Parents Need to Be a Role Model for Teenagers

Parents should model what they teach. They should already be the kind of people they want their children to become. The parents should put forth a model of personal integrity and a loving marriage. The greatest gift (besides life) that parents can give their children is a home that is peaceful, warm, accepting, safe and secure. The first great building block of that home is a solid, functional, loving marriage. As an outgrowth of this marital relationship the parents model how to communicate, how to love, how to disagree, and how to negotiate; they model principles and virtues. They are the embodiment of what they teach; they are kind, gentle, hardworking, patient, understanding, tolerant, and resolute in keeping their standards. They are consistent in their instructions, are open and interested in their children, excited about their activities and progress, make the children feel treasured, cherished and important, and they require responsibility, accountability and impose or allow consequences.

All this is done in an accepting manner; never critical or judgmental, harsh or unkind. Parents can only teach a virtue that they possess and model. We teach what we really are and cannot teach anything else. No parent can lead children to where they themselves have not been. Parents cannot lift children to higher ground than they themselves are standing upon. There are no secrets in the home and children can see through sham and hypocrisy. They feel it, they sense it, and so it is necessary for parents to be what they wish to teach their children.

The parent does not say, “Do what I say, not what I do.” Someone has said, “I cannot hear what you say when what you are thunders so loudly in my ears!” Remember, whatever you are, you model, and whatever you model, you teach. By proper modeling the parent invites in the son or daughter to a higher moral life. There is no other way, no short cut, no substitute for proper, good, virtuous role models. You are a model. Whether you like it or not, you are an example and you cannot escape that fact. The truth: we are either good examples or we are bad examples to our children!
From the book “Let’s Fix the Kids” by Dr. James Jones

In a boarding school for troubled teenagers modeling behavior must be the same as Dr. Jones mentions. Staff personnel must live up to high standards and set forth a positive and almost unapproachable role model. Asking a student to do something you, yourself are unwilling to do makes for a bad recipe. If you are considering placing your troubled teen in a boarding school for behavior modification, make sure that the staff are good examples of virtue and high standards.

Dangerous Children In A Dangerous World

Juvenile violent crime rates increased 62% from 1988 to 1993, and then declined by just 6% from 1993 through 1997, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). However, the rates for juvenile drug and curfew violations, sex offenses, and simple assaults have continued to increase. The greater the number of risk factors and the fewer the resiliency factors the greater the risk that a youth will commit a violent act. To prevent dangerousness in youth, we need to understand the sources of the problem and intervene appropriately.

Youth with histories of aggression often have families that abuse or neglect them, expose them to domestic violence, exhibit untreated psychiatric or substance abuse problems, or are uninvolved in their children’s lives. According to OJJDP, children with more than five risk (community, family, individual, school, and peer) and fewer than six protective factors have an 80% chance of committing future violent acts.

If local community standards favor the use of drugs and firearms, and if there is an acceptance of crime as a way of life, the children of that neighborhood are more likely to use violent means to accomplish their goals. According to Prothrow-Stith (1993), by the time most children are grown, they have seen 100,000 acts of violence on TV, in video games, and in the movies. Many experts agree that media violence affects children. Vulnerable children are more attracted to and affected by media violence.

The families of violent children are often aggressive or neglectful, with problem behaviors, weak family bonding, and little warmth and nurturing, and family attitudes that favor drug use and crime. Additionally, violent patterns of responding can be learned in the same way we learn other standards of behavior or language. Children learn what it means to be a woman or a man and how adults behave through watching their parents and other adults. If the adults in their lives solve problems in a violent manner, that becomes the “norm” for expected behavior. Seventy-nine percent of violent children have witnessed violence between their parents. Violent children are four times more likely to come from homes with parental violence.

Troubled teens often experience academic failure as early as elementary school. As a result, they lack a commitment to school because it holds no positive rewards for them. Many of these children are learning disabled or have borderline or low IQs, making success in a traditional school setting difficult, if not impossible--especially if they do not receive needed services. If their social, problem solving and anger management skills are also poor, they may develop a pattern of fighting and bullying other students. Others drop out of school. "Allowing one youth to leave high school for a life of crime and drug abuse costs society $1.7 to $2.3 million" (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999, p. 82).

