Screens and Teens (13 page)

6. We can find opportunities to teach emotional resiliency
. We need to help our teens process disappointment and joy in healthy ways. We can help them understand, believe, and act upon the reality that people deal with emotions differently and there's no one right way. We can talk about times we did and did not handle things well—and how we dealt with that emotionally, for good or bad. Using characters in literature or television, Bible heroes, or inventors or explorers they're studying in school, we can discuss how others responded emotionally to dissatisfaction, disappointment, and discouragement—the dangerous Ds! We can do the same when teaching about handling life graciously and with humility when our choices and decisions turn out great.
Both successes and failures result in emotions that have to be handled with maturity.

7. We can raise the call to contentment
. Contentment, regardless of circumstance, is a beautiful thing to hold up to our teens as a realistic expectation and something to strive for. It's possible when the five core needs are met in God. Contentment is found in us, not around us. We can't buy it or perform it. Being satisfied or dissatisfied with this choice or that shouldn't rock our world. Contentment feels safe and solid, because it is a safe and solid state of being.

8. We can determine if we're giving teens unnecessary choices
. Courageously analyze what's been going on lately in your home. Are we feeding dissatisfaction and discontent by always giving our kids a choice when it's not necessary or appropriate? How can we help them discover and believe choice is a privilege, not a right? If they don't learn this in the safety of our homes, they may never be satisfied because they'll always be thinking there was something else they could have thought, done, felt, or become. I've encouraged parents to “take back” the kitchen and stop making multiple options to keep various eaters happy. I tell them, “If you make meatloaf, serve meatloaf. Be the parent and not the short-order cook.” Kids don't need choices at every mealtime. It's great for them to learn to be thankful for what they have. Not expecting choices at every meal is a small way you can help kids get used to going with the flow.

9. We can point teens toward God's truth about choices
. As you dig into the Bible yourself, look for passages and Bible stories that deal with issues of choices, desires, and contentment. Bring these into your family discussions or devotions. The parable of the lost son in Luke 15:11–32 might be a good place to start. There are two sons in the story who make highly discussable choices! You might check out Proverbs 30:15–30 and Ecclesiastes 6:9. If your teen is willing and a motivated learner, ask him or her to join you in the search for verses about satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Many Teens Complain and Argue

Honestly, I could also have written that last sentence as “Many adults complain and argue.” Have you noticed it? Many adults have also bought the lie we
need
choice. Add to that the ammunition of being overwhelmed and dissatisfied, and we have plenty of potential battles on our hands.

I'll admit it's sometimes easy to see what's wrong and how I was denied a better option. I hear about demanding adults everywhere I go. For example, preschool directors at a recent conference I spoke at told me that many parents are asking them to change the time for dropping off their children to something more convenient for them. “I need to drop my son off at 7:45 so I'm not late for work.
That will be okay with you, right?” People expect others to accommodate their personal needs, all the time!

What have we modeled before our teens? Have they heard us complain more than we express gratitude? Are we frustrated and even disgusted when a store runs out of what we wanted? (Or did we express it as a need when it was really something we just wanted?) Do we take it personally when an appointment time we wanted wasn't available or when a book from the library was checked out by someone else? How do our children see us react and treat others? What do they hear us say and not say? When things go well, what do they hear us say and not say?

Teens complain and argue because they think they “need” choice and that it's their right. They expect options. Remember, this is wired into their brains so it's not just a matter of character. When given no options or only a few and none of them are “good enough,” they verbalize their discontent.

The complaining and arguing are related to the culture of entitlement, which feeds the lie that they deserve to be happy all the time. They want more options, and they want to present their own options when not given a choice. Many teachers have told me of students who suggest that doing fifteen math problems would be just as good as doing twenty-five and that turning something in on Wednesday would be more convenient for them. If I'd dared
to have such thoughts when I was a teen, I'm pretty sure I would not have dared to verbalize them! Today's teens, however, don't hesitate to verbalize their preferences.

So how can we help young people reverse the tendency to complain and argue?

1. We can evaluate our own complaining and arguing
. Do we constantly complain? Do our teens know we use social media to mention how badly we were treated at this store and how dismissed we felt during a particular encounter? Is nothing right with the world? There's no perfect church, school, curriculum, or neighborhood? No government official does anything right? The prices are too high! The traffic is terrible! Negativity is contagious. We are hypocrites if we ask (or strongly suggest) they should change their attitudes and just accept things as they are when they hardly see us do the same.

2. We can be truly grateful and express it regularly
. We have much to be thankful for. All of us do. You may be getting tired of my constant returning to the solution of gratitude, but gratefulness is a definite answer to so many of the problems that concern us and concern young people! Real gratitude is not a fake “thank you” spoken because it's the right thing we have to do. Real gratitude is genuine and affirming in its specificity.

3. We can help our teens be discerning about advertising messages
. Teaching young people to discern what's really going on in advertising can help them become less demanding and argumentative about needing a particular game or app.
Show them and teach them, using print advertising and television ads, about bias, manipulative language, outright lies, stereotypes, and the use of objectification and sex to sell everything.
⁹
Explain that we should all have more respect for ourselves so we're not sucked into the manipulative and often demeaning way of thinking some companies want us to use. Consumer-conscious teens may argue less about things they want because they'll intelligently evaluate the messages that come at them.

