Affluenza | a small idea from Raising Adults

Affluenza

The problems long associated with our economic underclass are epidemic in the suburbs too. As early as 1981, someone called it affluenza—the same behaviors and attitudes slightly upscaled. Cocaine in place of crack. Jaegermeister in place of Colt 45. Burgling suburban homes instead of knocking over convenience stores. Cutting and other self-injurious behaviors rather of lashing out. Oral sex instead of premature birthing.

And so we’re sad, a lot of us. We hate to see kids get off on the wrong foot. They are after all our children, one way or another.

The question is, What are we doing about it?

Parents are not alone. A million middle and high school teachers, instructors and coaches tend to North American adolescents throughout the school year. Add half a million church-based youth workers, 3 million employers and 16 million retailers, marketers, officers of the court—and, of course, demographers—and teenagers have the admittedly divided but substantial attention of a whole lot of adults.

As long as we’re counting, let’s add that North America kids are just a fraction of around two billion global teens. Let me repeat that another way so we don’t miss it:

Right now, two billion teenagers call this world their home.

Is it just me or does that seem like an awful lot of kids hanging out at the mall? Or fighting wars...Or spreading disease...Or building and buying things...Or solving planetary problems.

— from Raising Adults

A New Survey on Teen Pregnancy circa 2012

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has released a new survey of adult and teen attitudes about sex, abstinence contraception, parental influence, sex education, birth control, and teen pregnancy. 

Key findings include:

• Teens make clear that parents matter more than many probably think (teens say parents most influence their decisions about sex);
• there is great agreement among adults about the importance of teaching teens about the value of delaying sex and the importance of using contraception (more than seven in 10 support this approach);

Not a Minute Too Soon | The Volunteer's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis

We're all back to school now, or will be in about a minute, and it's none too soon to introduce your volunteer team to The Volunteer's Guide 

to Helping Teenagers in Crisis.

Back in the day, Rich Van Pelt got the ball rolling with his seminal youth worker training book, Intensive 

Care: Helping Teenagers in Crisis — a few copies of which are available today at Amazon.com at prices ranging from a couple of bucks to a very impressive $588.98 (way to go, Rich!).

In the middle of the last decade, Rich and I threw in together to produce The Youth Worker's Guide to 

Helping Teenagers in Crisis, and then The Parent's Guide to 

Helping Teenagers in Crisis — which covers the same ground as the Youth Worker's Guide through the filter of what a parent needs to know (e.g. a mom doesn't need her own referral list, she needs to know that her friendly youth worker has one and she need to know how to ask for help when she needs it).

Now, we've completed The Volunteer's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis because, much like parents, volunteers need to know how to spot trouble and get help quickly, effectively and with as little drama as possible.

The Volunteer's Guide works with four DVD sessions that blend crisis stories told by real people with short teaching segments by Rich and me (mostly five minutes or less). The other learning ingredients mix personal reflection and recollection with group conversation about the kids and families your team serves, wherever you're located — be that small town, suburb, or urban center.

Session 01: Understanding Crisis     Session 02: Spotting Crisis

Session 03: Responding to Crisis     Session 04: Preventing Crisis

If you lead a team of volunteer youth workers, nobody has to tell you they're often the first to see signs of trouble in adolescents. And nobody has to remind you most of them have no idea what to do about crisis when they see it. The Volunteer's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis is your tool kit to build volunteers who know when what they're seeing is a crisis and know how to get kids the help they need in a timely and compassionate manner.

No Child Left Behind | Pink Floyd v. BeeGees mashup | Stayin' Alive In The Wall

(h/t Dave Palmer)

worse than useless data | insidework

Mark Twain gave Benjamin Disraeli credit for the line: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Having posted recently on useless data, my thoughts are drawn to something worse — data that’s misappropriated, or even ginned up to make a point.

A friend asked me to read a draft document that included something he’d heard: “Studies estimate that nearly 90% of teens leave the church after graduating high school.” About the same time, another friend invoked another frequently repeated line: “Over the past few years, various research studies have found more than 75% of Christians leave their faith after high school and more than 60% after college.”

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