In this 2-part article, Psychologist Alan Kazdin (Yale) with writer Carlo Rotella analyze research on the adolescent brain in an attempt to bust the myth that teenagers are worse than adults at assessing risks and making rational decisions.1 It’s an interesting read, inviting us to revisit how we try to prepare teens for decision-making in the face of high-risk options (I’ve shared other thoughts on this in a previous post on teen brain research). The authors contend that there are a lot of common interventions and prevention measures that simply don’t work.
What research does support in terms of parenting strategies that work to counteract high-risk behaviors among teens (according to the authors) is a set of fairly unsophisticated responses. The primary practice for parents to prevent bad choices? Monitoring. Keeping track of where kids are and—especially—who they are with. Peer influences are incredibly important because the teen brain is most rewarded by the presence and approval of peers. Hanging out with other kids doing high-risk behaviors is one of the strongest predictors of substance use and abuse. (One interesting note on gender here: parents tend to monitor teen girls more than boys, which some have suggested may be a reason teen boys participate in more high-risk behaviors—simply because they have less supervision.)
Monitoring sounds like policing or high-intensity surveillance, but it doesn’t mean the same thing as hovering. Here’s a quote from the authors about what kind of monitoring they’re talking about:
The members of families in which parents monitor have stronger ties, are more involved with one another, have warmer relationships, and are more cohesive and communicate better. A more askable, approachable parent with a warm relationship to a child will have more success in monitoring without turning into a warden. To that end, it helps to make monitoring normal and mutual in your household—which you can model by talking to your children about your day at the dinner table or during rides in the car—and to begin early. 2
The other suggested strategies include: building and modeling values for family, school, and society; developing competencies in kids (1 or 2 is plenty; no need for extra-curricular overkill); and nurturing the parent-child relationship. The last one seems like a no-brainer, but during adolescence can feel like incredibly hard work, especially when kids push away. Yet, “When there’s more parent connectedness—a child feeling close, loved, wanted, listened to, and satisfied with the relationship—a child is at much less risk for engaging in dangerous behaviors.”
Worth thinking about this week.
Alan Kazdin and Carlo Rotella, “No Brakes! Risk and the Adolescent Brain” and “No Brakes! The best way to guide your teenager through the high-risk years.” Washington Post’s Slate.com [↩]
“Parents who complain of feeling burned out at work are more likely to have kids who are burned out at school.” 1
Last month I posted research about stress becoming a top health concern for teens in the U.S. Last week NY Times reporter Tara Parker-Pope shared about a study in Finland that revealed that burnout tends to run in families. This is particularly true between mothers burnt out at work and their teen daughters burnt out at school.
On some level this seems intuitive, but for us who are parents, how much do we pretend or hope that our stress and even burnout won’t impact our kids? Perhaps we’re fooling ourselves to think that’s possible. And on the flip side, how could our own self-care practices prevent burnout—both for us and for our kids?
For more on stress and burnout, check out this resource we put together last year for urban youth workers with the help of Dr. Jude Tiersma Watson and Kimberly Williams.
The research team over at the Pew Internet and American Life Project just released their latest report on social media and young adults, which includes teenagers. It’s worth at least a quick read for anyone working with or parenting youth.
Over at Ypulse, Anastasia Goodstein has a helpful post in response, discussing alternative ways to interpret what’s going on in shifting communication patterns. In particular, teens’ shift from the traditional blog to the microblog or “status update”. While less teens consider themselves bloggers, 73% of wired American teens use social networking sites that function as mini-blogs (82% if you isolate out 14-17 year-olds).
One huge (but not surprising) shift to note: In 2004 18% of 12-year olds owned a cell phone. That number is now up to 58%. Also interesting, fully half of teens now make online purchases.
One of the things we’ve been challenged to do more of here at FYI is tell the stories — the stories of transformation in the lives of youth workers and the students they serve every day. The stories of how our resources and training have made a difference. My hunch is that we could all stand to “tell the stories” more often, and more poignantly, to those who support and encourage us. The better we become at storytelling, the more others can catch the vision and invest their prayers and other resources toward our ministries.
