When you have a teen who is active in clubs, sports and other school activities, you soon realize that they spend more of their after school time at school then ...

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Getting a job is a huge responsibility that teens can handle if they have reached a certain level of maturity. See how your teen rates by using this screening quiz. ...

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We seem to be too worried about 'the rules' and enforcing them, that as parents we aren't looking at the big picture of our children's lives. It's in the big picture where positive values and morals are seen. It's not whether your teen got an 'A' on his science project, it's if he values what an education is going to do for him. Which is a catch-22, because if he values the education, he'll strive for the 'A'. Learn why it's important to teach values with this article.

Share your tips for teaching values at home in our comments area.

These fall activities for teens can be done individually, with friends or with the whole family. Each week has four different types of teen fall activities: Make This (Recipe), Craft This, Learn How and Get Out and Go! Each activity idea is fun for your teen. Check out week two's fall activities for teens now.

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This fun notebook and pen set has a magnetic back for easy hanging in a school locker. Teens really enjoy making this useful school craft. Get the directions to make this cool school craft here...

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During this summer?s visit to Six Flags Great America, I was prepared for the bikini-clad girls with short-shorts pulled down low, the shirtless boys with white tanks tossed across their shoulders, not to mention the matching families in khaki shorts and neon green tees.

I was not, however, prepared for the burqas.

My jaw dropped as the family approached me: two fathers in tidy slacks and polo shirts walking alongside two women (presumably) draped completely in black, peering out through slits. One set of hands poked out of long sleeves to push a stroller, while the other set held the hands of two small kids.

As my eyes went from the women to the men, a rage boiled up inside me. In my mind, I was witnessing walking bondage, humans trapped beneath black cloth.

I have never considered the hijab (head scarf) oppressive, simply because I find the scarves and their wearers to be elegant and lovely ? and because they do not cover a woman?s face. But to me, the burqa and even the niqab, which covers the face to a lesser degree, communicate an oppression that no woman in the world ? let alone in Great America, the amusement park or the country, should bear, and certainly would never choose.

So imagine my surprise when I heard a young, modern Muslim woman named Nadia defending her choice to wear a niqab and cover her face in public at CNN?s Belief blog.

?I?ve never seen anybody interview a Muslim woman and ask her if she?s oppressed,? Nadia says. ?Or if she feels oppressed for wearing what she wears, or if she?s oppressed in her home.?

Nor have I. Neither have I asked a Muslim woman. I can blame my assumptions on the Taliban and my open-jawed reading of Half the Sky, or the protestor?s images of a veiled woman being stoned for adultery. Nadia says these images are not valid in America. She has never met a woman forced to wear the veil.

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Toward the end of spring semester, I set a box labeled ?I Always Wanted to Ask? on the table at the front of my class. I invited students to write down lingering questions about sex and gender, the subject of our course at Messiah College. A panel comprising five students and me, the professor, responded to all the questions. A classic one emerged: ?Can men and women be ?just? friends?? It elicited a classic response. ?Yes,? I said, ?but only by taking romantic potential into account in some way. And no, if the man and woman have been romantically involved with each other.? Most students advocated for platonic friendship and kindly pointed out that the world has changed since the dinosaur age in which I came of age.

I won?t rehearse the dialogue that ensued, but I?m slipping a related question into the box: Is it wise to ?friend? old flames on Facebook?

Three old flames have flared up recently (and I only have so many, so it?s an unusually active season). I corresponded with one, a single back-and-forth. After all, I justified, he was just a flicker. Facebook offered another to me as a possible friend. I couldn?t resist peeking at his photos to see whether my kids are cuter than his (surprise ? they are), and then I moved on. The third requested that we be friends, and I still need to decide how to respond.

Here?s the thing: I believe in marriage. I believe in total loyalty and lifelong commitment. At my husband?s and my wedding, we sang a hymn that begins, ?Are ye able,? said the Master / ?to be crucified with me??/ ?Yea,? the sturdy dreamers answered / ?to the death we follow thee.? Bringing crucifixion imagery to a wedding was intentional. We expected marriage to be hard, and it has been at times, but we have stuck together. Like our trust in Jesus, we hope we are able to hold our marriage until death.

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The New York Times recently profiled an Oregon couple who winnowed their possessions down to 100 things, giving away most of what they owned and cozying up in a 400-square-foot apartment. The article discussed new (read: more cautious) spending patterns, spurred by the recession but potentially having long-term staying power. Americans are investing in experiences and leisure activities such as vacations and concerts, which contribute to their happiness in a way that the latest electronic gadget does not. ? ?It?s better to go on a vacation than buy a new couch? is basically the idea,? says Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia.

The emphasis on owning less relates to the Christian virtue of simplicity. In Matthew 6:19?20, Jesus reminds us to store up treasures in heaven, not on earth, while the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16?21) warns against preoccupation with saving for future comfort. Biblical examples of giving away wealth and possessions abound, from Old Testament teachings on tithing to Jesus telling the rich young man to ?sell all that you have and give to the poor? (Mark 10:21).

