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Defusing Emotional Reactivity


Reactivity originates in anxiety over self-expression and the need to be understood and taken seriously.  The more we listen, take serious, and respect young people’s opinions and feelings, the more secure and self-driven they become.  The less we listen, the more intolerant and critical we are, the more insecure and anxious they become.  The more conditioned they are to expect attack or argument, the more they learn to become defensive.  What makes them defensive more than anything else are the things adults tend to do that make them feel criticized, argued with, or ignored.

Emotional reactivity is the number one reason people don’t listen and to be good at working with adolescents means you must be a good, skillful listener.  When someone says something that triggers an emotional attack or withdrawal, understanding goes out the window.  If listening without acknowledging what the other person says turns a discussion into conversational ping-pong, overreaction can turn them into the Battle of the Bulge.  If the war metaphor seems melodramatic, take inventory of your emotions next time you’re engaged in a heated conversations that escalates to a series of attacks and counterattacks.  You’ll leave that conversations feeling wounded and bleeding in a dozen places.

Some kids are so intentionally provocative that it’s almost impossible to listen to them without getting upset.  Then you have those thin-skinned individuals who fly off the handle at the slightest sign of criticism.  Sure, they’re overreactive, but unless you view your relationship to them as expendable, your challenge is finding a way to get through to them.

Defensiveness is a paradox of the human condition: our survival and security seems to depend on self-assertion and defense, but intimacy and cooperation require that we risk being vulnerable.  All human communication – whether in business dealings or personal relationships – reflects the tension between self-expression (talking) and mutual recognition (listening).

How do we resist reacting emotionally or to emotionally charge students?

  1. Anticipate and plan for conflict
  2. Remember that feelings are facts to the person experience them
  3. Empathy kills defensiveness
  4. Listen Harder
  5. Pay attention to your impulses
  6. Concentrate
  7. Don’t blame
  8. Learn to take criticism
  9. Clarify
  10. Give time and space

When someone opens up on you with a mean mouth or listens with feigned interest, it’s natural to blame it on their personality.  When someone reacts with a sudden, verbal eruption to something you say, it’s impossible not to feel this emotional backlash as coming from them.  But reactivity, like everything else that happens in relationships, is interactional.  The only part of the equation you can change is your part.

Try analyzing for a week the amount of your communications that are (1) critical or instructional, (2) avoidant, or (3) affectionate or filled with praise.  To change the climate in most relationships you just shift from (1) or (2) to (3) and see what happens.

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Parents In Denial About Sexually Active Children


In an article from PsychCentral a new study from North Carolina State University shows that many parents think that their children aren’t interested in sex — but that everyone else’s kids are.

The article suggests that many parents have certain beliefs about adolescent sexual behavior that may be, albeit unintentionally, reinforcing certain stereotypes that shape the sexual behavior of their kids.

You can read the full article here.

We want to know more about the stereotypes you hold about teen sexual behavior.  What are the beliefs you have and how did you develop them?  We also want to know if you think they contribute to adolescent sexual behaviors?

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UYWI West Coast Conference


We have the awesome privilege of spending next week with urban youth workers from all over the country.  This is a unique and amazing tribe of people.  If you work with urban youth I’d like to invite you to join us for a week of training, rest, and fun. 

We’re leading two workshops at the conference this year on developing healing communities and current behavioral trends for at-risk youth.

Other presenters this year are:

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Eight Ways to Go Green


Red staffer, Jen Kwiatek has some great ideas of how teens can celebrate Earth Day 2010 over at beRed on AOL.  Share these ideas with your students or create activities for them to participate in.  Either way, it’s a good thing to teach our students about the value of caring for God’s creation.

Fringe Editor

Some people only get involved in the environment on Earth Day. Don’t get me wrong … every little bit helps. But you can make Earth Day every day by just making a few changes in your daily routine. Not only will you be helping the environment, but you will probably save some money in the long run and live a much happier, healthier life. Here are eight ways that you can go green.

more…

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Engaging The Family


Most of us working in youth ministry know the importance of engaging parents in the spiritual life of their students.  While we realize that the spiritual care of their children is should be their responsibility, they are often just as spiritually immature as their kids, if they are new.  This task of ministry to parents is often shuffled to the bottom of the deck due to the more “pressing” issues of day-to-day ministry.  So we asked parents what they thought we could do to draw them in more.  Parents were quickly able to identify several things that could be done to increase their involvement. These included:

  1. Providing groups within the ministry programs that are specifically for parents of students in our ministries. It was identified that most parents of teens do not always feel comfortable visiting their kids groups for fear of encroaching on their space. Providing support/prayer/parenting groups specifically for parents would assist with facilitating social support networking among parents.
  2. More consistent, frequent, phone calls, emails, or faxed reports of the student’s spiritual progress. Parents report that the consistency of phone contact with the staff/volunteer is a function of the staff/volunteer and not the ministry. If the staff/volunteer is a “good staff/volunteer”, parents receive frequent updates. Parents report that the variability among staff/volunteer should be eliminated by mandating that parents receive consistent and frequent feedback.
  3. Parents report that upon initial visit, they and their child were asked about what their needs are but parents couldn’t get a sense if there was a well-thought out plan of discipleship. They recommended that ministry staff/volunteers should ask parents what their expectations of the ministry are and what discipleship/spiritual growth looks like to them. It was suggested that programs develop family growth plans to synch the family focus. This would reduce parental anxiety and insure that the program understands the needs and expectations of parents.
  4. Within youth ministry, parents should be asked to volunteer to chaperone field trips or recreational activities. This would allow parents to begin to have positive experiences with their children.
  5. Parents with grown students (college or young adult) would like to be able to volunteer as role models and mentors for other parents and for youth entering adolescence.
  6. Parents report that programs have a lot of jargon that the parents do not understand and this compromises the level of involvement parents feel with the program. The terminology and culture of the ministry and youth culture needs to be explained to parents.
  7. Parents of teens in the youth ministry would like to be able to celebrate with their child on his or her spiritual accomplishments while in the ministry. Parents report learning, after the fact, that their child has grown in faith, shared the gospel with a friend and led them to Christ, feels called to a mission field, or desires to be baptized. Often, youth ministries have ritual celebrations when such performance benchmarks in the ministry are passed by a youth and parents would like to be part of that celebration.
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Adolescent Mental Illness


