A long time ago, I was a stockbroker. In those days, I constantly paid attention to various fundamentals and influences on the market. Why…because it was critical to my ability to invest my clients’ assets into the proper investments and answer questions that they might have. Beyond that, I recognized there were a lot of influences on the market and to do a good job, I had to know what was going on to meet my clients’ varying needs.
As parents, all of us have a need to know what is going on around us, so that we can not only be good and effective parental stewards but also help others in our church, work place, or extended families be aware of what is going on with our youth today.
Is it possible to stay ahead of trends youth today are facing, or are we always going to be on the backside of them? I grew up for many years in Hawaii and California. My father was from Hawaii and loved the ocean, so he naturally taught me how to boogey board, body surf, and as I got older, I learned how to surf.
When you catch a wave, you feel just a taste of the power of the ocean, but the thing about surfing is that when the wave is coming, you have to swim as hard as you can just to be able to ride it for a period of time. And the reality is, the energy of the wave will move ahead of you if you don’t paddle fast enough.
What is the point of that story other than some endless summer flashback? We will never be ahead of all the trends; however, we can pay attention in order to quickly know and identify what new trends are emerging.
Over the upcoming newsletters, we will discuss where we see the cultural influences moving. Specifically, we want to equip you to recognize patterns, so that you might anticipate what your child will be facing next in our culture. To do that, we will address the following cultural issues:
- When the availability of drugs is restricted, do you know what everyday household items are being used to get high?
- The internet offers more social sites than just My Space and YouTube that we need to be paying attention to
- Technology and what you should expect to see and monitor on your child’s cell phone
- The language and styles of our culture and what they mean
As parents, we must pay attention to what is shaping and affecting our children. By being aware, we can anticipate what our children will be facing next.
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