Parents/Guardians of Teenagers,
I just want to encourage you in the new journey you are beginning! As students make the transition from child hood to teenager many things begin to change. Not only their voice, but who they hang out with, what they like and don’t like, how much time they want to spend with mom and dad, etc. Some of these changes are good and some can be detrimental to their further growth and development.
Here at Crellin Assembly of God Youth Group we want to strive to help parents and their teenagers navigate the murky waters of adolescents. We believe that parents are heroes. You are a hero; and I, and everyone who works with your student consider it an awesome opportunity to be able to come along side of you and lend support.
In a nutshell, our goal is to help you be the best parent you can and encourage your child to grow into a healthy young adult. But we don’t want to have just “good kids” in the youth ministry; and we certainly don’t want to have just “good adults” sitting in the pews of church every Sunday. We want to inspire, motivate, and encourage both parents and students to become disciples and Christ followers of Jesus Christ…we want every parent and student to have an incredible relationship with Jesus and to know that whatever the future might bring they have (you) have a better future because of who you serve. We want parents and students to recognize how incredibly important Jesus is in everyday life and that Jesus will call us to do big things, to do hard things (like forgive your next door neighbor, ask for forgiveness from your own father or mother for something you’ve been dealing with for a long time. We want to encourage, motivate, and inspire you and your family to go deeper with God and discover the depth of His love for you and your family!
Since teenagers do not come with owners or operators manuals I have compiled a list of books that would be great for you to pick up and flip through! Some of them are the kind of books you pick up and read from front to back and others are more of a resource guide that you can pick up and search for particular topics. Many parents have found these resources invaluable in helping their teens through tough situations like dating, eating disorders, anger management, attitude etc!
I have also provided a list of books that I would really really encourage your son or daughter to read. I suggest that you buy some of them but also make your child buy a few that way they take some ownership and responsibility for the books. The book lists are divided into books for parents, books for students and then subdivided into books for young guys and books for young girls and finally books for both young guys and young girls. The books I’ve chosen were picked b/c they are valuable, easy to read and actually enjoyable.
I encourage you to read over the list by yourself or with your child and pick some books to buy as you approach this new journey in life…the best way to do it is together! And as always if you have questions or concerns about anything please ask! Don’t suffer in silence…I can be reached by email: haiku11000@yahoo.com or by phone 240-321-5844.
Pastor Jeff
BOOKS:
For Parents:
- What Your Daughter Isn’t Telling You: Susie Shelenberger & Kathy Gowler; Bethany House Publishers
- Parenting: From Surviving to Thriving: Charles R. Swindoll; W Publishing Group
- Rite of Passage Parenting: Moore: Thomas Nelson
- Parenting In The Home Stretch: Neumann; Revell Puplishing
- Parents Guide to the Spiritual Mentoring of Teens: Joe White, Jim Weidmann
- Not-So-Stupid Parents; Why Your Kids Think You’re Weird and How to Prove Otherwise. Hayley DiMarca: Revell Publishing
- Get Out of My Life but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the Mall? Anthony E. Wolf. The Noonday Press
For Students:
Young Men:
- When Young Men are Tempted also titled as The Naked Truth. Perkins
- Every Young Mans Battle; Arterburn & Stoeker
- My Life His Mission; Kim Davis
Young Women:
- Mean Girls; DiMarco
- Technical Virgin: DiMarco
- Idol Girls: DiMarco
- Sexy Girls: DiMarco
Young guys and girls:
- Stupid Parents (Companion guide to Not So Stupid Parents) Dimarco
- MSSS (Middles School Survival Series): My Family; Johnston & Oestreicher
- MSSS: My Faith; Johnston & Oestreicher
- Wisdom on Making Good Decisions: Matlock
- Studies On The Go; John Polich
- The Dateable Rules; Dimarco
- Sex 180; Ingram and Walker
- The Dirt on Dating; DiMarco
- The Dirt on Breaking Up; DiMarco & Lookadoo
- The Dateable Rules; Justin Lookadoo & Hayley DiMarco
- The Art of Rejection; DiMarco
WEBSITES:
Sometimes, life and its troubles seem overwhelming. Maybe you think no one cares. Maybe your life feels out of control. Maybe you had a bad day … or a bad year. Maybe what should be a small problem seems huge.
