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A few years ago, I heard about some research conducted by Stanford University’s (go Andrew Luck! Sorry, couldn’t resist) Carol Dweck on the effects of our affirmation on children and teenagers. More specifically, the relationship between the types of words we use and the way they invite, or don’t invite, teenagers to continue to grow.
As this Harvard Business Review blog well summarizes the heart of Dweck’s research:
One study primed people with a simple phrase praising their intelligence based on completing a difficult task rather than the effort they put in to achieving the task by saying “You’re so smart,” versus “You must have worked hard.” This simple statement had the “smart” ones less willing to take learning risks in the future, as well protecting their status by lying. In fact, those praised for intelligence were found to be three times more likely to lie about their performance than those praised for effort.
As soon as Dave and I read Dweck’s study, we started to talk more with our own children about “hard work” than their accomplishments. Whether it be soccer or spelling, we talk with our kids about how proud we are of how hard they tried, not the end result of their efforts. Our hope is that our kids realize how important it is to keep trying, to keep growing.
As the recent HBR blog points out, this research can also be applied to organizations to help them develop a growth mindset.
Can organizations develop a growth mindset? One research project showed it’s possible by developing a workshop around mindset. It began with an article and video on how the brain grows with learning throughout life. Participants are then asked, “What’s an area where you once had low ability but now perform quite well? How were you able to make this change?” or “Who is someone in your life who has dramatically improved their performance? How did they do it?” Participants were then asked to draft an email to an employee who was doing well and then struggled.
After the workshop, these managers exhibited more openness to critical feedback, willingness to mentor — and a higher quality of mentoring — and openness to the possibility of employees’ changing.
This research begs the question: what can we do in our ministries and our families to help ourselves, and the other members, lean into growth? What questions can we ask? What qualities can we affirm?
The next time you’ve having a great conversation with a teenager or another leader, what questions can you ask them that might help them think more about how they can keep growing? How can you affirm their faithful effort?
The rate at which teenage bodies are getting altered by elective surgery is astounding.
This article notes, “Between 1996 and 2010 the number of teenagers aged 13-19 having elective cosmetic surgery has increased by 548% – from around 14,000 procedures to 76,841 last year, according to American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).” The ASPS site cites the total number of cosmetic procedures on teens in 2010 at 219,000. That’s a lot.
Teasing, bullying, and low self-esteem are the primary culprits of elective augmentation of noses, ears, breasts, and acne scars. A couple of years ago we noted that the cosmetic surgery phenomenon raises questions about decision-making. The wisdom of placing a teenager in the role of deciding to alter their physical appearance via invasive surgery is questionable.
But another issue clearly at stake is the obsession with appearance that pushes kids to feel these kinds of changes are necessary in order to survive in their social context. An obsession shared by—or at least approved by—their parents who have to sign off on (and nearly always have to pay for) these procedures. At some point we have to ask, to what ends are we willing to go for the sake of bending to the narrow socially-acceptable boundaries of beauty? To what extent does surgery actually fix the roots of low self-image? And what are the implications of affirming for an adolescent that the only way they can acceptably continue living in community with others is if we correct a certain “flaw” or two?
Chances are this one is not as far from home as you might think.
You might have seen the headline this week, as it’s been circulating heavily around social media conversations: National Study Finds Widespread Sexual Harassment of Students in Grades 7 to 12.
The article in the New York Times shares from a report by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) that found that half of the nearly 2,000 students in their study (48%) were sexually harassed at some point during the last school year. (See the full report from the AAUW). One-third of students reported electronic sexual harassment: by text, e-mail, Facebook, or other online means. This cyberbullying is often connected with in-person harassment.
Sadly, half of those who were harassed did nothing about it. Less than 10% reported anything to an adult at school, while a quarter of students reported sharing about incidents with friends or with family members. In fact, “It’s pervasive, and almost a normal part of the school day,” noted Catherine Hill, one of the report’s authors.
