Over the last week, maybe because of the topic of this blog, I have begun to notice the need people have for a safe space. By a safe space I mean a place where one can be with others, have one’s needs meet, and feel comfortable to be oneself no matter what one is going through, happy or sad, joyful or depressed; everyone needs a place where they can just feel safe. For many this is their own home, but what I have noticed as of late is that this safe place for many in our country, especially adolescents, is becoming more limited. Instead of families being what David Elkind calls, “child-centered,” where the well-being of the children is put first and parents sacrifice to meet their needs; families have become “adult-centered” where the well-being of the adult elevated above the children’s.1 For many years the home was a place of safety where children were cared for and loved, but the home does not have the same feel that it once had because children are on longer the focus of family life; the needs and wants of the parents are instead. This is further heightened once a child becomes a teen as they struggle to find his/her own identity within a place where their needs are put on the back burner, replaced by their parents desires. This creates a residence that no longer brings feelings of peace and safety, encouraging self-discovery, but instead feelings of loneliness, discomfort, and tension.
When I lead a focus group of high school students, a majority of the students confided in me that they felt they had no place where they felt safe and no one they felt safe around. One student commented that he did not trust anyone, “not even his best friends.” I was surprised when a sophomore pregnant teen confessed that she wouldn’t even tell her darkness secrets to anyone—not her mom, dad, or her boyfriend of 3 years, who was the father-to-be. I am not sure why either teen felt this way, but what was obvious was that they did not feel safe enough to be honest with the people in their lives.
Many teens today feel just as these two did; they hide everything because they are scared of letting others see deep inside themselves. Many feel that if they reveal their struggles they will be judged, others believe that no one really understands what they are going through, while others just lack trust in any adult or friend, and therefore lock all of their emotions inside. For instance, one student I worked with for 4 years had never met his dad and lived with his mom for his whole life. After getting to know the student it became clear that he never opened up to the men in his life because he did not trust them due to his experiences with men in the past. It took almost 3 and half years for the young man to start opening up to me just because I was a male, when he opened up very quickly to almost any woman in his life.
The environment that people grow up in affects them. Sadly, today kids are treated more like their parents’ play toy instead of a real person. Parents make their children play sports they do not want to, pressure them to be good at all they do, to get straight A’s in school, want them to look and be prefect, give kids anything they want just so they will leave their parents alone, and when a child finally confides their parents, the parents make the children’s issues more about themselves than their own child. On top of that many parents have bought into the myth that kids just want to be left alone. It is not that kids want to be left alone; it is that they need someone to seek them out. It is for reasons like these that many teens do not trust adults today, but sadly teens need adults to be involved in their lives.2 It is no wonder that depression is hitting kids younger and younger.3 Teens have become isolated from the adult communities they need more than ever.
As we have seen over the last couple of weeks, youth need adults to care for them. In fact, Chap Clark, professor of youth, family, and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary believes that for a teen to best navigate through adolescence they need at least five adults, who are involved in their lives, truly care for them, and point them toward Jesus.4 This is why in his book, Disconnected, Chap and Dee Clark urge parents to invite others to be involved in the process of raising a child.5
At the same time, adults must realize that youth regularly need time and space just to be youth. They need a safe place to struggle, mess up, learn, and grow where they will not be judged, but be loved and coached. Youth need to have fun, mess around, and be teens; we cannot rush teens into adulthood because this is another way of abandoning them. The important thing to remember is that this safe place is within an adult community, not away from one.
This is where the Church comes in. The Church needs to create and be a place where teens can feel safe and cared for, where they can struggle and be teens. Youth group plays an integral role in this process. Youth group can be a place where they can be with others in community, have their needs meet, and feel safe. (Next week we will explore how the church might become that safe place for youth and talk a little about what that place might look like)
1 Elkind, David, Ties That Stress: The New Family Imbalance, (First Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1994), 38-62
2 Clark, Chap and Dee Clark Disconnected: Parenting Teen in a Myspace World, (Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2007), 35
3 Twenge, Jean M. Ph.D., Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled and More Miserable Than Ever Before, (Free Press, New York, 2006), 107
4 Clark, Chap, Introduction to Youth Ministry, Fuller Theological Seminary, Fall of 2007
5 (Clark and Clark, Disconnected, 178 – 193)
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