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Parent Tool Box

At Point Break there is a screw driver that seriously has become my best friend. The screw driver turned into a multipurpose tool everything from acting as a screw driver, a hammer, a punch you name it it’s most likely been used that way…but what I can tell you is having the right tool for job makes it so much easier. My goal is to put more tools in your tool box that will help you in raising your child. Everything from youth culture tips like what is snapchat or trivia crack? Maybe some thought provoking questions like what are some of your family traditions? To resources that help block things on your computer that you probably don’t want your kid looking at. Hope you find this page help!

99 Thoughts for Seniors

college transition ad

Okay maybe I lied there isn’t 99 thoughts I am not that smart and you wouldn’t want to read that much. With summer literally right around the corner, it has got me thinking a lot about transitions.  Students moving from being stuck in prison aka school to being bored during summer and wanting to go back to school. Middle schoolers make the big jump from being big man on the totem pole to being the low man on the totem pole in high school, and seniors graduating and moving off to college. Right now is a good time to start talking to your student who is a senior about transitions.

If you don’t have a student that is a senior don’t worry one day you will this still applies for you…and you can use it to think about how to have conversations with your students about transitions in life. In my opinion one of the hardest transitions is from middle school to high school where their friends may start making wrong choices, they may lose some friends that they have been friends with along time, and then making the jump to actually having to do homework ect. But that is a whole another blog. Here are a few thoughts of things to discuss with your seniors:

It’s OK To Not Know What You Are Going To “DO”

In our culture we put a lot of emphasis on what you are going to do with your life. The first question everyone asks graduating seniors is what is your plans after high school? What are you majoring in? What do you want to do with your life?  Let them know rather than focusing so much on what you want to “do” put more emphasis on who you want to “be”. The process of discovering what you want to do should be taken slowly. Discover what you are passionate about and what you are not passionate about! This all steams from discovering who you are before what you are going to do. Don’t settle for a career/job you hate.  You will regret settling for less than what you wanted. Let you student know it’s ok to take a temporary job that isn’t a career job.  Ask your senior questions to help them discover more about who they are? What are they really passionate about? Could they see themselves sitting behind a desk 40+ hours a week or in a suit and tie?

At Some Point In College You Will Be Lonely 

It is inevitable that at some point your student will feel alone. Soon as you graduate you no longer see the people that you have gone to school with since elementary school. Think about that…that is a lot of time spent around and with those people. How many people have you kept in touch with after high school? Probably not many. Everyone goes through a season after high school of depression and isolation. You lose contact with most of your friends and acquaintances, you lose contact with your parents when you spread your wings and fly looking for your own “independence” I remember when I transitioned into college and I sat there feeling like does anybody care? One of my best friends went off to college his mom handed me the phone to talk with him because he was having a hard time adjusting and feeling lonely and I have had a number of students who’ve gone off to college call me just to “talk” because they feel alone, like no one cares, and just want to come home. The more you can prep your student the easier the transition will be.  Let them know it is OK to contact you when they feel alone. Have a conversations with them about dealing with loneliness.

Get Connected To A Local Church

Up until this point your church was probably your students church. At some point in life a student must take ownership of his or her faith. They will need to have the motivation and desire to go to church because they want to. Finding a new church can be intimidating. It is almost like a blind date. Totally awkward you don’t know the people and you don’t know what to expect. Sit down with them an discuss the importance of finding a church community to be plugged into when they go off to college. Look at churches with them online and maybe even drive to the town where the college is and check out the churches with them. Discuss with them at this point it is their choice on a Sunday morning where they will have to motivate themselves to get out of bed after staying up all Saturday night playing video games and doing late night runs to taco bell to get their butt out of bed and go to church.

Your Science Class Will Challenge Your Belief System. 

Every science class that I took in college said the exact same thing. God doesn’t exist. I specially remember in my philosophy class “I will disprove there is a God by the way we think.” In my sociology class “I will disprove that events in the Bible happened by the way groups interact and form” My anthropology class “If you are a christian you will have a hard time in this class.” My geology class “I will prove that God didn’t form the earth by the way we study and look at the dirt and the rocks and how things are formed.”  Talk with your students that will be exposed to many different belief systems and that their teachers will sound pretty convincing after all they have a P.H.D. and teach it as fact. It is OK to study and wrestle with things. Just because someone says something that causes you to question your faith doesn’t mean your faith is wrong. Discuss with your students some of the different world views including evolution and what they will face.

