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Suicide, sex, and drugs are dangers for teens. Homemade abortions, risky behavior, unrealistic expectations of life, and many other perilous things can make a teen’s life not only stressful and unmanageable, but short as well. Teens simply don’t have the necessary skills to face these serious difficulties, or the inclination to take advice from parents. They rely almost exclusively on peers.So we have a problem: The peers are teenagers themselves and as mixed up as our kids – how can they not be? The problems they are facing take a lifetime of experience to understand, and our teenagers are barely babies when thrown out into the world, expected to fend for themselves, while parents work 60 hour weeks to support them. Even if parents were familiar with the skills that would help their kids survive this most crucial period of their lives, what parent has time to teach them?Let’s face it; by the time our kids reach their teenage years, it’s too late to do much of anything except perhaps pick up the pieces. A recent pediatrics poll revealed that 71 % of those polled considered the formative years to be between one and five years of age,very early on, and up to 12 years. This is a small window of opportunity for parents, and occurs just when parents are up to their eyeballs in making a living and coping with so many other thing s in life.How could parents ever have the time or expertise to teach their kids these three skills that could save their lives:(1) Realistic expectations of life (great or small) regardless of their parents’ level of accomplishment.(2) That all things change and no one thing can be relied upon to provide endless happiness.(3) A healthy understanding of themselves, and that their personal, interior feelings will change from day to day and shouldn’t be acted upon immediately.These are serious and profound understandings. How can parents teach their kids complicated lessons such as these when the parents might have not yet discovered these lessons for themselves? It’s actually easy, if parents begin in the formative years. The method is simply . . . silence! Silence alone teaches children all the skills they need to make it in the world. This is uncomplicated because silence is where intelligence is born, not on the internet or TV. Silence is what touches our deepest being and creates a mind that is aware, an awareness that makes all the difference between stupidity and discernment when it comes down to important decisions. Awareness is that edge, that hesitation for one brief moment, long enough to fend off impulsive actions.Awareness such as this cannot be taught from an outside source, it comes from inside, and once it is awakened, the child has a fighting chance in the world. Then expectations, if not met, do not become tragic failures. Drugs do not become a ticket for acceptance into peer groups that are now viewed less dramatically. And feelings are understood for what they are, merely feelings that come and go, not basically “us.”This is what good parents instill in a child; the courage to see clearly and not be easily influenced by either peers or groups that wish to control their minds. The child learns to be free with the help of his or her parents, and a child that becomes free is a fortunate child indeed. Teach your kids how to become free beginning today. Take 15 minutes out each day, in the evenings, and sit quietly with the entire family. Just sit quietly. You don’t have to inject any religious connotation, as religion can be a turn-off that causes teens to rebel. Just sit quietly with the children, especially the younger ones. If you do this without fail, it will become the most important 15 minutes of the day, and perhaps the most important 15 minutes of not only the child’s life but the life of the parents as well.Copyright © E. Raymond Rock 2007. All rights reserved
Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com
E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit www.AYearToEnlightenment.com
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