#Parenting

One odd recommendation to help #Jteens reduce the academic pressure they feel

Feb 26, 2014
1 min

One odd recommendation to help #Jteens reduce the academic pressure they feel

Enlightened teen education What I’m about to write is counter-intuitive, fair warning given. The phenomenon I’m about to describe has interested me for over a decade. It’s the one big thing that I’ve seen make a difference in teens’ lives, often enabling them to cope with the stress of being at public or private schools during the day. It’s attending more school –though of a different kind entirely. They attend this school in the evening, or on Sunday mornings. Surprising, no

What 7 of today’s top headlines tell you about teens today

Feb 11, 2014
2 min

What 7 of today’s top headlines tell you about teens today

Where’s the good news? When it comes to teens, it seems that “Headlines” are usually “Dead Lines”….yes….news about deaths, teenage thugs, bullying, and more. I’m tired of reading all this bad news about teens. You might ask: “So, just look for the good news, what are you complaining about?” It’s not that easy. I get news alerts from Google and Yahoo sent to my Inbox, and generally what comes up, almost on a daily basis, is what you see below. News Tired teenagers may need a n

You won’t believe these words trending for #teens

Nov 27, 2013
1 min

You won’t believe these words trending for #teens

Guess what’s trending for #teens? I discovered a helpful tool for twitter, a free site called hashtagify.me that lets you search trending hashtags. You can easily search any hashtag and you’ll get instant results for the top ten hashtags words related to that word. Easy enough. So, I put in #teens in the search bar and the terms come up in a graphic resembling typical mind map visuals. In addition, you can hover over each word to determine how popular the term is. Do you want

“You’re Not Invited”: Teen Victims of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Years and What To Do Abo

Aug 28, 2013
3 min

“You’re Not Invited”: Teen Victims of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Years and What To Do Abo

Party time (for some) We know that many Bar/Bat Mitzvah Celebrations have gotten way out of hand. Thousands have seen Rabbi Wolpe’s Washington Post article “Have we forgotten what Bar Mitzvahs are about?” although fewer may have read the Rabbi’s apology for what some have said was an angry tone. Beyond the materialistic approach that some of these affairs take and the message it sends, there is another consequence of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah years, regardless of how ‘over the top’

Why Should Our Teens be Jewish?

Aug 8, 2013
2 min

Why Should Our Teens be Jewish?

Being Jewish? Too easy! The image above came up in a Google Image advanced search (free to use or share) for “Why be Jewish?”. The image speaks to the casual nature of being Jewish, and some might think that it actually pokes fun a bit…after all, how many Mountain Jews do you know? The fact that we might just accept this image without even thinking twice, kind of makes my point. Answering the difficult question “Why Should Our Teens be Jewish” is an extreme challenge for par

Teens: Cheating on Standardized Tests?

May 7, 2013
2 min

Teens: Cheating on Standardized Tests?

No digital devices in sight The Los Angeles Times reported that California is coping, almost feverishly it seems, with new measures that require students to turn in digital devices before taking standardized tests. “The proliferation of cellphones and their potential use for cheating has prompted heightened security measures on this year’s administration of standardized tests in California schools.” In the previous year, students posted 36 questions from standardized exams on

Jewish Teen: A view of rights, responsibilities, and radicalization

Apr 30, 2013
2 min

Jewish Teen: A view of rights, responsibilities, and radicalization

The Ten Commandments, In SVG (Photo credit: Wikipedia) A while back, I was listening to a televised lecture by Joseph Telushkin on Shalom TV about the differences between Jewish and American Law. To greatly paraphrase him, Jewish law is about taking responsibility. There are so many laws in Jewish tradition that are based on individual accountability: regulating weights and measures, building proper roof safeguards, being responsible for a student’s progress, even watching on

Teens: Watch Your Social Media Presence

Apr 24, 2013
2 min

Teens: Watch Your Social Media Presence

twitter logo map 09 (Photo credit: The Next Web) “Treat every conversation you have on Twitter or Facebook as if it were a nationally televised press conference.” This advice is not a recommendation from a public relations firm, or from a head hunter, or from a corporate policy book on social media. Nor was it taken from a how-to book on political life. None of those sources would be surprising. The quote above is from a sign posted in a Minnesota high school locker room in r

Betrayal, Abandonment, and Jewish Teen Education

Apr 23, 2013
3 min

Betrayal, Abandonment, and Jewish Teen Education

This past Sunday I met with a group of parents interested in checking out options for their teens’ Jewish education. They were committed to their children’s education and wanted the best for them. Currently, their 7th grade teens were in a synagogue school, but were unsure that staying there would meet their children’s needs. One parent found the time to attend this orientation meeting even though her daughter’s Bat Mitzvah was the very next week! I am always impressed when

Parent Conversations With Teens

Mar 13, 2013
3 min

Parent Conversations With Teens

We need to tune in to teens Life is busy, so how do we get the time to interact with teen-aged kids when everybody is literally on the run? By the time teens are in high school, the time you may get to spend with each other may be less than an hour per day–including dinner. Try to take that in. That’s an abysmally low amount of time to talk about the big stuff of life….that is if you ever get to it. The constant pecks of life’s immediacies, like “When do you need to be picked

“But I’ve already been to the museum!”

Feb 28, 2013
2 min

“But I’ve already been to the museum!”