I appreciate Eric Iverson, an FYI research partner and author of this week’s E-Journal article on short-term missions, for the way he tells stories of transformation. In fact, we’re posting two Deep Justice Stories based on case studies Eric has shared about churches who take missions far beyond the “mission trip.” Check out the first one today about First Baptist Church of Keene.
I spent last weekend with some of the junior highers from our church at Forest Home’s winter camp. And yes, I got to drive a van.
I was reminded on our way there of the importance of capturing open spaces like van time to hear what matters to kids. Of course, you also hear a lot of random things (“Did you know that light waves and sound waves are the same thing?” “I can’t believe you took away our cell phones!”), but in the midst of the chaos we nearly always have the opportunity to learn something new.
At one point during the drive I overheard one student say something like, “Most of the other kids at my school will be out drinking tonight.” He didn’t say anything more about it, but it gave me a new window into some of the social pain and pressure he experiences at school. And it opened the door for a follow-up conversation we had the next afternoon during free time.
Newsweek has put together a photo gallery of “The decade’s most egregious retouching scandals,” complete with detail notes. The short summary on the title page should be enough to cause us to catch our breath and remember who we are – the people who create and sustain this phenomenon of “valuing the physically unattainable.” Be sure to make it all the way to the “plus-size” (a mere size 12!) model who notes that extra is often airbrushed on to her body (to make normal women feel even worse about themselves when buying these clothes?).
In a related survey reported by Reuters this week about Girl Scouts of the USA, 80% of teen girls say they’d rather see real images of models than airbrushed ones, and 9 out of 10 say they feel pressured to be skinny (no surprise there) and that there’s an unattainable image of beauty that has been created by the fashion and media industries.
Every youth worker and every parent of teenagers can use these pictures and findings to talk with kids about beauty, image, and what’s real. Let’s take advantage of what these journalists have put together in our small groups and conversations with kids this week. This is a story that needs to be told.
And we’d love to hear your ideas – how do you teach kids to live in and accept their bodies in the face of industry-standard processed beauty?
We could probably all come up with a good set of answers to that question (in fact, I’d love to see your lists!). Here are snapshots of what Fuller’s own Dr. Chap Clark and Dr. Duffy Robbins (who teaches as an adjunct prof at Fuller) have to say about that question:
OK, I don’t consider myself naive when it comes to kids’ use of media. But even I was surprised by this study by the Kaiser Family Foundation about kids’ media use. Parents and youth workers should check out this study.
Some interesting highlights:
-Average media use is over 7.5 hours/day, which since kids are multi-media-tasking during those 7.5 hours is actually more like 11 hours.
-TV use is on the decline.
-Only 30% of kids say their parents set rules for their media use. But those whose parents do so end up watching less than half of the media of kids whose parents don’t set rules.
-2/3 of kids say the TV is on during meals at home and almost half say the TV is on “most of the time”.
Brad Griffin, our FYI Associate Director, forwarded me this creatively done short flyer-like summary of interesting stats on gaming. I haven’t taken the time to verify the stats but nonetheless, here’s what stands out to me:
-There are more gamers over 50 than under 18.
-2 out of 5 gamers are female.
-The Wii is winning the console war.
What stands out to you?
If you’re looking for a resource to send to parents concerned about their kids’ gaming, try our recent article. It’s being published in the new book, Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games With God, along with some other fascinating research on games.
These days I’m reading Faith and Doubt by John Ortberg, senior pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church (my church in college) and a Fuller trustee. He provides 3 helpful buckets for his own doubts:
Bucket #1 – Why doesn’t God provide more indisputable proof of Himself?
Bucket #2 – Why aren’t Jesus’ followers, and the church, better examples of Jesus?
Bucket #3 – Why is there suffering?
Bucket #3 is the more prevalent in my own life, especially given the earthquake in Haiti. Honestly, I can’t even watch the news for much more than 10 seconds. One of our friend’s daughter is in the process of adopting a two year-old from Haiti. The paperwork is all finished and she and her husband were awaiting a passport for their soon-to-be daughter when the earthquake hit. The marvelous news is that the orphanage and the kids are OK. But she’s still in Haiti. That situation has brought it all home for me.
I don’t have easy answers. Anyone who tells you they do is in denial.
I don’t even have a nice way to wrap up this blog.
, along with some other fascinating research on games.
by John Ortberg, senior pastor at