Day 6

What should worry us: We all know kids are showing up at church on Sundays in smaller numbers. Their voting in federal elections is at an all-time low. As vast as the internet is, they can create a pretty narrow and inward world online – and their presence on the web also puts them at risk to being victim of bullying.   And how’s this for a worrisome finding? Compared to their peers in late 1970s, a major US study found that, college students today are less likely to agree with statements such as “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective” and “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”

Day 5

Their days happen…everywhere: This is where most parents and adults today get lost: on any given day, a teenager will text their friends dozens of times (and even more!), follow their Facebook page while doing homework, send tweets, blog, post an original video to YouTube, comment on their favourite television shows message board. Canadian data suggests that teenagers spend over one and half-hours per day on the internet emailing (though this is falling out of fashion), texting and chatting – and many spend much, much more. This is where they live – networking, contributing, and listening. Their sense of public and private space is overlapped and interwoven. And toss out that old stereotype of the loner teen in the basement. The teenagers most active online are more often good students with strong social skills and wide circle of friends. The Lesson: We must go where they live – online. (In other words: If you aren’t on Facebook or don’t have a twitter account, get one.) 

Day 4

Their days have value: Stressed and time crunched, youth today are also clear about what they want for themselves in the future. In surveys, they typically rank two things extremely high: having time for their families and a job that inspires them. In a recent Pew Research survey, 52 per cent of the teenagers surveyed said that being a good parent “is one of the most important things in life”, while only 30 per cent said the same thing about a successful marriage. Looking ahead, they expect to work many jobs (which makes them less concerned about loyalty to their bosses (and as a fall-out, their church), and more concerned about the contribution they are making – at home and at work. The Lesson: We must respect their unique sets of values, and encourage them to identify what they are for themselves.

Day 3

Their days are stressed: Never mind their parents: In a national survey, one in six Canadian teenagers considered themselves “workaholics.” Nearly 40 per cent reported feeling under constant pressure to “accomplish more than they could handle,” and 64 per cent reported cutting back on sleep to get stuff done. At the same time, mental health professionals report a disturbing rise in depression and anxiety among teenagers and university students; mental services at universities are having a hard time keeping up. According to various studies, illnesses such as depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder affects 13 to 22 per cent of Canadian youth, and at least 70 per cent of mental illness in adults can be traced back to childhood. The Lesson: We must focus on positive mental health in our youth.

Day 2

What do youth today look like? Every generation looks with bewilderment upon the next, but this is one cohort of humans that certainly befuddle a lot of their parents. If we don’t try to understand their world, we can’t expect to influence them. Here are some important facts to remember:

Their days are short:  Time is a rare commodity in the modern teenager’s home. Most kids in Canada live in a household with two working parents – and a growing portion live in single parent households. According to the Statistics Canada data, teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 spent, on average 2.3 hours each weekday on homework, and another 3.5 hours on the weekend on homework, paid work and housework. Throw in the 6.9 hours per day at school, and that’s equal to a 50-hour work week. In fact, the Canadian data found that teenagers are spending less time in front of the television and more time working at a job than their cohorts. The Lesson: We need to be sensitive to the fact that their time is a valuable commodity.