Teaching Teenagers

Teaching Teenagers

If you have to ask how to connect with teens today, it’s too late.  You aren’t going to learn how to do it.  At least you won’t learn how to do it in this lifetime.

I’ve decided that being able to have some sort of connection with youth is at the same time a blessing and a curse.  I don’t know which is greater, the curse or the blessing.  At times I truly wonder.

The sweet young mother of a teenager, pre-teen, and younger children came up to me today after church and said that her child and others were so excited that I taught her Sunday school class today.  (I subbed for my wife who is visiting a daughter in Texas.)  That would have been her pre-teen that I taught.  I have that mother’s teenage son in an early morning seminary (religion) class for high school students five days a week.  Apparently her son rats me out around the dinner table, and for that reason his siblings cannot wait until they are in my early morning class as well.  Other moms at church tell my wife and me that we cannot move until after their children have had all four years of this early morning class with me and their Sunday lessons with my wife.

I’ve come to a handful of conclusions about teaching teenagers.  Let me share those conclusions with you.

1. You can’t.  You cannot teach a teenager anything.  Even if you can get a teen’s attention long enough to make an important point or teach a valuable principle, it will be gone before the end of a class or any other setting that you may be in.
2. Parents want YOU to teach their children at 6:00 a.m. each day during the school year because THEY would rather not get up at 5:00 a.m. each day to teach teenagers who cannot be taught anything anyway.  Of course, there are other reasons, like getting a spouse and other children up and out the door and then maybe hitting the door themselves.
3. Parents are grateful for those who teach Sunday lessons to their children.  That gives parents at least an hour on Sunday when they do not have to wrestle with at least one child.
4. A lesson with food will hold a teenager’s attention better than a lesson by itself.
5. A lesson with a joke included will guarantee that teenage students will at least learn one thing during the time that you are standing in front of them babbling off relevant meaningful life lessons.
6. Teens are still children at heart.  If you share a personal story they will remember that story, especially if it is funny or if you got hurt.  Share an account from somebody else’s life and they will forget it before they hit the door at the end of class.  Teach an important lesson?  Forget it!
7. The best lesson you can teach a teenager is that she or he is loved and that you happen to be the one that loves him or her.  Showing that love works better than telling them.  Nothing else really matters.
8. If you have to ask how to connect with teens today, it’s too late.  You aren’t going to learn how to do it.  At least you won’t learn how to do it in this lifetime.  I’m still trying and I am convinced that I am a hopeless case.

Fatherhood

Fatherhood

            I’ve been asked to address the topic of fatherhood on at least two previous occasions.  Perhaps being the father of five children is supposed to qualify me for this noble responsibility.  Unfortunately, simply being the father of five children does not qualify one to speak with authority on any topic.  Everybody knows of the wide range of goodness in fathers.  Perhaps you even know people at both ends of the spectrum.  There are fathers who seem to be successful, whatever that is, and others who would not merit the title of father to a piranha.  Most of us, however, seem to fall someplace between the two ends.  I’d like to think we’re all somewhere in this large bell curve of fatherhood: not great and not terrible, just located within one standard deviation of the mean.  Of course, you would like to think the curve is skewed towards greatness, but experience suggests otherwise.

            One has to study Webster at length to get a reasonable definition of father or fatherhood.  After all, the word father is preceded by fathead in the dictionary.  This is not a good sign.  The word dad does not paint a better picture.  It is preceded by dacus, a type of fruit fly.  Yet, somehow, there has to be more to father than being a man who has begotten a child.  It doesn’t take a world of genius to figure out how to father a child.  Of course, it doesn’t take a world of genius to figure out how to be a father either.  It takes heart.

            Bringing human life into the world is only the beginning.  The father who presides in the home takes responsibility for the outcome of his family.  He not only manages for shelter, clothing, food, and physical comforts for his children, but he provides compassion, counsel, direction, comfort, and the means for his family members to develop to their full potential.  Rearing, teaching, guiding, blessing, providing for, and loving our children are the acts that make a man a father.  Among the most important things that we can teach our children are what an honorable parent is, for some day, they will be parents, and will have passed on to them the same responsibilities that we have as parents.

            Another fundamental role of father is that of protector, not only against physical harm, but against untruth and error.  At other times it means discipline.  In fact, the word discipline has as its root the word disciple, meaning follower.  There are many styles of discipline, but there is a bright line between discipline and abuse.  The man who physically, sexually, or emotionally abuses a child is not fit for the responsibility of fatherhood.

            Hopefully there are not many of these fathers around.  As fathers though, perhaps we should all stand back and ask ourselves if we are abusing our children out of neglect.  In other words, we should be asking if we are providing growing opportunities and life experiences, no matter how small or seemingly unimportant to us, to our children.  Do we share with them the most important commodities we have with them: our time and ourselves? 

Fifteen Minutes

Fifteen Minutes

Part I, 2013

I’ve discovered that there is a way to determine where you fall on the ability scale.  To be more precise, I’ve discovered how to determine if you are average or not.

