Last week the Wall Street Journal shared about a recent Michigan State University study of seventh-graders looking at the connection between morality in real life and online. In other words, what’s acceptable to a 12 or 13-year-old online and what’s …
Teenagers have trouble thinking about the future when making decisions in the present. Not news. The debate on the developmental neuropsychology – and policy-making – tables seems to be whether this inability to be future-minded has more to do with …
My friend, Fritz Kling, just sent me a fascinating article by Malcolm Gladwell called “Late Bloomer.” It appeared in The New Yorker in October 2008 and I find the fact that Fritz sent an article on late blooming to me …
I co-taught an 8 hour Deep Learning Track at the Group National Youth Ministry Conference this past weekend. The title of our track was “Preparing Your Teenagers for Life After Youth Group”. I shared about our College Transition Project and …
The American consumerism narrative seeks to write the identity of adolescents for them. As youth workers we have the responsibility to better understand this narrative, and the opportunity to help rewrite a counternarrative that can shape kids’ identities toward the kingdom of God.
Kara Powell interviews Chuck Bomar on the “Moratorium” stage of identity development. Please also read the accompanying article, “Riding With Students Through the Highs and Lows of Teenage Faith Development” by Meredith Miller.
Brad Griffin interviews Kelly Schwartz, adolescent psychology specialist, on understanding the adolescent brain. Kelly discusses risk behavior, decision-making, video games, and allowing kids to experience and process their failures. Good stuff for any youth worker or parent!
Recently Fuller hosted Christian Smith, author of Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, for a panel discussion following a screening of the new film documenting his research. Also called Soul Searching, the film screening led into a discussion with responses by Dr. Chap Clark and Dr. Kara Powell from Fuller, as well as Smith. This month’s audio download features highlights from the responses of Clark, Powell, and Smith to the film and the research from the National Study of Youth and Religion.
Kara Powell interviews Mark Oestreicher (Marko), President of Youth Specialties. Marko shares some startling insights from the world of adolescent brain research on an intensely practical level, particularly for anyone who works with junior highers!
While it may seem to some that adolescence hasn’t changed much for girls in recent years, research and media trends indicate at least three areas we’ve identified as needing our renewed attention as youth workers. In this article we share ideas for responding to three “mores” that bring new twists to some perhaps-familiar issues: more sexy, more pressure, and more violence.