Should Christians hop on the 100-things bandwagon? Does material simplicity ? spending and owning less ? always lead to spiritual and emotional enrichment?

In my 20s, I attended a Washington, D.C., church that had rigorous membership requirements, including a minimum 10 percent tithe. I worked for low-paying nonprofits in an expensive city, so tithing made a big difference in what was left once rent and groceries were covered. Instead of embracing forced simplicity, I resented it for making even the most mundane purchases occasions for anxiety and guilt. I remember standing in a drug store aisle contemplating whether it was irresponsible to buy new pantyhose. Scrutinizing every purchase didn?t free me from material concerns to make room for spiritual ones. It just made me cranky. And it didn't feel like freedom to agonize over a $4 pair of pantyhose.

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My freshman year, I spiraled into a clinical depression triggered by an off-campus move. That semester, my lack of finances required moving from the dorms into an apartment across the street from the university. There, I lived rent-free with a generous elderly woman. Yet I felt like an outsider looking in as daily I?d peer out the window at students walking to and fro.

Although I lived in a cloud of mental confusion, somehow I managed to attend classes and chapel. For over a year, I daily fought back a stream of tears that threatened to publicly out me. I thought I was crazy; my only relief was sleep. So I slept a lot. And I loathed myself. Even though I prayed and read Scripture daily, I felt numb, isolated, and alienated ? damned. It felt as if God had fled. Although surrounded by several thousand professing Christians, I was too ashamed and embarrassed to tell others except a counselor and superficially a few others. For the most part, no one seemed to notice. I contemplated suicide.

Because of the fervent prayers and encouraging phone calls of my younger siblings, Kenny and Michelle, I clung to life. Day by day they ministered God?s grace. And, thanks be to God, I started the climb out of the lowest rungs of hell late in my sophomore year.

Yet I know that not everybody makes it. And according to one report released last week, the number of college students struggling is growing. At an American Psychological Association meeting, John Guthman of Hofstra University reported that, based on a sample of over 3,000 U.S. students, the percentage of students with moderate to severe depression rose from 34% to 41% from 1998 to 2010. Relatedly, the number of students on psychiatric medications went from 11% to 24% in the same period. (Conversely, the number of students who said they had considered suicide within two weeks of counseling went from 26% to 11% in this period.) Guthman said the rise isn?t about increasing stress loads ? though that?s a likely factor ? but about more students with pre-existing conditions attending college, and their increased willingness to seek help.

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I met Dale Hanson Bourke at a meeting of women involved in promoting women?s health and economic empowerment in Zambia. I admired her intelligence, curiosity, and breadth of experience as a journalist and women?s health advocate. Later, I traveled to Zambia to see the projects World Vision and its collaborative partners (such as World Bicycle Relief, International Justice Mission, and the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia) were undertaking to empower women and help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Dale was in Zambia at the same time, and I enjoyed getting to know her as we traveled in the beautiful countryside on very bumpy roads. I ate my first fried caterpillar with her at a World Vision ADP. When the trip was ending, we said we should have a reunion with our three traveling mates in the summer.

Remarkably, Dale was able to carve out time to host us. Her book Embracing Your Second Calling: Find Passion and Purpose for the Rest of Your Life was a frequent companion in the weeks before I saw her in Maryland. At 43, and definitely aware of being solidly in midlife, I found myself deeply moved by the book (recently re-released and updated), so it was a treat to talk with Dale about it when we were together a few weeks ago.

What follows is an excerpt from our conversation.

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JG Dale, as you know, I love Embracing Your Second Calling. I was moved by the way you weave Ruth and Naomi?s story throughout.

DHB I was struck by Naomi. Here was a woman for whom the first half of life was full. She had two sons ? what every Jewish mother wanted. She had a good husband who provided for the family and removed them from a land broken by drought. She even had two daughters-in-law whom she loved, and who loved her.

Then her life fell apart. We?re told in the Book of Ruth that she was too old to find another man and to have another child. In other words, she was in midlife. When her husband and sons died, she was angry with God. She said to him, ?Change my name. Call me ?Bitter.? ?

But she still loved God even when she was angry with him. She never stopped talking to him. I love that. And the fact that Ruth would stay with her and follow her back to a land plagued by drought ? that speaks to the kind of person Naomi was, that Ruth would follow her.

. . . [A]nd it was truly miraculous the way God created a second calling for Naomi. At the end of the Book of Ruth, she is holding a baby, her grandchild. God had put her into the line of David when her own family line was dead. She was made part of the line of Jesus!

JG In what ways did you connect with Naomi?

DHB I connect with her in many ways. Yes, in part because we are both the mothers of two sons. I also connected with the fact that there is a point in life when we say, ?Wait, a minute ago I had my children here. I was making their lunches and being their mom and suddenly, they?ve left. They?re gone.? It hits you hard.

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