalized our youth. Maybe we need to take it a step further? We treat our young like pets.

    4 Quick Examples to Illustrate that Point

    1. We spend bagillions of dollars on the Rule of Law and Regulation of Teenagers: In the last 40 years we have created an immense amount of laws aimed at regulating behavior of those under 18. We force them to go to school. We regulate where they can go when school is out. We regulate when they can be out. We tell them what they can wear. Who they can be with. What they can ingest or not ingest. Epstein did a study comparing inmates to high school students and found that men in prison have more freedoms. But magically, despite 18 years old not being a significant number in physical or emotional development, we have decided that those over 18 can do whatever they want.
    2. We Celebrate Low Expectations: We have removed adult expectations from high school students. They can’t be bothered to even get out of bed in the summer, right? Forget the fact that physically high school students are near the pinnacle of their strength and can outwork their parents. Forget the fact that the adolescent brain is mostly ready to tackle adulthood, ever seen what happens when a teenage son asks his mom to help him with his physics homework? And forget the fact that teenagers can do amazing things. (Like say, discover a cancer treatment for a high school science fair) Instead of ramping up expectations for them, in our wealth, we remove expectations of productivity. We even limit the ability to have expectations of our high school students. Instead, we slyly whine about our teenage children at home and what they won’t do. Or a post-college student who has moved home but can’t find the right job.
    3. We have an unlimited spending appetite for teenage sexuality: Think of how many billions of dollars are spent annually preventing teen pregnancy? BILLIONS! But not nearly as many billions as are spent celebrating adolescent sex in advertising, television, movies, etc. Our culture has an obsession with adolescent sexuality. It’s taboo. And that taboo drives our spending on both prevention and celebration. Since we’ve labeled high school students as children, this forces a label that their sexual activities as irresponsible. Meanwhile everything in pop culture celebrates adolescent virility and fertility. (Television, music, news media, movies, etc.) Physically, the average 16 year old is completely ready for sex. But if that 16 year old wants to have a serious, long-term relationship? Oh heck no! We need to prevent it. We argue that they aren’t emotionally ready for a sexual relationship. (Hypocritically, we were but deny that even happened. And our great-grandparents married at 16 and had our grandparents at 19. Today’s teen pregnancy tragedy was yesterday’s normal sexual expectation.) Meanwhile, our Christian constructions argue for waiting until marriage… something which we’ve delayed almost 10 years on average in just 100 years! The average first marriage for a woman in the U.S. is now 26.5 years old.
    4. We Spend a Lot Keeping Teenagers Out of the Workplace: Up until the Great Depression most adolescents didn’t finish high school and entered the trades, farming, or a factory to work full-time. For the most part that is now illegal. We’ve regulated the types of and length of employment adolescents can participate in. We’ve created a false expectation that every student should go to college. (A notion our economy cannot support.) But we’ve created a multi-trillion dollar industry called compulsory high school we can’t bear to let go of or adjust in all of its disfunction. Instead, we now expect that students won’t go to work, earn money for their families, or otherwise contribute because they will perpetually get education for things they don’t want to study. We expect them to consume. And we’ve created industries around entertaining them so they have something to do while not working or not learning. (Sports, video games, summer school, camps, etc.)

    Is it no wonder why this period of adolescence has extended from 4-5 years in the 1940s to 13-14 years today? 

    Maybe it is time we reverse this trend? Maybe we need to start by getting out of the way and allowing adolescents to become adults?

  • The role of adolescent consent in parenting

    Kristen and I now officially see the precipise on our horizon.

    Megan, our oldest child, turned 10 yesterday. Within a few years we will be in the thick of adolescence. (And all of the parents I’ve worked with over the years will simple laugh. Not a polite giggle. An evil laugh because now I will know the terror they have gone through!)

    OK, not quite that dramatic. But change is definitely on the horizon for our family. And we know we’ll have to adjust our parenting skills as Megan enters into this new developmental stage.

    I recently read an article in Psychology Today that gives a high-level look at how parenting needs to adjust as you shift from having “a kid” to having “an emerging adolescent.”

    Thus, offensive though it may feel, the resistant adolescent’s words of advice to his parent have a ring of truth: “Get used to it!” Come the teenage years, compliance with parental authority is less automatic. This is why it’s easier to parent the dependent-minded child than it is the independent-minded adolescent. The harder “half” of parenting comes last.

    The formula for obedience to parental authority is simply this: command + consent = compliance. Parental authority is not automatic or absolute. It is not a matter of parents being able to control adolescent choices; it’s a matter of controlling their own choices in ways that allow them assert influence. And this takes work, working for consent.

