75% wanted to get married eventually.
But only 20% thought they would have a fulfilling marriage.
Over 50% thought there was a high likelihood they would get divorced.
And most striking of all:
Only 15% thought they could turn to their parents for support in crisis.
But 85% wished they could discuss all these issues in depth with their parents and other adults.
And
finally, we dive into the questions they have writtenmeanonymously
and, like magic, kids open up. They
break down and cry, have epiphanies, rethink their lives. Why? It's because I
open things up to discuss anything and everything. I bring in loads of
humor. But I stop in midstream when, for example, a kid writes, "I was
raped by my boyfriend over the weekend. What do I do? " Or, " I want
to kill myself. What is the quickest way to die?"
I stop the seminar and make them note that someone right in the room is being
brutalized and you do not even know who that person is, period. Someone in your
school is so depressed they want to die. How are we going to change it? By
making jokes about rape or calling girls "sluts'? I get right down to the
issue. Kids speak up. Lives change.
But also, since I began by surveying them first and include the question about suicide, the students already know every single one of them has thought of suicide. It is, in fact, normal. This gives them a handle on any problem. It gives them a different way of seeing the reality of their lives. This again opens up the gate and they speak with incredible meaning and wisdom. I note all of this. I point out how smart they are. How with it they are. I affirm their deepest thoughts. Students grow from those kinds of affirmations.
We talk about everything. I have found that, essentially, I am the first adult that has ever really spoken to them about life and their life issues, period. Something is very wrong with that. Very wrong. I chronicled all of this in my second book.
I took on this mission to move upstream, to speak to kids to give them hope, before they might go to the street. America's children are what I call the children of the secret. There is not one school where kids do not have a host of very heavy secret lives and problems. Schools spend money on the latest curriculum not on assisting them build strong emotional intelligence to face life's challenges.
Then, with the students' questions in hand, I often meet with parents in the evening. The sessions are packed. Why? Because I am the man with their children's questions. And I guarantee them that no matter what is going on with their teen, in an hour and a half, every parent will come out that door knowing how to make significant contact with their child.
You are an observant Jew, grounded in the traditions of your faith. You use the works of Maimonides, a medieval Jewish rabbi, philosopher and scholar as the foundation of your program. Yet most of the kids you work with are not at all observant or even Jewish. Why do the words of Maimonides resonate for troubled teens in these modern times?
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