Social Maturity
The sensitive side of dealing with teens, as well as some adults, has to do with social maturity. There are some sins that people choose to walk into, and there are other problems that they fall into because of immaturity. Many of us have found ourselves saying, "Why don't you get it?" or, "What were you thinking?" There are things we expect our kids to understand that we ourselves just figured out recently! With social maturity we’re going to help you identify certain things that are rebellion and certain things that are just immaturity.
Some kids may not be particularly socially developed, so the "popular crowd" rejects them. When teens are rejected, they may allow hurt to control them. If this is the case, they react by rejecting others or trying harder to please, which results in a "living death". From there, many youth will choose "dark" or other “rejected” kids to befriend. The problem with many treatment centers is that they take all of these “rejected” kids and throw them together into a community, where negativity breeds negativity.
With our network of ministries, we create positive social circles, and do so without knowledge of the teens. Kids are always trying to find friends and something to do, so we just create it for them, whether it is after school, Friday nights, or weekends. The key to these social situations, however, is that all the kids and all the parents are in agreement with our 20 principles. So, whether they are members of the church or kids in any of our programs, we know that our children are always around and there’s always some kind of positive leadership. When they go into the movies, we know that they are not watching bad movies. We know they are not going to parties where the boys and girls are making out or participating in other inappropriate behaviors.
We have found great success in creating these safe social circles. We engage in extensive teaching where we explain, “You can’t do it, but this is why.” In addition, we teach them the difference between good fellowship and wrong fellowship and how to identify good friends and wrong friends. Through social maturity, teens learn how to relate to acquaintances, friends and intimate relationships in a positive and appropriate way. It also involves understanding how to honor and respect those in authority: civil authorities, parents, employers or spiritual leaders.
