Who Says Teenagers are Bums?

I read about lazy teenagers all the time. Kids who party, take drugs, disrespect their parents and the law, play video games all day, drop out of high school, and expect their parents to buy them all the clothes, gas, and fast food they want. I, however, have had a very different experience. I currently have two teenagers and yes, they occasionally would rather watch t.v. than, say, scrub floors. Most of the time they are very hard working in the areas that matter most. Take Jana for instance. This is a picture of Jana taken this morning. She has the day off from school and she is very sick. The snuffly-nose-coughing-body-aches-headache kind of sick. But what is she doing today when she could be sleeping or curled up on the couch watching mindless sitcoms? She's studying for her AP US History exam. The exam is in a week and she has been studying nothing but US history for weeks now (in fact, this morning she told me she was going to "throw up US history facts") and she could probably take part of the day off, but she's not. It is important to her to pass this test and get college credit. She works hard in all her classes in addition to being in the a cappella choir, on the track team, and president of her church class. I'm impressed and sometimes exhausted watching her.

Not that my kids are perfect, they're not. And not that they are the only ones who work hard, they have lots of friends who are amazing also. We need to hear more stories about these kinds of kids. Because in my experience, teenagers are amazing.

Jill