Following up from Monday’s post on creating safe zones for kids—at school and at church—this raises questions about what kinds of realities our safe zones need to address. When I was in high school and my first few years in youth ministry, sexual joking among students, but also from and by youth ministry leaders, was way too common. I think times have changed to some extent, but I have to wonder how much over-the-line harassment still gets promoted, overlooked, chuckled at, turn-the-other-way’ed in youth ministry even though we think we may have come a long way. In particular, I wonder about the role of our silence, which is essentially our approval.
As a parent, I’m convinced that we need to have discussions about sexual harassment in all its forms with our kids. Real, honest discussions about hurtful words and acts that they witness or personally experience—or might—at school or in other contexts. We also need to talk about the ways their participation in harassing others cuts deeper than they may realize. Maybe you could even use the report to open up a conversation by asking what they think about the issue and how much it’s a reality in their school.
What else do you think is needed to respond to this issue, at school, in ministry, or at home?
I’m not really sure how old I was when I would have been findable online. The internet emerged broadly while I was in college, and I opened my first email account in 1994 or 1995. But finding me through a search engine, let alone actually learning anything personal? Probably another decade.
In contrast, a lot of the students we know can Google themselves right now and probably find more than even they realized. And then…there’s Facebook.
Thanks to the new Facebook Timeline feature (the coming revolution of “profiles”), history will reappear in the present. This USA Today article last week highlights some of the concerns being raised by young adults who were, well, a little less mature a few years back when they launched their Facebook accounts. While Facebook history has had a way of fading into the background, Timelines will give new access to the whole story.
As one security advisor is quoted in the USA Today post, “A lot of people just don’t realize how much information they’ve shared in the past.” Especially at sixteen. Or twenty-one.
But many of these coming-of-age technological natives are launching their professional lives these days, and the trail of their digital past is coming with them. “Timeline” won’t be the first or last time they have to revisit this truth. The question is how they are processing it along the way (and at what point they actually begin to care). Learning to share appropriately in the digital world is a process, as we’ve seen in bold headlines in recent years. In the mean time, how are we speaking into that process, or becoming a safety net for when it goes in unpredictable directions?
Quiet, lonely suffering. It’s part of the adolescent experience for most teenagers.
But for some, sometimes, it becomes overwhelming. Last week the New York Times featured the rise of school “wellness” programs and centers. These initiatives often develop in partnership with local public service providers (like Department of Children, Youth, and Families offices) and schools to bring new layers of mental, emotional, and physical care to campus for kids who are hurting.
The article also reports these assessment findings of such programs:
In a 2010 district survey of students who had participated in wellness programs, 81 percent reported coming to school more often as a result; 69 percent reported academic improvement. Ninety percent said there was an adult in the Wellness Center who cared about them.
We all know that school can be a challenging context for teenagers to be real about the pain they are experiencing, whether that pain is related to abuse at home, bullying at school or online, or symptoms of depression. Thankfully some students are finding these wellness centers helpful.
But this raises questions for us in ministry, too. Are our churches safe places for students to share struggles and doubts? Are our youth ministries safe harbors for real pain to surface above the water long enough to be seen, heard, and known? Would 90% of students who actually have enough courage to come to our church say there were adults who care about them there?
What have you seen to be effective in creating these kinds of desperately-needed safe spaces?
Recently at a parent training event, a friend of mine overheard two moms talking, comparing which smartphones they gave their kids, and which apps were the most popular with their kids.
How old were the young I-Droid-Berry users that were the topic of conversation?
Five.
Yes, Kindergarteners.
I could end this blog right now, but I’m not going to, because there’s some intriguing and somewhat shocking statistics out from the Common Sense Media Group that reflect the pervasive nature of technology. You can read a summary here, or the full report here.
Here’s some of what was especially striking to me:
Half of kids under 8 (and 40% of 2- to 4-year-olds) have access to a smartphone, iPad or some other mobile media device. Ten percent use these devices daily for an average of 43 minutes. As you might guess, there are some income disparities here. With all the new technologies, however, TV is still king. Seventy-four percent of the media consumption of kids under 8 still consists of the big screen, not the little one.
