Last week I spoke in Vernon Hills, IL for the most amazing event with both teens and parents combined into one audience. Imagine four hundred 7th and 8th graders with five hundred parents seated behind them. Their theme: “Can you hear me now?” brought out the questions kids, parents and teachers ask out loud and silently. “Can you hear that you are special? That you are unique? That you count and make a difference? Can you hear the message that parents and teachers care and want what’s best for you? Can you hear the quiet tug in your spirit, your conscience guiding you to good decisions… if so will you listen?”
It’s one thing to hear, it’s another to listen. To be here in the moment, now with someone and to really hear them inside. “Are you here? Now? Can you be here, now? With me?”

“Please be here!” It’s the cry of the heart to be heard, seen, and noticed. “Listen to me… please, please listen to me” is the real cry spoken between slammed doors, across kitchen tables, seated on the edge of beds, or during a long drive. Each event is potentially filled with caring conversation. “Okay, go ahead… I’m present and ready to really listen.”
I look out at a gym of hormones with tennis shoes and into the eyes of parents filled with every emotion from deep concern to apathy– from looks of “thank you for offering this” to “why do I have to be here?”

As I speak to this group I wonder… Who is here to listen and really hear the needs of these kids?  Likewise, will these young teens hear the parents who are here for them and with them? Will they be here, now, for each other and challenge all that is possible from one another? Will they stand up for the what’s in their best interests long term and against anything that could derail their and their peer’s journeys through adolescence?

Are they ready to listen and be here to hear?

Are you?