Children’s & youth work links

Links from the world of children’s and youth ministry:

• Being Present is the Best Present: Beth Craig writes on the importance of being present to support volunteers in youth ministry.
• A new metric: Jen Bradbury on why recruiting and equipping adult leaders should be a priority in every youth pastor’s work.
• Parents: Get Inside Your Adolescent’s Brain to Prevent Addiction: To effectively counsel teens about dangers associated with substance use, think in developmental terms.
• Nearly 1 in 4 Girls Depressed at Age 14: A large study on more than 10,000 children born in 2000-01 reveals a significant rate of depression among teen girls and boys.
• Young people learn more effectively from print than screens: Students said they performed better when reading on screens. But their actual performance tended to suffer
• Smartphones compromise teens’ sleep: Young people are sleeping less than ever before with the sleep void potentially damaging their physical and mental health.
• Tarot Is Trending: Tarot-deck sales in general are up 30 percent this year, after rising 30 percent in 2016 — the highest in 50 years.