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Helping Students Live Life Better

Helping Students Live Life Better

by | Sep 1, 2016 | Mental Health

A few months back, our team at Teen Lifeline took an assessment that looked at our motivations. Many assessments focus on personality, but I loved this one because it looked past our tendencies and helped us understand what drives us to succeed – and why we get frustrated in our pursuits.

This assessment really pegged me. There were a few key motivations that came to light but one really caught my eye.

Improve.

As I work, interact, and even play – I’m always looking to improve in some way.

I don’t feel like it’s an obsessive trait, but it is definitely something that motivates – and frustrates if the opportunity to improve is lacking.

I think back to some of my past jobs where I experienced a lot of frustration. Usually it wasn’t the job. It was the lack of opportunity to make things better.

This is why I love my job now. At Teen Lifeline, I am called to not only create, maintain, and evaluate our programs, but I get to call adults into the public schools to help teenagers do the same. Our support groups give students the opportunity to improve their lives through small changes that can make a huge impact.

In our support groups, teenagers from every walk of life, faith, and background are welcomed into a support group to find community and acceptance in a way that is totally new for many of our students. They get to take a few small minutes each week to reflect on where life has taken them to this point, but more importantly – how they can move forward and make things better.

Our students need more adults with empathetic ears who will sit and listen – and not correct. Our groups provide an avenue for this to happen.

So why am I writing about our groups this week? Today is the official kick off of our 2016-17 support groups! We are thrilled to engage our local students across multiple school districts around our area and to provide more and more opportunities for students to live life better.

We are so excited to do this. We are thrilled to help improve the students we serve, the adults who serve them, and ourselves in the process.

 

Have you considered leading a support group at a public school? You can. Go to this link to find out more! 

Chris Robey, Teen Lifeline’s Program Director, has worked with teens for over a decade and strives to help students see the best in themselves.
Brick by Brick

Brick by Brick

by | Aug 11, 2016 | Parenting

I write this post looking out our back window upon fresh construction. I’ve been watching the structure rise from the remains of an old scrub field just behind our backyard fence. We have watched them clear the land, level the surface, set the foundations, and raise the walls. Each day, we see a new element of the building take shape. Sometimes it is only a coat of paint or a new layer of brick. Some days it seems like they have finished an entire section in one day. There are even stretches of weeks where it seems like they are working and re-working one particular patch of the building until they get it just right.

Everyday, the construction workers show up before daybreak and leave as the sun retreats. These days it seems like they are there well into the night. They have a deadline for this new structure to be completed – the first day of school.

You see, we have enjoyed watching my kid’s new elementary school being built over the last year – right in our back yard. It has been a fascinating process to watch. Sometimes progress goes incredibly quick – and painfully slow.

What is also special about watching this process is watching my oldest son as he oversees the construction via the perch of our kitchen window. He is watching with expectant eyes, as he will begin his kindergarten year at this school in a few short weeks.

Our emotions are mixed as we begin this coming school year. The start of kindergarten. A new school. New teachers. New everything.

We are sad to see our kiddo go from the shelter of our home into the unknown of daily schooling. It’s a little scary.

Yet, he is ready. So ready. We have worked hard, and he can’t wait to get started.

I’ve always wondered why parents get all weird with the new school year. Now I understand a little more why.

Yet we have watched the construction workers show up day after day to make sure the building is ready for the first day of class, so we hope we do the same. Day after day we pour into our children, hopefully building into them the values we hold most dear and bravely send them forward into a new stage of life.

If you are reading this, we want to encourage you. We often worry that we haven’t prepared our kids enough for the challenges life throws at them. Maybe they are ready. Maybe they are not.

But day by day, we have the opportunity to put another brick in the wall. We can challenge our students. We can avoid “saving” them from their mistakes. We can find ways to trust our kids, even if they have broken our trust. Daily, we create ways for them to solve problems, deal with stress in a healthy way, and make better choices.

Brick by brick we build these things in our children. And brick by brick, they are tested to see if the work was good. Let us be the kind of adults whose work will stand up to the difficulties and challenges our world will throw at our kids.

The work will stand. We just have to be willing to keep laying the bricks.

 

Chris Robey, Teen Lifeline’s Program Director, has worked with teens for over a decade and strives to help students see the best in themselves.
Reclaiming Human Interaction

Reclaiming Human Interaction

by | Jul 21, 2016 | Mental Health, Social Media, Technology

I am feeling old fashioned lately. As a relative late-comer to the social media scene, I find myself more as a consumer of these platforms (i.e. just reading and observing) than an actual participant. I like to post overly cute pictures of my kids or post some off-kilter observations of the world around me, but as for using social media as a place for serious discussion, I don’t know how to do it.

