Parents - Youth Workin' It

A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Teenage Brains – Book Review

March 8, 2013 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Mark Oestreicher – A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Teenage Brains

4.5 / 5

This book about teenage brains is part of a series of parent guides to help them understand different aspects about their teenage children. We’ve previously reviewed the books about teenage guys and social media.

All the other books in the series are co-authored, but this one has been solely written by Marko. It’s a great book and so I can highly recommend it for you and the parents of your youth to read.

What I Liked

Seeing as I’ve given it a 4.5 rating, I obviously liked a lot of it. Here are three things in particular that I liked about it though:

1. Parenting Goal

Early on in the book, Marko explains that the goal he and his wife had when raising their teenage children wasn’t for them to be happy, successful or unique, although those were obviously things they did desire for their children.

Rather, their goal was to raise an adult. When you look at your role as a parent from this perspective, it will change the way you treat your teen children in terms of the responsibility you give them.

2. Importance Of Responsibility

Following on from the previous point, Marko goes on to explore the importance of giving your child more responsibility. He explains that throughout their teenage years, their brain is developing. Many people see this as more of a reason to control young people as their brains aren’t developed enough for being responsible.

Marko makes an important point to counter this view though:

“…a teenager who is never given meaningful responsibility (meaningful is a key word there) can’t be expected to be responsible.”

Practice makes perfect, so if you don’t let your teenager practice responsibility, they’ll never be perfect 😉 Yes, they may fail, but let them “exercise” their brains so that this ability grows stronger.

3. Brain Neurons

Towards the end of the book, Marko mentions that a couple of years before puberty hits, the brain adds millions of additional neurons. A few years later though, the neurons which haven’t been used are lost.

This makes opportunities to be responsible in the early to mid-teen years so much more important, as this can be vital in forming neural pathways in the brain of young people. In the book, he advises that a researcher in to teenage brains believes that the brain is therefore hard-wired in the teenage years for how it’ll function when they’re an adult.

That being the case, what can you do in your youth work that gives teens more responsibility? Check out our post on youth participation that details 7 ways you can do this.

What I Didn’t Like

As mentioned above, this is the third of the Parent’s Guide books that I’ve read. All of them are quite short books and so the amount of information and advice they can fit in them is limited.

All three books have felt like there’s more that could be said on their respective subjects, but this book in particular feels like the ideas and advice could be fleshed out even more. Part of this is because Marko’s written several times on his blog about teenage brains, so it’s clear there’s even more that he could say on the subject; hopefully he’ll write a more in-depth book in the future.

Conclusion

All in all though, despite being shorter than I’d like, it’s a great book for learning more about teenage brains and how this can impact both parenting and youth work.

It gives practical advice on how to approach the way you deal with teenagers and is a positive look at their brain development, rather than the common negative media narrative of teenage brains being less developed and thus less capable.

Buy A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Teenage Brains

Amazon – Paperback

Amazon – Kindle

Youth Cartel – Paperback

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A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Teenage Guys – Book Review

December 7, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Mark Oestreicher & Brock Morgan – A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Teenage Guys

4.5 / 5

We got a free copy of this – along with many other goodies – at the Summit last month. Brock was one of the speakers there and, along with Andrew Marin, was the best speaker.

I was therefore looking forward to reading this but have been really busy recently. I’ve finally had a chance to read it and am pleased to say it was worth the wait.

At just over 50 pages long it’s not a very long book, but it’s packed full of wise advice and guidance for parents on how to raise their teenage sons.

There’s a lot I liked about it – here are a few of my favorite parts:

1. Overscheduled

One of the challenges they identified is that “teenagers are way too busy and far too overscheduled” with study, sports, jobs, chores, etc. This is so true, although I think a large part of this is cultural. Growing up in the UK, parents don’t tend to place such an emphasis on filling their children’s lives with extracurricular activities. Here in the US, that seems to be a far more common thing.

