Group Publishing: Group Magazine: Article Library

From: GROUP Magazine's November/December 1996 issue
Keywords: Youth, Household Hazards, Motivates,

HANDS-ON HELP - YOUTH

Household Hazards
Common household items such as nail polish remover and felt-tipped pens pose a serious health risk to teenagers who inhale the fumes for a quick, cheap-and sometimes deadly-high.
According to Partnership for a Drug-Free America, one in five eighth-graders has tried inhalants. Kids are attracted to this form of drug abuse because it's quick, easy, and legal. What many of them don't know is that, in some cases, one sniff can kill them.
The practice of inhaling household chemicals is know as sniffing or huffing. Physical signs include slurred speech, glassy eyes, a chemical smell on clothing, sores or rashes around the nose and mouth, mental confusion, and fatigue. Physical addiction is unlikely, but psychological dependence is possible, and chronic use causes severe, permanent brain damage.
To learn more about inhalants, contact the National Clearing House for Alcohol and Drug Information at 800-729-6686.

What Motivates Kids to Learn?
Are you looking for ways to get kids in your group excited about what you're trying to teach? Recent educational research suggests the following four goals are what motivate kids most.
*Success-Kids are most likely to achieve success when the skills they need are clearly modeled and practiced by leaders.
*Curiosity-Significant understanding about a topic develops when it relates to kids' personal lives and when information is presented in a fragmented or contradictory way.
*Originality-Channel kids' creativity into projects that express their own concerns and ideas.
*Relationships-We work hardest on those relationships that are reciprocal, so give kids group projects that require each person to make a unique contribution.

10 Things Kids Need
Here are 10 great things we can teach young people according to John Maxwell in Breakthrough Parenting.
1. A sense of responsibility to help them make good choices.
2. A good work ethic to show them their contributions make a difference.
3. A sense of determination to keep going.
4. A positive attitude so they'll be good role models.
5. A sense of their potential so they'll be encouraged.
6. The value of relationships so they'll reach out to others.
7. The value of stewardship so they'll give to others.
8. A commitment to honesty so they can be trusted.
9. A sense of generosity so they'll give and not expect anything in return.
10. A dependence on God so they'll know he will sustain them.

Our job as teachers is to help kids wring out the good Christian truths inherent in the present situation.
-Thom and Joani Schultz in Why Nobody Learns Much of Anything at Church