Adolescent Busyness and Stress
October 2, 2009
“What kids need from adults is not just rides, pizza, chaperones, and discipline. They need the telling of stories, the close, ongoing contact, so that they can learn to be accepted. If nobody is there to talk to, it is difficult to get the lessons of your own life so that you are adequately prepared to do the next thing. Without a link across generations, kids will only hear from their peers.” –This is from researcher and author Patricia Hersch, quoted in Chap Clark’s book Hurt.
The busyness of families is what tugs at my heart here. I really wish there was a universal standard or pie chart that could show me, and other families, what our time-dvivded should look like. To state the obvious, we are all insanely busy. Perhaps there are a select few that have take the anti- approach and laugh at us as we scurry around them. We are wound up beyond our capacities and can’t seem to pull the wind-up key out of our backs.
So the theme of making (and scheduling if you have to) unstructured, relational time as families emerges in front of me again. The importance of relating to our youth, getting to know them and who they are becoming, remains as ultimate importance in our roles as adults. If our lives are scheduled/programmed out, their lives are more so because they depend on us.
Experiement - Try this – Ask your kids about how full their “fuel gauges” are. Asking how “full/empty-drained” they feel in their emotional world/physical world/school world/spiritual worl/etc. world. Ask them what the “forecast” is in their life right now. Where are the stormy areas? Where’s the sunshine? What’s foggy and uncertain to them right now that may be causing them stress?
Make time to get into their world so that you, the parent, can be their safe-place and outlet. I know you want to be that for them, but you’ll have to work for it to continually earn their trust and earn access beyond their walls.
Here’s something that will give you some time together: go to the Liberty Corn Maze before it closes at the end of Oct. Here’s the link to the homepage. This will give you plenty of time together!