Success and positive self-worth are universal needs. When children fail to find these at home or in school, they seek out other youths with similar problems and views. In this deviant peer culture, they can become successful in their own eyes and in the eyes of their peers. A deviant peer group often reinforces antisocial behaviors and attitudes. Activities are often based on power and control and can escalate into violence. To take them away from that course, a new route to success must be offered. These children find it difficult to relate to “straight” kids--the peers who previously rejected them--who think, feel, and act differently. Bridging that gap can be a considerable task.

If you look at the reverse of the above risk factors, you will find the conditions that have the potential to protect youths from a violent lifestyle. It gives us hints as to where to proceed with treatment. Children need constant, positive, and nurturing caregivers that set rules, respect a child’s individuality and provide secure attachment in order to grow up emotionally healthy. School success and having prosocial peers can be a protective factor. Having a positive social orientation is also helpful. Higher IQ and resilient temperament can help a child heal from environmental insults and learn to cope more effectively. When there are bonds to supportive prosocial family, teachers, counselors, or other adults, kids have a chance to make choices other than violence. Clearly stated family and community rules and expectations and monitoring of child behavior can be effective in helping children learn to follow social norms. A child who has good social and problem solving skills, moral maturity, and an ability to manage emotions, particularly anger effectively, will have less problems with violence. Children who are curious, enthusiastic, and alert, set goals for themselves, have high self-esteem and internal locus of control will be more resilient. Resiliency factors include nurturing, stable caregiver with consistent, but not harsh, disciplinary techniques, positive activities, school success, and prosocial peers.

There is no one factor that predicts youth violence. It is the combination of more risk factors and fewer resiliency factors that can make the difference between a child that is dangerous and one who is not. Understanding that, allows us to plan interventions to help “at risk” youth.

A Look into Cool

Some people will buy a Corvette, and another a Harley Davidson, but does that make either one of them cool. Read about what people buy to be cool and what others think of those things.

Lots of people who went thru school as one of the not cool people, spend much of their adult lives trying to become the cool kid they always wanted to be in school, and they go but and buy anything they can that may make people think they are cool, instead of taking a look at what makes some people cool and some people not cool.

Motorcycles and Cars: Many people who are looking to be cool will buy a motorcycle, maybe a Harley Davidson, a big sports bike or a sports car. This is because they feel that a fast car or motorcycle will make people look at them in a positive way, but in reality most people think less of these people.

Clothes, many people like to spend lots of money on the latest fashions to help them improve their image, thinking that people will find them interesting because they know what the hot new things to wear are.

Music: many people will find out what music is being played at the most popular clubs and drive around blasting it from their cars to make people think they are cool because they listen to the same music that is played in all the hot clubs.

Online and Casino Gambling: gambling has become a very popular thing in recent years and with Poker shows popping up on all the TV channels, many people think it is cool to go to the casinos dressed up like famous poker players, including vests with patches from sponsors. As un-cool as dressing like a professional poker player may be playing casino games like Craps, Poker and Blackjack may be cool, games like Sic Bo, Keno and slot machines are not cool unless you hit a Multi Million Dollar jackpot.

Bling: Bling is a term for gold ad silver jewelry, and in recent years the rule has become the cooler you want to appear the large your jewelry must be. For the most part these people are spending lots of money trying to look cool but wind up looking like fools.

Physical Fitness: in recent years many people have decided that if you want to look cool you have to belong to a gym, the people in the gym that are there just to look cool are always easy to spot. They are usually found sitting at the juice bar or in the hot tub. If they do ever actually do any type of workout it is usually ridding a bike for 5 minutes and before they even break a sweat they have to stop.

But the truth is that cool is not about what you have and how you look it is about who you are, and if you are choosing your car, your clothes, your music and anything else so that other people will believe you are cool and not because you enjoy these things then as cool as you may think you are, is in direct proportion to how cool you are not.

Being cool is not about wanting to be cool, being cool is about not caring what other people think and living life to its fullest, and in doing this you will find others with the same interests and these people will think of you as cool.

So I guess the key to being cool is just to make friends with people who enjoy the same things you enjoy and in doing so you will find that as your self image increases your need to be cool decreases, and then you will be cool.