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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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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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Well, well, well…


Wellness is the new buzzword right now and we should consider the implications it may have on youth ministry. Wellness implies a holistic approach to each unique individual. We will attempt to define wellness and flesh out the six areas of focus as well as how it impacts parenting and ministry to developing adolescents.

Wellness is a framework that can be used in many ways to help us organize, understand, and balance our own human growth and development. Everything we do, every decision we make, every thought we think, and every attitude and belief we hold fits into this framework made up of six basic concepts.

Social Wellness involves developing friendships, healthy sexual behaviors, the ability to interact comfortably with others and generally works for harmony in personal and community environments.

Romans 12:18 – “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

Intellectual Wellness is the strong desire to learn from challenges and experiences. It encourages ongoing intellectual growth, and creative yet stimulating mental activities which provide the foundation to discover, process, and evaluate information.

Romans 12:2 – “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Spiritual Wellness is the willingness to seek meaning and purpose in human existence; being sensitive to diverse multi-cultural beliefs and backgrounds that may conflict with ours. Being spiritually sound enables one to seek out the perfect harmony between that, which lies within one’s own spirit and our own behaviors.

James 1:23-25 – “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”

Emotional Wellness is having the ability to acknowledge and accept a wide range of feelings in oneself as well as in others. It is being able to freely express and manage one’s own feelings to develop positive self-esteem in order to arrive at personal decisions based upon the integration of one’s beliefs and behaviors.

Luke 6:45 – “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”

Physical Wellness encourages regular physical activities, proper nutrition and health care, such as exercise or sports, and personal hygiene. This type of physical activity discourages dependence on tobacco, alcohol and other drugs (prescription or street).

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

Vocational Wellness focuses on the integration of various components of the wellness framework into planning for a healthy future, such as career, family and future wellness. It develops the understanding that decisions and values may change as new information and experiences are attained.

 Psalm 34:7 – “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Wellness is…

  • a direction in which by its nature, moves our youth toward a more proactive, responsible and healthier existence.
  • the integration of the body, mind, and spirit.
  • the loving acceptance of the Father today and the exciting free search for who is He molding our students/children to become tomorrow.
  • choice living; a compilation of the daily decisions that adolescents make that lead them to the person God desires them to become.

We (adults) have a vital role to play in the wellness of our children/students.  We are to walk with them, in community, as fellow sojourners. Wellness will not just happen on its own.  It, by our very nature, requires others to show us the way.  To share their experience, strength, and hope that they too are caught up in the miraculous stream of the Holy Spirit that is leading them and guiding them on their journey toward reconciliation with the Father.  And we a called to be a part of that. In the words of Mike Yaconelli, “What a ride!”

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