    Consent can be secured by a variety of parental approaches – declaring your need for cooperation, making a serious and firm request, attaching consequences to compliance or noncompliance, repeated insistence to show you mean business, explaining reasons that are persuasive, negotiating a deal to get what you want.

    Read the rest

    I think it’s important for us to focus on the long-term goal. We want our kids to develop into strong, independent adults. In their relationships, we want them to have healthy, happy, and simple adult relationships.

    So, as we enter the precipice of the next 10 years, we are going to try to keep a long-lens on things. We know in the granular, day-to-day grind, that won’t be easy. And as soon as I wrote that down and looked back at it my youth pastor self said to my parent self, “Uh huh.”

    Parents of adolescents: Is the Psychology Today article on-point? Or do you just try to muscle your authority over your children through middle/high school?

  • Infantilization and deinfantilization of adolescence, part 1

    In the last year I read and was deeply disturbed by the book, Teen 2.0. If you are going to read a book in 2011, make it that one. It shook me.

    One of the primary things that Epstein brought up in the book and has dramatically impacted my view of youth ministry is the concept of infantilization. For years, youth workers (myself included) have lamented about how students are less and less mature and less and less willing to make adult steps. Epstein points out and asks us, “Why are students less and less mature?” To that question I offer something to chew on, Maybe because we’ve made them that way? And maybe we like it that way?

    I’d like to encourage you in the next 10 days to start recognizing infantilization in action.

    • Where are points where we don’t expect adolescents to take responsibilities for their lives?
    • Where are points in your ministry where you take away students ability to own their faith?
    • What are ways parents are holding their adolescent children back from healthy adult behavior?
    • What are words that you use which infantilize 12-18 year olds in your life?

    Don’t do anything but observe. Write them down in Evernote or on a piece of paper so you can keep track.

    And then, if you are so inclined, come back and share what you’ve observed.

  • Savior: The Adult Desire to Save Teenagers From Themselves

    Photo by fengschwing via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Am I the only one who notices that adults seem to obsessed about teenage lives? More to the point, we seem obsessed with pointing out how we need to intervene before they destroy themselves and the human race.

    Our culture takes a very negative view of people between the ages of 13-18. If you work with them, you are used to folks turning up their noses when you tell them you love working with that age group.

    Here are some recent headlines to illustrate the point:

    School: Little as they try, students can’t get a D here [New York Times] more articles…

    Sleep: Lack of sleep linked to obesity for teen boys [Time Magazine] more articles…

    Sex: Teenage girls rely on the rhythm method [What is the trend] more articles…

    Crime: States rethink “adult time for adult crime” [CNN] more articles…

    Forgive me if the links provided aren’t damning evidence. You are welcome to browse my entire body of hundreds of news articles on adolescence to get a better flavor. What I am talking about is not a hot pile of evidence. It is a slow burn of negative views on adolescents as well as adult desires to fix teenagers.

    Another angle that demonstrates this is our wonderment over a teenager who does something good. Sail around the world? Shocking! Raise money for a worthy cause? News at 11! Start a successful business? Give her an award!

    It seems that those news stories are of interest, in part, because we expect teenagers to only do negative/self-destructive things and when they do something amazing it must be newsworthy.

    Three observations I want to point out on this topic

    1. Jesus is their savior, you aren’t.
    2. Have you ever wondered why sports are so popular with adolescents? Maybe it’s the easiest place for them to achieve and/or exceed expectations.
    3. Teenagers have about the same grades, sleep about the same, have the same amount of sex, and commit the same amount of crimes that they always have. Our obsessing over it only reveals something twisted in our lives and not theirs.

  • Youth Ministry as Life Ministry

    Photo by bipolarbear via Flickr (creative commons)

    A few years ago I was talking to a senior pastor about youth ministry. In a moment of honesty he said something like this.

    “I don’t get it. Tell me why you want to work with high school students your whole life. You’re qualified to be a senior pastor. You have all the qualities people look for in a senior pastor. And your teaching style moves high school students to a type of faith that most churches would love. Plus, you could be the boss and you’d make a lot more money. What don’t I see?”

    The truth was that it took me by surprise because I’d never been asked that question. I’ve only been asked it’s annoying cousin, “When are you going to be a “real” pastor?”

    Here’s a summary of what I told him:

    • I love the process. In the 5-6 years that you have a student in your ministry you see them go from squirrelly middle schooler to mostly grown up.
    • I love that adolescents are moldable. The reason you can teach them radical truths and they will respond is pretty amazing. You just don’t see many adults looking for truth to move them.
    • I love the fun factor. When was the last time you’ve preached to adults and illustrated something by covering a kid in shaving cream or dunking for oreos in chocolate syrup. Like never. There’s a middle schooler in me that is highly amused by this kinesthetic goofy learning stuff. Adults just don’t go for it.
    • I love that it doesn’t end unless you want it to. Seriously, this is a beautiful time of year. I love the longitudinal factor of youth ministry. And I love the fact that you can chose to continue investing in some students while having a perfectly good excuse to move them out of your life. You can’t do that as a senior pastor, can you?

