By Alisha Pedowitz, Jewish LearningWorks’ Senior Educator
As educators, we know that often our most important partners are the parents of the youth we serve. And as a parent of teens, I know that I am constantly learning from the many adolescent educators that I am lucky to call my colleagues and to take my learnings, as best I can, into my parenting.
It’s for this reason that I am so excited that a collaboration of organizations from within the Bay Area Jewish Youth Resilience Roundtable, spearheaded by the Center for Jewish Children and Youth of JFCS, have come together to offer Teen Resilience Roundtable: A Workshop Series for Parents.
The series includes four evidence-based workshops:
- Risky Behaviors and Responsible Decisions with Teens
- Creating a Support Environment for Teens During a Difficult Divorce
- How to Have Difficult Conversations with Your Teen
- Raising Teens With Confidence in an Age of Heightened Antisemitism
Talmud Kiddusin 29a teaches that there is a list of things parents are obligated to teach their children, including to teach him to swim. From this we are reminded that giving our children the skills to stay afloat and navigate the world that they must live within is one of our most essential obligations as a parent. But in an increasingly complex world, as a parent of teens, I know I benefit from the wisdom of educators in order to figure out how to fulfill this obligation for my own children.
We encourage all of the educators in our network to share this with the parents of teens in your community. They will gain strategies for supporting and connecting with their teens, and for raising a self-assured Jewish teenager in today’s complex world.
