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From a Mom’s Perspective
- By Karen Norval
- Published 08/25/2008
- Spiritual Formation
- Unrated
Karen Norval
Karen Norval, formerly of the paid youth ministry staff realm, is now REALLY enjoying volunteer status working with high school and college age students both at her church and in the local high school.
View all articles by Karen Norval
As my three kids become increasingly more interested in the upcoming elections, one of the two times my father ever set foot in my high school recently came to mind.
I attended an inner-city school, and my history class assignment was to read The Communist Manifesto. I was a new Christian, an idealist, an optimist, and wrote a simple paper indicating that perhaps the book had made some sense to me.
My dad—the man who built shelves in every room of the house, including the dining room, to hold the countless supply of books he purchased on every subject—went into 1970s-style parental freak out. He must have left work early, a rare thing, but all I can recall is that he arrived home determined that my teacher was a “card-carrying communist” and that my potential as a soon-to-be 18-year-old voter should not be compromised by my liberal teacher’s point of view.
The truth is, when I was old enough I did declare a different political party affiliation from that of my father, and I voted for the “other” candidate in my first presidential election. The views of my teacher and a few others much like her had carried more weight than the views of my staunchly Republican father, the man who had awakened me in the middle of the night in 1968 to see Richard Nixon at the airport.
Perhaps the times had something to do with my teachers’ and my youth ministry leaders’ influence on me. Maybe it was the urban environment that provided opportunity for educators to share their views more freely. Yet I assume that during those years most of those teachers would’ve declared themselves Christians, and this particular teacher even happened to belong to another local church closely connected to our own.
At the same time, I was part of a somewhat traditional church youth group with a highly ahead-of-his-time youth pastor. He had already surrounded himself with a group of hip, cool, and eclectic adult volunteers, and these people spent a great deal of time with us. They attended our school events, invited us to hang out with them at their homes (decorated in early crate), and they let us talk to them about absolutely everything on our minds. In turn, they talked back, and we listened far more intently than they might have ever realized.
Now as one involved in youth ministry myself for a long time with many chances to develop my own groups of volunteers over the years, I recognize that the faith of those adults who ministered to me as a teenager was still developing. At no point did they ever give us the impression that they had “arrived”; instead we experienced faith travels with them.
My experience may dispute the many polls indicating that parental opinion carries more weight with today’s students. One reason for the recent statistics might be that today’s parent is often far more deeply involved in a student’s day-to-day life—including school events, Facebook pages, friendships, and schoolwork—than my father was. A dad’s entrance into the school building was big news in the 1970s; not so much these days.
Perhaps it’s that fewer teachers today have time during a class period to offer discussion—let alone share too much opinion—due to testing systems, shortened schedules, and high-frequency parental involvement. Youth workers face uphill time shortages as school (and other) activities—often with hefty financial costs—monopolize students’ time most evenings and weekends.
In either situation, it’s probably more difficult these days to risk saying something that may or may not influence a child in our concern. In fact, I believe the reason I’m writing these words is because I’m actually longing for someone to be so in my kids’ lives that their thoughts truly influence them!
I’m feeling less and less like there’s any kind of a village surrounding me, and I want my kids to think as much with their hearts, souls, and emotions as they have to each day with their heads. I want them to feel a political passion about issues of justice, to sense a direct experience of right and wrong, even if they perhaps disagree with me.
I was driving with my college-age son to view a house where he and his roommates will live next year. He attends school at a very urban campus and somehow reminds me so much of my idealistic self from years ago—ironically in that same city. As I shakily shared concerns about the safety of the area, he commented, “Mom, for someone as politically aware as you are, and who went to an inner-city school, you sure have developed a lot of fears.”
He’s right on, and as someone working with students fully aware of the power of influence, I believe that some of my fears might be averted if perhaps more adults were willing to invest their lives into students, even if it meant influencing them politically or spiritually.
If I’m the only voice affecting how my kids think, then even if they experience some rebellions here and there, they’ll be void of passion that comes from intense relationships with other adults.
With freshman and junior daughters still at home, I’ve been observing the other adult relationships in their lives and in the lives of their friends. I find myself frequently completing college, scholarship, and job reference forms for their friends as they tell me their teachers don’t know them well enough to write personal information. They’re not asking their youth staff to fill out these forms as frequently, either, stating that they don’t feel comfortable asking them to give up extra time from their schedules.
But some kids very naturally ingratiate themselves into adult lives, and it’s equally natural for us as leaders to gravitate toward them. That type of student has no problem finding people to fill out forms, recommend them for awards, or help them feel connected to a class or a ministry.
