Helping Teenage Girls with Modern Day Issues – Karen Smith

Fear, Anxiety, Forgiveness, People Pleasing, Pornography; these are just some of the common issues teenage girls are facing today. How can we help them? Our guest this week on the Multiply! Podcast is Karen Smith. Karen serves as the Dean of Women at the Word of Life Bible Institute, where she invests a large amount of time counseling female students as they deal with many of these same issues. On today’s episode, she offers valuable insight for helping young women face these issues from a biblical standpoint and experience victory.

Takeaways from this episode

Frequent issues teen girls struggle with today:

• Anxiety and stress issues (Social media has a big impact on anxiety)
• Identity issues
• Same-sex attraction
• Pornography

Anxiety:

• Take them back to their view of God – how do they see Him?
• Offer hope
• Point them back to scripture
• Remind them who God says they are

Forgiveness:

• We hold on to hurt
• When you really understand and believe the Gospel, it is easier to forgive others
• Walk through the process of what forgiveness is and what it is not
• Forgiveness is not an option
• Un-forgiveness that is left alone causes more issues
• Reasons for being unforgiving:
  1. Makes us feel powerful
  2. Feeling that forgiveness let’s people off the hook
• Not forgiving others crumbles your relationships

Pornography:

• Abuse in the past opens the door to curiosity
• Generally leads to masturbation
• Leads to sexual relationships and sometimes same-sex attractions
• Steps:
  1. Have them tell their parents
  2. Don’t just take away bad thoughts, replace them with God’s Word
  3. Have good relationships
  4. Focus on the beauty that God has created
  5. Never promise exclusivity to sensitive information – keep parents and authority FULLY involved

Future Steps:

1. Always take it back to God’s word
2. Have teens memorize scripture
3. Remember the Gospel everyday
4. Be memorizing scripture with them
5. Do the homework with them
6. Help them think on God’s truths BEFORE they are struggling with other thoughts
7. Be a good listener
8. Ask good questions
9. Don’t be afraid of silence

Connect with Karen:

Email: KarenSmith@wol.org

Resources:

The Word of Life Bible Institute: https://wordoflife.edu/

Biblical Strategies – Phil Moser: http://biblicalstrategies.com/about/