Tag Archives: Teens

April 17, 2015

My Advice to Parents Before Your Teenager Leaves for College

By Ruth Schapira
College readiness for parents

Dorm stuff? Check. Water? Check. Values?

For those teens who have hopefully garnered enough college acceptance letters to make some choices, parents will need to make some choices too.

In a short time, your son or daughter will be packing bags to embark on a most amazing journey of self discovery at a college.

How does this new change redefine your role?

In what ways will you need to re-adjust your definition of parenting?

What would you say would be the best outcomes for your teenager during and after the college experience?

Do you both have the same set of expectations?

Recently, at a parent workshop on college admissions, several parents were very concerned about their child’s employability after college.

This is understandable. After all, college expenses are high, and in our culture, we’re very concerned nowadays about ROI (return on investment).

One set of parents explained that although their daughter was very interested in the arts, and it was her passion since elementary school, they felt that majoring in that field would be ‘a waste’, since it would be hard to earn a living after graduation.

Another set of concerned parents said their son, who loved sports in high school, was determined to attend a college with a great sports team, so he could try out and fulfill his desire to play baseball. However, they felt that his focus should be on a career instead, and since they felt that he didn’t have the skills to make the team, and he should redirect his focus now toward something more practical.

What is your priority for your teenager’s college education? Would the same outcome goals satisfy you and your teenager?

Should the main goal of college be to prepare your child for a job? Prepare your child for life? Give your child essential experiences to develop character? Encourage and develop passions? Create a lifelong network of friends?

In the examples above, it took some effort to redirect the conversation from the concerns centered around monetary success to ones that centered on the goals of a college education.

In recent years, I’ve seen increased pressure on teenagers to determine their life goals while in high school…in order to ‘maximize’ the college years. I remember being very surprised when a high school sophomore told me that she wanted to be a lawyer, in the business side of the entertainment industry, primarily negotiating contracts with singers.

Curious, I asked if she had taken a career inventory, or read a book on career development, or completed a career workshop because her goals were so specific. Her response was that her parents thought that since she was interested in singing, choosing that career would be a way to for her to make a lot of money.

So, what do you really want for your teenager in life? Are those the same things that your teenager wants?

This might be a great time to talk with your teenager about how you and he/she defines success.

Having all the dorm paraphernalia is important, but more important is having one of those conversations of a lifetime, so all parties have their values in alignment before bags are packed.

Image: http://www.flickr.com labeled for non-commercial reuse

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Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Adolescence, College, Jewish Teens, Life, Parenting, Youth

May 7, 2013

Teens: Cheating on Standardized Tests?

By Ruth Schapira
No digital devices in sight

No digital devices in sight

The Los Angeles Times reported that California is coping, almost feverishly it seems, with new measures that require students to turn in digital devices before taking standardized tests.

“The proliferation of cellphones and their potential use for cheating has prompted heightened security measures on this year’s administration of standardized tests in California schools.”

In the previous year, students posted 36 questions from standardized exams on social media platforms.  The consequences were serious for those schools where the posts were from. The 12 schools are not eligible to receive academic awards the next year.

I’m sure that other states will soon need to create their own guidelines to prevent just such a thing.

So, what is the news here?

This is almost too obvious–taking away cell phones and digital devices during a test?

Teens would say “no kidding.”

What I found remarkable about the article, was that although very specific details were given of the egregious acts, the article did not mention that there was a concerns over so many teens engaging in cheating behaviors:

“In all, 249 individuals posted 442 images of test materials that were linked to 147 schools in 94 California school districts.”   (To be fair, “Most images were not of actual test questions.”)

There were no consequences mentioned in the article for the teens who posted the images or content.

However, we do know clearly the measures being taken to prevent such a thing in the future:

  1. Signage in the testing room warning students not to use digital devices
  2. Better proctoring of exams
  3. Strong suggestions to teachers to move around the room to monitor students

But we’re still left wondering if anyone is asking the big questions tied to these occurrences.

Specifically, was there any follow-up with the teens themselves?

What was the intention for these posts?

What are the ethical implications of these behaviors?

Did the students involved do this as a joke?

Was this an act of rebellion?

Or even the most primary question: Did the teens even think this was cheating?

I wrote some time ago about our role in guiding students toward moral clarity. At a later point, I wrote about how teens view cheating, and how shocking their experiences were to me.  This is an issue that won’t simply go away. It will get worse.

I remember not being surprised when corporations, in the realization that so many ethical issues were on the line, and after so many improprieties and illegal allegations, began hiring Chief Ethical Officers.

“The position of ethics officer is of relatively recent vintage, first appearing in the early 1990s, according to Forbes.com.

The job descriptions for Ethics Officers insures accountability between a code of ethics and actual operational procedures.

It’s not a bad idea to institute this position in some school districts. An even better idea is starting to think that way now.

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1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Education, Jewish Teens, Judaism, Parenting, Social Media, Youth

March 13, 2013

Parent Conversations With Teens

By Ruth Schapira
Teens sharing earphones, listening music outdo...

We need to tune in to teens

Life is busy, so how do we get the time to interact with teen-aged kids when everybody is literally on the run?

By the time teens are in high school, the time you may get to spend with each other may be less than an hour per day–including dinner.

Try to take that in. That’s an abysmally low amount of time to talk about the big stuff of life….that is if you ever get to it.

The constant pecks of life’s immediacies, like “When do you need to be picked up?” “When is that report due?” “Did you wash my uniform?” “What’s in the frig/freezer for dinner?” tend to take over any paltry time there is in a day.

It’s tempting to put off important conversations until there’s more time, but when does that time come?

In a very short time, they’ll be out of the house.

I remember when my oldest child was going off to college, the reality came crashing in on me when she came ambling down the steps, carrying an enormous amount of stuff and shifting her weight between the backpack and a duffel bag on her shoulder.

She was taking her stuff! She was really leaving—-and for the next four years, at the minimum, she’d have a home base somewhere else.

Questions and self-doubt came pouring in.

Did I use every opportunity to have meaningful conversations with her? Was she really equipped to be on her own? Had we instilled enough Jewish values so she’d have a strong foundation to draw upon in college? Would she select friends who would be equally concerned about values and ethics?  Would she make the right decisions? Would she make those choice through a Jewish lens?

My questions couldn’t even begin to cover the doubts I had, or most parents might have, before sending their teen off to college.

So, how can you capture this very precious time before your teen bounds out of the house for good?

For us, the clock slowed its frenetic pace once a week, giving us an opportunity to capture special time that only Shabbat can allow. It was our time to take a breather, catch up and check in with each other…..on a far deeper level than the trivialities of the everyday permit.

It also taught us to make the most of every single conversation and interaction.

What does it mean to maximize conversation? Don’t let things go in favor of waiting for a ‘better time’. Most likely it won’t come.

The expression ‘don’t sweat the small stuff?’….mostly ignore it. Yes, for sure, don’t dwell on the little details of life that in the grand scheme, won’t amount to much one way or the other….but DO sweat about anything that has larger life implications—like things with moral/ethical underpinnings.

Regardless of your personal observances, having an island of time (as Heschel called it) is almost an essential approach in today’s frantically paced world.  So, you  might want to think about instituting something like it….and the period of time between Friday night and Saturday night is a convenient reminder.

First, when making that decision, you must ignore the eye rolls and shrugs. That’s part of the script that just is. You’ll need to get over it. Let the conversations begin.

Photo credit: wikipedia creative commons 2.0 license

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