Teen Life Logo
Donate

Donate Now

Donate Now

Resources Articles and Episodes

We provide high-quality, original and third-party resources to help you connect better with the teens in your life. Whether you’re a teacher, parent, counselor or a caring adult, we’ve got a lot to offer.

We keep you bussin’.

Subscribe to the newsletter so you always know what the terms your teen is saying actually mean. We’ll make sure you’re up-to-date on the latest in teen culture, terms, and tech.

Subscribe
Motivation Monday: Searching for Hope

Motivation Monday: Searching for Hope

As we continue to share stories from our Teen Lifeline Support Groups, we hope that you are seeing the benefits that these groups bring to the students, school districts, campus counselors and the facilitators that lead these groups.

We are so passionate about our #TL5K is because the funds raised by this one event help make these groups possible! We have the opportunity to continue to grow and reach teenagers with 100 volunteer facilitators trained to use our Life Lived Better Curriculum to lead support groups in their local school or church.

Helping Students Find Hope in Hopelessness

Helping Students Find Hope in Hopelessness

A few weeks back, I was sitting with some students from a really tough part of our city and working through some of their resources. Part of our groups involve identifying and building up the student’s sense of courage, connectedness, self worth, and capability. What we noticed with this group is a general lack of self-reported capability. This seemed to be the trend throughout the group of young men.

This was a strange happening in my experience. Generally, a group of young men will tend to overstate their courage and capability from a place of machismo or even lack of self-esteem. It’s a coping mechanism everyone uses from time to time to protect us from being real with each other.

How to Stop Teens from Confiding in You

How to Stop Teens from Confiding in You

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to encourage teenagers to have meaningful relationships with adults. We talk about who they are close to and who they can go to for help. I love encouraging them to find adults that they can confide in and who will speak truth into their lives.

Unfortunately, when we talk about parents, teachers, and other adults, students often say something along the lines of, “I can never tell them anything because…(fill in the blank).”

Some of this can be attributed to those teenage years when many students want to separate themselves from adults as much as possible. However, there are also many adults who are acting (probably unintentionally) in a way that insures teenagers will never talk to them about anything serious/important.