Teens and Summer Romance

As the mother of four great children... seriously they are wonderful!

Sure we've gone through the bumps and bruises of relational-learning but, I will say without a doubt, I'd claim them as mine hands down any day of the week. Now back to where I was going with this thought before I chase something else shiny, I have four children ranging in age from 32 down to 14, well he would argue that a month away is almost as good as here, so for all purposes, he is 15. There I go again, stop... leave shiny stuff alone... stay on target... I have a 15 year old son and summer is here... help!!!

Is it just me or do you agree that life is different today than for those of us in our forties to fifty somethings? Actually, I'll increase the range to include thirty somethings... here it is, I think girls are more aggressive and boys need stronger reins. What do you think, is it just me?

I mean, I have two of each, so i don't easily jump out there to criticize, but why have our girls gone off the deep end when it comes to dating? I was talking the other day to a young lady who said, "I like a new guy, he's great and he's 16." "Well, that's not too bad" your thinking, but she's only 13 and a young 13 at that. Goodness!

I looked her in the eyes and said, "You have to be kidding me, you're dating?"

"Well", she started off, "It's not like we go out a lot of places or anything, but I like him so much."

It must have been pretty obvious with my mouth wide open and deer in the headlights look that I wasn't leaning her direction any time soon to offer positive feedback to this discussion, I mean "Really!" A thirteen year old should not be thinking about the opposite sex, they should be keeping up with the latest and greatest cartoons and watching Veggie Tales videos!

I guess that's asking too much from the youth of today, right?

Wrong... whatever it takes, especially today, we must preserve the innocence of our young people, not with coercion and threats but through active day-to-day participation and sound guidance from mom and dad.

I had youth advocate, Sean McDowell on my show a couple weeks ago and he quoted an incredible statistic, "40% of families across America had no father in the house." Imagine, neighborhoods filled with girls who have never had a daddy say, "You are beautiful and special" or boys learning how to "be a man" from peers who don't have a clue. Is it any wonder, we have babies birthing babies and young people taking their own lives... all because they think sex is LOVE, but their not getting the results they desire when they give in to the worlds lies.

Time to take a stand... what do you do to empower your teens? How do you let your kids know you really love them? Tell me your secrets and I'll tell you mine.