The Fight of Your Life: Why Your Teen Is at Risk and What Only You Can Do About It: Guiding and Guarding your Teen in Today's Cultural War - Softcover

Dean, Jeffrey

 
9781601421104: The Fight of Your Life: Why Your Teen Is at Risk and What Only You Can Do About It: Guiding and Guarding your Teen in Today's Cultural War
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1601421109 ISBN 13: 9781601421104
Verlag: Multnomah, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Christian parents today feel replaced as the primary influence in their teen’s lives--undermined at school, invaded by the web, and in the dark about what’s really going on. Truth is, says teen expert Jeffrey Dean, parents don’t know the half of it!

In The Fight of Your Life, Dean offers a frank, solutions-oriented plan for parents who want to protect their teens from dangerous choices and guide them toward God’s best–and are ready to fight to make it happen. First Dean gives parents a shocking but invaluable inside view of what teens are up against. Then he helps parents discover their irreplaceable role in their kids’ success. Along the way he tackles hot button issues--sex, partying, porn, cheating and eating disorders--and coaches parents on how to protect and grow a healthy relationship with their teens.

Packed with hope and solid Bible teaching, The Fight of Your Life gives parents the tools they need to help their teens discover their exciting futures as passionate Christ followers and positive, world-changing adults.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeffrey Dean is the author of Watch This, This Is Me, and the One-Liner Wisdom books for Multnomah. The founder of Jeffrey Dean Ministries, he speaks to more than 150,000 teens each year about teen issues and culture. He lives in Nashville with his wife and family

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Every teen is in a battle. Parent, did you know that? I’ll say it again: every teen is in a battle. Including your teen.


If this “battle” talk sounds like a bit of a stretch to you, let me tell you about Rhys. A few summers ago I spoke at a camp. After an evening session, one of the guy counselors, Rhys, asked if we could talk. A clean-cut nineteen-year-old, Rhys was heading into his sophomore year at a well known Christian college. His eyes reflected sadness that I couldn’t fathom. He told me he had a lot of nightmares and a lot of guilt. During his senior year of high school, Rhys and his girlfriend, Emily, were fairly typical Christian kids. They were both active in youth group, had pledged to abstain from sex until marriage, and were known in their circles of friends as “good kids.”


But on the night of their senior prom, everything went crazy. Rhys admitted, “One thing led to another, and we pretty much did it all that night. Fooling around, drinking, drugs…you name it.” Tragically, Emily overdosed on the drugs, went into a coma, and never came out of it. A week later, she died.


This is an extreme story, yes, but it happened. As I speak to highschool-age students around the country, I hear stories you wouldn’t believe. Welcome to the world of today’s teens. It’s a fight, and every
teen today is engaged in it.


This fight is about a tsunami of information, communication, anything- goes ethics, and the inevitable moral experimentation that results. It’s a world of light-speed Internet, texting, unlimited access to online
porn, oral-sex parties, MySpace, cutting, Wicca, drinking, drugs, and more.


The world of today’s teens moves at a pace you and I would never have dreamed of when we were teens. It’s a world where hooking up has nothing to do with a fishing lure, spam isn’t something you eat, and pharming doesn’t require a tractor. Almost weekly, teens write to me about addictions to types of drugs that weren’t around twenty years ago. At seminars across the country, I meet students who have contracted sexually transmitted diseases.


By the time they graduate from high school, most seniors tell me, they have consumed alcohol and been offered drugs. Most teens I meet say that marijuana is easily accessible. It doesn’t matter whether they attend public schools or Christian schools; students know where drugs are used, kept, and sold. Many tell me they know a friend or classmate who has abused prescription drugs.


Here’s the fact that keeps me awake at night: Rhys and Emily could have been anyone’s teens. They are from a generation of teens bombarded by lies, hungry for help, and desperate for truth. Not every teen will face exactly what Rhys and Emily faced, but war is the daily reality for every teen.


That is why I say that as a parent, you are facing the fight of your life.


Maybe you’re thinking this book isn’t for you. Your teen appears to be doing well. And it’s true: there are many Bible-believing, church-attending teens who desire to live lives surrendered to Christ. Your teen may be one of them.


Or maybe you’re at the other end of the spectrum. The choices your teen has made so far have pushed your family to the breaking point. You’re feeling hopeless, ready to throw in the towel.


Wherever your teen is at in his or her journey, this book is for you. No matter what the situation looks like on the surface, every teen faces struggles, temptations, issues, fears, and challenges. Every teen has to navigate the confusing waters of today’s culture. Every teen is only one choice away from hurt, addiction, heartbreak, and more.


The scary thing with teenagers is that often we don’t know exactly what they’re thinking or feeling, even when they live under our own roofs! For the past fifteen years, I’ve been touring the country, speaking—
and more important, listening—to teens. Some three hundred fifty thousand teens a year check out my Web site, and more than fifty thousand read and respond to my blog. Teens tell me things they often
don’t share with their parents. That’s why I wanted to write this book— not to break their confidences, but to give you the inside scoop on what I’m hearing so you can help your teen in the battle.


In the struggles teens face, they have a common enemy: the devil. And he hates these kids. More specifically, he’s your teen’s number one enemy. His task is to steal, kill, and destroy (see John 10:10), and he wants to lure your teen away from the truth and lead your teen toward destruction. Sure, movement toward destruction is more evident in some teens than in others. But no teen is immune to spiritual warfare.



So, as a parent, your call is to grab your weapons, jump into the battlefield on your teen’s side, and be ready to give it all you’ve got.


The idea of fighting for your teen might almost scare you off. Hey, you’re just trying to pay the electric bill, pick up the kids from soccer practice on time, and serve something for dinner that didn’t come from
a drive-through.


But I won’t sugarcoat what’s happening in your teen’s world. As a parent, you are engaged in one of the greatest fights of your life. It’s already on, whether you want it or not. Every day a war is being waged
for the soul of your teen. The question isn’t, are you at war? The question is, are you equipped to do battle?


Here’s what the Bible says about it: “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:11–12, emphasis added).


“Fight the good fight”—that’s the battle you are in. You are called to faithfully fight for what’s right. Just as Satan is fighting to steal, kill, and destroy your teen, so you must be a fighter, helping your teen to win!

Recently a mother talked to me about her teenage son. “Jeffrey,” she said, “my son has never smoked pot, checked out porn, or been sexually active. His grades are good, and his friends are well behaved. He loves going to youth group at church and believes God is calling him into pastoral ministry. I am so glad that God has given us our son.”

I congratulated her on the successes of her son and on her parenting skills, then asked, “What are you doing each day to ensure that your son continues down this good road?”


“What do you mean?” she said, looking perplexed.


“What steps have you put into place to safeguard your son from the Enemy?”


“I don’t know,” she said. “Everything’s going so well—I haven’t thought about it much.”


Together we discussed a plan for her to pray daily for her son, to keep speaking truths into his life, and to keep the lines of communication open with him about his personal life. Most important, we talked
about ways she could continue to help him grow in a daily and intimate walk with God.


That’s what the fight looks like in action.


It’s easy to believe that good parenting means checking off a list of positive accomplishments for a son or daughter:

√ My teen is a Christian.
√ My teen regularly attends youth group.
√ My teen dates a Christian (or doesn’ date at all).
√ My teen doesn’ watch MTV.
√ My teen ___________________ (has this form of observable...

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Verlag
Multnomah
Erscheinungsdatum
2009
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1601421109
ISBN 13 
9781601421104
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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