Standing Strong - Part 1
As teenagers, you will face times where you may feel as if you must compromise one of your personal beliefs or goals because of the people around you. I hope to give you some advice so that when you are confronted with these situations, you will know how to respond, and you will walk away from the situation without compromise.
I remember when I was younger, just a few years ago, I never really thought about how to avoid what I was trying to avoid. Now I know though, that there is a way to avoid certain things, and in order to do so you must have a plan to resist negative pressures.
Do you have a plan to resist negative pressures? Have you ever thought that this would be something that could help you? Well… If you don’t have one. Now is the perfect time to develope one for yourself. Think about how you would handle certain situations. Maybe you are trying to avoid drinking alcohol. So think of all the different things you could do to avoid being placed into a situation where you feel as if there is no other option than to drink.Or maybe you want to avoid having any sort of sexual expression until you get married. Think of all the situations you can avoid where there would be a high chance of being forced into a compromise.
I’m going to stop here and let you think about it. Tomorrow I will post the rest of Standing Strong…
Living Life On Purpose
Living life with a purpose and on purpose can really help you be more successful throughout the entirety of your life. One thing that is crucial to achieving a purpose filled life is making sure that you take steps towards the things which you would like to achieve. We need to do things like create a plan, and in order to do this you must have goals. Begin to look for what special talents you have been gifted with, and think about how you can use those throughout the course of your life and career. You need to also evaluate where you are in life and see how important the decisions are that we make in our current standing point in life. You can also evaluate choices you make which could affect your health and over all well being in the future.
Being a young guy I am in the midst of living with the decisions I made in high school. I wasn’t a very great student, not because a lack of intelligence, but because of a lack of motivation. I partied, and made some choices that I regret all the way to this day. I was so focused upon what I was doing right then and there that I didn’t take anytime to think about where I would be in the next five to ten years. If you want to take charge of your future the most important time to do this is between the ages of fifteen and twenty. This is where you will get your driver’s license, choose to graduate High School or not, and you will begin going to college, join the military, or attend a trade school. This time in your life is so important, and you possess all the potential to make it one of the most positively influential times in your life as well.
All you need to do is begin to set goals. Make it a goal to graduate, and not just a requirement. Decide what your standards are going to be when it comes to dating and having romantic relationships. Decide what kind of person you are going to be, and make it a goal to be that person everyday of your life.
Sometimes it isn’t as easy as it sounds though. There are many negative influences out there which make it seem like there are things so great that you would want to compromise your stance on certain issues. Mainly what I am talking about here is your choice to save any sort of sexual expression until marriage. This is a choice that many people make, but it is not so clearly shown by the media. At any moment in time you can turn on television stations like MTV or VH1 and find tons of references to sexuality. It is also possible to find sexual influences in the books we read, the music we listen to, the friends we surround ourselves with, along with many other ways. So it is important, if you choose to set the goal of saving any form of sexual expression until you get married, to make sure that you take a stance and remember that it is a goal, and the only way you can accomplish that goal is by staying strong and remembering all the other goals which you have set as well.
So I want to leave you with this affirmation which is provide by the workbook we are going through Aspire: I will live my life with a sense of purpose.
Aspire
Here at Worth the Wait we use a curriculum called Aspire. We use this curriculum for high school students only. It is taught in the classroom by a volunteer, and it covers eight different topics in eight weeks if we are given that amount of time from the participating school and/or school district.
The topics we will be covering are:
- Living Life on Purpose
- Standing Strong
- Thinking Ahead
- Protecting Your Mind
- The Power of Self-Control
- Marriage Rocks
- Making a Fresh Start
- The Big Picture
I will be posting a small blog on each of these topics through the course of the next couple of weeks. I hope by doing this we can show you what we are all about.
Dayton Health Fair
Today Mechele and I are here at
Dayton High School. We are attending their health fair. This is a great opportunity to spread the word of abstinence. Wish us luck!
A Reason to Wait for Marriage
Abstinence receives many mixed opinions. A lot of people proclaim it to be the best and most important decision of a person’s life, and many others view it as something that doesn’t ever even need to be mentioned. But I want to tell you that choosing to be sexually abstinent from this point forward until you get married someday can be one of the most rewarding decisions you ever make.
If you choose sexual abstinence you are not declaring yourself to be a higher breed of human, nor are you saying that you are better than anybody else. But what you are doing is taking a stand by making the statement that you know you are worth waiting for. You don’t want to get tied up with physical risks, you don’t want to risk having a child before you are ready to care for it, and you want to be able to save yourself for that one person that you choose to be with for the rest of your life.