    How would you have answered this question?

  • Hey youth workers… do you believe?

    Image by hiddedevries via Flickr (creative commons)
    Image by hiddedevries via Flickr (creative commons)

    Here’s the deal.

    Dirty little secret time.

    I think a lot of youth pastors, youth ministers, youth directors don’t believe in the power of adolescents to flip their world on its head.

    Adults think they can do it all. And they backfill that belief with anecdotal information to make themselves feel better.

    They think kids are too busy. They think kids are distracted by education. They think kids care more about sports. They think that you have to be spiritually mature to reach your friends for Christ. They think parents just get in the way. They think lack of resources get in the way. They think ordinary kids can’t do extraordinary stuff.

    When they see inspirational stories of teenagers who have made a huge difference, they don’t think their kids could do that. And they wonder why the adults who “really lead that” aren’t in the spotlight. The aspire to see stuff like that happen in their midst but refuse to believe the style of leadership that leads up to it.

    A lot of youth leaders think its their job to do those things themselves. They think that because they are “the leader” they should be the ones leading the charge. Kids are just the pawns who attract the cameras, so they think. Ultimately, they think they are the ones who are responsible for making something big happen.

    They have it upside down.

    Adults just get in the way with their ego, agendas, and desires to be famous. “Maybe Disney will make a movie of my awesome leadership?”

    Reality check– Adults who “lead” big movements of God are typically on the sidelines. They coach. They inspire quietly. They parent. They mentor. They encourage. Most importantly, they know that the best thing they can do is equip them to lead and get the heck out of the way. And then they stand by and watch. (And then coach some more, mentor some more, parent some more, encourage some more, develop some more.)

    If there is a microphone, they are reluctant to step up to it. But they are quick to put a student in front of it.

    The big fancy adult leadership Christians are infatuated with rarely, if ever, results in movements of teens. (Whether as movements of religion or otherwise.) We chase after it but it’s a myth. You get there only to discover you’ve wasted a lot of time, energy, and investment in the wrong stuff.

    The style of leadership that seems to result in the most world change involves handing the reigns over to kids and believing in them. It’s the most organic, natural, and effective style of leadership. It’s so easy a football coach can do it. Or a high school basketball coach. Or a Little League coach.

    Those leaders do their leading on practice days and give the kids the spotlight on game day. Kids step up because that coach believes in them enough to put their reputation behind them.

    And that’s the problem. Most adult leaders in youth ministry don’t seem to believe in kids.

    What do you believe in…?

  • 3 Reasons Gen Y Doesn’t Get Twitter

    get-twitter

    Great little read here from Millenial Marketing about Twitter adoption of middle adolescents. (The core group for explosive growth of Myspace and Facebook.)

    To summarize here points, Notre Dame marketing professor Carol Phillips suggests these 3 reasons Twitter hasn’t popped in that megamarket.

    1. Twitter adds no meaningful functionality that Facebook doesn’t. (Calendar, messaging, photos, etc.)

    2. No self-branding of personality/activities beyond a status update. Things happen so fast there is no time for friends to react to what you’re doing.

    3. Millenials aren’t accustomed to making friends online. They’ve been warned against that their entire lives!

    Do the middle adolescents in your life use Twitter? Why or why not?

  • Longsuffering in the church

    A key component to the personal preference sin so prevalent in the United States evangelical church is a lack of respect for the word, longsuffering.

    Now, there are plenty of proponents of the idea of short-suffering. In other words, if a church or ministry or job or anything in your life doesn’t meet your exacting specifications you need to bail on it immediately. Their argument is that life is too short to longsuffer and the church shouldn’t be patient enough to pay you while you longsuffer. They somehow tie personal preferences into integrity… so if you stick it out at a job or a church because you believe you need to stay, you are somehow violating your integrity because you are not working or attending that church with a 100% joyful heart. They deny that there is anything spiritual in enduring something unpleasant if there is a pleasant alternative.

    An Example for Relationships

    Friends, this lack of longsuffering as a spiritual discipline is also a major lie that has led to the elongation of adolescence in America. If you’ve done student ministry in the last decade you’ve seen it first hand. God gives Christians a single requirement for getting married, that person must be a believer in Jesus.

