I spent the first 16 years of my adult life working with teenagers in a variety of youth ministry positions. I’ve spent the last 17 years studying teenagers, their lives and their culture. In the midst of all that, I’ve spent 23 years raising four kids of my own. Three have already passed through their teenage years. One is still smack dab in the midst of adolescence. You have experience of your own.
But let’s face the truth: We’re adults; they’re teenagers. Although we may share a roof and DNA, a cultural-generational gap will exist. And if adults don’t make an effort to love teenagers by working to close that gap, it will only continue to widen.
What should parents do when they experience the highs and lows of parenting in a rapidly changing world? What should youth miniistry workers and others in relationships with teenagers do to close the gap and become more effective at fulfilling their unique callings?
No One Ever Said It’d Be Easy
It’s a big mistake to think of kids as liabilities; they’re rewards from God, given to us as a sign of God’s favor. Because God values them so highly, so must we. They’re not inconveniences or nuisances—whether they’re in your home or in your youth room.
Even during difficult times, the kids God’s given me as gifts remain gifts.
I learned a shocking lesson shortly after Caitlin’s birth, and I’ve been relearning it ever since. No matter how much time and effort I put into preparing for parenthood, there will always be surprises.
Some of those surprises can seem paralyzing. Raising and relating to kids is difficult for everyone, and it tends to become more so as kids reach the teenage years. The situation grows more complex for parents who raise more than one child since each child brings a unique personality and set of experiences.
Each of us will experience highs and lows, jolts and joys, thrills and spills. If you’re struggling as a parent, rest assured you’re not alone. I’ve made efforts, but I’ve also made mistakes, struggled with feelings of inadequacy, and grappled with rebellion in my kids. I’ve known sickening dread, sleepless nights, rage, bitterness, frustration, shame, futile hopes being shattered, and the battle between tenderness and contempt. (If you’re a youth worker, you know a bit about this too!)
No Perfect Kids…or Parents …or Youth Workers
The root of problems in our families and homes and youth ministries is the sinful, selfish nature of kids and adults. It can be difficult to coexist peacefully. Parents must strive to raise healthy, well-adjusted kids. But it’s unrealistic to expect perfect kids and perfect families. To embrace such expectations only burdens parents and their kids with never “measuring up.” We must never forget that we’re all imperfect, finite beings touched by sin and incapable of perfection—not with our parenting, our ministries, or our homes.
What’s Up with the Kids?
In the early 1980s, scholars and researchers on family and adolescent issues began asking the question, What is happening to our kids? Their answers came through a series of books with discouraging titles such as The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon, All Grown Up and No Place to Go, The Disappearance of Childhood, The Erosion of Childhood and The Rise and Fall of Childhood.
Over the last 25 years, the problems and issues addressed in those books have increased, manifesting themselves in the growing number of negative teenage attitudes, behaviors, and social problems that concern us so much. While there are always glimmers of hope and numerous reasons for optimism, overall trends point to the fact that things aren’t getting any better for our teenagers.
Now the parenting, family issues, and social science sections in bookstores are expanded to help parents, teachers, and those in the helping professions deal with drug and alcohol abuse, teenage sex, violence, bullying, Internet dangers, selfabuse, and all the other complex issues our kids face every day.
In the midst of these complex problems, we must also acknowledge that there is a developmental difference between teenagers and adults. We live in two different stages of the life cycle. Consequently, we think and act in markedly different ways. We live in two very different worlds.
Meet Sarah, an Average Teenager
Several years ago I asked teenagers to email me a list ranking the five greatest pressures they face. The results opened my eyes to the changes that have taken place in the cultural soup of teenagers.
One of the kids who responded was Sarah, a 16-year-old only child from New York. Her list was representative of the other lists I received, and I’ve been reading and rereading her list for years, as it serves as a constant reminder of the realities facing kids in today’s youth culture. At number one Sarah listed the pressure for “looks.”
I come from an upper-middle-class home. I’m a straight-A student, class president and an overachiever in every way. I don’t really know why I am anorexic, but I think it’s partly because I thought that if I got really sick, people would pay attention to me more and like me. The irony of it is that my father is a psychologist. He doesn’t know.
My mother always compares her life to mine, so much that sometimes I feel smothered by her. I cannot talk to my father at all about important things. I never could. My father is home every evening at 6 PM, but my mother is never home. She recently opened a business, so she has to work from 9 AM until midnight. Sometimes she comes home to see me in the afternoons, and sometimes she is around on weekends. Incidentally, my parents do not get along very well.
My mom says if I get therapy, it will go on my record and may keep me out of Princeton or Amherst, the colleges to which I am applying. I know my parents love me, but they think I am so bright and capable that I don’t need help or attention anymore. I just want people to realize I do not have a perfect life, and I am lonely. I want people at school to notice me more and like me. Actually, I’m not at all sure what I want.
I’ve met many Sarahs over the years, and I continue to meet more of them as time goes by. Although their stories differ in terms of the places, dates, details and depth of their problems, there are some common threads.
Each one is an adolescent who is already dealing with the normal changes that come with growing up. On top of that, each is confused and frustrated by challenging circumstances. Many of them cope and are remarkably resilient. Others struggle to survive. Some self-destruct.
Sadly, in the midst of this reality, most adults don’t understand that the world has changed. Consequently, they have no idea how it’s different and how those differences are affecting kids. Thus, the cultural-generational gap grows wider.
As youth leaders, parents, Christian leaders and caring adults, we need to study the rapidly changing culture our young people live in. Otherwise our relationships will crumble into the gap.
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Walt Mueller is the founder and President of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (www.cpyu.org). He is the author of several books, including his latest, Youth Culture 101, from which this column was excerpted. Used with the permission of Zondervan and Youth Specialties.
