Counseling Sheet

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.

Preventive Medicine

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‍Introduction

‍The new breed of youngsters in our society is often said to have a disregard for hard work and responsibilities, an irreverence toward sacred things, and a serious attitude of dislike for their parents and all who are in authority. What has caused this teenage degeneration? Are the churches to blame, the schools, society in general, or the teenagers themselves?

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‍The Churches

‍It is true that reverence for sacred things is not taught. There is a prevailing atmosphere almost everywhere that there are no special objects, books, positions, or buildings that should be regarded as particularly venerated. The house of God is not considered a sacred place where voices are hushed and there is no playing or common conversation. Children are not taught to maintain utter silence and complete stillness during the reading of the Scriptures and the saying of prayers.

Worse yet, the laws of God are no longer considered to be the rules of life, and are not taught as the irrevocable principles upon which all life in the universe is governed. Therefore, the individual is at liberty to make up his own laws, since there are no inviolable, irrevocable laws.

The Bible is not considered to be the inviolable rule of life. There are many other voices, now often discordant, telling mankind how he should and should not think, how he may and may not behave. There is no absolute authority accepted as to the origin and nature of man, his destiny, and his purpose here on this planet. Lawbreaking is considered to be a way of life, the major thing being not to get caught. Anyone who gets caught is looked upon as being inferior, unable to play the game properly, as he has not developed the shrewdness necessary to avoid getting caught at lawbreaking. The thought that an Unseen Witness, a Holy Watcher, is recording faithfully what goes on in light and darkness is not considered.

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‍The Schools

‍Teachers often have not been "called" to the profession of teaching as in former years. There was once a time when a person felt a sacred calling to be a school teacher, just as a minister or physician were called. Now a teacher takes the job because it is easy, remunerative, respected, has summers off, and other personal reasons. To spend one's life in the instruction of the young, because one has a sense of obligation to do so, a fitness for the job, and an irrepressible desire to do that kind of work—such teachers are largely a thing of the past.

Students are required, not inspired, to go to school. Many mothers unashamedly state that they want to get their children out of the house so that they can be free to have some leisure. The child's education from the cradle to the grave was once shouldered by the parents. Now, the television teaches the child in the pre-school era, the school teaches the child during his elementary and high school years, the university teaches the child during his undergraduate and graduate work, and the "school of hard knocks" gives him his final degree. The teacher of the child should be the parents from birth to the grave. At every point, every other institution is merely a helper of the parents to get a limited portion of the completed education of the child accomplished. The parents are the responsible pilots of the child's life.

‍Teenagers Themselves

‍Teenagers have not had sufficient experience with life to be handed the free reins of their lives. Responsibility is a quality of the mind that matures along with all other qualities of the mind. Judgment is also a matter of maturity, utilizing the experiences of life, the teachings of one's parents, the laws of the Bible, and a conscience born of the collective teaching of all of one's influences—institutions and individuals—and especially the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. At about the age of 20 or more, independent judgment begins to show signs of maturation. Nevertheless, there is never a time in the lifetime of the individual that he can rely solely upon his judgment. One of the surest signs of maturity in a person is the fact that he begins to mistrust his own, solitary, uncounseled judgment. One learns to seek the opinions of others, as he becomes aware that it is no diminution of one's own stature to recognize the stature of others whose perspective is different.

Discernment is a quality of the mind that requires a certain perspective. Until an individual has grown mature enough to stand off from life at a certain distance and look on, he cannot have discernment. Perception is born of a clarity of vision, which is the result of a number of years spent in this life, a proper evaluation of the experiences of life, and an attention of the mind to enable it to be aware of the true meaning of those things that go on around it.

Development of character is symmetrical only when the individual knows what his duty is, has been faithful to that duty, and accepts a personal responsibility for the life and happiness of other individuals. The conscience is formed by the voice of one's peers, his forebears, the books he has read, and all the voices that have been heard from the general concert of life's voices. Conscience is very much influenced by all that one has ever experienced, including such things as comics, television, one's associates, whether good or evil, etc. There is nothing to be more desired than a good conscience. The conscience is infused into one during the early years of his life. The conscience should be kept ever tender to the knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. The day that one takes the attitude that it does not matter much if one does right or wrong, marks the beginning of a dissolution of the fabric of the character, much as cloth disintegrates if acid is spilled on it.

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‍Parents

‍In most instances, the true blame for teenage degeneracy is directly attributable to misconceptions of the parents. In the first place, the meaning of marriage is misunderstood. Almost all parents have their understanding of the objectives of marriage shaped by the romantic and sentimental attitude of New York and Hollywood. The One who established marriage should be the One who shapes our understanding of its high and holy principles. The marriage ceremony depicted in the Bible is the anointing of a priest and the crowning of a queen. Because the popular view of marriage is a sentimental one considered to be only for the purpose of the satisfaction of the individuals involved, naturally, the view of the purpose of children in the home is merely to bring pleasure and sentiment to the hearts of the parents. It is, of course, believed that if, while in pursuit of his own happiness, a person unselfishly puts forth efforts to please his partner, that he has achieved the ultimate in proper conduct in marriage. He can think of no greater objective. Yet, there is a higher purpose for marriage. And, unless the married couple understand this higher purpose, they will surely misunderstand the value of children; the role that they are to play in the household.

