A Jeep In Summer

Whoa. Hair.

Girl, you can sang.

Thanksgiving Preview With More To Come

Spokane

Another Book Review

Apparently my Amy Grant book review was delightful, and the publishing company asked me to do another review. I didn't really read their email, just shot back a reply saying yeah, sign me up.

When I got the book in the mail I thought, I can't do this, it's one of those parenting books, I don't have time, I don't want to think about having made decisions that make me exactly the wrong kind of person to appreciate or need or want this book, I don't want to think about that kid-shaped hole in my life that sometimes overwhelms me and I don't have time to spend hours in counseling, I don't need this advice, and the cover looks really cheesy. I just can't read a book called For Parents Only. I'm NOT a parent.

But you know what? I spend all day with thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen year olds. Maybe I do need to read this book. When I tell people that I teach eighth grade English, they sometimes look at me with real pity, but I love working with that age group. They have a ton of energy; sometimes they have too much. They're changing, they're figuring out who they are and what's important. That's a good time to be a good teacher. (I'm not sure I'm a good teacher yet, but that is a blog post all its own.)

So here we are. How to deal with your teenager. Here's what two writers, who are moms, found out when they started asking questions and doing research.

Feldhahn and Rice (hereafter known as Shaunti and Lisa, just because "Shaunti" is so fun to say/write) begin and end with this Hebrew proverb:

"Happy the generation where the great listen to the small, for it follows that in such a generation the small will listen to the great."

Listening and the ability to listen and respect are mutual. There's got to be reciprocity. About once every two weeks I tell my kids that they have to meet me halfway. "I'll go to this particular point if you'll meet me there." I'm not sure that all of us in my classroom have gotten to that point, but maybe I have with some individual kids.

Shaunti and Lisa kick off the party by saying that kids are rebels with a cause and they are absolutely addicted to an intoxicating agent called freedom. They need, they crave it, they burst out of their houses and out of school at the end of the day and the end of the school year claiming their freedom. We give it to them with cars and cell phones and myspace pages and text messages. "The intoxicating nature of freedom--and the fear of losing it--can lead even good kids to choices that look like recklessness and rebellion, but directly addressing their craving for independence will help them build responsibility." Kids want to "control their own possessions, stay up late, sleep over at any friend's house whenever they want, eat or drink whatever they want, drive where they want at the speed they want, and generally make their own choices apart from even the most well-intentioned parents." Remember that?

Do you also remember the craziness and fights and subterfuge and pouting and grounding you went through to get it? That's part of why being a teenager in America is HARD--not only are the hormones changing you, you're struggling to find out who you are apart from your family and parents (when pretty much all that you know, for instance your values and your experiences, COMES FROM YOUR PARENTS).

As Shaunti and Lisa say later in the book, teenagers are having to rebuild the castle of themselves and the only building blocks they have come from their parents and family. They also say, you need to give your kids some room and some grace if they go find other building blocks.

I don't have a graceful transition here...but I found their five facts of freedom (oh I love me some alliteration) to be helpful:
1. Freedom wields a greater influence than parents or peers.
2. Under the influence of freedom, kids may do stupid things.
3. Kids deeply fear losing their freedom.
4. Teens will do anything to get freedom and avoid losing it--including deceiving themselves and you.
5. Ironically, too much freedom can be scary, and our kids want to involve us in their quest.

It also helps to know what parents and teachers and authority figures have suspected and believed ever since there have been teenagers--their brains aren't all there yet! There is scientific proof that the frontal lobes of teenagers aren't fully developed until they get to be about nineteen or twenty years old. Because the frontal lobe helps us think logically, teenagers are still using and relying on the more emotional parts of their brain. Hmm. Dadgum grey matter.

Some stuff that I found in the last chapter has me rethinking how I act in my classroom. "Guys most want to be recognized for what they do, and they most fear failure; girls most want to be valued for who they are, and they most fear rejection." Guys need respect and girls need to be valued.

