Hanukkah 2022

The Gift of Talking with Your Teens HANUKKAH 2022

Talking with your teens is a gift.

As our gift to you this Hanukkah, please enjoy these discussion starters and resources from Moving Traditions’ past year of programming.

May the gift of conversation help light the way for you and your teens throughout this season and the coming year.

Eight Nights of Conversation Talking with Your Teen About…

1. Taking Risks 2. Being Jewish & Antisemitism Today 3. Abortion & Reproductive Rights 4. Consent, Boundaries, & Healthy Relationships 5. Gender Identity 6. How Boys Experience Stress 7. Body Image & Beauty Standards 8. Supporting Their Wellbeing in Challenging Times Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about: Taking Risks

From our parent webinar “Risky Business: How Parents Can Help Teens Make Good Choices,” a companion session to our Kulam “Risk Taking & Courage” teen session.

Part of our job as parents is to teach our children to take what we might call “healthy risks” in order to grow and learn new things. To do this, we look at the work of Dr. Jess Shatkin, a well-published author and NYU Medical School professor of child and adolescent psychiatry. In his award-winning book, Born To Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe, he says that one of the best things we can do as parents is to help prepare our teens for when they are in the “heat of the moment,” and they need to decide whether or not to do something.

To prepare for these conversations, take a look at our “Parent Personal Assessment.”

And if you want a deeper dive into this topic, check out the recording of our Risky Business webinar with Dr. Jess Shatkin and Rabbi Daniel Brenner.

Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about: Being Jewish & Antisemitism Today

From our B-Mitzvah Family Education Program session “I’m Jewish: Exploring Jewish Identity & Antisemitism Today.”

SAY: “We are going to watch a cartoon based on a real story — a personal account of experiencing antisemitism.

Pay close attention to the storyteller and the artwork — we will discuss the video after we watch.”

Watch together: My Friends Made Hateful Jokes Because I Was Jewish ASK: • What happens in this story?

• What did you relate to?

• Do you think it took courage to talk with the teacher about what happened?

• If it were you, would you have spoken to the teacher? Why or why not?

• How do the adults in the story react to the events that unfold?

• It seems like his friends still make antisemitic jokes. Are there some types of antisemitic jokes that are okay for friends to make? Does it matter to you if the friends telling the jokes are Jewish or not?

For more ways to discuss antisemitism, intersectionality, and recent comments in the media from prominent celebrities that impact these conversations, check out our responsive curriculum discussion guide: What’s With Ye, Anyway?

For teens in your life who want to take a deeper dive into interrupting antisemitism, racism, and other forms of oppression, please have them check out Kumi: An Anti-Oppression Teen Leadership Experience.

Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about: Abortion & Reproductive Rights

From our responsive curriculum discussion guide on Jewish Reproductive Rights—see full discussion guide for even more ideas.

SAY:

Religious discussions around abortion today tend to center a recent dominant interpretation of a Christian/Catholic understanding of life. Christianity’s perspective on abortion is often simplified in a way that ignores the existing range of interpretation and the fact that before the 20th century in the United States, abortion was a much less central issue in Christianity and politically. Jewish wisdom on abortion, and on reproductive rights, is also not unified.

There are many texts that support the right to abortion and that define life very differently from how the Christian Right in the United States today defines it. In fact, many Jews recognize abortion as essential healthcare that is not only permitted, but in some cases, required by our tradition.

Let’s look together at some Jewish takes on abortion (choose one of the following to look at with your teen).

• The Torah of Reproductive Justice (Source Sheet by NCJW) • Abortion and Judaism | My Jewish Learning

ASK: • •

Did any of the texts add to your beliefs or opinions about abortion and reproductive justice? Which one(s) and why?

Think about anyone you know who has had to decide about having an abortion. Can you talk about their story using some of the values or ideas expressed in these texts?

For more on this topic, check out our Talking with Teens About Reproductive Rights & Sexual Health webinar and resources, featuring: Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg of NCJW; lawyer and activist Dena Robinson, J.D.; sexual health educator Charis Denison; and Meyer-Gottesman Kol Koleinu Teen Feminist Fellows Avivah Mitchell and Hana Collison-Zeldes.

Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about:

Consent, Boundaries, & Healthy Relationships From our CultureShift trainings for camp staff and staff of other youth-serving organizations.

SAY:

There are three components of romantic/love relationships. Some relationships have all three, some have two, and some have just one. Here are the three components: •

Intimacy—the heart-to-heart connection, the part of you that wants to be close to the other person and feel connected. This is not necessarily sexual at all.

Intimacy can be snuggling, offering a hug, or sharing a secret or a dream for the future.

•

Passion—the body-to body connection, part of you that feels desire for sexual expression and pleasure with the other person.

•

Commitment—the mind-to-mind connection, the part of you that wants to talk and learn from and with the person. And the part of you that decides how long you want the connection to last.

ASK: •

What’s your reaction to these three components?

•

What questions do you have about them?

•

Is there anything missing?

•

Do some of these feel more relevant to you right now than others?

•

If you think about a nonromantic friend, a hook up, someone you are talking to, or being in a relationship, where does each fall on each of these three components?

Within relationships, there’s always a dynamic between what you want out of the relationship and what the other person wants. Sometimes, there may be a mismatch between what you want and what your person wants. For example, maybe you are more interested in passion than intimacy or commitment, but they want more intimacy and commitment than passion. Or maybe you want commitment and exclusivity, and they don’t. What’s helpful is to get clarity about what you want and then to listen to your person’s clarity about what they want.

Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about: Gender Identity

From our parent session, informed by our Tzelem program curriculum “Demystifying Teen Language on Gender.”

Questions I Would Like Parents to Ask About Being Gender Expansive

From Tzelem B-Mitzvah Youth Participants •

Why are your pronouns important to you?

•

How did you realize that those were your pronouns?

•

How does that impact your identity?

•

(General care and concern questions) Are you doing okay? Are you really doing okay?

•

Do you need help/support? How can I help/support you?

•

Is there anything I can do to help make anything easier for you?

•

Is there something I should do if someone misgenders/deadnames you?

•

Do you have any resources/more information about how I can best support you?

•

What are the next steps you are thinking about and how can I help?

To explore this further, please check out our Demystifying Teen Language on Gender webinar recording and resources, featuring: Essie Shachar-Hill, LCSW; parent and young adult duo Lauren and Laine Schlezinger; and Rabbi Tamara Cohen.

Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about: How Boys Experience Stress From our Shevet program session on Boys & Stress: In studies on stress and its impact on boys, stress stemmed from their relationships with teachers and other people with authority over them. The older they get, the more stress they experience.

On average, boys report more frequent use of avoidance and distraction coping strategies than girls. Avoidance strategies involve not dealing with the stress at all.

Distraction involves temporarily getting one’s mind off the stress. Teen boys try to deal with stress by either distracting themselves from it or ignoring it. A teenage boy might go out with friends, listen to some music or play a video game. This type of strategy is not necessarily unhealthy, but it only provides temporary relief from stress.

Ignoring stress — or the avoidance strategy — can have long-term mental and physical health consequences. Dysfunctional strategies amongst boys include turning to alcohol, drugs, fighting or reckless behavior.

When you notice the boys in your life experiencing stress, try the following: Three Senses Activity:

SAY/ASK: •

“You seem stressed. Am I reading that right?

•

Share the above information about boys and stress.

Notice what you are experiencing right now through three senses – sound, sight, touch. Take a few slow breaths and ask yourself:



What is interesting, troubling, or surprising about this?

• What are three things I can hear? (clock on the wall, car going by, music in the next room, my



From your experience, do you think this is accurate? Why or why not?

• What are three things I can see? (this table, that sign, that person walking by)



What are some things that you have noticed about guys and stress or about your own responses to stress?

breath)

• What are three things I can feel? (the chair under me, the floor under my feet, my phone in my

pocket)

• What, related to your senses has the ability to calm and ground you? What did you like?

For more, please see our recording and resources from our Helping Boys Thrive webinar with educator Jason Ablin and Rabbi Daniel Brenner.

Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about: Body Image & Beauty Standards From our Rosh Hodesh program session “Loving Our Bodies: #NoFilter” SAY: Body image and beauty are central to the Purim story. King Ahashverosh is often thought of as a foolish king, however we don’t often talk about one of the most foolish aspects of his reign: the way he evaluated and selected his queens. At the beginning of the Megillah, he banishes Vashti from power after she refuses to parade her beauty in front of him. He then held a beauty pageant to search for a new queen and, based on her looks, selected Esther to be the new queen. According to the Megillah, Esther and Vashti were two of the most physically beautiful women in Persia, considered objectively beautiful by people everywhere.

ASK: •

What, other than physical beauty, could the king have been looking for in a queen?

•

What standards of beauty are you most aware of? Where are you seeing them?

•

In your life, when have you seen beauty being treated as power? How did it affect you/make you feel?

•

What positive images and standards for beauty are you seeing? What would you like to see more of?

Moving Traditions

Talking with your teen about:

Supporting Their Wellbeing During Challenging Times From our latest Raising Up Teens With Moving Traditions webinar series.

•

Parenting for strengths: who are your children, and what are their strengths? Figure out who your child is uniquely and build around their strengths.

•

Write down a few adjectives that describe your child. What are the strengths associated with those adjectives? How can you help your child continue to practice and build up those strengths?

•

Take a look at the resources on The Science of Character/Let It Ripple website. It has a “Periodic Table of Character Strengths” and discussion guides by age about building these character strengths. Along with these resources, use Moving Traditions’ shleimut/hesed/tzedek framework for cultivating teen wellbeing: 

Shleimut (personal wholeness): Ask: In looking at these character strengths—which ones make you feel like your fullest/most whole self when you act upon them? Which ones would you like to cultivate further to achieve that sense of wholeness?



Hesed (kind, caring personal connections): Ask: Which of these strengths do you draw on most in your connections with others? Is there any support you need or want from me in building those connections?



Tzedek (pursuit of justice): Ask: Of these character strengths, which do you think you naturally utilize when you see something wrong or unjust in the world around you? What does it look like when you do? How can support you when you are doing so?

For more ideas and resources, check out the recording and take-home resources from Light The Way: Parenting for Wellbeing, featuring Dr. Betsy Stone and Rabbi Tamara Cohen.

Moving Traditions

The Gift of Talking with Your Teens Shamash/Helper Bonus:

Talking With Teens—Don’t Give Up!

On parent/teen communication in general, get tips from our @13 Podcast episode “Sunrise, Sunset” on healthy communication and connection through adolescence.

HAPPY HANUKKAH!