When a new baby is born, fathers, mothers, family and friends all celebrate. For several days, balloons, flowers, gifts and cards flood the hospital and decorate the new parents' home. The new parents experience a kind of euphoria: giving birth to a new creation that is a bit of them.
It has long been rumored that parenting adolescents is a horror story waiting to be told. Yes, the road from childhood to adulthood is not easy. The changes that are happening in your child’s life are coming at warp speed. Extreme moodiness in adolescence is normal. Rebellion is an inevitable and necessary part of growing up. If your teenager does not experiment with risky behavior or flirt with the edges of the boundaries you have established, consider yourself lucky.
Poor or bad decisions have resulted in almost one-half of the youth in this country engaging in one or more of the following problem behaviors: substance abuse; school failure; delinquency; or early, unprotected intercourse (Bogenschneider, Small, and Riley, 1990). Adolescence is a time of increasing opportunities to make decisions about whom to be friends with, whether to go to college, who to date, whether to have sex, and whether to use alcohol or other drugs.
Decision making is an important skill to learn because we make decisions every day, big and little. Parents want children to grow up to be independent, responsible, happy adults. Learning and using a decision-making and problem-solving process will help them grow toward this goal.
Teens need to make more and more of the decisions affecting them. They will learn and grow from their successes and their mistakes. If parents make most of the decisions for them, they will not be ready to take on this task as they become adults.
It was when my own children were toddling around our house that a father of a teenage boy asked me a question I'll never forget: "How can I expect my son to hear the still small voice of God with all those other voices screaming in his ears?" I never fully understood the seriousness of his question until my children entered their teenage years.
It's a school district proud of its quiet neighborhoods, good families, high academic standards, and bright students. A $40,000 student survey opened their eyes to the fact that in 1995, district teenagers were using alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and a variety of other drugs at rates equal to and above the national average. But even though they now know that substance abuse is a problem "that's happening here . . . ", some parents continue to turn their heads in ignorance as they mutter, ". . . but not to my kid!"
Watch for these signs and symptoms that may indicate teen alcohol and drug abuse. A combination of several signs warrants your immediate attention.
Behavioral Signs
All Ray wanted to do was use the phone. He picked up the receiver and got ready to dial but his 16-year-old son Jeff was on the phone with a friend. Before Ray could put the receiver down, something about Jeff’s hushed tone made him listen. I’ve got $20. That should be enough to set us up for the weekend, he heard Jeff say. Curious, Ray listened a little longer as Jeff and his friend peppered their conversation with strange words like blunts, pocket rockets, and hot sticks.
My mother still talks about how quiet I was as a teenager. For some reason, this has always puzzled me. When I think back to the glorious days of my adolescence, I remember spending hour after hour on the phone talking with my friends. In fact, I wore out one of the phone cords stretching it around a corner into the utility room just to get some privacy from my nosy parents.
Nine in ten kids, between the ages of 8 and 16, have viewed porn online--mostly accidentally while doing homework (UK News Telegraph, NOP Research Group, 1/07/02). There is no way to avoid the statistics. Pornography is negatively impacting a huge percentage of "good Christian families" all around the world. In fact, due to the added weight of the guilt, secrecy and shame that Christian kids feel around this issue, the problem can spiral downward quickly without the parents being aware.
