Are you having difficulty reaching out to your children? Noted author and speaker Dr. Jeff Myers shares his hard-earned advice on today’s Home School Heartbeat with Mike Farris.
Mike Farris:
Jeff, today’s generation of young adults is undeniably hard to reach in certain ways and they’re finding more and more ways to shut out traditional outside influences while being inundated with some other kinds of influences. In your book, you call the problem “psychic numbing.” How did you arrive at that terminology?
Dr. Jeff Myers:
Mike, “psychic numbing” is a term coined by Robert J. Lithcomb in his book about Hiroshima survivors. He found that when people experience events that are beyond their ability to process, they just freeze and stop thinking altogether. Now, there have always been problems in the world. But this generation of young adults is the first to be confronted with these problems 24 hours a day on live television.
Mike:
Boy, does that sound like the society we live in. So, what advice do you have for parents and other youth leaders who are trying to break through to these students who have been numbed?
Dr. Meyers:
Well, first of all, you have to get the conversation started, and I show in my new book Handoff some specific ways to do this, but here’s the bottom line: in my experience, young adults can handle just about anything as long as they know they’re not alone, but you have to first of all say, “Tell me what your experience what the world is like.”
Second thing, you have to show them how to surrender the outcome to God. And God doesn’t ask any one person to take responsibility for all of the problems of the world, but He does ask us to trust Him and to act faithfully in the power of the Holy Spirit to do what we can.
Mike:
Thanks so much for your work, Jeff. I’m Mike Farris.