http://www.youthspecialties.com/articles/category/free-resources/
You can subscribe to this weekly newsletter and pass it along to parents of your students (again, making you look like a superstar!), or encourage parents in your ministry to sign up to receive it themselves. Either way, each week will bring a new article or excerpt with valuable insight for parents of teens, along with links and insights into their teens’ worlds, and more!
http://www.cpyu.org/Default.aspx
The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding is a nonprofit organization committed to building strong families by serving to bridge the cultural-generational gap between parents and teenagers. To learn more about partnering with CPYU, visit our online donation page.
http://www.drugfree.org/prevent
This website is for parents who may suspect that their teenager is using drugs and alcohol. It is a non-Christian tool that has tips for parents about how to do intervention with their teenager to how to spot it. There is also on this site a link to where parents can connect with other parents.
http://www.youngwomenshealth.org/depression_parents.html
Depression is the focus of this site. This tool for parents gives them warning
signs to watch out for and what kind of help there is out there for parents.
http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/mental_health/bipolar.html
This site talks about bipolar in youth culture. It gives a clear definition of and ways parents can help their teenager.
The motto of this site is “encouraging parents, building families. This site has a parent newsletter that goes out if you sign up for it. It has a section that gives real life examples from the lives of other parents to encourage, warn, and help other parents of teenagers to be able to do a great job of parenting. I like this site because it gives practical examples of what to and not to do when parenting a teen. The people are so real, and honest and not putting up a front of how spiritual their kids are etc. Some of the stories are sad, but they can all help. The parents care about their kids and want the best for them, and it is evident in this site.
This sites purpose is to help parents teach their children how to think, as opposed to what to think. It has newsletters and seminar openings like the other ones as well, but the cool part about this site is the links underneath the “Topics to Help Connect Your Family” section. They are all links that keep the parents informed on what certain things do to their teens, and how to determine what is and is not kosher to let their kids watch etc. It teaches the parents how to teach their children the things of God through the stuff that they are into such as music, or sports, or videogames, etc. This is a great resource for the parent who wants to understand what is happening to their teen as they are exposed to different parts of the media.
http://www.cwla.org/positiveparenting/
This site is a great topical site. It has information for all types of parents. It has positive ideas for helping the average parent, the parents of young women; parents of young men. It has different ideas for organizations that the teen could get involved with instead of choosing destructive habits etc. It has a link for divorced and single parents. It deals with issues such as substance abuse, and it also has education resources, media and technology resources, and mental health resources. It even has links for teen sexuality and pregnancies.
http://exodusyouth.net/youth/parents/index.html
This site is excellent for teaching the Christian parents of youth how to help their teen in regards to homosexuality. It has an information section that helps the parent understand what is happening to his or her teen, and the outside influences that could be contributing to it. Your Child is gay, Child School System, at risk for homosexuality, and homosexual parent are some of the link topics that are available. The best part about this site is the Understanding Homosexuality section, which is on the right. It has amazing links that tell you what is up with homosexuality in regards to the Bible, genetic questions, when “passions are confused” the root causes of homosexuality etc. They also have an entire section of links and explanations of how to help the child/teen. There is also a section entitled “Children at Risk.” This site is completely amazing for obvious reasons! I love it. It has so much information and at the same time is totally practical.
http://msmparents.blogspot.com/
This resource has movie reviews on many different times and types of movies. It lets the parents know, from a Christian parental perspective, what they’re letting their teens watch. This is a resource site, dedicated to help the parents of teens find other resources for the proper development of their teenager. It has resources for parents of junior higher kids as well as high-school kids. This site also has a blogging section so that you can express your worries and questions to other real-life parents, who may be able to give encouragement, moral support, or good advice on what to do.
www.cafemom.com: a place where mothers can get together and relate life with those who understand; has journals and discussion boards; a good place to share Godly parenting with other mothers; free membership
this is the Christian version of Café Mom; has a monthly ezine that moms can sign up for; not sure if it has a blog section, but it covers every topic between pregnancy and departure
www.premeditatedparenting.net:
this site is all about the Biblical basics in parenting; parents can sign up for weekly emails and read articles about setting parenting goals and following them.