The biblical conception of marriage is that both partners live for the glory of God, and only indirectly for the satisfaction of the other person. Personal satisfaction and enjoyment from marriage should not even be considered as a proper motive for consummation of a marriage. Every detail of life should be under the supervision of the Holy Spirit.

From birth up, one should be taught to bring each act of life to the scrutiny of the unerring principles of the Word of God. Whether children will be born of their union should be determined by heavenly principles. Once born, every act of their lives must be guided by the Holy Spirit through the agency of godly parents.

Since parents usually mistakenly view their children as existing for their own enjoyment, they fail to understand that children are themselves real people, not toys. Mismanagement of the children, and often a gross mismanagement of the time of the mother, is often the sure result of the lack of appreciation that children are not in the home as mere objects of parental affection. Often the mother regards her time, just as her marriage and her children, as a factor of life given to her for her satisfaction. She does not understand the concept of sacrifice that comes with the decision to have children, except as far as sacrifice is a sentimental quality—perhaps associated with sharing one's money or food or automobile with the young intruder. Parents must recognize that children are not created solely for their enjoyment, except as a spin-off of their performance of their own duty toward their children. From birth up, the parents have the obligation to train, to guide, to mold, and to shape the attitudes of the children toward every aspect of life, to protect them in infancy, to correct and reprove every wrong, to augment every good quality, to supervise all knowledge the child gains, to interpret to his mind the experiences of life, to unwearyingly readjust, bring aright, and justify each line of life's book.

When the years of infancy and early childhood have passed, the wise parent will not take his leave of his responsibilities, but will round off the education of his children from the ages of 10-18, when the reins are to be held more tightly, and not to give up when the going gets rough and the individual personalities begin to form, and defects in the character, which should have been corrected in infancy and childhood, begin to express themselves in the teenage years. During this period, teenagers should be supported, corrected, kept in control, not promised that if they will be good they can leave the nest sooner, etc. It is essential that the parents keep the children with them in their home long enough to see the crystallizing of the characters of the children. If this crystallizing does not occur, it is a mistake to allow the children to go off to school, to go away to get a job, to go off for a vacation away from the watchful eye of the parent. The children need their parents from the time they are born until the time they lay down their duties in the grave, but at no time is the parents' guidance more needed than in the years from 10-18. Unfortunately, this is the very time when the mother wants some freedom to develop certain of her interests that were set aside while she did baby-sitting duty. Now she feels the child can keep away from danger on his own and she is relieved of minute-by-minute care. In this she is mistaken. At no time does her child need the kindly rulership of the parents more than in the teenage years. Her ingenuity will be taxed more greatly; her understanding and wisdom used more constantly, her vigilance in guarding against dangers more closely applied (at this age, dangers are more of a social or moral or mental nature than of a physical nature).

At about age 18, the child usually begins to be able to sense his own responsibility for his life, in making good decisions in the use of his time and the selection of his friends. He naturally seeks his parents' counsel before settling his decisions, and can often be expected to carry the reins of his own life henceforth. Yet, should the parents precede the child to the grave, the child will then need to get wise counselors who can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them, counseling, guiding, correcting, reproving, instructing, as long as they live. There is no time when a person should feel that he can stand solitary on his own feet. He may need to stand alone to defend sacred principles, but even then, he is actually standing in the light of counsel he has received from respected counselors of the past. Now can the nature of parental sacrifice be more clearly discerned. The parental sacrifice is the sacrifice of the very substance of life, not just things in life. The life of the parent is actually shared with the child.

Because teenagers sometimes begin to feel rebellious, begin to act less responsive and affectionate than when they were in their childhood years, the parents find that their affections become gradually weaned away from their children. As soon as the children are old enough to commit certain crimes and sins, the parents begin to be revolted by some of the things that teenagers are capable of doing. They cannot believe that their "little darlings'' have committed some of the misdeeds that they become aware that they have committed. They may believe that their children have rejected all of their upbringing. At this point, the parents begin to show an ill temper toward the children. Furthermore, they begin to abdicate their position of authority and responsibility over them. Consequently, the reins of government are put into the hands of the teenagers and the parents simply renege in their responsibility to direct their children in a proper course. As soon as this happens, the parents usually make the decision to place the child under the care of a psychiatrist, or in a school or college where the faculty are now responsible for maintaining order in the teenager's life. Often, the faculty are unable to guide and direct the child who has not been taught to submit to authority in his own home. Thus, the rebellion is on.‍

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The Dating System

‍The failure to understand and appreciate the exalted concept that man was created in the very image and likeness of God is a serious loss to us. Man was created to look like and to act like God. This means that into his character man should develop mercy, justice, love, faithfulness to duty, and especially the quality of self-restraint. Failure to develop self-restraint leads to one of the great evils of our time, the dating system. This system leads to a wrong attitude toward all other people, men and women, old and young. It stems from failure to comprehend the basic nature of man, his high and holy purpose in life, and the meaning of the marriage. The animal or purely biologic concept of the nature of man without any responsibility toward his Creator has led man to believe that he can entertain himself through the associations between the sexes, that he can use sex solely for his own pleasure. Because he fails to understand his obligation toward his Creator, and that he was created in the image of God, he also fails to understand that his offspring are to be carefully numbered, educated, and trained, themselves to be fashioned in the image of God, largely by the efforts of the parents, aided by the Holy Spirit.

Thus, we see that it is a misconception of the nature of man that is the ultimate cause of the degradation of man, and his physical and moral degeneracy.

Copyright, 1978

Uchee Pines Institute

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D