I realize that I probably use my "death stare," that look which communicates contempt and condescension, far too often. All you have to do is "cross your arms over your chest, put your weight on your back leg, and raise your eyebrows in disbelief." It's easy. (You know how to do it as well as I do even if you're not trying to control a class full of teenagers who need to talk and don't want to sit still all day long.) It's a lethal gesture. I don't want to make those kids ashamed, even if they are acting like second graders. So I have to figure out new strategies for working with those students--I have to figure out how to encourage them and get them focused on their work without being cruel.

So, Shaunti and Lisa, I hate to tell ya, but people other than parents are reading your book. Hope that doesn't offend you too much. Thanks for giving me a quick tour through the head of the typical American teenager...if there is such a thing. It's gonna help me to not treat my students as typical, and help me react to them instead of overreact.

You can read another review of the book here.

A little bit about the Authors:

Shaunti Feldhahnn is the author of For Women Only and numerous other books, with sales totaling nearly one million copies. A nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and public speaker, Feldhahn earned her master’s degree at Harvard University. She and her husband, Jeff, have two young children.

Lisa A. Rice is the associate editor of Christian Living magazine, the mother of two teenage girls, and a screenwriter and producer.

Pie

You Are Lemon Meringue Pie

You're the perfect combo of sassy and sweet. You always know how to brighten someone's mood, but you're not overly sappy. In fact, you can be a bit too honest at times. And most people find that refreshing. While you're always true to yourself, you keep things light. That's how people are able to stomach your slightly bitter outlook. Those who like you have well refined tastes. You're complicated - and let's face it - a true enigma. You enjoy defying expectations, and there are many layers to your personality. There's not one easy way to define you.

It's really stupid when

the highlight of your evening is realizing that you have enough clean pants and shirts to make it to the weekend without going to the laundry.

from "Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays"

30. The wounds you do not want to heal are you.

32. If I didn't have so much work to keep me from it, how would I know what I wanted to do?

34. I lie so I do not have to trust you to believe.

--James Richardson

Funeral Reading

I grabbed the good one. As fast as I could. It's Isaiah 55. ESV. Mm hm.

Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,
and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.

6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12 For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

how to do 8 states in 7 days

Louisiana, Colorado, Washington, Idaho, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee. I feel like I did in college when I finished reading On the Road. Worn out.

Four flights, come home, get in the car the next day, road tripping, "this feeling is as familiar as anything I know", the amazingness of hello hugs, the piercing of saying goodbye even if you can follow it up with "I'll see you soon", paying for airport parking, driving unfamiliar cars through a city that is just familiar enough to get you really lost, stocking the auntie's house with Dr. Pepper and Diet Coke and some wine, buying flowers for Grandma's grave, putting the extra ones on my cousin's grave in the middle of beautiful Idaho in the cold rain, quiet hugs that say everything, silent crying, every family is psychotic including mine, not talking about certain things, seeing cousins I haven't seen for twenty years, "I wasn't here until you started to read", Isaiah 55, Psalm ??, riding the Spokane carousel which makes two carousel rides in the last two months, maple bars, biscuits and gravy, showing up late for dinner after a long coffee conversation, eating someone else's Outback tasty pasta, driving through the rolling Idaho farmland with the winter wheat coming up, just missing the snow on our way home, running errands in Chattanooga, sitting on a back dock of a store trying to catch up in fifteen minutes and it just isn't enough, being tempted with chocolate pecan pie, going out and having just enough to drink, getting a big old hug from A at Foodworks, having dinner with the other Foodworks A girl, Thanksgiving dinner in Alabama with the in-laws, some sleep deprivation.

I have to go up in the attic and find my gloves.

And I got a haircut today. I'm suddenly adding a long-expected trip to the holiday schedule, as if I didn't feel crazy enough. My grandmother died (it's OK, she hadn't been herself for years and it was time) last night, so we're convening for services in Idaho and Washington this weekend.

Meeting up with J, C, and M in Denver for the last part of our journey to Spokane. It's been years since I flew with my sister and I think it'll be the first time her husband has ever flown. Could be VERY interesting.

I'm not sure, yet, how I feel. Something's missing, and I don't know what it is.