Some Challenging Questions
What about the other, more average, student who’s different or fearful of asking questions or volunteering to assist with something? Are we deliberately seeking them out? Are we training our staff to know how to identify that kid who likes to sit in the back of the room? Are we finding out who’s on his texting list? Is it even possible as a teacher to take time each week to learn extra stuff about these students that goes beyond assuring they pass mandated tests? Will your principal even support you in your efforts to spend extra time knowing students?
How about youth workers, especially those of you who volunteer many hours a week? Rather than working on events or weekly activities, is there time in your schedule to just hang out, especially with that kid who seems overly committed, or the one who seems to have no place to go? Are we providing opportunities in our classrooms and churches to let kids lead, make decisions, and share their passions with other students and adults? Are we helping kids to see that it isn’t about how they look, what they wear, and how much stuff they have that makes them valuable to us and to God? Can we find time to talk about their shows, movies, books, and iPods while still letting them see we don’t have all the answers? Are the only voices you hear the ones who demand quality product from you rather than from a kid longing to have an adult who knows her? Are there still ways, despite changing times, busy lives, and seemingly impossible systems rules, expectations, and paperwork, to recognize that your influence can and should be life changing for students? Are all of us as leaders, educators, and parents willing to push past the systems that seem to remove us from intense relationships with students?
Although I believe I may be in the minority as I seek other adults to be involved with students, especially my own three kids, I still believe that students are better off with multiple adults inspiring their lives. Despite the controlling patterns of most Boomer parents that seem to have created a formula for success (and by the way, I’m seeing more and more students absolutely railing against this; I believe we’ll start seeing some rebellion about parents’ life plans for their kids soon), I believe the bottom line is that there is no such formula. The benefits of multiple adults with varying thought processes sharing life and conversation with students are incredible as those students in turn broaden their scopes, try some new places and things, and have a wider view of the many people they’re certain to encounter in college, their workplaces, and beyond.
Yes, teachers and youth workers—here’s a voice of one parent responding by asking you to share your thoughts with my kids and others. Let them see what fires you up and gets you down and let your passionate faith be visible and discussed. Let me as a parent filter through and be a good enough listener to accept how you influence my child. I cannot control my kids’ influences any more than my dad could. In fact, I believe his faith ended up being the stronger influence in my life than his politics, because he must have had faith that I would somehow survive, even if I did completely disagree with him on political matters. He and his generation somehow put that faith into those who’d be affecting their kids’ lives.
My generation seems to have stripped our leaders from doing that in our quest for control over our kids. Perhaps right now is a good time for me to open up and allow that influence to enter in, and to actually encourage it from the teachers and leaders that my kids encounter each day.
What a magnificent opportunity for me to experience the faith of my father... and for my kids.
I attended an inner-city school, and my history class assignment was to read The Communist Manifesto. I was a new Christian, an idealist, an optimist, and wrote a simple paper indicating that perhaps the book had made some sense to me.
My dad—the man who built shelves in every room of the house, including the dining room, to hold the countless supply of books he purchased on every subject—went into 1970s-style parental freak out. He must have left work early, a rare thing, but all I can recall is that he arrived home determined that my teacher was a “card-carrying communist” and that my potential as a soon-to-be 18-year-old voter should not be compromised by my liberal teacher’s point of view.
The truth is, when I was old enough I did declare a different political party affiliation from that of my father, and I voted for the “other” candidate in my first presidential election. The views of my teacher and a few others much like her had carried more weight than the views of my staunchly Republican father, the man who had awakened me in the middle of the night in 1968 to see Richard Nixon at the airport.
Perhaps the times had something to do with my teachers’ and my youth ministry leaders’ influence on me. Maybe it was the urban environment that provided opportunity for educators to share their views more freely. Yet I assume that during those years most of those teachers would’ve declared themselves Christians, and this particular teacher even happened to belong to another local church closely connected to our own.
At the same time, I was part of a somewhat traditional church youth group with a highly ahead-of-his-time youth pastor. He had already surrounded himself with a group of hip, cool, and eclectic adult volunteers, and these people spent a great deal of time with us. They attended our school events, invited us to hang out with them at their homes (decorated in early crate), and they let us talk to them about absolutely everything on our minds. In turn, they talked back, and we listened far more intently than they might have ever realized.
Now as one involved in youth ministry myself for a long time with many chances to develop my own groups of volunteers over the years, I recognize that the faith of those adults who ministered to me as a teenager was still developing. At no point did they ever give us the impression that they had “arrived”; instead we experienced faith travels with them.
My experience may dispute the many polls indicating that parental opinion carries more weight with today’s students. One reason for the recent statistics might be that today’s parent is often far more deeply involved in a student’s day-to-day life—including school events, Facebook pages, friendships, and schoolwork—than my father was. A dad’s entrance into the school building was big news in the 1970s; not so much these days.
