1 February 2013 | www.cpyu.org

February 2013

WALT MUELLER, CPYU President

THE CENTER FOR PARENT/ YOUTH UNDERSTANDING

Helping parents understand teenagers and their world

There’s a classic Saturday Night Live skit featuring a trio of awkward young adult guys cruising around town on a Saturday night looking for ladies. They bop their heads to the now-familiar tune of the early 90s dance track, “What is Love?”

This month we celebrate “love” and romance on the holiday known as “Valentine’s Day.” Because they are growing up in a rapidly changing culture, it’s important that we pause to ponder how our kids would answer that musical question, “What is Love?” Then, we need to go a step further to ponder how that definition of “love” is shaping their understanding and definition of marriage.

As a parent, you’re called and uniquely positioned to systematically work to redeem and restore love and marriage in ways that rewrite the convincing cultural script your kids have come to believe. You stand between two worlds – the world of the Word of God and the world of today’s culture. Your calling is to bring the light of God’s Word on love and marriage to bear on the love and marriage messages they encounter each and every day in their world. Here are some strategies you can use to help your kids understand and embrace a biblical understanding of love and marriage, both now and for the rest of their lives.

First, teach them that marriage is part of God’s grand and glorious plan. If they want to understand and experience the joy of what marriage was meant to be, they need to consult with the Maker of marriage.

Second, define, define, and keep defining love and marriage according to the Maker’s manual. God’s design for marriage brings one man and one

woman together into a binding covenantal promise that they will commit to each other through all of life’s ups and downs without wavering or caving. . . even when their feelings tell them to do otherwise.

Third, re-define “love” in light of God’s Word. Culture has somehow succeeded to transform “love” from a willful decision to commit to another, into a feeling. Drawing the distinction between other-serving love that gives to another and self-serving love that makes me feel good might be one of the greatest favors we could ever do for our kids and their future spouses.

Fourth, debunk the cultural myths and lies about love and marriage. Recognize their presence, explain their influence, and expose their fallacies under the light of God’s Word.

Fifth, expose your kids to examples of what God intended love and marriage to be. Let your kids know how you and your spouse understand and manage your marriage in the midst of a culture that’s hostile to biblical marriage. If you are divorced or not married, process those realities with them as well. Talk about what happened, why it hurts, and how they can avoid it in their own lives.

Finally, be forthright about the challenges, difficulties, and delights that will be encountered by all couples. After all, we are broken people loving and marrying broken people. Anticipating the inevitability of struggles goes a long way in preparing your students to live out the marriage covenant when the feeling to do so might disappear or wane.

What is love? What is marriage? Let them know!

Rob Kardashian, in regard to the announcement that his sister Kim and her boyfriend, rapper Kanye West, were expecting a child, December 31, 2012.

YOUTH CULTURE HOT QUOTE

I’m so proud of my sisters, but I’ll be married before I have a baby.

What is L ve?

2 February 2013 | www.cpyu.org

THE BRAND OF SELF The term “branding” has snuck its way into the way we talk and live in recent years. Kids now aspire to be “branded” because they know that wearing the right brand assures them of the status they so desperately desire. What does it mean to be “branded”? It simply means a brand label and style is adopted as one’s personal identity. Kids who don’t wear the right clothes can become the object of peer taunting and exclusion at all grade levels, from nursery school right on through college and into their adult years. Some parents are going so far as to hire professional shopping consultants to do back to school shopping with their kids. One of those consultants says she knows how to convince a mother that paying $160 for a pair of jeans is worth it because “your daughter is going to get so much confidence from them.” Parents, our kids are learning that what you wear is an important determiner of status. But is that who God calls us to be? Is that where God wants us to find our value? No, our worth must be found in Christ alone.

90% of tanning salons claimed that indoor tanning wasn’t

dangerous at all while more than half said that tanning beds would not increase the

risk of skin cancer. (U.S. House of Representatives

Committee on Energy and Commerce Investigative Report, 2012)

Compared to children who were never bullied, bullying victims

are 3 times as likely to have suicidal thoughts, and those who were bullied over a long

period of time were 6 times more likely to consider suicide. (Journal of the American Academy of

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.)

Most Played Xbox LIVE Games

TO

P 10

by average daily

unique users, 2012

FROM THE NEWS:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II

2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

3. Halo 4

4. Minecraft

5. Call of Duty: Black Ops

6. FIFA Soccer 13

7. FIFA Soccer 12

8. Battlefield 3

9. Halo: Reach

10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

QUICK STATS

Teaching Appropriate Online Contactby Walt Mueller

It seems that not a day goes by that we don’t read or hear a news story about adults who prey on kids. In today’s world, parents not only have to be concerned about the dangers that exist in the neighborhood where they live, but the dangers that visit kids through the Internet as they connect with the world from the safety and comfort of their own homes! We need to teach our kids to “watch out for strangers” no matter where those strangers may exist.Here are some simple steps you can take to protect your kids from online predators:• Tell them to only send, receive, and answer messages from people they know.• Warn them of the existence and sneakiness of online hackers, predators and

bullies.• Make them aware of the fact that they don’t ever really know who’s on the other end

of a conversation.• Teach them to employ the “Ignore-Block-Report” strategy when someone they

don’t know contacts them online. They should Ignore and not respond. They should Block by having the online or wireless provider block the person/number. They should Report the harassment to parents and other authorities.

