What advice to you have for teens as they (hopefully) grow up?

Started by longstrangetrip5, July 24, 2018, 12:59:06 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Sen

Quote from: John Lamb on July 26, 2018, 06:07:13 AM
More and more it will be better to leave them alone and abandon them to God, than to disturb their hearts with "advice". This is because you can only tell them what you know, and you don't know anything. Unless they come to you specifically seeking counsel, in which case you can only pray to the Holy Spirit for the gift of counsel, tell them what comes to mind, encourage them, and abandon them to God again.

This is very naive. I hope you are not a parent or a teacher. Leaving children and teenagers alone without direct, unsolicited guidance is precisely why my generation of Catholics (the Millennials) have nearly all apostasized. Or if they haven't, then they embrace all forms of heresies, the most prominent being sodomy. I've seen it over and over again with naive but devout church-going parents and their children who, once they head off to college, no longer go to church or care one iota about the Faith but lie to their parents to 'make them happy'.

Parents are uninvolved in their children's lives as they're growing up... 'They just need prayers. God will provide.'
Oh, they no longer go to Church? 'They just need prayers. They all eventually return once they're grown, married, and have children.'

If Catholic parents do not form a close bond with their children wherein the children respect their counsel, then the children will turn to the world, their pagan friends, university indoctrination, or the media instead.

I thank the Lord that my parents, though not perfect, gave me the best advice that they knew and didn't just 'pray and leave me alone', because God knows that would have been the easy route with all the protesting that I did.

And that's precisely the problem. It's easy to 'pray and leave them alone'. It's easy to say 'God will provide'. It's much harder to pray AND do the work that God has set out for you, in this case raising your children to be devout Catholics who utilize their talents for the Church and the good of society.

Greg

The simple truth is that people follow good leaders.  This is true of ships captains, expedition leaders, CEOs and parents.

If you have great parents you will tend to not want to disappointment them.

If your parents are assholes (and some parents really are) then you'll go out of you way to rebel against them, or, you will have your personality so crushed and destroyed that your life will be a failure anyway.  We all know someone like that in our lives I am certain.

Great parents lead their children on the important things and decisions in life and let them have freedom on the small things.  A small amount of freedom is good.  It allows you to learn.

Going to the school disco and having to cope with a couple of girls in mini-skirts without having an epileptic fit, or becoming a lust filled monster, is a good common-sense builder.

Getting a job in the dressing room for Victoria's Secret models, is definitely a risk to your soul (and sanity).

Good parents understand the risks and guide or leave alone accordingly.  Bad parents get the balance wrong one way or the other.
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

Carleendiane

If a male....be a man. Thats not about being pumped. If female, then act like one. Don't do anything you CANT undo if you have second thoughts. Don't give anything away, if precious and valuable, unless you've brought it to an authoritative source first....trad priest, father, etc. Then, listen to them. Have a standard for your behaviour. It will serve you well. Keep a low profile. You will regret being the "life" of the party. Believe me. Don't be "on" all the time. People will find you a bore, conceited, and self absorbed. So what if you are not hailed as the MOST FUN, the most entertaining, the most clever. Besides...you're not.

ETA: and stop being in such a hurry, this is your time to cultivate the virtues, especially patience.
To board the struggle bus: no whining, board with a smile, a fake one will be found out and put off at next stop, no maps, no directions, going only one way, one destination. Follow all rules and you will arrive. Drop off at pearly gate. Bring nothing.

Vetus Ordo

Quote from: james03 on July 26, 2018, 06:33:48 AM
QuoteMore and more it will be better to leave them alone and abandon them to God, than to disturb their hearts with "advice".
True.  Tell them only that if Allah wants them to be wealthy, they will be wealthy.  And if Allah decrees they live in poverty, they will live in poverty.  Allah wills it.

Although you meant it in jest with the purpose of mockery, God willed for good.

Awareness of, reliance on and acceptance of divine providence and the will of God is essential to any meaningful Christian life.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

james03

We can't know Divine Providence with certainty.  If you fail, are you to accept that or try again?  Is it God's Will that you fail, or is it His Will that you learn from it?  Our guideposts are the virtues.  Virtues are Objective Truth.  Objective Truth can be taught by elders to the youth.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

erin is nice

Say your Rosary every day without fail.