 

Here are a bunch of short thoughts as well:

  • Everyone buying food together doesn’t work out. Have everyone buy their own food.
  • Just because you used cologne doesn’t mean you smell good.
  • Wear flip flops into the shower if you are living in a dorm.
  • Make sure to get a good hamper if you are living in a dorm.
  • Don’t stay up all night just because you can.
  • Stay in contact with friends and family back home.
  • Making good friends takes time.
  • Get people together to send care packages once a month to them (whether its relatives, you, church family)

Hope these thoughts help as your students transition off to college! I would love to hear what do you do to help prepare your student for transitions.

When your kids friends don’t believe what they believe…

I bet its safe to say that your student has some friends that don’t believe what they believe. As a parent when your student comes to you and asks “What is the difference between Christians and Mormons?” or “My friend is an atheist and does believe in God how do I talk to him/her about God?” How do you respond?  I want to put in your hands today a tool that talks about many different worldviews and how to share your faith with people who hold those worldviews. Click on the picture below and it will take you to a link from Dare 2 Share on worldviews. Hope this helps you and your student better understand different worldviews and how to share your faith with them.

d2s-logo

Prom- parent survival tips!

It’s that time of year again where prom is just around the corner May 2nd in case you didn’t know! I was at the high school the other day and in the middle of lunch they started playing some music and a girl brought flowers and a sign and asked a guy to prom. I was waiting for the inevitable…you know the moment when the guy says No and she drops the flowers and runs off crying! It got me thinking back to when I was in high school there is a lot of pressure on students to have a “date” to prom, a lot of pressure on how to be creative at asking someone to prom, and a lot of pressure to say YES to the person who just put a lot of time and energy and their reputation/feelings in asking you. The further removed from high school the less you really care about prom. This could be a great opportunity to come along side your students and help them learn some life lessons!

So here are some thoughts that I want to share with you about how to make the most of prom

  • Get them to talk about prom- Rather than being on the end of hearing your student come home and share that they got asked and said yes be proactive in getting them to talk about prom.
  • The Proposal- Many times students feel the need to do bigger and better! A lot of us would agree if you have been married there is pressure on how you’re going to propose. Nothing changes. Talk with your student about how they would propose and the fact that simple is Ok. Talk with them about why they want to ask that person? How well do they know the person?
  • Rejected- On the flip side if they propose to someone and are rejected talk with them how would they respond if the person said no? Talk with them about healing and how to handle being rejected? This is also a great opportunity to talk about conflict resolution. A lot of students haven’t properly learned how to deal with conflict so they AVOID IT! Talk with them of how do they deal with conflict and how do they resolve difficult situations? Also talk with them about how they could help others who may have been rejected. 
  • The Unspoken Pressure No one wants to hurt someones feelings! Some students will say YES to someone who asks them to prom just because they don’t want to hurt their feelings, even if they don’t want to go to prom with them. If your student is likely to be asked, talk with your student how it’s ok to say NO and talk with them how they would kindly reject the person. This is a great conversation time to discuss that you don’t always have to do things for people just because you don’t want to hurt their feelings.

Just a few thoughts on how to help maximize prom time!

Tradition Doesn’t Have To Be BORING!!!

Growing up as a kid I spent almost a month of the summer camping out at the lake!It was a tradition that my family had started when I was in 5th grade and it still is a tradition that my family does to this day maybe not for a whole month but we still get together every Labor Day weekend to camp for a week. Thinking back that family tradition made a HUGE impact in my life. At the time I didn’t even realize it, but looking back now I can say I am glad that my family had that tradition. When I hear the word tradition all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I tend to think of tradition as boring and doing the same old thing, nothing new. But tradition doesn’t have to be that way. Tradition is something that causes us to look forward and get excited to when that “something” is going to happen again. Traditions create great memories when you look back that it will be the thing ingrained in your students memory bank. So here is just a couple questions:

1. What are some of your current family traditions?
2. Do you need to make/create some family traditions before it’s too late?

Here are a few monumental moments where you can create tradition:
-When you kid turns 13 have a fun tradition that when you reach 13 you get to ______
-First day of school create a memory whether its breakfast, a pic, a drink on the way to school.
-When they turn 16 and get their license take them go karting and talk car safety (that’s what we are planning on doing at Point Break but putting your name on it and claim it as yours is OK!)
-When they turn 18 a fun tradition of traveling somewhere.
-During the summer take a trip or go camp somewhere EVERY SUMMER!

Hope this thought provokes you to reevaluate your traditions and remember that they are important and they don’t have to be BORING!

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