Taking It Easy with Time and Touch

Maybe it's because I just had another birthday. maybe it's because I'm a granddad several times over. Or maybe it's because of a struggling young seminarian I met recently who wishes he had been higher on his parents' priority list than, say, fifth or sixth. He was hurried and ignored through childhood, then tolerated and misunderstood through adolescence, and finally expected to "be a man" without having been taught how.

My words are dedicated to all of you who have the opportunity to make an investment in a growing child so that he or she might someday be whole and healthy, secure and mature. Granted, yours is a tough job. Relentless and thankless . . . at least for now. There is every temptation to escape from the responsibilities that are yours and yours alone. But nobody is better qualified to shape the thinking, to answer the questions, to assist during the struggles, to calm the fears, to administer the discipline, to know the innermost heart, or to love and affirm the life of your offspring than you.

When it comes to "training up the child in the way he should go," you've got the inside lane, Mom and Dad. No teacher or coach, neighbor or friend, no grandparent or sibling, counselor or minister will have the influence on your kid that you are having. So - take it easy! Remember (as Anne Ortlund puts it) "children are wet cement." They take the shape of your mold. They're learning even when you don't think they're watching. And those little guys and gals are plenty smart. They hear tone as well as terms. They read looks as well as books. They figure out motives, even those you think you can hide. They are not fooled, not in the long haul.

The two most important tools of parenting are time and touch. Believe me, both are essential. If you and I hope to release from our nest fairly capable and relatively stable people who can soar and make it on their own, we'll need to pay the price of saying no to many of our own wants and needs in order to interact with our young . . . and we'll have to keep breaking down the distance that only naturally forms as our little people grow up.

Time and touch. nothing new, I realize, yet both remain irreducible minimums when it comes to good parenting. Take it easy! Listen to your boy or girl, look them in the eye, put your arms around them, hug them close, tell them how valuable they are. Don't hold back. Take the time to do it. Reach. Touch.

Don't stand alongside your son or daughter like statues, unable to say what you feel, uncomfortable and distant. Take time to feel, to listen, to hold your child close.

When you are tempted to get involved in some energy-draining, time-consuming opportunity that will only increase the distance between you and yours, stop and think of the unspoken message it will convey. Ask yourself hard questions like, "Could my time be better spent at home?" and "Won't there be similar opportunities in the years to come?" Then turn your attention to your boy or girl. Hold nothing back as you renew acquaintances.
Take it easy!

-Taken from Charles R. Swindoll, The Finishing Touch: Becoming God's Masterpiece (Nashville: Word, 1994), 524-25. Copyright © 1994 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved.
-www.oneplace.com

May is national teen pregnancy prevention month

Bristol Palin makes it look way too easy. She appears on the cover of national magazines with her famous mom and baby. She partners with organizations that encourage teens to practice sexual abstinence.

What are conspicuously absent are the pictures of crying babies who suffer from chronic health issues and their mothers who have dropped out of high school.

While I certainly wish Bristol and Tripp all the best, I’m concerned about the growing trend in teen pregnancy. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, one third of all young women become pregnant before they reach their 20th birthdays. Eighty percent of these 750,000 pregnancies are unplanned. Seventy-nine percent are to unmarried teens.

Although teen pregnancies declined between 1991 and 2005, they rose for the second straight year in 2007. Teenage birth rates in the United States are high, exceeding those found in most industrialized nations.

Teens and their babies face increased health risks.

Read entire article here.

By Linda Lewis Griffith, St. Louis Tribune

Kyleigh's Law Aims to Protect Teen Drivers

New Jersey will become the first state to require decals on the cars of teen drivers when Kyleigh's Law takes effect on Saturday, and people are split on how they feel about the law.

The new mandate will require all motorists with a permit or provisional license to display a reflective red sticker on their front and back license plates. Not placing the decal on a car of a qualifying driver carries a $100 fine. They are available at $4 per pair and are available at any local motor vehicle agency.

The new law, named after 16-year-old West Morris Central student Kyleigh D'Alessio, aims to cut down on accidents among teen drivers. Donna Weeks, Kyleigh's mother, began lobbying for new legislation when her daughter and another high school student died in a 2006 crash in Washington Township.

Kyleigh's Law targets the most vulnerable of all age groups, teens. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Teen Driver Fact Sheet, "Per mile driven, teen drivers ages 16 to 19 are four times more likely than older drivers to crash." In 2008, 3,500 American teens between the ages of 15 and 19 were killed in motor vehicle crashes.

The law's intent is to cut down on the number of accidents by easing the identification of teen drivers for police officers. It would enable officers to more strictly enforce the restrictions placed on younger motorists. A driver who holds a provisional license may not drive between the hours of 11:01 p.m. and 5 a.m. and is only permitted to drive with a parent, guardian or dependent or one other passenger unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Read More...

