Monday, June 14, 2010

episode three

Episode 3 of P'StachO'Bot and the 50 cent Pop

YOU MAY FIND THIS EDITION HARD TO SWALLOW...WHY YOUR KIDS MATTER! As of now I have been on a hope theme with my column. Right now I am "hoping" for a laptop because when you are trying to write a creative column you need sunlight and good coffee. Both of these things are available one block away at one of my favorite places in Wingham, Coffee Culture. However without a laptop I am destined to write to you again from my desktop in my office with no real sunlight and some coffee that I have mixed up the water and coffee ratio again! However this kind of pain pales in comparison with what I am about to tell you, and please hear these words... In our society the teenage population is in a war for their very survival. I chose those words specifically. Last month I wrote that in the broken walls there is HOPE and this month I hope to encourage something. Here is a chart to start this discussion. Listed from top to bottom are a list of primary influences on the lives of our youth for the last 50 years.

1960
1980
2010
family
friends
media
school
family
friends
friends
media
family
church
school
school

As you look over this map of teenage influences what do you notice about today? I notice that the top two influences of youth today are youth themselves and preceded by friends is a multi-billion dollar business that markets to what youth like. As I work with youth in the community and being close to their generation myself I see one vital thing missing. Where are the adults. If this chart is right than the main influences in teenage life are void of significant caring adult attention. In most every other culture in the history of man the older generation has always handed down the customs and rights of passage to the younger but this is not the case in our society. There are statistics now coming out that a child by the time they are 6 will already have spent more time in front of a digital screen than they ever will with their fathers. Youth today are being taught earlier and earlier by a media soaked culture, leaving them void of any truth, anything real, anything of substance and virtually without consequence. The youth of today is without guides and thus has grasped at the only thing that is engaging them--cheap media tricks. This is what I want to encourage myself as a father of two boys and our community with--HOLD on to your kids, do not step away when they are teenagers, risk the conflict and make family time. Be bold to protect and stand for your kids and prove yourself to be a guide showing how failure and wisdom are the best teachers you can lean on. Choose today to engage your kids, leave the house a mess, forget cutting the grass and play with them. Take your teenage daughter for coffee late at night, and encourage your son to be dangerously courageous! Give them a story by volunteering together, helping those in need together, leave a legacy that gives your children a history and identity that runs deeper than the newest fashion or Lady GA Ga's newest song. My Mom did this for me as she earned her teaching degree over 16 years as she studied her courses at 4 in the morning so she could raise my brother and I. In conclusion we belong to one another, lets act like it! I do want to add that as I write this I have one of our Youth Center Board members encouraging me to add to this edition that we are having a BBQ/bake sale and open house fund raiser on May 29th for the youth center and our work in the community...thanks DK :)

Once again this has been P'StachO'Bot and the 50 cent Pop saying that everything and everyone has been created for a purpose!

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