I’ve had some fun discussions with those just slightly younger than me (including a certain female member of our staff here at Teen Lifeline) about the merits, or lack thereof, surrounding how we use social media. I didn’t grow up with it but more engaged with it well into my mid to late 20’s – well past the age of indoctrination on such things.

With this worldview in mind, I find myself fascinated with media reports and conversations that start or are supported by “so-and-so tweeted (or posted) this.” When someone references a social media post as a conversation starter, my thoughts run something like this:

“Huh. So we have to lend credibility to a person (or entity) based upon some characters they punched into a phone that likely reflect some kind of haste or lack of forethought? Man. This MUST be important (sarcasm dripping here).”

Yea, I’m grumpy. And, I am not really focusing so much on the day to day stuff (though I wouldn’t say that is particularly important either) but more about how separated we can become with the reality of dealing with people and ideas by simple human interaction.

I worry about us. And, I worry about what our teenagers see as acceptable human interaction.

When we spend a significant portion of our relational energies on a digital platform, we lose the ability to see what our words do to people – whether good or bad. We need to see someone’s eyes light up when we enter a room. Conversely, we need to see the consequences when we say something irresponsible or hurtful.

I fear the more we divorce human interaction with, well….humans, irresponsibility and apathy will follow.

I already feel it in my own life. As a casual observer of online interactions, I see the horrible things people do and say to each other because they are not in the same room.

It’s like road rage. When someone cuts you off on the highway, you call them all kinds of horrible names, curse their dog, and scream so loud your five year old in the back seat might wonder who the stranger is driving the car. (No, that didn’t really happen….nothing to see here.)

When you have 2 tons of steel surrounding you, it is easy to feel invincible and say all the things you wouldn’t otherwise say if someone cut you off on the sidewalk. You might say something, but you definitely wouldn’t say bad things about their dog.

When it comes to social media, we don’t often consider the real people on the other side of the digital pipeline. It is almost as if they are just a profile pic, but not really a person – right?

As adults, we know there was once another way to interact. But students really do not. They are “digital natives” – exploring the vast terrain of 0’s and 1’s as pioneers in covered wagons. This is the world they live in. It is the language that they speak.

Yet as those who walk alongside and guide, we must be willing to create healthy space and perspective to know what it means to really be present with a person. Here are a few thoughts:

  • Value human interaction over digital: Just because Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian (yes they might have spurred this post) are in a feud doesn’t mean that it is necessarily important or worthy of our time. And just because a friend said something irresponsible online doesn’t mean that they need to be disparaged into perpetuity. There was a person behind that post, and maybe going to them and having a conversation in person would be more helpful.
  • Never tweet in bed: Seriously folks, this is a big problem with teenagers. Once the phone enters the bedroom, sleep and peace make their exit. So many teenagers allow the digital world to follow them into the places where they should find rest and refuge. The world needs to stop so we can grow and process. Leave the phone out of the room. If it really bothers them, you are probably on to something.
  • Ditch one social media platform: Most teenagers are on multiple platforms. What if they shut one account down? Would life look a lot different? Would they miss it? Or would there be some measure of freedom given back through time better spent with people, not on another platform?

Yea, I might come across a little grumpy about this subject, but I also think I’m onto something here. We need the basis of our relationships to be physical, not digital. We need to find more ways to humanize, not polarize. The only way to do this is to look above our phones and into the eyes of the people around us.

Chris Robey, Teen Lifeline’s Program Director, has worked with teens for over a decade and strives to help students see the best in themselves.
Helping Students Lament

Helping Students Lament

by | Jun 30, 2016 | Mental Health

This past week, I was on staff at a church camp and spent time teaching a Bible Class. Earlier in the Spring, they put out the class list for the teachers to choose a topic, and I guess I got there a little too late…One of the only topics left was on mourning. Yay! Or boo, I guess.

As I started preparing for this lesson, I was led to the various “laments” in the Old Testament of the Bible. In these laments, the authors would express their pain and grief in such a way to leave no doubt how they were feeling about things. Typically, the authors would speak in metaphors to describe the pain they were going through, and often the finger was pointed directly at God.

Being a former youth pastor, I thought I had taught it all. And having taught “church kids” most of that time, I assumed they have heard it all.

But not this time.

As we walked through some of the laments, you could see the students leaning forward in their chairs and paying extra-close attention to the words of the psalmists. They were captured by the metaphors and astonished by the words of those in pain.

“Can they say that?” – was a common question as students explored passages like Psalm 88:3-7 and Lamentations 2:1-12.

You see, the structure and usage of lament functioned like therapy before there was anything like it. The ancient Jews had a relationship with God that allowed them to both praise and yell at God, depending on what was going on.