Don't get married before 25, and preferably wait until you're near thirty.

Greg

That really depends on the maturity of the person.  Age has little to do with it. 

My sister got married at 18.  She was very mature, more sensible than her older husband in fact.

Other women are not mature enough in their late 20s.

Men have to provide and lead the family.  Some if they were very driven, hard working and entrepreneurial or were inheriting a family business, would be ready at 21.  Most wouldn't
Contentment is knowing that you're right. Happiness is knowing that someone else is wrong.

John Lamb

Quote from: Sen on July 26, 2018, 09:11:46 AM
This is very naive. I hope you are not a parent or a teacher. Leaving children and teenagers alone without direct, unsolicited guidance is precisely why my generation of Catholics (the Millennials) have nearly all apostasized. Or if they haven't, then they embrace all forms of heresies, the most prominent being sodomy. I've seen it over and over again with naive but devout church-going parents and their children who, once they head off to college, no longer go to church or care one iota about the Faith but lie to their parents to 'make them happy'.

Parents are uninvolved in their children's lives as they're growing up... 'They just need prayers. God will provide.'
Oh, they no longer go to Church? 'They just need prayers. They all eventually return once they're grown, married, and have children.'

If Catholic parents do not form a close bond with their children wherein the children respect their counsel, then the children will turn to the world, their pagan friends, university indoctrination, or the media instead.

I thank the Lord that my parents, though not perfect, gave me the best advice that they knew and didn't just 'pray and leave me alone', because God knows that would have been the easy route with all the protesting that I did.

And that's precisely the problem. It's easy to 'pray and leave them alone'. It's easy to say 'God will provide'. It's much harder to pray AND do the work that God has set out for you, in this case raising your children to be devout Catholics who utilize their talents for the Church and the good of society.

I think this is the most important thing: "If Catholic parents do not form a close bond with their children wherein the children respect their counsel, then the children will turn to the world, their pagan friends, university indoctrination, or the media instead."

If you have a close bond with your children and have taken care to instil Catholic faith and morals in them, and if you have been living a devout life yourself close to the Church and the sacraments, then they won't need much advice because they will have picked up everything essential from you already. On the other hand, if you haven't done this, then there's not much that advice can do to save them from becoming worldly and distant from the Church, and you probably risk alienating them further by offering them such unsolicited advice; at that point, it will be a miracle of grace if they do not lapse in early adulthood, and the best you can do is abandon them to God's care (and do penance for failing in your duty). The reason why millennials have apostatised is not that their parents were not offering them enough advice; it's that their parents were lukewarm/nominal Catholics themselves, and their pastors largely abused and abandoned them. They largely never saw what a Catholic life, heroically resistant to the world and spirit of the times, looked like; they rarely saw any real holiness.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

Quote from: james03 on July 26, 2018, 02:30:19 PM
We can't know Divine Providence with certainty.  If you fail, are you to accept that or try again?  Is it God's Will that you fail, or is it His Will that you learn from it?  Our guideposts are the virtues.  Virtues are Objective Truth.  Objective Truth can be taught by elders to the youth.

Virtue is taught mostly without the use of words, and teaching Objective Truth (the doctrine of the faith) goes beyond mere advice.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

John Lamb

Reading St. Thérèse's diary is enlightening on this point because she writes in a modern style (psychologically descriptive) recounting her experience from early age. As an example of outstanding holiness herself (a canonised saint despite dying at the young age of 24), it's instructive to see how she was raised. I can't remember anywhere in the diary her receiving advice from an elder that helped her in any way. She did go to tell her dad her intention to become a Carmelite nun, and her dad relented almost immediately despite it making him sad to do so (who knows what would have happened if Louis Martin had insisted on "advising" his daughter according to his own mind). He even went so far as to get her an audience with the pope so she should could ask to be admitted early. However, she recounts many instances where the holy example of her elders edified her and lead her to God, especially her father and how devout he was. Apart from being surrounded by edifying examples of virtue, what seems to have set her on the virtuous path was her own private life of prayer and meditation which she had from an early age, and which she practiced by herself without any direct supervision. What's emphatically the case is that she learned to grow in holiness and virtue essentially by herself through her own pious disposition, although she openly admits that if she was not surrounded by such pious people from her youth she never would have been pious herself. She was raised in a devout family and was shielded from harmful influences, although I wouldn't necessarily she was overly "sheltered" according to standards of 19th century French society.

