Teen Suicide Prompts A Look At Bullying

Phoebe Prince’s lilting Irish accent and wide smile made the 15-year-old freshman stand out at South Hadley High School, where she enrolled last fall after her family relocated from a tiny village in the west of Ireland.

Her principal called her smart and charming. A boy invited the new girl to the school’s winter cotillion, a highlight of the school year. But two days before the Jan. 16 dance, Prince died in an apparent suicide, after incessant bullying by classmates at the 700-student high school.

“In a school with that many kids, there are going to be issues,’’ Sergeant Robert Whelihan, a spokesman for the South Hadley Police Department said yesterday. “We are investigating what effects the bullying might have had on the suicide.’’

The bullying included disagreements over teen romances at school, school officials said. And it continued with taunting text messages and harassing postings on Facebook, the popular social networking site.

“The real problem now is the texting stuff and the cyber-bullying,’’ said South Hadley School Superintendent Gus A. Sayer. “Some kids can be very mean towards one another using that medium.’’

Sayer declined to comment on the exact nature of the bullying, but said much of it was done online or by cellphones. Read more.

-Kathy McCabe, boston.com

To Save A Life Movie Opens January 22, 2010

On January 22, 2010 To Save a Life opens in theaters nationwide. This exciting Christian film confronts many teen issues. New Song Pictures gives viewers a touching story that will certainly change the way they see people. The story is inspiring and the way it deals with the issues the characters face is remarkable.

To Save a Life is the story of a teenage boy, Jake (Randy Wayne), who must make the choice to do what is popular or what is right. In the past he made the choice to be popular and it cost him a friend, literally. Now he will not let that happen again. Jake must also decide what he believes as far as God. A youth pastor, Chris (Joshua Weigel), comes into Jake’s path and he has a very unique, but effective way of dealing with the teens. Jake’s faith is tested by many difficulties, but the final outcome is inspirational.

To Save a Life discusses difficult topics such as suicide, cutting, divorce, teen pregnancy, dating, partying, drinking/drugs, depression, abortion, adultery and more. Although it is very tastefully handled, parents and leaders should know. This is a very moving film that will help adults to understand what our teens are facing and teens to see what their actions towards others could be saying.

To Save a Life is a powerful movie. It is a great film for any teen, parent, youth group, etc. I do want to warn there are some topics that might be too mature for younger kids; however most teens are aware of these issues. Please check out the official website www.tosavealifemovie.com to find a theater near you and for resources. Today many teens are faced with issues and situations similar to those discussed in the movie and this film may be just what is needed, to save a life.

-by: Dana Chafin at FamilyChristianMovies.com

The Myth of the Perfect Parent

My family and I were traveling in Guatemala a few years ago. We visited a man who had given his life to serving a poor congregation. We sat at the kitchen table with him, a man who had been bent into humility by the burdens of pastoring in a struggling nation while raising four children.

Still in the muddy trenches of parenthood with our five sons and one daughter, we confessed to him our feelings of inadequacy. "Your children are grown. What have you learned looking back on your years of child-raising? Do you have any advice for us?" We looked at him, needy, expectant.

He would have none of it. "I'm not one to talk to. I don't exactly have a perfect record." One of his children was immersed in an addiction, he told us, visibly sad. Another had a failed marriage.

He was silent for a moment, nodding slowly, and then continued. "I never lived up to my mother's expectations either. I've been reading her journal lately, and I see how she prayed for me, what she prayed. And I've never lived up to what she hoped for me," he said, his voice a near-whisper. "I think she considered me a failure."

Read More

-Leslie Leyland Fields, ChristianityToday.com

Make Family Your New Year Priority

As we begin the New Year it's time for America to face the fact that the modern American family is in crisis. With the pressures of dual careers, often no one is keeping the home fires burning. What families gain with an additional bread-earner, they often pay for with a loss of nurturing.

