Youth

A mother walked into her teenage son’s makeshift weight room and watched him work out on the bench press. After seeing him move through several heavy repetitions, she asked, “Why is it you can lift nearly two hundred pounds, but you can’t pick up your clothes?”

Source: Unknown

Your bedroom isn’t cluttered; it’s “passage-restrictive.”

Kids don’t get in trouble anymore. They merely hit “social speed bumps.”

A student isn’t lazy. He’s “energetically declined.”

You’re not having a bad hair day; you’re suffering from “rebellious follicle syndrome.”

You’re not shy. You’re “conversationally selective.”

You don’t talk a lot. You’re just “abundantly verbal.”

Your homework isn’t missing; it’s just having an “out-of-notebook experience.”

You’re not sleeping in class; you’re “rationing consciousness.”

The English poet Samuel Coleridge talked with a man who did not believe that children should be given any religious instruction at all.

This man claimed that the child’s mind should not be prejudiced in any direction, and when he became older he should be permitted to choose his religious opinions for himself.

A little boy said to his mother, “Can I go outside and help Daddy put snow chains on the car? I know all the words.”

Always remember that those who come behind you are copying you.

Source: Unknown

Some parents say, “I don’t believe in making kids go to church. They will resent it later.”

Do you make them brush their teeth? Have you ever heard a teenager say, “When I turn eighteen I will not brush my teeth again!”

Source: Unknown

I took a piece of plastic clay,
And idly fashioned it one day,
And as my fingers pursued it still,
It moved and yielded at my will.

It came of age when days were past,
And the piece of clay was hard at last...
The form I gave it, it still bore,
But I could change it no more.

I took a piece of living clay,
And gently formed it day by day,
And molded it with power and art
A young child’s soft and yielding heart.

Nancy suppressed her shock at seeing her 17-year-old daughter’s new hairdo. The sides of her head were shaved, the rest of her hair was died burgundy, and the top was spiked. Nancy said, “That’s a bit different, isn’t it?” A friend saw the haircut and asked, “What does your mom think of it?” The daughter replied, “Oh, my mom’s pretty cool. She doesn’t mind at all.” The bewildered friend asked, “Then why did you do it?”

Source: Reader’s Digest, December, 1999

Worship has a positive impact on teenagers, according to a study that tries to determine religion's role in adolescents' lives.

A survey of thousands of 12th-graders nationwide has found that teens who attend worship and rate religion as important have positive self-images, are optimistic, and enjoy school.