Young people can have mental, emotional, and behavioral problems that are real, painful, and costly. These problems, often called “disorders,” are sources of stress for children and their families, schools, and communities. The number of young people and their families who are affected by mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders is significant.

It is estimated that as many as one in five children and adolescents may have a mental health disorder that can be identified and require treatment. Mental health disorders in children and adolescents are caused by biology, environment, or a combination of the two.

Examples of biological factors are…

more…

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Prescription Pill Abuse Stats


Nearly one in five (19 percent or 4.5 million) teens has tried prescription medication to get high Every day, 2500 kids age 12 to 17 try a painkiller for the first time.

The vast majority of teens abusing prescription drugs are getting them from the medicine cabinets of friends, family, and acquaintances.

It has been shown that most teens and young adults who use prescription opiates begin their use by experimenting with pills found in medicine cabinets at home.

Because these drugs are so readily available, and many teens believe they are a safe way to get high, teens who wouldn’t otherwise touch illicit drugs might abuse prescription drugs- and not many parents are talking to them about it.

Drug treatment admissions for prescription painkillers increased more than 300 percent from 1995 to 2005.

Opioid analgesic ER visits increased 117% over the last decade, and the death rate surpassed that of heroin and cocaine This behavior cuts across geographic, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries.

Prescription drug abuse has exceeded use of illicit narcotics in parts of Europe, Africa, and South Asia.

2.3 million kids age 12 to 17 abused prescription drugs in 2003.

Teens abuse prescription drugs more than any illicit street drug except marijuana.

Prescription drugs are the drugs of choice for 12 and 13 year olds 1 in 5 teens say they have taken a prescription drug without having a prescription for it themselves 60% of teens who have abused prescription painkillers did so before age 15.

There are as many new abusers age 12 to 17 of prescription drugs as there are of marijuana Two in five teens (40 percent or 9.4 million) agree that Rx medicines, even if they are not prescribed by a doctor, are “much safer” to use than illegal drugs.

Nearly one-third of teens (31 percent or 7.3 million) believe there’s “nothing wrong” with using Rx medicines without a prescription “once in a while”.

Nearly three out of 10 teens (29 percent or 6.8 million) believe prescription pain relievers – even if not prescribed by a doctor – are not addictive.

Article: Prescription Pill Abuse Among Adolescents

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10 Things You Need To Know About Date Rape


  1. Date Rape is forced or coerced sex between; partners, dates, friends, friends of friends or general acquaintances.
  2. Date Rape can be coerced both physically and emotionally – some emotional tactics include; threats to reputation, threats to not like you, name calling, saying you “brought it on” or “really want it”, threats to break up and threats to say you did it even if you didn’t.
  3. If a person has had too much to drink or is on drugs they can not consent to sex and having sex with them is legally rape.
  4. There are certain date rape drugs that render the victim unconscious and limit memory; using these drugs on somebody carries a harsher penalties than date rape and is a federal crime with a possible 20 year sentence. (See: 1996 Drug-Induced Rape Prevention and Punishment Act)
  5. Rohypnol, GHB, ActiveSeX, Roofies, Ruffies, Roche, R-2, Rib and Rope are all names describing a date rape drug. These drugs are odorless and tasteless and difficult to detect when in drinks or mixed with other drugs.
  6. Date rape drugs may be difficult to trace but evidence of intercourse is not, and in cases where use of these drugs is suspected evidence of rape standards are lower.
  7. If you don’t want to have sex, say NO like you mean it and fight it off if you have to – despite urban myths, people who fight off a rapist are more likely to stop the rape.
  8. Date Rape is the most common form of rape (78%) with 1 in 4 girls expected to fall victim to rape or attempted rape before they reach 25, and 3 out of 5 rapes occuring before a woman reaches age 18.
  9. Although girls are more often victims of rape, guys are not safe – they can be raped too.
  10. NO MEANS NO! If a person says no to sex (no matter how quietly or unconvincingly) and you go ahead with it anyway, that is rape.
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Organizational Conceptions of Youth


A striking difference between effective and not so effective organizations that serve youth has to do with their conceptions of youth.  The majority of youth-serving programs view youth as a problem to try and fix, remedy, control, or prevent some sort of behavior.  From an adolescent perspective, this single-focused, problem-based program strategy fails on two counts.  First, it is too simple.  The needs or problems of teens today can rarely, if ever, be circumscribed by a single-issue effort.  Teen pregnancy, drug use, criminal activity, and school failure have multiple roots and require inclusive responses.  Second, such “lack of” programs too often only reinforce youth’s view that something is wrong with them, that they are somehow deficient, and that they are a problem.  It is not surprising that youth do not elect to participate in such organizations or activities to a significant extent.  The youth organizations that attracted and sustained young people’s involvement give a visible and ongoing voice to a conception of adolescents as a resource to be developed and as persons of value to themselves and to society.

Does your ministry see adolescents as a problem to be fixed or, do they see our students as an asset to our community?

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