Many of our nation's children spend more time with an endless flow of randomly-assigned teachers and "care givers" than they do with their own parents. This trend has left children of all ages hungry for the richness and depth of fully developed parent/child relationships.

Family members are often like ships that pass in the night. Many get lost in the fog of a busy life, crash on the reefs of loneliness and end up split apart. Everyone suffers, and children suffer most.

Read entire article

Rebecca Hagelin Author, 30 Ways in 30 Days to Save Your Family, crosswalk.com

Helping Teens Take Perspective of the New Year

The teen years can be the most difficult of all years. Think back on your sixth grade through twelfth grade years. What do you remember? Unfortunately our lives are often colored by events that happen to us in our teen years. Maybe you were bullied. Maybe your parents got a divorce. All of life's embarrassing changes happen to our physical bodies during our teen years. And everything tends to be amplified and awkward. How do we help our teens get perspective and make changes for the New Year?

The New Year is a great opportunity to sit down with your teens and reflect on those things - good and bad - that occurred during the year. Grab an old calendar and take it apart, or on a large sheet of butcher paper, draw lines dividing into twelve equal parts. Lay out the year by month in sequential order from January to December. Using various colored pencils or markers, pick a color or group of colors to mark the bad events. Use another color or set of colors to mark the good events. Go through the year, month by month writing down the events. For every bad event that is remembered and marked, the teens need to come up with at least two good events to place on the calendar. For every bad event remembered, have the teens think of at least one good thing that happened because of the bad event.

What the teens will eventually discover is that the good events outweigh the bad and they will actually remember the good, more than the bad.

After that exercise, talk with your teens about the New Year as an opportunity to start over, make a few changes, and make the bad events of the past into good events of the future.

Grab a new calendar for the New Year and start making plans to implement changes and make hopeful plans.

-Jan Sullivan
AprilWord

Jan Sullivan received a Masters Degree in Youth Ministry from Asbury Theological Seminary. She served as a youth pastor for thirteen years in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. She published her first book, Forever Family, in July 2008. Her second, Never Alone, was published in August 2009. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky with her dog Abby and spends her time loving teenagers and consuming Christian fiction. Modeling her life after Christ, the great storyteller, Jan hopes that her stories will lead young people to make decisions to follow Christ.

jan@aprilword.com

http://www.aprilword.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jan_Sullivan

Christmas Gift for Teens

The Christmas holiday will be here before we have a chance to breathe after Thanksgiving. Stores have had their Christmas decorations up for weeks now and parents are gearing up for the dreaded holiday shopping.

Some of the most difficult gifts to buy at Christmas is for teens. With all the gadgets teens want, they may not realize what they need. That's where parents step in.

Why not give your teen something that will help them move through their teen years with Godly insight? A book designed to discuss topics that affect teens daily. A book that gives teens and parents a place to come together to openly discuss some of the difficulties they face.

The book is, Tools4Teens.

Rich in truth, moving in story, profound in content … it’s what you want every teenager to read, reflect and relate to as they attempt to navigate the most turbulent waters of life … the teenage years! With the Spirit of faith, hope and love, Kelly Litvak and Shirley Hanson have assembled more than a book, it is a snapshot of an intersection between the two most important stories in history, God’s story and yours. ~ Jerry Edmonson, Lead Pastor, The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch

Order yours today. It's the easiest gift you'll purchase but the one that will sow seeds that will grow a lifetime.

Teen Pregnancy: A Growing Issue

Despite countless government, religious, and community efforts, teen pregnancy continues to be a growing teen issue. An issue, that some teens, actually think they want.

Post staff writer N.C. Aizenman discusses why two teen sisters from Silver Spring would decide to start trying to get pregnant at ages 14 and 15, and why the teen pregnancy rate for Latinas born in the United States remains stubbornly high.

Read entire aritcle.

N.C. Aizenman

Washington Post staff writer, WashingtonPost.com
Friday, December 11, 2009; 12:30 PM

Helping teens see their potential future may help those teens who think having a baby will give them a life they desire.