Adolescent needs and parenting

WELL SAID:
“Yet the fact remains that every child needs authentic, intimate relationships with adults until he or she has completed much of the adolescent process. This responsibility cannot fall to parents alone or to teachers, who can touch individual students for a year at best. The only way we can stem the tide of the consequences of abandonment is to encourage a wide variety of adults to take part in the lives of the young. Nothing else will make a difference—not more baseball fields, more programs and events, or more job opportunities. Because the root of the issues related to contemporary adolescence has to do with leaving this age group to flounder on its own, the answer is relationships with adults who sincerely care. That is the sole need of this abandoned generation.”
—Dr. Chap Clark in Hurt:Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers (Baker Academic, 2004)

FROM:Copyright 2005 by Understanding Your TeenagerWritten by Wayne Rice. Visit us on the web at http://www.uyt.com

This statement is true and is why I am in Youth Ministry, however more and more I am concerned about today's youth because of the lack of parenting they are getting. Parents are responsible for their children's teaching and training in all areas.

Our upcoming parenting seminar (April 23) will touch on how parents need to be purposeful in helping their children be healthy physcially, mentally, emotionally (socially), and most importantly spiritually.