Children’s Ministry and Culture

I’m working on our next family ministry night and crack open one of Willowcreek’s FX DVD’s — Compassion. These are excellent resources. I love the brevity of these pieces, the production is excellent, and they set up conversations well.

Parents can play a key role in determining how their children react to trauma, U.S. researchers say.

The review, published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (http://www.jmft.net/), suggests the quality of parenting practices following trauma mediates the relationship between the traumatic event and the child’s subsequent adjustment.

Study leaded Abigail Gewirtz of the University of Minnesota reviewed the existing literature to inspect the ways in which parents can affect children’s recovery in the aftermath of trauma. Gewirtz says certain parenting behaviors have the potential to significantly improve children’s outcomes.

The review finds that parenting practices that provide structure, security, emotional warmth and an environment that addresses the traumatic event serve to surround children with a protective environment.

“By providing an overview of the evidence to-date, and a proposed prevention research framework, it is our hope that others will see and respond to the need to advance this field,” the study authors said in a statement.

In a very challenging case for school officials, a 9 year old child (and of course the very accomodating parents) is asking to start dressing like a girl. The school decided to let the other 100 Third Grade families know about the “transition” in a meeting.

About one in 5,000 people is transgender, said Walter O. Bockting, a psychologist and coordinator for transgender health services at the University of Minnesota. Bockting said he sees about 10 children a year who are 9 or younger.

“It’s a little early, but occasionally that happens,” he said.

Not all transgender people have sex-reassignment surgery in adulthood, and such surgeries are not typically performed on children, said Sharon Garcia, president of TransYouth Family Allies, a non-profit group that helped the Chatham Park student and school officials devise a way to explain the situation to parents.

So far, 49 families have contacted TransYouth Family Allies asking for help with a transgender child, Garcia said. Most of the children are between 6 and 10.

See the complete article at http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/chester/20080503_School_challenge__Transgender_student_is_age_9.html where the writer seems to avoid the tabloid topics and has done some pretty thoughtful research. For Children’s Ministries there is an opportunity to share how in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, Male nor Female, while at the same time demonstrating a love that transcends our gut response. We had the same polarizing discussions when AIDS/HIV was discovered among children (should we allow them to be in the same class, let’s have a well-child-policy) and now we are all pretty informed so we can be calm!

What do you think?

I’ve been oddly fascinated by the recent spate of 20/20 News pieces on a spying camera showing what passers-by would do when a visibly drunk person tries to drive, when kids are berating an overweight woman, or when a child is visibly lost (http://abcnews.go.com/2020/WhatWouldYouDo/story?id=4709538&page=1). These all try to assess the level of cultural readiness to intervene. They ask good questions and seek pretty routinely to reward those who DO intervene.

Now I have to say that my life experience is divided on this. In Minnesota, we are ALWAYS prone to intervene in public because there is a shared sense of values. Growing up in California there was NOT a shared sense of values and in fact a heightened sense of that independent spirit that rewards creativity and a sense of differentness. Intervene? We build fences around our homes in California. Are the neighbors are a little creepy? Well we’ll just move to a gated community and MAKE them clean up their yard.

So you can imagine how interesting it is for me to see these 20/20 segments and cheer when our culture is now applauding the Minnesota norm rather than the California trend.

In one of our counties, Ramsey, we have an amazing community service approach called the Wakanheza Project (http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/ph/hb/wakanheza.htm). It is “a community-wide effort that provides tools and strategies to help us effectively respond in these every-day situations and prevent them from happening in the first place, by creating welcoming environments for our children, young people and families.” What are “these every-day situations”? Have you ever been in a public place like a grocery store, a library, or a mall and seen a parent struggling with their children, trying to keep them in line and well behaved? Have you watched that situation escalate? Did you wonder then, and are you still wondering, what you could have done? Have you ever BEEN that parent?

This is really remarkable! We are seeing a trend that promotes LESS privacy and isolation and is encouraging MORE involvement! I’ve been in California for the past three days and have had many conversations with ministers who have seen LESS parental connections outside their church and a rise in gang behavior, anti-social anger and other community killing behaviors. What they need is to join the rest of the nation to get MORE involved, not to circle the wagons and wail and moan in our fortress churches!

A profusion of online programs that can track a student’s daily progress, including class attendance, missed assignments and grades on homework, quizzes and tests, is changing the nature of communication between parents and children, families and teachers. With names like Edline, ParentConnect, Pinnacle Internet Viewer and PowerSchool, the software is used by thousands of schools, kindergarten through 12th grade. PowerSchool alone is used by 10,100 schools in 49 states.

Read the very interesting article in today’s New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/fashion/04edline.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1209880996-WARzW93J0o5AkKGzqKXq+w)

I was driving from LAX today listening to NPR and was rivited as I listened to Pamela Paul being interviewed by Steve Inskeep (Morning Edition, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89333925 to listen) sharing the immense variety of products for babies and their parents.

In a separate story today, and one that was confirmed in the interview, there is a rise in babies being breastfed vs. formula fed (reported by Bloomsburg and seen here at the Dallas Morning News http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050108dnnatbreastfeed.2d136b5.html).  About 77 percent of babies born in 2005 and 2006 were breastfed at least some of the time, up from 60 percent in 1993 and 1994, according to a report today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But I digress, back to the Paul interview…

From wipie warmers (heaven forbid a baby get shocked with a cold one) to pottie training targets for boys (they float in the toilet…though I hardly think a boy NEEDS help in this area) the variety of baby products has significantly increased. Baby Einstein puts a child on autopilot in the same way Sesame Street babysat kids in the 70s and 80s! I like how Paul says, “parents have to assess their motivation when it comes to the things they purchase for their children” to which I respond ABSOLUTELY. An ENGAGED parent will always trump toys or technology!