The message said that I could apply for Social Security online; that it was easy and that it took on average about 15 minutes to complete.  The message was really quite encouraging.  It covered all the hot button items that it would take to convince me that I was up to the challenge.  It could be done in the privacy of my own home.  I could do it at my leisure.  I would not have to make an appointment with an agent from Social Security to apply for benefits.  I would not have to make a trip.  I could save all that gasoline money by staying home.  By saving all that gasoline money I could save the planet from all those nasty hydrocarbons that spew out from my exhaust pipe and into the atmosphere thus creating great big holes in the ozone that allow alien monsters to come to earth and eat us up.  Well, maybe the announcement didn’t exactly say anything about alien monsters, but the implication certainly was there.

Sitting from the comfort of my padded computer chair and thinking that I had computer literacy of at least a six year-old, I figured I was up to the challenge.  After all, I have “worked” with computers for several years.  I can type or word process or whatever it is you do with a keyboard.  And!  I’ve successfully made airline reservations on the computer and printed out boarding passes—once.  I knew I was up to the task.

So, after about three months of thinking about applying for Social Security on line I took the plunge and logged into the Social Security website.  It was pretty cluttered.  I didn’t think anything could be more complicated than buying airline tickets online, but I was wrong.  But, I was brave.  I backed out of the website and started checking my e-mail.

After a few more days I returned to the Social Security website and saw that there was a video of some celebrity talking about how easy it was to apply for Social Security.  I watched it.  When it was finished and she pronounced it easy, I asked myself, “If this is so freaking easy, why did you have your husband sit with you through the process and have him answer all the application questions for you?”  I checked my e-mail again.

A few days passed and as I was sitting at my computer, logged onto the internet, I turned to my wife and said, “Sweetie?” (She always knows that when I call her Sweetie that I’m stuck and that I’m going to ask her for help.)

“Yes.”

“Sweetie, would you help me apply for Social Security online?  It should only take about 15 minutes.”

Absolutely nothing takes 15 minutes in my life.  Well, the three-minute lectures from my parents took 15 minutes.  No.  Wait.  Those were more like 30 or 40 minutes.  Never mind.  Nothing takes 15 minutes to do in my life.  The 15 minute oil change takes about 45 minutes and $75 more than the advertised price.  The 15 minute wait to be seated at the restaurant takes until the meal that I had planned on buying has sold out.  The 15 minute doctor’s office visit takes an hour and isn’t covered by insurance.  I should have known better.

The first page of the process asked for my name AS-IT-APPEARS-ON-YOUR-SOCIAL-SECURITY-CARD.  I haven’t looked at my Social Security card in years.  How the heck am I supposed to know how it appears on my card?  Let’s just say that I ate up the FIRST FIFTEEN MINUTES looking for my Social Security card.  That page asks for your Social Security Number, date of birth, and gender.  I clicked male three times before it recognized that I was actually clicking the corresponding box for “MALE”.

Contact information and citizenship was fairly easy, but then we got to “Medicare Election”.  The only option you have there is to apply for Part B.  But, my previous employer isn’t going to do Part B.  We’re doing Part C.  The 15 minute clock had more than expired and so had my patience.

No, I’ve not gone by any other name (Leonard doesn’t count) nor have I used a different Social Security Number.  Married? Check.  Her number?  You must be kidding me.  “Sweetie?”  No children at home.  “Work in a job where U.S. Social Security taxes were not deducted or withheld?”  Welllllllll, as a matter of fact….

The application ended with, “If we have questions we’ll call you in the next five days.”  I know darn good and well I’m getting a phone call.  It’s been 48 hours and I’m still holding my breath.

I now know where I fall on the ability scale.  The 15 minute application process took me about an hour and-a-half (and multiple false starts over several days).  If it was only to take me 15 minutes to complete and I took me one-and-a-half hours, I must be above average.

Part II, 2015

So, the phone call came.  In fact, over the course of a week two phone calls came.  The voice on the other end said that he was Mr. Bince.  He had no first name and I really don’t believe that his last name was Bince.  “I see you worked for a period of time when you didn’t pay Social Security.”

“Uh, yes, that’s true.  I didn’t have a choice.  I worked in a county government that opted out of Social Security years after I began working for that organization.  We paid into another retirement program instead of Social Security.  I have since received all the retirement benefits from that retirement plan.”

“I see that, “Mr. Bince noted.  “We’ll have to deduct your Social Security benefit by $200 a month.”  (Actually, it was over $200 a month, but I don’t recall what the amount was after two years.)

“But my annual Social Security statement clearly shows that I have had earnings those years and that nothing was paid into Social Security, and I clearly have more than met the 40 quarter requirement to collect Social Security.  Those annual statements report that I will receive the additional $200 a month that you say I can’t have,” I pled.

“That’s right, Mr. Talley.  Your annual statement said that you would be getting the additional $200 a month.  Had you not worked during those years and still not have contributed to Social Security you would get the full amount that is shown on your annual report, but because you worked and didn’t contribute you don’t get what you were told you were getting.”

“Buh buh buh….”

“If there is nothing else, Mr. Talley you should be getting your first check next month.”

“Click.”

“Buh buh buh but….”

That was a very long 15 minutes.