Perhaps it’s that fewer teachers today have time during a class period to offer discussion—let alone share too much opinion—due to testing systems, shortened schedules, and high-frequency parental involvement. Youth workers face uphill time shortages as school (and other) activities—often with hefty financial costs—monopolize students’ time most evenings and weekends.
In either situation, it’s probably more difficult these days to risk saying something that may or may not influence a child in our concern. In fact, I believe the reason I’m writing these words is because I’m actually longing for someone to be so in my kids’ lives that their thoughts truly influence them!
I’m feeling less and less like there’s any kind of a village surrounding me, and I want my kids to think as much with their hearts, souls, and emotions as they have to each day with their heads. I want them to feel a political passion about issues of justice, to sense a direct experience of right and wrong, even if they perhaps disagree with me.
I was driving with my college-age son to view a house where he and his roommates will live next year. He attends school at a very urban campus and somehow reminds me so much of my idealistic self from years ago—ironically in that same city. As I shakily shared concerns about the safety of the area, he commented, “Mom, for someone as politically aware as you are, and who went to an inner-city school, you sure have developed a lot of fears.”
He’s right on, and as someone working with students fully aware of the power of influence, I believe that some of my fears might be averted if perhaps more adults were willing to invest their lives into students, even if it meant influencing them politically or spiritually.
If I’m the only voice affecting how my kids think, then even if they experience some rebellions here and there, they’ll be void of passion that comes from intense relationships with other adults.
With freshman and junior daughters still at home, I’ve been observing the other adult relationships in their lives and in the lives of their friends. I find myself frequently completing college, scholarship, and job reference forms for their friends as they tell me their teachers don’t know them well enough to write personal information. They’re not asking their youth staff to fill out these forms as frequently, either, stating that they don’t feel comfortable asking them to give up extra time from their schedules.
But some kids very naturally ingratiate themselves into adult lives, and it’s equally natural for us as leaders to gravitate toward them. That type of student has no problem finding people to fill out forms, recommend them for awards, or help them feel connected to a class or a ministry.
Some Challenging Questions
What about the other, more average, student who’s different or fearful of asking questions or volunteering to assist with something? Are we deliberately seeking them out? Are we training our staff to know how to identify that kid who likes to sit in the back of the room? Are we finding out who’s on his texting list? Is it even possible as a teacher to take time each week to learn extra stuff about these students that goes beyond assuring they pass mandated tests? Will your principal even support you in your efforts to spend extra time knowing students?
How about youth workers, especially those of you who volunteer many hours a week? Rather than working on events or weekly activities, is there time in your schedule to just hang out, especially with that kid who seems overly committed, or the one who seems to have no place to go? Are we providing opportunities in our classrooms and churches to let kids lead, make decisions, and share their passions with other students and adults? Are we helping kids to see that it isn’t about how they look, what they wear, and how much stuff they have that makes them valuable to us and to God? Can we find time to talk about their shows, movies, books, and iPods while still letting them see we don’t have all the answers? Are the only voices you hear the ones who demand quality product from you rather than from a kid longing to have an adult who knows her? Are there still ways, despite changing times, busy lives, and seemingly impossible systems rules, expectations, and paperwork, to recognize that your influence can and should be life changing for students? Are all of us as leaders, educators, and parents willing to push past the systems that seem to remove us from intense relationships with students?
Although I believe I may be in the minority as I seek other adults to be involved with students, especially my own three kids, I still believe that students are better off with multiple adults inspiring their lives. Despite the controlling patterns of most Boomer parents that seem to have created a formula for success (and by the way, I’m seeing more and more students absolutely railing against this; I believe we’ll start seeing some rebellion about parents’ life plans for their kids soon), I believe the bottom line is that there is no such formula. The benefits of multiple adults with varying thought processes sharing life and conversation with students are incredible as those students in turn broaden their scopes, try some new places and things, and have a wider view of the many people they’re certain to encounter in college, their workplaces, and beyond.
Yes, teachers and youth workers—here’s a voice of one parent responding by asking you to share your thoughts with my kids and others. Let them see what fires you up and gets you down and let your passionate faith be visible and discussed. Let me as a parent filter through and be a good enough listener to accept how you influence my child. I cannot control my kids’ influences any more than my dad could. In fact, I believe his faith ended up being the stronger influence in my life than his politics, because he must have had faith that I would somehow survive, even if I did completely disagree with him on political matters. He and his generation somehow put that faith into those who’d be affecting their kids’ lives.
My generation seems to have stripped our leaders from doing that in our quest for control over our kids. Perhaps right now is a good time for me to open up and allow that influence to enter in, and to actually encourage it from the teachers and leaders that my kids encounter each day.
What a magnificent opportunity for me to experience the faith of my father... and for my kids.
