It’s the American dream: Grow up, attend the right school, graduate…and then move into Mom’s basement! Okay, maybe that last part is the new “amended” dream. A record number of 20-somethings are opting to live at home rather than leave the nest.…
As a youth worker, you know it’s important to communicate well with parents. You may have learned that lesson via the School of Hard Knocks, maybe from a frustrated parent, or from 14 billion phone calls regarding something you should’ve conveyed with a quick text or email.…
As youth workers, we generally recognize that parents have the greatest influence on teenagers. Sometimes that’s simply a factor of time. We spend an hour or two with kids every other week (depending on homework and sports practice), while most moms and dads are with them nearly every day.…
The last time I saw Aaron, he was learning about life skills at a training session for at-risk teenagers. At the time, he was close to the cliff’s edge—where kids who are drug-addicted and homeless slip into oblivion. His parents didn’t know or care where he was.…
In the News Shanghai, China—Hundreds of “love tents” pop up every fall on Chinese university campuses, and the residents are parents, not students. Parents—and often extended family members—who travel long distances with their college freshmen often have difficulty finding accommodations. So universities have devised the compassionate solution of free campsites, allowing parents to make sure their kids get settled in.…
I love overly salted, cured meats but that is not the SPAM we are talking about. In 2014, we realized we were spamming the parents in our ministry. The open rate of our student ministry emails were crazy low. We were working hard to be heard outside of email too, and it was a little exhausting.…
I braced myself to hear whatever came out of her mouth next. “Here’s the problem,” she began. “I want to serve and have a lot to offer. I just have some strong opinions about a few things that I won’t budge on and sense would cause problems here.”…