That leads us to some more depressing stats: Kids under 2 spend more than twice as much time watching video as they do being read to. Nearly four in 10 kids grows up in a house where the TV is on most or all of the time, even if no one is watching it. By the time they hit 8 years old, kids are as likely to have a TV in their bedroom as not.
The report goes on to analyze technology usage as affected by socio-economic status. While children from higher income levels have more time with computers, tablets, and smart phones, they spend less time overall exposed to media than those from lower income levels.
I think of this as a technology double whammy from a justice perspective. The first blow to justice is that children with lower incomes spend less time exposed to the technology that could perhaps aid them in getting higher grades in school, or better understanding the flattening of the world. The second blow is that they spend more time in front of the TV, and are more likely to have a TV in their room. So the technology that children from lower incomes are exposed to is less helpful and more likely to draw them away from the rest of the family.
Last week, Brad Griffin blogged about some helpful resources from our friends at the Center for Parent and Youth Understanding, especially this “Family Digital Code of Conduct” that we recommend as a potentially helpful tool for you and others you know.
If it’s happening with 5 year-olds, it’s never too early to start thinking about and talking about these issues in our families.
As I’ve been tracking with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, I’ve kept an especially keen eye open for the presence of children and teenagers at the protests. Lest you accuse me of bipartisanship, I certainly did the same for previous Tea Party events.
Children, teenagers, and college students certainly are involved, as confirmed by this news story about parents intentionally introducing their children to the OWS movement, and vice versa. Given our ongoing interest at FYI in Deep Justice, I tend to automatically assume that it’s good to expose kids to political issues and discussions about justice.
But I appreciated the article’s reminder that we as leaders and parents need to be thoughtful about what we expose our kids to (whether that we OWS or Tea Party Events, or something in between):
Child therapists are divided on the appropriateness of taking children to the protest. Susan Bartell, a psychologist who writes for Babycenter.com, advises caution for the parents of children younger than 14. “There are kids who can go to a shelter at Thanksgiving and help serve a meal,” she said, “but there are kids who are traumatized by it.”
Madeline Levine, a psychologist, author of “The Price of Privilege” and a prominent critic of upper-middle-class child-rearing practices, disagreed. “We’ve done a lousy job of teaching civics in the country,” she said. “Everything is cast in terms of what it does for your résumé. There is something vital in being part of a group or a community.”
Part of what we recommend based on our Sticky Faith work is that parents use current events as springboards to talk about life, faith, and even their personally struggles and doubts. But I suppose a grain of caution is warranted to make sure we are talking about, and exposing our kids to, issues of justice in developmentally appropriate ways.
In my own experience as a parent, I’ve seen the importance of letting my kids’ interests and passions steer how our family responds. At a San Diego Padres game we attended this past summer, we all received “Two Free Taco” coupons from Jack in the Box on our way out of the ballpark. Our nine year-old, Krista, got the idea of giving these coupons to folks who are homeless, so she went to the 20 folks who attended the game with us and asked for their coupons also.
Since then, whenever we see someone who is homeless, Krista looks at me and says, “Mom, tacos,” and I reach in my purse for a coupon. We’ve blitzed through the taco coupons and are now giving away McDonalds hamburger coupons that we purchased ourselves.
I love that it’s Krista leading the way on this, which is part of what tells me that it’s not pushing her. In what ways have you seen children or teenagers lead the way when it comes to justice issues?
OK, I have a confession: I really like Power Point (and other similar slide-type programs like Keynote). I know some people think it’s overused, and they are probably right, but I still like to use it. And I like it when others use it.
But lately I’ve been around a lot of really bad Power Point. So I decided to do a bit of a brush-up on some good Power Point rules of thumb. I skimmed a book on the topic, and the reason I’m not telling you the name of the book is because it wasn’t all that helpful. But the book did repost a blog by Seth Godin on the topic, which was probably the best part of the book.
