If you have raised a teenager, you know all too well how difficult it can be to make connections with their “times”. We as adults are so not “cool” (I write this ironically the day I’m going with friends to the I Love the 90’s Concert with Vanilla Ice – yes I just dated myself) But I digress. As an educator I spend my days with teens who deep down yearn for connections with peers, coaches, teachers and other adults despite not appearing to want it. Today’s teens define friendship or friends in very different terms than we do, but we all need a few good friends. As we grow older, we realize friendships come in many forms and our modeling of friendship to kids and teens is extremely important. Phone calls, thank you cards, gifts, and the time we give to our friends, models to our youth just how powerful real friends (not those online ones) can be.
For Jenna her trip to the St. Margarat of Scotland Warming Center one blustery Friday in winter 2021 has turned into the most inspiring friendship. She went to “earn hours” for her required service and came out with a friend. She now volunteers at the center on her own, savoring every opportunity to work with her elders and spend time with her “Blanche”. Her name isn’t really Blanche but when I met her, I could see that this wonderful lady did act and talk like the Golden Girls character, something Jenna and I have in common as we love the show. Her Blanche has become a second grandparent to her and has visited the school to speak to students about the homeless, what soup kitchens and warming centers do, and how together they make a difference. Jenna says she loves “old people” and has since researched a lot on ageism and has made it her mission to teach her peers about the value of having an older friend. Research suggests that even one adult mentor or trusted person that a teen can go to outside their parents reduces their risk of engaging in risky behaviors by half. Furthermore, researchers in the U.K. have found a direct relationship between volunteering and student mental health. Respondents stated “working with the elderly, homeless and animals has really changed my values.”
As Jenna opens up with her peers, more and more students have shared how their relationships with grandparents, aunts and uncles, or “older people” are some of the best relationships they have. Our teens are yearning for these connections and what better season than Thanksgiving and Advent to nurture this. We are all busy people but during this season of thanksgiving and hope, let’s step away from our phones and devices and open our eyes to our wonderful friendships – those we have and those out there waiting to be made. What Jenna and Blanche have created is inspiration for us all, that the power of friendship is amazing and that serving others and loving our neighbors is our path to holiness.
We are neighbors of all as a result of our birth on earth, and brothers and sisters of each other as a result of the shared hope of heaven.
St. Augustine of Hippo, Commentary on Psalms.
And with that….Thank you for being a friend.