It’s been a week with a trip to the ER, crashing lap tops and little sleep. I learned that my preschooler responds to steriod therapy with near mania.

Rock on.

Tomorrow night we’re launching our Home Team ministry (Non-Grace Members, you are welcome to visit the website, but please don’t leave comments, thanks.) . I’m making up for some lost time tonight and was blessed by our song writer Bill Mason’s lyrics as I worked on the PPT slides. His song untidy world is so filled with Grace and a realization no matter how hard we try we can’t press out the wrinkles of our families.

Thanks, Bill for writing what I think is your best song ever.

Untidy World 
 

Jiggle on the handle, shut the door tight,

Get on your knees to say good night.

Got clothes on the floor 5 feet deep,

Can’t find your bed so how can you sleep? 

Live in a world just like an X box,

You don’t care if there’s holes in your sox.

Didn’t do y’ homework, the dog ate your bag,

Stayed up too late now morning’s a drag. 

Your Barbie lost a leg and all its clothes,

Your teacher caught you picking y’ nose!

Your Daddy said, “No TV tonight!”

You went upstairs got into a fight! 

Chorus 1 : You maybe a girl, you maybe a boy

                    You maybe short and you maybe tall

                    You may trip over and you may fall

                    God still lives in your untidy world 

Stuffed animals prowl from each shelf in your room,

Monster’s there playing a tune.

If you loose your Bible, and loose your prayer,

God still loves and He does care. 

He says come home to me the way you are,

I’ll let you ride in my Heavenly car.

We’ll go on and on till the new world’s done,

You have a secret name my daughter, my son. 

Chorus 1

Final  Chorus   You maybe a girl, you maybe a boy

                          You maybe short and you maybe tall

                          You may trip over and you may fall

                          God still loves you in your untidy world  

Bill Mason © Captainsongs. Oct 2004 

Laura Flynn, who teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota (full disclosure, I have two boys and some tuition involved in this great school) has a new book out that is full of great observations about children and the fragile world they often inhabit. Author Laura Flynn writes of her at times luminous, at times agonizing experiences growing up with a mother going gradually insane. Her new book is called “Swallow the Ocean.”

Flynn’s mother suffered from schizophrenia at a time when the disease was not as well known, and authorities were reluctant to split children from their mothers.

For a review check out the Minnesota Public Radio broadcast (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/10/midmorning2/?rsssource=1) but also check out the book in your local library!

A program note from one of the smartest shows on television, FRONTLINE, is a show that you can watch online, if you cannot make the broadcast (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/)

“6 million children are taking psychiatric drugs, but most have never been tested on children. Is this good medicine–or an uncontrolled experiment.”

For children’s ministers our encounters with all children bring us a unique opportunity to consol and comfort parents whose children are out of control or seriously unstable. BUT, we all feel that children are not just little adults. But are they medically?  Knowledge of current best practices is informative and helps us all avoid any extreme. To be informed is to be keenly balanced and helpful!

…BUT, it must show an “all-inclusive approach to sex education.” What does “all-inclusive” include? The curricula should include teachings about abstinence, birth control and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. While this sample size includes only one state (Minnesota) the “n” of the research is broad enough to find significance in the broader population.

1605 parents were surveyed by the University of Minnesota Prevention Research Center (http://www.minnpost.com/client_files/pdfs/ParentSurvey08FactSheet.pdf for the pdf report) and it found that only 10 percent of the 1,605 parents of children ages 5 to 17 interviewed for this study felt students should be taught abstinence exclusively. A whopping 89% felt it should be all inclusive. In fact 81% of parents felt that sex education doesn’t lead to more sex by teenagers! I find this to be accurate. I think most thinking children’s ministers would agree that INCLUDING abstinence is a great thing for children.

Making abstinence EXCLUSIVELY the message seems forced and wrong but is hardly taught. The media would THINK this is what is taught or even forced on the masses by hyperventilating fundies. But it is not. I frankly find it as dishonest a characterization as, say, to hear the actress Kate Walsh from Grey’s Anatomy state “Abstinence is one — abstinence is one aspect of sex education, but it is not the complete aspect. And to expect, I think, everybody to remain abstinent is just — it’s like asking them not to grow. It’s like we don’t ask people to not try out for sports.”

Or George Michael’s odd appearance last night on an episode of Eli Stone (http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2008/03/28/eli_stone_recap_george_michael_comes_to_ for a recap) where he defends a girls protest against an abstinence-only school assembly by playing Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” song over the loud speaker. I was reading while it came on and was totally baffled by the role Michael played of the noble artist-as-ethicist…are you KIDDING ME?

What makes the University of Minnesota study so compelling is because it offers rendolent balance and perspective to what the media often hypes with hyperbole in the two extremes of “abstinence-only” pandered by artists and those outside of the actual hard world of REAL Parenting! But could it be that the media hypes the extreme to EXCUSE its own of what is often the chosen path MOST trod by those same spokespeople?

I love how parents see through the haze of media culture to understand that human sexuality is more than permisiveness and disdain for the chaste.