No teen deserves to feel alone.
We connect every teenager with trusted adults and resources because no teen deserves to feel alone.
What makes a caring adult a trusted resource? When you complete our easy, online certification, you will leave with the skills and knowledge to connect with teens and help them walk through life’s challenges. You will be fully equipped to lead a Support Group!
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“One thing I learned from this group is that I always have someone to talk to.”
– Teen Life support group student
I can’t say enough about the benefit with partnering with Teen Life.
The past eight years, I have led or co-led at least one group every year, sometimes two. The curriculum is pertinent and helpful to get kids to talk and engage. Kids need a safe place to be encouraged and to gain skills in coping with school pressures and life stresses.
Heritage MS Counselor
Grapevine/Colleyville ISD
It has been a great blessing to walk beside these kids on their turf.
Equipping them with some tools to help break the generational cycles of self-esteem, relationship, and spiritual poverty, and to assist them in casting a vision on where they want to be and how they might get there.
Jacob
Decatur ISD, Support Groups Facilitator
You’ve got to check this out!
The Red Line
In 1934 as part of the New Deal, the government created the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the Federal Housing Administration with the goal of preventing foreclosures through mortgage refinancing. The Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC), a government sponsored lender, proceeded to draw maps of American cities to determine which areas were worthy of mortgage lending and which areas were too high-risk. The term “redlining” was coined to explain this practice of denying loans and services based on a neighborhood’s demographic makeup. In 1968, the Fair Housing Act made these maps and practices officially illegal, but the long-term ramifications continue on 50 years later. We, as parents, teachers, youth workers, or mentors have often grown up with “red lines” in our lives, especially those of us raised with a faith-based background. Red lines are topics, or even people, we aren’t sure we want to be involved with.
Teaching the Power of ‘No’
Two letters in the English language seem to be some of the most difficult for people to say to each other: No. I have struggled with saying ‘no’, and my friends, family, and the teens I have worked with also struggle with saying ‘no’. Despite the struggle we have all experienced with saying ‘no’, we place high expectations on teenagers to be able to say it when they are being put under pressure in serious situations by their peers. Saying ‘no’ is such a powerful weapon and is a concept that we should be teaching teens through example. Why is saying ‘no’ so difficult, even for adults? Here are some reasons that lead to the internal struggle of verbalizing ‘no’.
On Taking People Seriously
Over the last few years, I’ve grow to be a huge fan of the band The Avett Brothers. For a while I didn’t know a ton about who they were – I just loved how their music sounded and pretty much had them on repeat at our house. In fact when one of the songs comes on the radio, my two year old daughter shouts the title at the top of her lungs. Yeah, we might have a problem… Recently a documentary was released on the Avett Brothers called May it Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers – which I highly recommend. Most sibling-based bands don’t really last because, well, they are family. So why have they stood the test of time? Well, I’m sure there are many reasons, but there was one specific scene in the documentary that told the story for me and got me thinking more about how we interact with teenagers.
Defiance or Survival?
You are running errands at Target. You see a mom with her pre-teen. The girl mentions that she is hungry, and her mom explains that they are almost done at the store and will get some lunch once they get home. As you stand in the check-out line, you see her eyeing the candy. She asks for some. Again. Mom says, “No.” As you watch, you see the child has opted to steal the candy from the store as opposed to waiting until they get home. Pause for a minute. How would you handle that situation? What if you were the parent? If you are like most parents I know, you proceed to lecture your child on stealing and add a few lines about how you told her she could eat at home. Consider this: Is a child or youth’s inappropriate behavior intentional defiance or is it a survival skill?
It’s Time to Change the Filter
Middle school and high school years are hard. They are full of uncertainty – about where to sit at lunch, why their bodies are changing, who likes them, and how to navigate these awkward teen years. And what about parenting?! It is full of questioning your own parenting tactics and their success on top of wondering if you can trust anything that is coming from that child’s mouth. Take all of these insecurities, add a jaded filter, and you have a complete and utter mess.
Choosing Kind
Before the holidays began this year, a new movie called “Wonder” premiered based on a book of the same title written by R.J. Palacio. This is a story about a middle-school boy named Auggie who has a facial deformity and struggles to learn to trust new friends as he begins his journey in a public school setting. He is bullied, shamed, and loses a bit of his child-like trust on this journey. More importantly though, “Wonder” reveals through several narrators how one act of kindness by one person can make ripples throughout an entire student population. This story really left me wondering about the way I treated my peers growing up and even now. I have asked myself, “Have I chosen kind over being right?” The answer is not always.