In other words, the ancient writers assumed something about the human condition: We have to tell the truth, somehow. 

And, we will end up telling the truth, somehow.

Laments are simply a healthy way for someone to mourn and grieve. They are a way to “tell the truth” about how they are feeling without fear of retribution. It’s an opportunity to lay everything on the table and take stock of what you have.

Because, the truth will come out at some point – but maybe not in the way we would think. We all are burdened with life and what can happen. Injustice, violence, loss, sorrow, and brokenness dance around us everyday. And with the advent of social media, we know more about human suffering than ever before.

We hold all of this stuff inside. The bad stuff of life can become a part of us if we don’t find a healthy way to “get it out”. If we don’t, it comes out in ways that are far less helpful. Anger, abuse, substance, self-harm, depression, anxiety, despair, and violence will “tell the truth” about how we are really feeling about things if we choose not to get things out in a heathy way.

Ultimately, we all tell the truth about what is going on inside of us. 

As someone who loves teenagers, I am worried about their ability to really deal with the hard stuff of life. Many assume venting over social media and texts is the way to go. For a lot of teenagers, there is no real safe place to go and “get it out” unless they go to a counselor or group.

Let’s create space and opportunity for our teenagers to lament. Whether it is at a church, in your home, or within the context of a loving relationship, maybe we can allow a student to speak about how they actually feel regarding the tough stuff of life.

It might sound confusing. It might not make sense. They might cuss. They might be disrespectful. They might point the finger at God. Or, you.

But, it is how they feel – and that is an incredible starting point for healing. Because, how they feel isn’t where they will end up on their journey through pain. Likely, it is just the starting point.

What do you think about this? Have you been around someone who is truly lamenting? Have you? How has it helped? 

Chris Robey, Teen Lifeline’s Program Director, has worked with teens for over a decade and strives to help students see the best in themselves.
The Best/Worst Time of the Year

The Best/Worst Time of the Year

by | Jun 9, 2016 | Mental Health

Summer is upon us! Depending on your perspective, this can be the best/worst time of year for an adult in the life of a student. Over the next few weeks, you might see more joyous posts on Instagram from teachers with more trepidatious thoughts from parents. But for the student, this can also be the best/worst time as well. 

You see, for many students this time of year means freedom. They can sleep until noon (or 3), not be bothered with homework and other expectations, and generally just be free to do what they want. This freedom comes with an unburdening of sorts and a place to just “breathe”. 

Yet for others, this time away from school comes with a subconscious “dread” of sorts. This might seem strange, but go with me on this. I’ve worked with a lot of students who “hint” at their anxieties of having too much free time. They know when the structures and accountabilities of school are removed, they are more likely to make poor choices and get off track. This is rarely stated explicitly, but is more implied. 

We as a community who love students need to take notice. 

I’m not saying we need to create all kinds of programs and structures to keep kids busy. Our kids are busy enough. Summer is a welcomed time to get away from the often overbearing systems that can weigh students down. 

However, we also need to understand that there are students in this world who thrive on the structure and expectations local school districts provide. The great work teachers and administrators do on a daily basis afford a framework for students to thrive, especially when their home life is chaotic and devoid of structure. 

In general, I think the absence of something can highlight significance. When we lose a loved one, we gain a deeper understanding of their impact and significance on our lives. When we walk away from something, we see all of the ways we were blessed by it. 

School is no different. While teenagers will gripe and complain about having to be there, you will find a sense of appreciation about school when it isn’t there. They miss their friends, teachers, and learning – even though many would never admit to that. 

So, why am I posting this? Are you expecting 5 good tips to keep teens busy this summer? Sorry, I don’t have that for you today. 

But what I do have is a “thank you” for our teachers and administrators. 

Thank you for standing on the front lines of education, culture, social norms, and future-making. I cannot think of a place where the entire world intersects for teenagers like their local schools. And, you guys have to create a space where all of these things interact and function in a healthy way. 

This is an impossible job, but you keep showing up day after day to love these kids and show them a better future. If I might say this, you are doing God’s work in this world, and as we see the absence of this work for a few months, we are reminded of the impact of your tireless service to students. 

So, thank you. Thank you for dealing with the impossible teenager and their impossible parents from time to time. Thank you for being on the forefront of “culture wars” and having mud thrown at you for trying to do the right thing. Thank you for enduring politics and confusing state laws to give a student some kind of hope for the future. 

For those who work at schools, you are loved and appreciated. Stay with it. Don’t quit. You make a difference, and your influence wouldn’t be the same doing anything else. 

Enjoy your rest. Your students will miss you, but I am thinking you might miss them a little also. 

See you in August.

Chris Robey, Teen Lifeline’s Program Director, has worked with teens for over a decade and strives to help students see the best in themselves.