Who's to blame when a kid goes bad? It must be his teachers. If they were teaching him right, he would be engaged and interested instead of looking for reasons to skip class. Maybe it's his friends. Damn kids these days. All they care about is sex and drugs. What about the media with its constant bombardment of negative role models, sex, drugs, and violence. How could anyone expect a healthy all American teenager to avoid society's ubiquitous landmines.
Is it fantasy to wax nostalgic and yearn for the days when there were only a handful of TV stations to corrupt innocent, pure minds? A time when families gathered around the dinner table at 6p.m. every evening, when every neighbor knew every other neighbor's kid by their first name, when we realized there was more to life than getting ahead or keeping our heads above water.
The philosopher John Lock believed we were born a blank slate, a tabla rasa, an empty canvass molded by our experiences to determine the true beauty of our ultimate design. Whether we turn out to be The Mona Lisa or a corner store knock off print of dogs playing poker is completely based on the sum of the good or bad influences in our lives.
I recently received an email from an acquaintance who knows I work as a teacher in juvenile justice facilities. Her teenage son had recently begun skipping school and hanging out with a new set of friends. His grades were slipping and she suspected drug use. She wanted to know if there were any counseling programs I could recommend.
I thought about her dilemma and how difficult it must be for a single mother raising a teenage boy while working two jobs. I reached back to my experience as a counselor and teacher for child protective services and the juvenile justice system. The faces of hundreds of kids who had struggled through great adversity ran through my mind, the victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and abandonment.
Victims of physical and sexual abuse live with deep scars, but the wounds can be healed with good counseling. Children learn that although their parents had done heinous things to them, on some level they were still loved. Their parents were the sick ones. They were simply the victims of a bad experience. They could learn to forgive. Maybe even rebuild a relationship when the offending parent recognized the error of their ways.
The child victims of neglect and abandonment experience a different frame of mind. How do you ever overcome the realization that your mother or father has something better to do than spend time with you? After all, to an infant or toddler, a parent is their world, their entire existence. Children need our love and attention to fill in the spaces of their blank slate. The worst thing a parent can do is leave a child alone. Bad things will happen. Whether they live in an inner city and fall prey to gang influences or are raised in the most affluent community and turn to drugs, lonely children will find a way to relieve the pain of absent parents.
Many years ago, I spent Christmas on a ranching village in the mountains outside of Mazatlan, Mexico. It was a small, hand made, cinderblock home with concrete floors and an outhouse to handle your private business. The people there survived on whatever they could plant in the fields and reap from their farm animals.
I wasn't surprised to discover God fearing people in a Christian nation, but there were no trees with presents piled underneath, no stockings hung on the walls, no lights or tinsel trimming to brighten their humble surroundings. There was no money for such luxuries; nevertheless, the spirit of Christmas was everywhere. It lived in the songs we sang every night in front of the bonfire, the hand made tamales we shared, and the careless way we danced and enjoyed each others company. Young and old, worked together, played together, lived together, and celebrated the Navidad, always together.
There was no doubt; family had formed a bond between parent and child that no economic adversity could break. Of course, most of us don't live on a ranch. Unless you run a home based or family owned business, the idea of incorporating our children into our work lives is inconceivable.
I thought hard before answering the email, compelled to offer sage advice based on my experience working with troubled teens. I could recommend a myriad of community resources from after school programs to mentoring programs to counseling or therapy. Her son might make more positive friends, catch up on school work, learn from constructive role models, and get an empathetic ear to vent his problems. Maybe his grades would improve. Maybe it would help for him to have someone to talk to. But there would always be something missing. Like a band aid placed over an infected wound, the resentment left to fester. All the pastors, mentors, coaches, and teachers in the world could never take the place of his mother. Although I recognized the plight of the single parent, working two jobs to make ends meet, I had to address the root of the problem. The advice I gave to my acquaintance; find a way to spend time with her son. She had to take time to love.
Parenthood is the biggest sacrifice a person can make, if you're doing it right. The single parent must often make the supreme sacrifice, an absolute loss of personal time. Fortunately, as our lives have grown more complex, our resources have improved. Cell phones allow for constant daily contact. Good churches provide great resources for single parents. Most of all, I encouraged her to spend the little free time she had with her son. Something as simple as movie night twice a week, which is actually an excuse to sit side by side, quietly, with the most important person in your life, provides the perfect opportunity to bond. There are no easy answers when it comes to parenthood, especially for single parents. Hectic work schedules for one or two parent households sometimes make the most simple solutions the most difficult to implement, but the alternative is clear. Put the time in now or deal with the consequences later.
About this Author
Mark Miller earned a bachelors degree in psychology from Wake Forest University. He has been employed as an elementary school teacher, a children's case manager for a mental health services company, a primary counselor in a detention facility for teenage boys, and a family services counselor for child protective services. He currently works with at risk teens as a teacher in juvenile justice facilities.
Miller's experience working with children and young adults who have endured grave adversity inspires him to write novels that explore the struggles young people face. To try a Mark Miller book visit http://www.markmilleronline.net.
Like to Blog? Visit, http://www.markmilleronline.net \my blog, to participate in discussions on issues relevant to children, young adults and parents.
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