This is the official site of Focus on the Family. Their help sections include: Parenting Stages; Relating; Discipline; Health and Safety; Schooling; Special Family Situations and Child Development. Each section has multiple help tools based on that topic. Health and Safety has an article on Eating Disorders and Special Family Situations has an article on ADHD.
www.christianitytoday.com/parenting
There is a section called ‘Ages & Stages’ that has some great articles on how to deal with cheating in school, selfishness and discipline.
There is an excellent article on how absent parents are producing a generation that is addicted to destroying their bodies while being filmed. The article is very relevant to today’s culture. There is a discussion board for parents on things like home schooling and controlling kids in church. There is also a section on movie reviews.
Stands for ‘Center for Parent/Youth Understanding and their motto is “Understanding Culture to Impact Culture”. They have a whole section on Youth Culture News and Media Highlights so parents can keep up with what’s going on in their teen’s world. There are book recommendations based on specific needs as well as a plethora of articles and research on current issues. Parents can sign up for email updates that send out youth culture news, research and trends and several other resources. They have listings for seminars both to attend and to hold. They also have a Youth Culture Today Radio Show.
For a small fee of $24.95 per year parents can log into this site and read reviews on movies and music that includes a chart that rates content such as alcohol and drug references, amount of profanity, sex and/or nudity and glorification of violence with guns/weapons.
This was a Christian site in nature and was basically constructed to give parenting tips for all age levels—babies to teenagers—including various resources from articles, books, and game ideas. There was a section of the site designated to just the teenagers, and it contained different articles and tips parents might find helpful in connecting with and parenting their teenage son or daughter.
This was a Christian site in nature and was dedicated totally to teens and their parents. The site included many great resources such as books, parenting tips, radio events, seminar information, and in depth online articles. The site also offered a treatment program for troubled teens.
This site did not appear to be a Christian site in nature, but it did seem to provide a wealth of information on teenagers concerning disorders, behavior, and other teen topics. The site also provided a parent forum where parents could share stories with each other and ask questions to other parents about how to help their teen in certain situations.
This was a helpful site to order books on teens and how to parent them. The books did not seem to be more than $16.00.
This is a really great site for parents or anyone working with children and youth. This site has much accessibility to many resources. The site offers a “reference desk,” updated articles, a Parent’s guide for children in Preschool to teens in high school, which discusses many issues that they will be dealing with at that certain age. There are also discussion groups and parenting columns that will help people with children and youth.
This is another great reference site. It offers many articles which talk about how to talk to and deal with teens that are going through issues such as alcohol and drugs, family, health, money, school, and peer-pressure. It also gives other resources such as books that are good to read. They also have available a place where you can ask questions to “an expert” about certain issues.
http://directory.crosswalk.com/
Seemingly thousands of resources for parents. Very easily navigated. Has resources for specific issues facing both teen and parents.
http://life.familyeducation.com/parenting/teen/43735.html?detoured=1
Amazing website. Has a focused approach, but so many resources and articles. Easy to navigate for specific questions. Has great educational articles and resources.
http://www.aap.org/parents.html.
This is another site that contain valuable information for parents dealing with teens that are struggling with life and the current journey they are facing. I picked this site because the parent can do their own research on adventure therapy and organizations that offer this type of treatment for their child.
http://www.strugglingteens.com/index.shtml
This is another good site from a non-Christian organization that provides valuable information for parents and teenagers about teenage pregnancy.
One Tough Job (Commonly called Parenting)
This site has a cute, red, little button that says “I NEED HELP!” In the top, right hand side of the page. This is where it offers some real quick handy advice to parents who need it, like, now. This place is so cool it has this slidy bar of age ranging from infant to 18 years old and you slide it along, selecting your childs age, and then it comes up with a list of common parental advice topics to help the parent be a real parent to the parent’s child of that specific age. This is a great site, and it’s non-Christian.
