In Their Own Words
Worth Your Time!
Resource Recommendations to Help You Parent and Mentor Most Effectively
This Week's Recommendation:
“Teen Stories”
From the Parenting Today's Teens Podcast with Mark Gregston
Available Here
Also Available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Etc.
Why It Matters:
For 20 years I've been reading the journals that students write to us, and I've often wished that other adults could read them and understand what teenagers are really thinking, feeling, and struggling with. The "Teen Stories" episodes of Mark Gregston's daily podcast might be the next best thing.
When parents, mentors, and other adults understand what's truly going on inside teens' hearts and minds, we can more effectively help and guide them.
How to Use It
Parenting Today's Teens is a daily podcast, but I'm specifically recommending the ones titled "Teen Stories," which come out every Tuesday. Each episode is about 20 minutes long. Gregston interviews one or two teens who are residents at Heartlight, a "residential counseling center and boarding school for struggling teens."
Gregston draws out the teens with good questions (which we can learn from) and listens well. He explores the issues that brought them to Heartlight, the root causes of those issues, and what they're learning about how to fix those issues. There's great value in hearing ordinary teens in their own words!
Don’t dismiss the podcasts just because they are "troubled teens." I'm recommending these because their issues are often so similar to what Christian school students deal with too! The journals that students write to our team regularly demonstrate that. Teens are usually at Heartlight because of how they've dealt with their situations and struggles, not because their situations and struggles are unusual.
I'm recommending these podcasts simply to be "informative." As adults, we often forget what it's like to be a teenager, and we often don't understand what it's like to grow up today. If we want to positively impact the lives of youth we care about, it helps to understand them and their culture as much as we can. Personally, I think this is one of the best resources for doing that!
Listen Here