4. We can practice not getting sucked into teens' arguments and complaints
. When teens are in a disagreeable, argumentative stage, there are three ways parents can respond well. One is to not enter the conversation so it becomes a debate. Debate is what they want. They've perhaps learned how to push your buttons and get you to add the option they want you to include when discussing Saturday or Sunday's plans. So either remain silent, calmly repeat what you've heard them say, or say something like “I hear you.” Stand your ground, and they might walk off mumbling something like, “Okay, okay, I'll do it your way.”

A second response that can work when they're complaining is to directly and calmly ask, “How may I help you decide?” This implies you will help but you're finished with the whiny,
complaining, I-don't-want-to attitude. Whining doesn't solve any problems. After they make a statement or ask a question in a respectful tone, help them as you can.

A third response is to make sure you've stated your expectation clearly. Then, if the arguing begins, simply state, “I love you too much to argue with you.” Then, if it's safe, remove yourself from their presence. Depending on their age and the circumstances, you can add, “When you calm down and think about this, come find me.” Arguing isn't healthy or helpful. It's not what loving people do. It doesn't mean we can't disagree. But disagreeing must be done respectfully and with evidence that teens know your role and theirs.

5. We can help teens become aware of God's teaching about complaining and arguing
. Searching for applicable Bible verses could be very helpful. Not only are there relevant Proverbs, but Old Testament and New Testament heroes provide rich instruction. Remember those one-another verses? They apply here, too: “Don't grumble against one another” (James 5:9) and “Live in peace with each other” (1 Thessalonians 5:13).

Many Teens Multitask and May Struggle to Focus

Teens have grown up multitasking, and many find it a struggle to stay focused. Having a choice and something else to do
makes it easy to avoid what's unpleasant, hard, boring, or irrelevant. Multitasking keeps teens happy. They can avoid what they don't like. If one thing isn't meeting their needs, they can jump to something else. They jump from screen to screen, app to app, and they hop between games, movies, books, assignments, conversations, tasks, music, and so much more. They'll open another web browser tab, post another picture, comment on social media posts, and anything else to avoid boredom, waiting, or tasks they don't want to tackle.

Because of choice and their preference to multitask, focus is fragmented. Many admit to thinking about one thing while doing another. They don't want to get bored, and they don't like having to persevere. Finishing can be challenging.

Evidence exists to suggest multitasking isn't as common as “continuous partial attention.” Teens aren't actually doing two or three things at the same time even though we think they are when we look at what's in front of them. Rather, these teens are in a constant state of partial attention. Linda Stone, a former software executive for Microsoft, writes:

Whether truly multitasking, which Linda Stone explains is something we do when “we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient”
¹¹
or in the state of continuous partial attention, teens' reading, writing, comprehension, and accuracy are sacrificed. This might be fine when surveying social network feeds and some news or sports stories they stumble upon. It's not a wise or mature way to approach schoolwork or problem-solving. Approaching any assignment in these ways will have negative ramifications. Some students may earn the same grade whether focused on one thing or not. But it will take longer for them to complete their work and long-term retention may suffer.

How can parents help young people keep from fragmenting as they attempt to multitask too much?

1. We can address multitasking in relation to character and respect
. Talking about this in terms of stewardship of time may be helpful. For example, if a teen is texting while he or she is sitting next to Grandpa, that's disrespectful to Grandpa. Texting while driving would be highly disrespectful of the value of life, considering the well-documented statistics about dangers.

2. We can model self-restraint by resisting the urge to answer calls and texts while we are with our teens
. When we model that people who are present are more important than the texts or calls we receive, we help our kids learn to make choices in favor of relationships.

Many Teens Find Major Decisions Difficult

Many teens find the big, major decisions especially hard to make. Do you know high school students unable to choose a future plan—college, military, career, family? Do you know some not in college who were accepted to more than one? Do you know teens who are not dating? Not sure if they want to date? What about kids who can't decide what sport to try out for and whether to join the debate team or not? Do they wait so long trying to make up their mind that the choice is made for them? It can be so frustrating! What's going on?

For many young people who struggle to make decisions, the lies are colliding. Teens want to be happy while they're the center of the universe. They want to have choice, but choosing one thing means they can't choose something else. And they can't know
now if they'll be happy if they've never gone to college before, played basketball in high school, or dated Ashley or Jamie. As a result, they make no decision. And no decision
is
a decision.

Big decisions are challenging. They're intimidating and scary. Complex decisions definitely cause stress for many. When we talk about these decisions with our teens and let them know we're displeased with their indecisiveness, they'll be more stressed and may even become frustrated and angry. It can be a perfect storm.

This is a tough area for parents, who usually have strong opinions and feelings about what they want their teens to choose. How can we help them tackle big decisions?

1. We can keep helping our kids discover their purpose and identity
. Young people who know who they are and some of the reasons God created them that way will be more confident when making decisions.

2. We can provide reassurance that sometimes even big decisions can be changed
. Teens and young adults may hesitate choosing because they think something better might come along. They do prefer exploring all their options, delaying as long as they can. They often doubt their own judgments, which makes it harder for them to mature.
¹²
They don't have to worry about trying to make the perfect, final decision. Change is possible. If
they choose one college and discover that it's not a great fit, they can make a change after a semester or two. They can choose a different major from the one they thought they wanted on the first day of college.