Family Friday: Teensies

To preface this post, and this goes for all my 'Family Friday' posts, it is never my purpose to offend anyone. I also realize that I have no children, I've only been married 2 years, and I'm only 22. I just happen to find this area of study extremely interesting and enlightening and enjoying sharing it (and this is my blog, you don't have to read it if you don't want to haha)!

My final lesson for my parenting class was about parenting teenagers, yikes. I was a teenager once... and so I dread being on the parent end of it one day. I discovered some scary, yet sadly not that shocking, statistics in this lesson.

One study of LDS 9th-12th graders from the East Coast, West Coast, and Utah surveyed from 1992-96 reported this: 20% of LDS high school seniors had smoked cigarettes, compared to the national non-LDS average of 60%. 20% of LDS seniors had consumed alcoholic beverages, compared to 80% on the national average. Nationally 73% of males and 56% of female high school seniors had had sex, where only 10% of males and 17% of females who were LDS had. Although none of these percentages are amazing in my opinion, it is reassuring to know that the LDS youth are doing much better than average. It gives me hope for my future kids.

It's my personal opinion that participating in drugs and alcohol, and sex before marriage is extremely damaging to a person both physically and emotionally. I am positive that even those who do these things would admit that to some degree.

The reason I am sharing this is because all of these percentages are continually on the increase. We are building our nation's future on a generation under the influence of easy and fast fun and pleasure. I know firsthand that even the most amazing parents have kids that stray, but I would hope that something could be done to reduce these percentages.

One thing we can tell from this study, is that it is effective to raise kids in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Another effective way to raise kids is using Authoritative parenting. This includes being warmly supportive, open, honest, and genuine. It means using discipline to teach, not to punish. It means being an active listener and source of support in your child's life. We all know the difference active parenting can make, we've all been kids, and some of us parents at some point. My hope is that somehow I can combat all the bad in the world, and somehow make it a better place for those who aren't old enough to do it for themselves.

You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.