I know that I find these things listed above as very important. I am still young and I don’t want to risk getting a disease that could potentially make the rest of my life less enjoyable; I don’ t want to have a child yet, because I know I am not ready emotionally or financially to care for a child; and I do want to wait and save myself for marriage because I know that the person that I do marry will mean far more to me than any other person whom I could potentially sleep with right now.
I hope that this helps you see that you too are worth waiting for. Whether you are a young man, or a young woman; this is one of the most important decisions you could ever make. The results of your choices now can and will throughout your life.
Can Generation X & Y Get Along?
It is no secret that in most work places Baby Boomers and Generation X do not get along very well with Gen Y colleagues. How about online- do they get along very well?
It appears that Gen X and Baby Boomers do not intrinsically trust Generation Y. Much of the bad blood can be attributed to tastes and preferences. It can also be attributed to upbringing. Gen Y are mostly brought up in the Internet era. Baby Boomers on the other hand, were brought up in the post WWII era. Gen X were largely brought up during the Electronic Transition age when the Cold War was the issue of the day.
As a result of the different socio-cultural dynamics at work, it appears that the tastes and preferences of the various generations continue to be a baggage to each all. It affects the way they see life and make decisions. According the Alpha Marketer, www.thealphamarketer.com a leading online marketing outfit, it appears that the early adopters (Gen Y especially those about 17-25) are increasingly moving to Face Book as a online marketplace for them. It thus appears that these early are shunning the MySpace to the late adopters ie Gen X ie those about 35 and above. These late adopters are barely catching up with MySpace and YouTube.
Myself, I am Gen X guy. I can not pretend that I know everything about Gen Y guys even though I spend a great deal of time reading and interacting with them.
There is lesson here for us. It is a lesson that may apply for you as well me, regardless of whether you are a Gen X or a Baby Boomer. The lesson is t that if we want to relate better to the Gen Y, we must make a greater effort to understand their taste and preferences. If we fail to do this, then we can not claim to have wisdom to deal with the issues of the day in dealing successfully with Gen Y.
If you like to invest in people as I do, if you like to speculate about the future as I do, I dare to say that we can’t afford to ignore the taste and preferences of Gen Y. They are by far the largest and most influential generation since Baby Boomers. They are a ‘stock’. They have both style a little substance that we can tap into to change the world. This stock will be around for quite a while and I urge you to get to know more about that stock. It is a stock with a silver-lining for parents, teachers, educators, politicians and the world. The better we know them, the better we can deal with them.
Gideon
Parent Program Coordinator
WTW
We‘ve Got Work to Do with Gen Y in Nevada
Many young people in Nevada are bleeding in silence from depression and drugs. Others are self-destroying by engaging in early teenage sex, dropping out of high school, being suicidal and violent. They need some help from out community. It appears our community is turning a blind eye or not doing enough to ameliorate these issues affecting young people across Nevada.
According to Guttmacher Institute, in 2006, Nevada had the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the nation. It also holds the lead nationwide with the worst high school drop out rate according to Annie E. Casey Foundation. Nevada also has the infamous title of having one of the highest suicide rates in the country based on the state of Nevada Department of Human and Resources, Health Division 1996-1998.
Based on these statistics, you get a sense that if this situation is not promptly averted, it might lead to severe epidemic with devastating socio-economic issues across the state. There is an increasing need for a new kind of engagement with the young people. If you are a parent, Nevada needs you to step forward and help in some way to help our youths. Begin with those in your family, your neighborhood. Be a positive influence in the lives of those young people you know. It needs some sacrifice but it can be done.
We can not give up on our young people, after all the last generation did not give up on us. Like my colleague Joey Francis says, lets Think, Act and Do it. The time is now.
Gideon For-mukwai
Certified Resiliency Facilitator
[Others lifted me out of the trenches, now I must lift others out of the ditches.]
How to Connect Before you Communicate with your Teens
Are you one of the many parents who do not like talking about sensitive topics like sex with your kids? Most kids are yearning to hear from their parents on such topics. This write up hopes to make your job easier in this regard.
In order to communicate effectively on sensitive topics such as sex, alcohol and drugs, parents, mentors and educators must explore different ways of connecting before communicating with Generation Y, ie children born from 1981 upwards, otherwise known as Millenials or Mosaic Generation. Studies have shown that Generation Y children perceive life very differently from Baby Boomers or Generation X. Thus, to communicate effectively with Gen Y, you must first attempt to find common ground to build trust or bridges before you can communicate effectively with them. The 7 approaches of building bridges outlined here will enable you to break the ice to connect with them, before you can share information on sensitive topics.