Negotiating with teens when they say “been there, done that!” The entire school was taking a trip to the relatively new National Museum of American Jewish History, located in Philadelphia. The museum, with thousands of historic treasures, interactive exhibits, and multi-media presentations, has caused many people to say that they could spend days there and not see everything. Yet, we heard that one student, when he learned about the trip, went home and confidently told his mo

A Q & A : with a Jewish teen’s cell phone

Dec 24, 2012
2 min

A Q & A : with a Jewish teen’s cell phone

There’s an app for that? I recently followed a WordPress blog that offers a daily dollop of inspiration to bloggers. What a gift, right? Today’s challenge: “Write a Q & A style interview with an inanimate object.” So, with a nod of thanks to WordPress, here goes: Reporter (R): So, I see that you’re a smart phone, right? Teen’s Cell Phone (C): Duh, you can see the apps, can’t you? (Did I mention that this cell phone has an attitude and a particularly expensive-looking case?) R

Jewish Culture: Enough For Our Teens?

Dec 15, 2012
2 min

Jewish Culture: Enough For Our Teens?

What Will Keep Jews marrying Jews? At a recent holiday party, I had been speaking with a Pastor of the Calvary Full Gospel Church. He introduced me to his wife who comes from a Greek Orthodox background. Her choice, to be in a relationship with this person who practiced differently and lived outside her cultural community, set off a flurry of shunning behavior. Why? Similar to the themes in the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding“, her parents felt she was going outside the fold

Three Jewish Teens: Tons of Time? Not

Dec 5, 2012
2 min

Three Jewish Teens: Tons of Time? Not

What clock do these teens use? I’ll paint the picture. Last night I chatted with a group of three 9th grade teenage boys, hanging out in the synagogue lobby, waiting for a ride home after attending a community pluralistic supplementary Jewish high school program in suburbia. What I didn’t know, is that right in front of me, was such a rich representation of Jewish teen life. Typical teens. Phones in hand, either texting or waiting for one. Yet they were so willing to answer m

SuperStorm #Sandy: Getting Beyond OMG!

Oct 31, 2012
1 min

SuperStorm #Sandy: Getting Beyond OMG!

OMG (Photo credit: mac.lachlan) In our terribly connected world, we’re never really far from seeing devastation up close. Like unwilling voyeurs, we watch some fantastic yet unreal world that is occurring in real-time right in front of us—-on a screen in our kitchens, dens, and yet the media itself creates an incredible distance to whatever we’re seeing. It’s like the caricature of a parent eagerly taping her child’s recital while missing the real impact of the performance.

Who are you on the web? If you’re applying to college, you should know

Oct 27, 2012
2 min

Who are you on the web? If you’re applying to college, you should know

Should colleges check you out on Facebook? For Teens, Their Parents, and Jewish Educators: An article in Education Week noted what most of us already know: college admissions officers are not clueless when it comes to checking up on potential applicants. There is an increase in the number of admissions officers who are digging deeper into social media as a way to gain a more rounded profile of student applicants. Kaplan Test Prep noted that this activity has more than quadru

Outcome-Based Parenting for Jewish Teenagers: What Do You Want for Your Teen?

Oct 16, 2012
1 min

Outcome-Based Parenting for Jewish Teenagers: What Do You Want for Your Teen?

How are you defining parenting? A recent blog post called “Parents’ Aspirations for Their Children” in Education week posed this question and challenged readers to respond with a list of attributes, character traits, values, that parents hoped their child would gain throughout their education. How would you answer the question? We focus on results when our teenagers are in education settings, but what would ‘outcome -based’ parenting look like? (if there is such a term). Ho

Parents: Will your teen ‘do’ Jewish in college?

Sep 27, 2012
2 min

Parents: Will your teen ‘do’ Jewish in college?

Campus Hillel: Will this be the place where your teen ‘does’ Jewish? What is the college campus like today? How does it differ from when you attended? Even more to think about are the challenges your Jewish teen will face once there. A recent article acknowledged what most already know: “64% of those currently enrolled in a traditional four-year institution reported a decline in religious service attendance….” For Jewish students, this statistic is probably understated, if b

Selling Tomorrow Today to Parents of Jewish Teens

Sep 23, 2012
2 min

Selling Tomorrow Today to Parents of Jewish Teens

Long-term or Short-term: Pick one Marketing and Selling. Terms that were not very much used in the Jewish community just a few short years ago, let alone in the field of Jewish education. So what happened? Well, the reality is that people are not flocking in droves to ‘join’ synagogues, or sign up/pay for Jewish education experiences. David Bryfman, Director of the New Center for Collaborative Leadership, gave a talk about the downside of offering “free” in the Jewish marketp

Parents of Teens: Do You Miss Those Parent-Teacher Conferences?

Sep 12, 2012
2 min

Parents of Teens: Do You Miss Those Parent-Teacher Conferences?

I just read a quick blog about how elementary school parents should prepare for Parent-Teacher conferences. For parents of teenagers: Will you connect to your teen’s teacher this year beyond the basic back-to-school night? My guess is no. Unless things have changed (optimistically maybe they have), parent involvement past 6th grade is pretty much off the table. The biggest change you’ll experience is that there won’t be ‘official’ ways to connect to the school as you’ve had i