CITY CAMP IN THE NEWS AGAIN!

Read the column from Capi Lynn in today's Statesman here: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20130710/COLUMN0807/307100065

Mom & Dad Time

Read this new article from US News all about how teens benefit from spending more time with their parents.  CLICK HERE

BANNING BANDZ

Schools across the country are banning Bandz. What are Bandz? They are those little rubber bracelets that sell in any color of the rainbow for $5 in a pack of 24 or so. Schools are banning them for a variety of reasons, but mainly because they are a distraction. These bracelets were HUGE when I was in middle school. We had different ways of tying them together and making patterns up and down our arms with them. This trend is coming back. To learn more about it's negative impact on schools click here.

Teen Depression Cause By Not Enough Sleep

I think we all can agree that when we do not get enough sleep at night, our mood is greatly impacted. A new study by researchers at UC Berkley suggests that when teenagers do not get the recommended nine hours of sleep per night (yes, even on weekends), depression is more likely to occur. Today's students are spending their afternoons and evenings in sports practices, games, doing chores, hours upon hours of homework, and social networking. Student's have never been this busy and it's no wonder it takes them extra hours to unwind before falling asleep. In the past, the general view was that sleep disturbances were a by-product of depression. Now research is pointing to a lack of sleep as a cause of depression. To read more of this study, click here.

Destination 2010: New Orleans

Next August, the 16 and up senior high youth will be going to New Orleans for our annual mission trip. We will be working on one stage of rebuilding a house for a family who has been waiting to return home nearly 5 years. Much has happened in the city since the hurricanes in 2005, many of the residents are still without their homes or a place to call home. This can be a tragic situation, especially for young people who have grown up in the wake of the storm. There is much to learn about life and social systems from visiting a city like New Orleans. Even before the storm, the city had quite possibly one of the most corrupt government systems and police forces in the nation. The city also had and continues to have a failing education system. Many young people feel trapped in the system with no way out. The lack of a home to go home to at the end of the day does not lighten this burden. To read about a young boy turned teen who has experienced the roller coaster known as rebuilding, click here

Kids On Social Networks Too Soon?

Social networks and kids: How young is too young?
A new study article released from CNN this morning discusses the topic many parents are dealing with today with their youth. Is my kid too young for facebook? twitter? myspace? Will my child be safe or make responsible decisions as a result of participating in social networking. To read this article, click here

New Teen Drug Use Findings

CNN issued a new report this week on findings of teen drug use in the U.S. today. This study reports not only new statistics--Like how forty percent of teens -- about 10 million -- say they can get marijuana within a day while about 25 percent -- 5.7 million teens -- say they can find marijuana within an hour, but it also shares stories of real teens struggling with drug abuse. These teens tell the story of the first time they tried drugs (and contrary to popular belief, it was rarely peer pressure that got them hooked). To read this new study, click here

Teen Texting and Driving

We all know driving drunk is bad, but what about texting and driving?  One of my friends has just spent her summer paying back a friend for damages caused to the front of her car while driving.  750 dollars later, she swears she will never text and drive again.  Studies show that it is nearly twice as dangerous to text and drive as it is to drink and drive.  This is because reaction speed is dramatically reduced and drivers lose about 91% of their steering ability while they are texting.   Many teens today use texting as their primary means of communication and would go as far as to call it a hobby.  Should this be a hobby that continues behind the wheel of a car?  New legislation this fall seeks to make texting while driving illegal, but will it be enough to stop the addictive behavior behind the wheel? To read more about texting and driving, click here

Fearful Youth Take More Risks?

There is a new study out by Forbes which shows that teens who believe they will die young are more willing to take risks. 15% of American teens believe that they will die young. But that isn't stopping them from sky diving, bungee jumping, or experimenting with drugs. To read the study, click here.

The American Teen

A book was released last year called, The American Teen. It is a photo collage of various teens throughout the country living very different lives: some homeless, some very wealthy, some in the military, some teen mothers, some treated as outcasts at school and some dealing with their own identity and self-image. To check out the lives of teens in their own words, click here.

The Secret Life Of The American Teenager

Parents, if you have a teenager daughter (or even a son), odds are, this is one of her/his favorite TV shows. Tune in Mondays at 8 pm on ABC Family to see what all the hype is about. The show combines excellent writing with realistic portrayals of the various pressures teens are under today. Watch a trailer from season one, click here

A Conversation To Have With Your Youth

What if you lost over half your entire summer vacation due to an error by school officials? That's what happened to students at two California elementary schools. To read more about this story, click here.

Struggling Teens Help Other Struggling Teens

A group of struggling teens from a heavy drug ridden part of Brooklyn have embarked on a journey to South Africa to help teens struggling with an entirely different set of obstacles. Whether they have meant to or not, these teens have truly adopted the commandment to love their neighbors as they love themselves. They have chosen to serve the least of these. To read more about this group of young people, click here.

Teenage Toddler: Brook Greenberg

Brook Greenberg is not your average teenager. She has the body of a toddler, but she is sixteen years old. While Brook has become a medical focal point as many doctors believe she may hold the fountain of youth in her genetic make-up, her life is limited. In the words of her parents, "Brook will never drive a car, she will never play softball, she will never get married." But with the mind of a 9 month old, she has become the cornerstone of her family's lives. To read more about Brook, click here. This story causes me to ask a question that comes up at some point in a person's career in youth ministry: How do we effectively minister to students with disabilities?

In my first year in youth ministry, I was a freshman in college with a one-dimentional mindset when it came to how youth ministry was done. I will never forget a time when I became so frustrated with a student who has severe ADHD that I went complaining to one of my fellow leaders. I asked her, "What am I supposed to do? I don't know how to get through to this kid." Her answer: Love him. Love him until you cannot love him anymore.

After applying this practice and lesson more than once before, I believe that we must start from a place of love when ministering to students who are difficult for us to love.

Should We Limit Youth Texting?

Many young people have unlimited text messaging on their cell phones in order for their parents to avoid overage charges. According to T-Mobile, a small text plan is 400 messages. A large one is 1000. That equates to about 35 texts a day on the larger plan. But on an unlimited plan, youth can text an insane amount! How about a diet of 14,000 texts a month? (thats 400-500 a day!). Have many youth stopped communicating with each other face to face? Or even voice to voice? The side effects of texting may be negative (texting while driving, texting in class..), socially controversial even, but for some, they pay off. For more about how a teen won 50,000 dollars for her texting, click here