Bridge # 1 Build Trust
Research has shown that although Gen Y kids are very tolerant to different views, they tend to trust information from their parents more than anybody else, including teachers. This is an amazing opportunity for parents and mentors to explore and help their kids make sound decisions about issues like relationships, drugs and alcohol.
One of the ways parents can build this bridge of trust is by asking open-ended questions. For example, you can ask your son, ‘Why do you like hanging out with Kenny?’ Beyond that question, try to listen carefully to understand their fears and motivations, without interrupting them. That shows to them that you respect of their opinions.
Bridge #2 Reach Out
You can also connect with your teenagers of Mosaic Generation by getting them to be involved with you in hands-on activities like cooking, painting or moving stuff around the garage. By doing it together with them, you are giving them the message that ‘we are pals and we are getting along very well.’ During the course of that activity, you can segue an idea on a sensitive topic like sex. At that point, they are more likely to listen because their walls of defense are down.
Bridge #3 Interact Online
Most parents do not cherish seeing their kids on the Internet for long hours. Not withstanding this, the Internet has both positives and negatives and it a great tool for parents to use to teach and communicate on a host of issues. An average Generation Y kid spends over 3 hours per day facing screens like computer screens, MTV, or using online networks like Myspace or Facebook. That is probably why some people call them ‘screenagers’. If a parent gets to learn the workings of such social networks like Myspace, it will be relatively easier to connect with them and communicate important values on difficult topics such as online pornography or online child predators.
Bridge #4 Dive with Them
If your teenager or child likes swimming as a recreational activity, that is a good avenue to connect with them by going for diving or swimming together. During the course of diving or swimming together, you can slip in a new idea like the importance of dressing appropriately in public places. Because you are both having fun, it will not be misconstrued as a sort of criticism.
Bridge #5 Go Games Together
Most young people and teenagers have a favorite game or team that they love to talk about. If you invest time in knowing about their favorite teams, players or games, you can easily connect and communicate with them through a conversation on that topic. By doing so, they believe that you care about their interests. This one area where we need to give credit to ‘soccer moms’ for often hanging out and running errands for their children during games.
Bridge #6 Excite Them
Teenagers do not like people who are boring. If you are boring, you will not hold their attention for too long. That is why Disneyland has been so successful for years. Young people and particularly Gen. Y kids love magic. They are fascinated by pace, mystery, colors and heroes. They love adrenaline-filled activities. You can tap into such adrenaline activities to communicate on sensitive subjects because such activities connect you emotionally with them. You can work magic with them through activities like dancing, drumming, singing and so on. In the course of the dancing, you can ask what do you think of Britney Spears? Based on their answer, you can provide some sound words of wisdom as a parent.
Bridge #7 Storytelling
Storytelling is a very powerful tool for connecting and communicating on tough issues with your teenagers or ‘screenagers’. You can use personal anecdotes or biblical stories. Personal stories tend to be very powerful and engaging because they want to know how my mom or dad coped with bullies at school. You are their natural heroes.
You can tell a story about you and your spouse and the lessons you have learned together overcoming alcohol and how you do not wish your children to suffer as you did. It is OK to let them know that you have not been perfect. When children know how far you have come on your journey, they will respect you even more.
Gideon F. For-mukwai, CEM, CRF
Staying Abstinent by Finding Support
At a very young age I began to use the computer; I was probably only about ten years old, if not younger. Soon after that I found myself drawn towards learning how the internet worked. A few years later when I was in high school I had a friend who introduced me into some simple web coding; he taught me how to make websites, and he supported me by leading me since he had more experience then I did. Eventually my friend moved away, and I stopped doing so much on the internet. I found myself doing other activities, activities which my other friends were doing. The reason I am telling you all this is because I hope it helps you understand what I am about to tell you.
The choice to stay abstinent is not an easy one. If you have made that choice, I am guessing that you have second guessed your choice at times, and if you have not, then you have probably at least found yourself feeling as if you have little or no support from others, which at times could be discouraging. So on that note, I want to tell you that if you want to stay strong in your commitment and lifestyle of being sexual abstinent, then I would really recommend finding someone who will support your decision.
This can be a group or a person; it really doesn’t matter. For many people one of the best places to go and find this support would be in their youth group or singles group at their church. But not everybody who chooses to stay abstinent goes to church. For these people you could consider your parents, or even your good friends. I would assume that people who have the courage to make a bold decision like staying abstinent, would most likely have friends of a similar mindset. So talk to your friends about it, and let them encourage you to stay faithful to your commitment.