I’ve read this Seth Godin blog multiple times already, but it’s still got some good reminders. What stands out the most to me is his rule of thumb that we should never have more than 6 words on a slide. Ever.
I know I break that rule sometimes. I’ll probably break it this week in fact. And you will probably see me break that rule. But I think it’s a great “best practice” to shoot for. Power Point isn’t a way we “tell” the main points our talks; it’s a way we “show” the heart and feelings that motivate us, and should hopefully motivate our audiences also.
What Power Point “no nos” drive you particularly crazy? What other presentation guidelines have helped you and/or do you wish others would follow?
Last year the documentary Race to Nowhere caught some attention for cracking open the high-pressure side of American education and child-rearing through interviews with students who’d had enough. Steven Johnson wrote a great article for our site about it, and it has been one of the most-utilized resources over the past year.
I think there are a number of reasons this topic has struck a chord. Parents and youth workers feel the pressure being placed on kids, even while we may be some of the ones applying that pressure.
In a positive twist to all this, some schools (often via parents) are beginning to fight back in a pointed way: against homework. This week the NY Times shared that some elite New York schools are lowering their homework requirements, or at least considering it.
Citing research led by Stanford’s Denise Pope, “[students] with more than 3.5 hours of homework a night had an increased risk of physical and mental health issues, like sleep deprivation, ulcers and headaches.” Another study of over 10,000 students found that two thirds of them were stressed out most of the time. Earlier this year a similar article highlighted that even educators are pushing back in some cases at the ways homework requirements have ballooned. Studies have shown little connection between homework and test performance at all, let alone when it involves hours of labor every night (often in exchange for much-needed sleep).
This hits close to home for me, as homework is often a struggle in our family. This year we’ve been nailed with extra projects on top of a nightly grind of sometimes more than two hours. That’s for my fourth-grader (!), and that’s a low-income public school workload. There aren’t many parents pushing a “more homework” agenda at this school. It’s just standard issue now for most kids, across all kinds of socioeconomic status and geography.
Steven offered some great tips in his article for confronting and helping ease anxiety and stress among students who feel caught up in this race to perform. What other ideas do you have, related to homework or other areas of pressure? How can we speak and act prophetically into the systems that are stealing life and joy from the kids we know and love?
The Center for Parent-Youth Understanding is one of our favorite resources to recommend to parents when it comes to learning about youth culture trends and research. Recently they launched something new we are excited about: The Digital Kids Initiative. From their announcement:
One of the most sweeping and influential changes [in our culture] is the rapid expansion and growth of media technologies and outlets. The most recent research indicates that the average 8 to 18-year-old in America is engaging with media for 7 hours and 38 minutes a day. Much of their media engagement includes time spent engaging with others via social media technologies that didn’t even exist six years ago (Facebook, etc.). Today’s children and teens are a “wired” generation. They are constantly connected to their media and their media is constantly connected to them. Because they are at an impressionable and vulnerable age, children and teens are eager and willing to follow a media world that is attractive, pervasive, convincing, and compelling.
In the midst of this reality, kids are in desperate need of filters and tools for managing their digital worlds. Parents, however, often find themselves at a loss for creating these filters and tools. As a parent myself, it’s hard to even know where to begin.
This is where a resource partner like CPYU is so helpful. Along with other training and resources they are creating, CPYU has created a free “Family Digital Code of Conduct” as a downloadable resource. Just reading through the list of online commitments they suggest is a reminder of the weight of the issue at hand. Kids are making all kinds of decisions all day long when it comes to digital media, decisions that can have small or large consequences they aren’t expecting. You may not feel comfortable asking your son or daughter to sign such a code. But at the least, this is a great starting point for a conversation with kids who use cell phones and have internet access (of any kind).
Talking through the dangers alongside the benefits of the privilege of digital media use is quite possibly becoming as important as talking about sex with your kids (especially given how intertwined sexual issues are with today’s digital media use). What other resources or ideas have you come across to spark these kinds of conversations?
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