Personally, I feel like there should be a happy medium. I don’t think it’s bad that parents encourage their young people to get involved in other activities – I think that’s healthy and can give both teenage boys and girls a sense of community that they need. It’s important to not make their lives so hectic though that they get burned out.

2. Perspective

Brock and Marko encourages parents to also try seeing things from the perspective of their son. In the chapter about the struggles of teenage guys, the section about anger says “Don’t rush to squash your son’s anger; instead, try to help him understand it. The only rule we would encourage is that in our anger, we don’t dishonor, disrespect or hurt people.”

I liked this as it emphasizes that although parents should discourage certain behaviors, it doesn’t discourage emotion. They also go on to encourage parents to not only help their son to understand the reason behind the emotion, but for the parents themselves to understand why their son feels this way, as that will give further insight into who their child is and what they care about.

3. Taking Responsibility

The tagline of A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Teenage Guys is “Remembering who he was, celebrating who he’s becoming”. I especially love that second part, as it guides much of the thinking throughout the book. The authors repeatedly emphasize the need for parents to both guide their sons in who they’re becoming while simultaneously freeing the reins (or the kite strings, to use an analogy from the book).

Overall though, I think the book can be summed up in one word:

Hope

Marko and Brock are very real about all the challenges, struggles and issues that teenage boys (and by extension their parents) will face. What’s clear throughout the book though is that they don’t prey on parents’ fears. In fact, they actually write “We must trust the Lord and not parent out of fear”.

Instead, they offer a message of hope – that parents can actually have a positive impact in the lives of their child, no matter what they’re going through.

There’s no “25 steps to raising an angelic son who’ll never put a foot wrong”, but they do offer examples of good parenting techniques and practical steps that both mothers and fathers can take when raising teenage sons.

This book has been written by two youth pastors and is therefore written from a Christian perspective. Marko and Brock take a holistic approach though, where they focus on all aspects of a teenage guy’s development, not just the spiritual element. There’s therefore a lot of good stuff in here for all parents, whether they’re Christian or not.

The only thing I didn’t care for about the book was that it felt a little disjointed at times when the authors were giving their own experiences due to the way it was written. This meant there were sentences throughout the book that started:

Growing up I (Brock) had…..
My wife (Marko here), when…..
When I (Brock) was…..
Etc

I complete understand that this is due to there being two authors, so they need to clarify who is writing that section. Personally though, I’d have preferred if those sections had instead started:

BM: Growing up, I had…..
MO: My wife, when…..
BM: When I was…..

That’s just my personal preference though – it certainly doesn’t detract from the wisdom throughout the book.

I’d therefore recommend it for all youth workers to read, so that you can then encourage the parents of your teen guys to pick up a copy.

Buy A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Teenage Guys:

Amazon – Paperback

Amazon – Kindle

Youth Cartel Store – Paperback

How Much Should I Charge For A Youth Retreat?

October 23, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Q: How much should I charge for a youth retreat? Quite a lot of the young people I work with are from low-income families, so I don’t want to set the price too high. I want to be sensitive to how much their parents can afford, but don’t know the best way to address the issue with them. Can you help?

A: Money is always a tricky subject, especially for activities that cost more like youth retreats. Like you said, it’s important to be sensitive to how much parents can afford without simultaneously embarrassing them that they may not be able to afford to send their child on the retreat.

Once you’ve started investigating possible youth retreat centers, you’ll have a much better idea of how much your budget will need to be. This is because the center will probably be the largest part of the budget. Check out our previous post for a more detailed guide on how to calculate a youth retreat budget.

Before making a final decision on which center to book, we’d recommend putting together a Parent Cost Feedback form.

What’s A Parent Cost Feedback Form?

The form should contain a table that lists the following:

A shortlist of three retreat centers
Some pros and cons of each center
The estimated cost for a child to go on the retreat
Empty boxes beneath each option

Try to estimate the total cost of the retreat and put this on the form, rather than just putting down the cost per child for the center only, as this will give the parents a better of idea of how much they can expect to pay overall. It doesn’t have to be a final quote at this stage, but enough to give parents a good idea of what the options are.

