Suicide Epidemic Among Teens

For a teenager to be so unbearably unhappy that he would choose to kill himself is something that is almost too painful for a parent to think about. But with the increasing prevalence of teen suicide, no parent can afford to ignore the possibility. Suicide is now the third leading cause of death for high school students.

Kids look at this world as being more and more hopeless.  And many are choosing suicide as their solution. When I was in high school — a school with 3,000 students — I never knew of any of my peers committing suicide. And even working in Young Life after college, suicide among teens was a very unusual event that we rarely heard of.

Fact is, before the 1960’s, suicide by adolescents happened only rarely; but today, nearly one in ten teens contemplates suicide, and over 500,000 attempt it each year. While suicide rates for all other ages have dropped, suicides among teens have nearly tripled. >> Article continued…

Teens Obsessed With Video Games

More than 2.5 billion video games have been sold worldwide and the industry is growing exponentially.  In fact, video game sales now surpass sales of both music and movies. For millions of kids and young adults, playing video games has become an obsession.

To give you some history, I grew up in New Orleans – not exactly the most conservative city. But when I was a kid, people weren’t allowed to play pinball games at the arcade until they were 21. That seems like a silly law today, especially since nowadays nearly every family has their own version of a pinball arcade right in their own home. I find nothing wrong with most of these games. In fact, playing them together with your teen is a great way to connect. But some kids and young adults are being consumed by them, and that’s where the problem lies. >> Article continued…

Pull Out All the Stops to Help Your Teen

For parents, there is no worse feeling than watching your child spin out of control while nothing you do seems to make any difference.  If your teenager’s behavior is giving you feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and fear, I would like to offer you some suggestions. 

First, stop what you are doing and start a new way of thinking in regard to how you are handling the situation.  Albert Einstein defined insanity as ”Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  If your home is feeling a little “insane” these days, perhaps you need to change how it operates.  >> Article continued…

Princesses and Bullies

It’s back to school time — the time of year I begin to hear concerns from parents of young girls who’ve just entered middle school. They send their princess off to school with her crown neatly polished and her entourage intact. But rarely do two princesses happily exist in the same place at the same time, much less hundreds converging on a first day at middle school. So, battle lines are drawn.

It can cause your daughter a lot of confusion when she suddenly realizes there are many princesses, all vying for the same kind of attention or acceptance. She may return home from her first day at middle school confused, lost, and full of hate for everything she once loved. She may feel like a boxer who has engaged in a boxing match all day. >> Article continued…