You might say that this isn't useful because Thérèse is an extreme case in that she was a saint pious from her youth. But I think the basic evidence is there: it's not so much about receiving the right advice, as being acquainted with edifying examples and having the right habits; after that, it is best to leave them room to grow and develop according to their own dispositions. St. Thérèse had a very "liberal" father (her father was also canonised recently, so he is also a saint) in the sense that he did not try and get in the way of his children or guide them with too heavy a hand; St. Alphonsus, on the other hand, had a very heavy-handed father who saw to it that his son was raised to be Naples' most famous lawyer, so that when St. Alphonsus heard from God that he was to be a priest, his father very nearly ruined his vocation (Alphonsus said that his father pleading with him not to be a priest was the greatest temptation of his life). How many saints (Redemptorists) would the Church have been deprived of if Alphonsus had taken his father's advice?
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

longstrangetrip5

Quote from: Greg on July 24, 2018, 03:34:06 PM
Don't fornicate before you marry.

Difficult, but achievable.

Will save you a whole heap of trouble.
i dont think that is difficult if they maintain virginity

tht may be difficult in this crazy, sex-obsessed world but parents need to teach the wonders of virginity. One great thing about it is that: dealing with another person esp when the person is of the opposite gender can be quite complicated and unpleasant. I have not had many good romantic encounters in my life and i consider myself fairly easy going so i kno it is not my fault

longstrangetrip5

Quote from: james03 on July 24, 2018, 04:35:39 PM
Nobody owes you anything.  You get what you earn.

Nobody cares about your feelings.

There is no such thing as a career.  It is not the mystical talisman that unlocks the secrets of the patriarchy.  It's a job, and all jobs suck to some extent.

Men should work on all-male teams and learn about esprit de corp.

Women have a small window if they want to marry a good catch.  18-25.  After that, you'll probably have to "settle".

"Follow your heart, and the money will follow" is a lie.  Research what provides a good salary.
laugh

i tend to agree

longstrangetrip5

Quote from: Kirin on July 24, 2018, 07:09:46 PM
Don't do anything permanent you can't get out of before twenty five, preferably thirty.

You won't be the same person, the people you like before then will get on your nerves after and that tattoo of whichever tribal pattern or angry looking animal made you feel cool in your early twenties will make you feel like a fool later.

Better to be alone than to settle; resentment easily builds in these parings where one party feels the other is unworthy of them
LOL

sounds good

I'm  sure u are over 45

:)

longstrangetrip5

Quote from: Michael Wilson on July 24, 2018, 07:48:42 PM
Stay in the stated of grace. Pray daily to the B.V.M and your Guardian Angel; assist regularly at the Sacraments; remember "What does it profit for a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul." If you save your soul, your life would have been a success, if you lose your soul, your life would be a failure.

from my viewpoint, it looks like most people are chasing after what is good for them in the here and now

those who focus on Jesus and eternity are sometimes (often?) seen as losers.

But Jesus was willing to "be a loser" to save us, wasn't he?

Vetus Ordo

Quote from: james03 on July 26, 2018, 02:30:19 PM
We can't know Divine Providence with certainty.  If you fail, are you to accept that or try again?  Is it God's Will that you fail, or is it His Will that you learn from it?  Our guideposts are the virtues.  Virtues are Objective Truth.  Objective Truth can be taught by elders to the youth.

That is really not the point.

Reliance on and acceptance of Divine Will and Divine Providence doesn't preclude the practice of virtues, or accepting failure as a norm, but it reminds us in a healthy way that God is in control, not us, and that God laid it all out from the beginning of time. Failure and pain will come. Disappointment too. Not everyone will succeed and triumph in this life. There will always be winners and losers. Sometimes you really won't be able to make it. Sometimes you'll die soon or someone you love will die soon. Sometimes life will seem unfair to the very end, regardless of what you do. Being able to cope with these things and accepting them as God's will is healthy and profoundly Christian.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.