You could include more than three youth retreat centers on the list, but this might give too many options to get a true gauge as to how much parents can afford.

Beneath the details of each center on the form, the empty boxes are for parents to indicate which would be their preference. All they need to do is to put an ‘X’ in the box for the retreat center that they would prefer, taking into account the cost along with the pros and cons. Using only an ‘X’ helps ensure anonymity so that parents aren’t embarrassed to choose the cheapest option.

At the end, you should have a good idea as to which is the most affordable option for the parents.

How to get the form completed

How you get the form completed will depend on your contact with parents. Here are some different methods depending on parental contact:

Church

Many youth retreats are organized through churches, so if this applies to you then the best option will probably be to make an announcement during a service. Leave the Parent Cost Feedback form at the back of the church for them to complete as they leave.

Community Center

If parents drop their children off at your youth club at a community center, ask them to complete the form at that point. It’s best to get this done at the beginning of the evening rather than at the end, as parents will probably just want to get home when picking them up.

No Parental Contact

Perhaps you never get to communicate with the parents of your young people for whatever reason. If that’s the case, mail them a copy of the form along with a return envelope with a stamp on it to encourage them to reply.

Another option is to set up a survey through Survey Monkey. This is free and you can email the link to parents if you have their email addresses.

Downloadable Parent Cost Feedback Form Template

When you buy a copy of How To Plan A Youth Retreat, you also get exclusive access to many different youth retreat templates and forms. This includes a sample Parent Cost Feedback form, as well as a blank feedback form that you can complete with details of the retreat centers you find.

Discover more about the book using the link above or buy it from Amazon by clicking on the image to the right.

Question: How do you find out from parents how much they can afford for activities like youth retreats? Let us know in the comments below.

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Teaching Respect To Teenagers – Youth Work Session Idea

September 20, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Young people (and adults!) through the ages have had trouble respecting others. Today’s youth work session idea looks at ways you can approach teaching respect to teenagers and how to help them consider this issue more deeply.

Do & Don’t

One of the first steps in teaching respect to teenagers is to get them to think about people who they do respect and who they don’t.

To do this, divide a sheet of paper down the middle, with “Do Respect” on one side and “Don’t Respect” on the other. They should then think of all the different groups of people they know and place them in one of the two columns. This could either be done together as a group on some flipchart paper or individually on their own sheet of paper.

If they have a hard time thinking of different groups, here are some ideas to prompt them (not all of these may be applicable to your teenagers):

Brothers/sisters
Parents
Friends
Boyfriend/girlfriend
Teachers
Police
Social workers
Neighbors
Youth workers
Sports coach
Pastors
Movie stars
Pop stars
Sport stars

With movie stars, pop stars, etc, have them name specific celebrities, as this will help with the next section.

Why?

Now that they have a list of people who they do or don’t respect, the next step is to find out reasons why they feel that way about each group / person. Encourage them to be as specific as they can – instead of a reason being “Because they’re stupid”, have the teens elaborate on reasons why they think the group / person is stupid.

This can give you far more insight into why the young person may have such a hard time showing respect to certain people. For example, you may find out that the reason a young person hates the police so much is because they arrested their father for physically abusing them.

As this section could lead to personal and sensitive information being involved, it might be worth getting the youth to write their reasons down individually, so that it’s only you that will see their answers.

Who?

The next part of teaching respect is to reverse the situation. Ask them to list people who show them respect. You could in theory have them list people who don’t show them respect, but by focusing on people that respect them will help this part of the session remain positive, particularly as the first couple of steps could have been challenging for the teenagers.

As this is a more positive section, it should be OK doing this as a group rather than individually.

How?

Now that they have a list of people who show them respect, ask them for examples of how these people show them respect. Again, ask for specific examples – instead of “Because they’re nice to me”, try to have them explain exactly what it is that’s showed them respect. This could be their tone of voice, smiling at them, that they praise them when they work hard, etc.

