COMMON TEEN HEALTH ISSUES

 Teenagers face many different stressors during an average day. School, peer pressure, athletics, jobs and growing bodies can all be difficult to deal with. Due to some of these stressors, teenagers may develop some common mental and physical health issues. Some common health issues for teens include eating disorders, mood disorders, acne and substance abuse.

DEVOTIONAL- WHERE TO PLACE YOUR HOPES

“The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him” – Lamentations 3:25

In 1981, Eugene Lang, a millionaire industrialist, returned to P.S. 121, the elementary school he had attended in East Harlem 50 years earlier, to address a class of graduating sixth graders. He intended to tell the students, "Work hard and you'll succeed." But on the way to the podium, the school principal told Lang that three-quarters of the school's students would probably never finish high school, prompting Lang to make an impromptu change to his speech: he promised college tuition to every sixth grader who stayed in high school and graduated. Lang told the class about witnessing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington. He urged the students to dream their own dreams, and promised to do all that he could to help them achieve their goals.

Mr. Lang nurtured the students with tutors, trips to colleges, an open door to his office and, above all, his energetic encouragement.

In June 1987, the hopes and dreams unfolded in East Harlem. The first two of Mr. Lang's protégés to complete high school, Rosanna Serrano and Aristedes Alvarado, received their diplomas at emotional graduation ceremonies conducted for the Manhattan Center for Math and Science. Ms. Serrano went on to attend college at Barnard and Mr. Alvarado enrolled at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

''Mr. Lang gave me a sense of someone being there for you,'' Aristedes said. ''You don't get that at school. When I told him I wasn't sure I could make it in such a prestigious school as Rensselaer, Lang said, 'Aristedes, you're a dreamer, dreamers can do anything.' '' Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school.

APPLES OF GOLD

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 25:11.                                   

FAMILY ABUSE 

See how a man treats his family, and you will see what his true feelings are about mankind.                       

If there is right in the heart, there will be beauty in the person;

If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the home;

If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation;

If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.

Take stock of yourself and consider the lad;

Your time and your thoughts are his due.

How would you answer your God should He ask, "What sort of a father are you?"

Children have more need of models than of critics .The law defines child abuse and neglect as: The physical or mental injury, sexual abuse or exploitation, negligent treatment, or maltreatment of a child under the age of 18, by a person who is responsible for child's welfare and under circumstances which indicate that the child's health or welfare is harmed or threatened thereby.

Parents, who wish to train their children in the way they should go, must go in the way which they would have their children go.

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me (Psalm 27:10).

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord (Psalm 127:3).