What Do We Talk About in Teen Empowerment?

A few years ago, we began a weekly Teen Empowerment Class here at Enkindle Academy to address the meaning crisis emerging in our precious youth. In this post, we will elaborate what we talk about in this class and why it matters so much. First, let’s explore what it means to empower teens. Fundamentally, it begins with the question living at the core of every truly human soul, “Who am I?” We all, at some level, want to know the answer. Empowering teens starts, therefore, with leading them into an experience of what it means to be, or I should say, become human.

The “How” of Teen Empowerment

So, how do we do this? We have to approach it through several angles. The first is through facilitating a healthy peer group. When children are young they want to know themselves primarily through their parents and teachers. When they reach middle school and beyond, however, that starts to shift. At this stage, it becomes more horizontal as they seek identity in their peers. Excuse the crude reference, but they become sort of like pack animals, and this continues for many of them even into college. Anybody who’s lived in a college town has seen those herds of freshmen roving around on a Friday night, as if they were there own species of human.

So, our group needs this social element, but it needs to be steered by an adult so it moves in a positive and supportive direction at a time when it can become cutting, exclusionary, and hurtful. Such a group should have a climate of mutual support. It should include dialogue, debate, and disagreement. Learning how to disagree in a civil way is so important because it becomes a positively creative force, if we can properly harness it. Dirty potatoes will become cleaner faster in a pot full of other dirty potatoes then all by themselves. Their mutual rub will mutually clean them.

The Study of Biographies

This is the next important point. Teens learn much from the exemplars who have gone before them and how they scored victory over obstacles in life. We began our class with a book called Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani. It was about her near death experience. After suffering from stage 4 lymphoma for a long time, Anita learned a powerful message of self love on the other side and returned to cure herself within weeks and without medicine, baffling the medical community. Such stories express to young souls the depth of what we are capable of.

The last point in the “how” section of teen empowerment is about meditating on the human in relationship to the other kingdoms of nature. The best way to know something is to compare it to other things. Since we originally come from nature, she is the best place to turn in our path of teen empowerment. Students should meditate on how we are like and unlike stones, plants, and animals. They should find these other beings within themselves, as well as ponder what more we have that they don’t. Understanding this comparison delivers penetrating insight into our task as humans and what it takes to become fully human. 

Being vs. Becoming Human

The thing is, nobody is born fully human. That may sound strange to hear. You may even take issue with it. Yet, while all of nature has a spiritual element within it, only in the human does – or I should say, can – that element become fully conscious. Just because it can, however, doesn’t mean it always does.

That is just the point. To become fully human means making the unseen which lies at the core of our identity fully conscious. Then we can use it in an ethically individual way. For example, by my animal nature, I may be inclined to overeat. If I had no self restraint nor goal to develop nobler qualities within myself, I would simply act without care or concern for the consequences. In time, my health and possibly even my behavior and relationships would suffer. However, the wise inner guide in me knows that such behavior does not free, but rather binds, me. With inner resolve I work diligently on this issue. I learn to command the energy that would otherwise lead to over-indulgence into something nobler, like listening to my body. 

Some of us may not like to hear that we are born with human potential but not yet human being. To some, that smacks of “original sin” or some such reference. They prefer to think of themselves as fully finished beings. Yet, where can such a thought lead but to hubris and laziness? The fact is being born human means we are constantly in motion, if not outwardly then inwardly. It’s the unavoidable nature of mind. It’s all a question of towards what we are moving – the animal or the angel in us. Every moment presents us with the opportunity to do either. What we do is up to us.

Teen Empowerment Takes Time, But…

It is true that our adolescents and teens are still young and we shouldn’t expect Buddhahood from them at this age. Teen empowerment takes time. They’re still going to act in self-centered and rebellious ways that may frustrate us as parents. The point isn’t to turn them into saints. Rather, it is to plant the right seeds of what a proper path of human becoming really looks like. Seeds that will live, grow, and bear fruit in them later down the line. That’s why I do this class, so that by the time they get to adulthood, they have wholesome soul-seeds growing and not a garden full of unwanted tendencies and neuroses that will take much more effort to weed out later on.

As I told today’s class, the answer to “Who am I?” is not a static place to arrive at but a continual process. To become fully human is to come alive in this process of becoming and discover new things continuously about oneself. “Who am I?” is a verb, not a noun. 

Don’t you want your adolescent or teen starting this process now, at a time when it becomes so easy to get caught in the often unhealthy social trends of the day? If so, this is the place for them. At a time when most of society doesn’t even think about this question, here is an opportunity to offer your youth a head start. Visit us for more info at: https://enkindleacademy.com/live-teen-empowerment-class. Godspeed in your parenting journey.

How Else to Connect

Enkindle Academy offers prerecorded and live lessons for students in grades 5-9, encouraging students to deepen their reverence for nature and adopt sustainable, regenerative attitudes towards her. We teach all academic subjects plus fine arts, creative writing and language arts, and empowerment groups for teens.

Our Creative Writing Class meets weekly. We are always accepting new students, and enrollment is growing rapidly. When we have enough students, we open up new sections. Visit us at the following link to signup or get more info: https://enkindleacademy.com/live-creative-writing-for-youth

Signup for a free sample lesson now.

Parent Mentoring

We are considering offering parent education here at Enkindle Academy. This could take the form of live parent training groups, individual mentoring, short blocks on how to teach various subjects like math, history, language arts, etc. It could also take the form of families submitting student work for feedback on how their student is doing. We are open to whatever other suggestions you have. If this interests you as a homeschool parent, please Contact Us, and let us know your wishes.