-By Sam Waters, www.milburn.patch.com

Study: Teens prefer texting to talking

Like previous generations, today's teens seem to be constantly on the
phone. But now they're doing a lot more texting than talking.

One third of teens in the U.S. text more than 100 times a day, according to
a study released Tuesday by Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Based on a survey and focus groups conducted with teenagers between 12 and
17, Pew found that text messaging is by far the most common way that kids
communicate with each other, more than chatting on the phone, e-mailing, using
social-networking sites, or talking face to face.

More than 75 percent of teens now own cell phones, notes Pew, up from just
45 percent in 2004. Around 72 percent of all teens, or 88 percent of teens who
own mobile phones, use text messages to communicate. That marks a big jump from
2006 when only 51 percent of teens texted on their phones.

Read entire article

By: Lance Whitney, http://news.cnet.com

5 Teen Behavior Problems: A Troubleshooting Guide

To be fair, no one has ever pretended that parenting a teenager was going to be easy. Still, until your own kids reach that stage, it's tempting to believe your family will be immune to teen behavior problems. No, you tell yourself, your teenager will never talk back, stay out too late or pierce her eyebrow.

Dream on.

Teenagers are basically hard-wired to butt heads with their parents, says Stuart Goldman, MD, director of psychiatric education at Children's Hospital in Boston. "Adolescence is a time of rapid change for kids both physically and cognitively," he explains. "It's the task of the teenager to fire their parents and then re-hire them years later, but as consultants rather than managers."

But that doesn't mean you have to take it lying down. With the right approach, you can troubleshoot the following teen behavior problems in a relatively civilized fashion.

Teen Behavior Problem 1: Your Teen Seems To Hate You

-Read all

By Christina Frank
WebMD Feature
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Tips for Parenting A Troubled Teen

Teens who are having problems that are causing negative behavior to them is termed as troubled teen. These problems continue to affect them which will stop them to develop into a successful adult.

The problems that the teens are facing are beyond the normal issues. The problems might be related to environment, peer pressure and abusive relationship. These problems can give rise to mental and physical issues in the teens.

Analyze carefully the behavior of the troubled teen. Understand what is happening to the teen before and after the behavior. Once you understand the bad behavior, you can target on undesirable behavior of the teen.

Many times you will find that your teen won’t follow any rule and end up with what they wanted to have. That is why it is important to understand the reason behind the behavior of the troubled teen. Once you are able to understand the reason you can use the specific technique to treat your troubled teen. Behavior modification is the effective technique used for the troubled teen.

Signs of Troubled Teens:-

If you observe that your teen is showing the following signs frequently, it means that you are dealing with a troubled teen. Below are the signs given:-

• You will find that your teen’s grade is falling down.
• You will observe that your teen’s mood swings easily.
• Your teen will feel intense sad
• Your teen will avoid positive friendship
• You will find that your teen has become secretive
• You will find that your teen’s attitude has become defiant
• You will see your teen has become rebellion
• Your teen will find humor when others are distress
• You will observe that your teen spend a lot of time in sleeping

4 Ways to deal with Troubled Teens:-

• Be a supportive parent. Assure your teen that you love him very much. Always be there with your teen whenever he needs you.
• Praise your teen whenever he shows positive behavior. You can also give reward to your teen.
• Set rules for your teens. Give punishment whenever you find that your teen has break the rule. Make rules which are real and practically applicable
• Do not argue with your troubled teen. If you find that your teen is arguing with you, ignore his behavior. Be firm at the same time flexible whenever required.

-parenting.ygoy.com

In the uproar around the suicides of Ms. Prince, 15, and an 11-year-old boy subjected to harassment in nearby Springfield last year, the Massachusetts legislature stepped up work on an anti-bullying law that is now near passage. The law would require school staff members to report suspected incidents and principals to investigate them. It would also demand that schools teach about the dangers of bullying.

Forty-one other states have anti-bullying laws of varying strength.

In the Prince case, two boys and four girls, ages 16 to 18, face a different mix of felony charges that include statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury, harassment, stalking and disturbing a school assembly. Three younger girls have been charged in juvenile court, Elizabeth D. Scheibel, the Northwestern district attorney, said at a news conference in Northampton, Mass.

Appearing with state and local police officials on Monday, Ms. Scheibel said that Ms. Prince’s suicide came after nearly three months of severe taunting and physical threats by a cluster of fellow students.

“The investigation revealed relentless activities directed toward Phoebe to make it impossible for her to stay at school,” Ms. Scheibel said. The conduct of those charged, she said, “far exceeded the limits of normal teenage relationship-related quarrels.”

It was particularly alarming, the district attorney said, that some teachers, administrators and other staff members at the school were aware of the harassment but did not stop it. “The actions or inactions of some adults at the school were troublesome,” Ms. Scheibel said, but did not violate any laws.

Read entire article here

-By Holly Epstein Ojalvo, nytimes.com