It’s a Guy Thing
Encouraging spiritual growth in teenage and young adult guys can be a unique challenge because they often see religion as a weakness and may rebel more than girls against parental attitudes. Keeping this in mind, I would like to share with you some information that I have found useful. According to Bill Beausay in his book Teenage Boys!, there are four important aspects to help create a spiritual home base for these young men.
1. Get Happy: Focus on the joy in your own faith rather than cornering your teenager with ultimatums.
2. Create Proximity: Expose your teenager to people who are alive in Christ, such as speakers, athletes, youth specialists, and other Christian family members and friends.
3. Be Jesus-Flavored: Bring Jesus alive for your teenager by “seasoning” your own life with Christlike behavior. If you live with Jesus’ radical faith and kindness, Jesus will become an actual presence in your son’s life.
4. Get Caught Giving: Don’t just give money. Give time, compliments, gifts, acts of service, blessings, and thanks.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Values: Youth and Money
With the way teenagers spend money, one would think that they would just blow a large amount of money that they suddenly won. However, research shows that this is not generally the case.
According to a recent survey, when American teenagers were asked, "What would you do if you won $100,000?" an astounding 93% of them stated that they would buy a gift for their parents. They don't plan on spending it all on this present, so other things they would spend that money on are:
New car 67%
Vacation 63%
College 55%
Charity 45%
(Source: Impulse Research for Tombstone)
Having information like this should encourage parents to continue to talk with their tweenagers and teenagers about responsibility with money. Below is a short list of some great opportunities to talk about money with your youth.
Take your youth with you when you go grocery shopping - it’s a great way to teach them budgeting.
Talk about the ads you see on TV. Talk about how these ads work or do not work on selling youth products. Use these ideas to help come up with ways to keep TV marketing from working on your youth.
Have your teenage help when it’s time to pay your monthly bills. This is a chance for you to talk about how much things really cost and learn how to meet their own financial responsibiliy in the future.
Praise your youth when they reach a financial goal such as saving for a large ticket item. Positive reinforcement is a powerful motivator.
With the way teenagers spend money, one would think that they would just blow a large amount of money that they suddenly won. However, research shows that this is not generally the case.
According to a recent survey, when American teenagers were asked, "What would you do if you won $100,000?" an astounding 93% of them stated that they would buy a gift for their parents. They don't plan on spending it all on this present, so other things they would spend that money on are:
New car 67%
Vacation 63%
College 55%
Charity 45%
(Source: Impulse Research for Tombstone)
Having information like this should encourage parents to continue to talk with their tweenagers and teenagers about responsibility with money. Below is a short list of some great opportunities to talk about money with your youth.
Take your youth with you when you go grocery shopping - it’s a great way to teach them budgeting.
Talk about the ads you see on TV. Talk about how these ads work or do not work on selling youth products. Use these ideas to help come up with ways to keep TV marketing from working on your youth.
Have your teenage help when it’s time to pay your monthly bills. This is a chance for you to talk about how much things really cost and learn how to meet their own financial responsibiliy in the future.
Praise your youth when they reach a financial goal such as saving for a large ticket item. Positive reinforcement is a powerful motivator.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Consequences and Reconciliation
I was surfing the ‘net and came across an old story about how a teacher found a novel way to make students pay for their transgressions. The teacher, Bruce Janu, had students who ended up getting in trouble in school at Riverside-Brookfield High outside of Chicago stay after school in the Frank Sinatra Detention Club. There, for 30 minutes, they must sit utterly still--no talking, no homework, no snoozing - and listen to “Ol'Blue Eyes” croon songs from a by-gone era.
"The kids hate it. They're miserable," reports Mr Janu, a Sinatra fan who devised the club as a way to make detention more fun for him and less so for the students.
"It just got to where I couldn't stand it," said one senior. "It was SO BORING."
Janu isn't totally heartless though. He lets students sing along if they want - but nobody does.
It is important for people to learn that choices have consequences. In terms of their later success, it is one of the most important lessons that they will learn. Adults who are continually bailing their children out when they make mistakes are cheating their children out of one of life's most important lessons: we reap what we sow. Someone has put it this way. There are two major pains in life: the pain of discipline and the pain of regret.
And God is always ready to offer us reconciliation.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5.18)
I was surfing the ‘net and came across an old story about how a teacher found a novel way to make students pay for their transgressions. The teacher, Bruce Janu, had students who ended up getting in trouble in school at Riverside-Brookfield High outside of Chicago stay after school in the Frank Sinatra Detention Club. There, for 30 minutes, they must sit utterly still--no talking, no homework, no snoozing - and listen to “Ol'Blue Eyes” croon songs from a by-gone era.
"The kids hate it. They're miserable," reports Mr Janu, a Sinatra fan who devised the club as a way to make detention more fun for him and less so for the students.
"It just got to where I couldn't stand it," said one senior. "It was SO BORING."
Janu isn't totally heartless though. He lets students sing along if they want - but nobody does.
It is important for people to learn that choices have consequences. In terms of their later success, it is one of the most important lessons that they will learn. Adults who are continually bailing their children out when they make mistakes are cheating their children out of one of life's most important lessons: we reap what we sow. Someone has put it this way. There are two major pains in life: the pain of discipline and the pain of regret.
And God is always ready to offer us reconciliation.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5.18)
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