Benefits

The next step when teaching respect to teenagers is to explore the benefits from both sides. What are the benefits when somebody respects them and what are the benefits when they respect others? For example:

When someone respects me…..

When my Dad respects me, it makes me happy
When a teacher respects me, it makes me work harder
When the police respect me, I don’t want to insult them
When my boyfriend respects me, it makes me love him more
When my sister respects me, it makes me want to play with her more

When I respect someone else…..

When I respect my teacher, I won’t get a detention
When I respect my sports coach, it might make him more likely to pick me for the team
When I respect my Mom, she won’t shout at me
When I respect my girlfriend, our relationship will get stronger
When I respect the police, I won’t get arrested for being mouthy

This activity could be done by giving each young person a pen and some post-it notes to write down their thoughts. These could then be stuck on the flipchart next to each person / group if you’ve been using a flipchart.

Positive Actions

The previous activity will hopefully have helped your teenagers to start internalizing some of the benefits of showing respect. This step will help them internalize ways that they can do this.

Provide each young person with some post-it notes and a pen (if they don’t have them from the previous activity). Get them to write down three ways that they could show respect to each person / group that was listed in the first activity, regardless of which column they were listed in.

On the flipchart, write each person / group on a separate sheet. Once the youth have come up with three ways to show respect to each person, have them stick the post-it notes around their name on the flipchart. Read out all the different options as you go along, so that your teenagers are teaching each other how to respect.

If they have a hard time coming up with ideas, explain that they could show respect through things they say or do, or maybe even things they don’t say or do.

Challenge

Finally, set them a challenge – to intentionally show respect to every person /group listed over the course of the next week (or until the next time your group is due to meet).

At your next meeting, get the youth to report back on how it went by asking some questions. These could include:

Who was it hardest to show respect to?
How did you show respect?
How did they react?
How did you benefit by showing them respect?
How did your relationship improve?

Try to focus on the positive as much as possible and celebrate their achievements, as this will encourage them to continue showing respect.

Question: What other tips do you have for teaching respect to teenagers? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

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How To Deal With Parents As A Youth Worker

September 19, 2012 By Stephen Pepper Leave a Comment

Dealing with parents in youth work — Unfortunately, dealing with parents in youth work isn’t always picture perfect

As a youth worker, it’s important that we also work with parents. There can be times though that it’s hard to deal with parents for one reason or another.

This week’s Best Of Youth Workin’ It looks back at a series of posts where we gave advice on how to deal with different types of parents:

1. Parents who are unsupportive of your youth work – Some parents may have a problem with the fact that you’re working with their youth. If you’re a social worker, it could be that they see this as an indictment on their parenting skills. If you’re a youth pastor, a young person’s parents may not believe in God and so be concerned that you’re brainwashing their child. Other times, it could simply be that they don’t know enough about the work you’re doing with, so better communication could help solve this problem.

This first post therefore gives four tips on how to deal with this type of unsupportive parent.

2. Parents who are unsupportive of their children – It can be tough seeing parents who don’t support their child. There can be many different reasons why parents act this way, some of them similar to the reasons given above as to why some parents aren’t supportive of your youth work.

This post offers three ways that you can try to encourage parents to be more supportive of their children.

3. Parents who want to be over-involved in your youth work – These parents can be the complete opposite of unsupportive – they want to be involved in every aspect of your youth work. This could be because they want to keep an eye on their child, they’re worried about being unsupportive or perhaps their parents were over-involved in a similar way, so don’t know any different.

This post has a number of “dos and don’ts”, along with five ways that you can help manage their involvement to keep it at an appropriate level.

4. Parents who are aggressive – Aggressive parents can be an especially tough situation to deal with. This post lets you know how to use ICE to keep things cool.

Question: Are there any other types of challenging parents you have to deal with in your youth work? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll try to provide some advice in future posts on how to deal with that type of situation.

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