3 February 2013 | www.cpyu.org

TRENDS:

Prescription drug abuseNobody wants their child to become a drug or alcohol

addict. In fact, most parents work hard to keep their kids from substance abuse and all the dangers it brings. We

applaud ourselves when our kids choose not to abuse alcohol or other drugs like meth, heroin, or marijuana.

But have you thought lately about the trend towards the abuse of prescription drugs? The abuse of stuff that can be found

in the family medicine cabinet has been on the rise for years.

Nearly one in five teens admits to abusing medications that are not prescribed to him or her. Experts

advise you to look for these signs of prescription drug abuse: a change in sleep habits, a change in energy level, a change in personal hygiene,

a change in mood or personality, a sudden change in grades, a change in their circle of

friends, the loss of appetite, and constricted eye-pupils. Parents, monitor your teenagers and their friends. Your

commitment to keeping them off drugs will protect them from hurting themselves in long-lasting ways.

LATEST RESEARCH:

cruelty and kindness onlineA new survery from the Pew Research Center reveals some interesting information regarding what online life is like for our children and teens. According to Pew, two-thirds of the teenagers

surveyed said that people are mostly kind to each other on social networks, even though 88% said they had witnessed people being mean or cruel to others. One in five teens admits to joining in on the cruelty. In relation to online bullying, one in four teens said that an online squabble had gone offline, resulting in a face to face argument or worse. In an effort to protect our kids and to teach them how to live online to the glory of God, we must take the time to monitor their online time and then step in, offering guidance, correction, and boundaries

where needed. The good news from Pew is that 86% of teens say that their parents had advised them on how to use the Internet responsibly and safely. You can access some parental helps on our digital kids initiative website at www.digitalkidsinitiative.com. Parents, keep up the good work!

TRENDALERT

CPYU’S

4 February 2013 | www.cpyu.org

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© 2013 All rights reserved. The CPYU Parent Page is published monthly by the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, a nonprofit organization committed to building strong families by serving to bridge the cultural-generational gap between parents and teenagers.

Phone: (717) 361-8429 Fax: (717) 361-8964 email: cpyu@cpyu.org PO Box 414, Elizabethtown, PA 17022 | www.cpyu.org

HELPFULThe Great Rescue (NIV): Discover Your Part in God’s Plan is a new “narrative devotional” Bible from Walk Thru the Bible, published by Zondervan. Many teens (and adults too!) struggle with the discipline of reading their Bible because they fail to understand the larger story at play and their role in it. This Bible includes daily devotions for an entire year that help the reader understand their role in God’s divine story of creation, fall, redemption and restoration. As readers dig into the devotions and the biblical text they are drawn into God’s “great rescue” plan and shown how a relationship with Jesus Christ is meant to affect each and every area of their lives. The introductions to each book of the Bible also play an important role in helping the reader understand how each book fits into the whole of Scripture. If you’re looking for a new devotional Bible for a teen you know, give The Great Rescue a try.

FROM THE WORDWho is building your house? It’s a good question to ask in our performance-based and status-oriented world. It’s important that we take stock of how often we take control of the building process, causing us to parent in ways that manipulate our kids to measure up to societal standards rather than the standards God has set out so clearly in His Word. How often do we fall into the trap of endeavoring to make ourselves, our kids, and our parenting look good to others, rather than being pleasing to God?

The first full sentence of Psalm 127 never says that raising kids isn’t hard work. Rather, it’s the practice of parenting outside of God’s will, way and blessing that winds up being fruitless. This even applies to Christian parents who so earnestly want to see their kids live in faithfulness to Christ, but who do so by working to bring about behavioral conformity that appears good on the outside, rather than waiting on God’s Spirit to bring about deep-seated life-giving heart-change.

In his Everyday Prayers, Scotty Smith writes these words that we should all pray for ourselves: “You’ve rescued me from parental ‘laboring in vain’ – assuming a burden you never intended parents to bear. Father, only you can reveal the glory and grace of Jesus to our children. Only you can give anyone a new heart. Oh, the arrogant pride of thinking that by my ‘good parenting’ I can take credit for what you alone have graciously done in the lives of my children.”

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”

Psalm 127:1

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