    Yet, over and over, I see perfectly eligible men and women elongate singleness (and in many cases adolescent dependency on parents) because they don’t trust God beyond their personal preferences. They need someone a certain height, weight, and cultural background. They need someone driven towards certain goals or career aspirations, who want a certain number of children, and want to live in a certain location.

    In fact, we’ve all seen our friends bend God’s single requirement for us in order to get what we want! So they will find “Mr. Right” and completely decimate their walk with Christ in the process only to later discover that he was “Mr. Wrong.” Or, they let their personal preferences get in the way of finding the man or woman God has made for them or allowing that relationship to get to the altar. It’s sad to see personal preferences get in the way of fulfillment in finding a spouse. Kristen and I have joked about this for a long time, but I think it is true. If we just randomly assigned people to one another based solely on “Do you love Jesus more than anything else” we think we could pair up about anyone. We are all imperfect. We are all unloveable. None of us are ideal. When we chose to love someone because they love Jesus… then you will experience what true love and romance really are. Surfacey stuff is ultimately just crap that won’t lead to happiness, anyway. Learning to love someone despite your own personal preferences is what leads to true love!

    Those of us who have been married a few years know that long suffering and marriage go hand in hand. (Heard an Amen! coming from Kristen‘s direction when I wrote that.) In other words, if what you like about your spouse is that they meet your personal preferences, your marriage is doomed! Here’s a hint, the more you trust God that He provided a spouse who completes your weaknesses the happier you’ll be in marriage. (It’s about trusting God more than you trust yourself.) When I see couples whose sole connection is wrapped around a personal preference... I can only hope that their marriage will last beyond that. One of the most powerful and loving things a spouse can ever do for the other is to love you despite your inability to meet their personal preferences.

    If we think of ourselves as the Bride of Christ, we immediately see the stupidity of personal preferences in the church dividing us. We, singular and corporately, are the Bride. In our towns there is a sole bride, not brides. And yet Jesus has to love us all how we want to be loved? Who is long suffering now? Who is having 2,000 communions on Sunday morning instead of one? Whose name is lifted up in a thousand styles instead of one?

    I look at belonging to a church a lot like a marriage.

    1. Let’s say, right now, you go to a church which is fine doctrinally but you hate the music. If this were a marriage would you leave? You would feel pretty childish telling a divorce attorney that you can’t stay married to your husband because he likes rap music. Now, country music, I’ll give you that… But no one would leave a spouse because of a musical preference. But people do it in church every day.

    2. Let’s say you go to a church who killed a program you loved. If this were a marriage and your spouse changed date night from Wednesday to Sunday, would you leave him? I doubt it. But people leave churches for stupid stuff like that every day.

    3. Let’s say you go to a church who mismanaged some money. If every marriage in America were in divorce court because of this, we’d be a in a heap of mess.

    4. Let’s say you go to a church where you didn’t like the liturgy. Would you divorce a person because they didn’t read the same Bible translation as you?

    5. One commenter said she couldn’t go to a church because she disagreed with how the church practiced communion. If that were a marriage and your spouse wanted “communion” in a way you didn’t like… you’d probably head to counseling before divorce court.

    Think of all the personal preference reasons people leave a church! There are hundreds of them. Church leaders are going bald trying to figure out how to keep everyone happy instead of trying to lead people in worship! I’ve been in dozens of staff meetings where the leaders were more worried about keeping congregants pleased than taking the worship service a direction we felt God was calling it to. In other words, we repeatedly compromised our convictions for the High Holy Calling of the personal preference god so many worship on Sunday mornings.

    What am I asking “the evangelical church” to do?

    Time to cut to the chase. I’m not naive. I know that there are divisions in place today and it is silly to say we should all come together as a single body. I know it is insane to dream of a united church community who worships together on Sunday mornings, in Spirit and Truth, despite the fact that some like rock music and some like choir. I know it is impossible to dream of a church who worshiped together despite the fact that some are white or black or Hispanic. I know it is ludicrous to think that churches could bundle their buildings together for Kingdom work beyond the realm of what they want their buildings to be used for. I know it is preposterous to think that churches could start talking about reaching communities instead of birthing more baptists or presenting more Presbyterians. I know it is arrogant to think that one church leader should willfully submit his congregation to another. I know it is crazy to dream of one church in one city reaching the 95% of lost souls despite tiny doctrinal differences.

    But my hope is that it can happen.

    And I dream and think these things because followers of Jesus are overpowered with a silly, insane, impossible, ludicrous, preposterous, arrogant, and crazy love that comes from a Risen Savior. He came to unite. He came to break down barriers. And he wants us to long suffer with one another as an act of worship of Him.

    That’s my hope. That’s my dream. And that’s what I think the evangelical church should be about in America.

    I’m nailing this thesis to my wall. Thoughts?