10 Tips for Teenage Parents, brought to you by ARISE Life Skills & Training, North Palm Beach, FL

Teenage parents have one foot in childhood and the other in adulthood. Being a parent at such a young age often leads to anger, stress and resentment. Educating yourself about parenting and learning all you can about how to be an effective mom or dad are the best things you can do to ensure that your child grows up happy, healthy and well-adjusted. Here are 10 simple things you can do to be a better teenage parent.

1. Realize that carefree days spent at the beach or the mall are over. Your child is your first priority, and child care is a full-time job.
2. Note that the period between conception and birth brings tough decisions, mixed emotions and a self-evaluation for the future.
3. Realize that your parents may be mourning the dreams they had for your future. Know that anger will pass, especially if you and your partner can prove that you can deal responsibly with the situation.
4. Sit down with a piece of paper and list your goals in life as well as your current resources. Identify the needs of a child and how your goals and resources will have to be adapted to meet them.
5. Be assured that no matter what others tell you, your life is not over; it is just taking a different direction.
6. Know that family stability is necessary for the growth and development of a child.
7. Budget your income before your child is born. Babies tend to be expensive, and the more savings you have in reserve, the better.
8. Realize that babies cry because it’s the only way they can communicate their feelings to you.
9. Be aware that statistics suggest that teenage parents are more likely than older parents to strike their children. They tend to have less experience with children, are less patient with their child’s development and have a strong belief in physical punishment.
10. Respond to the needs of your child. He wants, and often needs, his needs to be met NOW, no matter how exhausted you feel.

Teen Drivers: Rules of The Road by the ARISE Foundation can help you buy, maintain and safely operate a car.

Kyle Grayden, 17, of Shorewood, Minnesota, glanced at her iPod while driving with her cousin and a friend, both 17. When she veered off the road and flipped her car into a ditch, she and her friend were killed.

Heading home from practice, Jonathan Chapman, a 16-year-old high school basketball player from La Plata, Maryland, was reportedly speeding when his car rammed an SUV. He and three friends, ages 14 to 16, were killed.

Five days after graduating from high school, Bailey Goodman, 17, of Fairport, New York, and four classmates were on their way to her family’s cottage. Moments after text messages were exchanged on Bailey’s cell phone, she slammed into an oncoming truck. All five teens were killed.

These three tragic stories from Reader’s Digest (Aug. 2008) illustrate the need to educate teen drivers about safety behind the wheel. Car crashes are the number one killer of teens in the United States.

At the ARISE Foundation, protecting and nurturing teens is a big part of our life skills curricula. Rules of the Road is a manual just for teen drivers. This detailed, informative book covers all of the following and much more:

• Defensive Driving
• Road Rage
• Automobile Maintenance
• What to do if you are pulled over
• What to do if you have an accident
• Drunk Driving
• How to Insure a Car

…and more!

Most teens can’t WAIT to get their license…and most parents dread the day their child gets behind the wheel. Help ease the stress and educate teens on the huge responsibility of owning and operating a vehicle with the Rules of the Road book.

To order ARISE Rules of the Road or any of our other fantastic Life Skills books and materials, visit the ARISE website or call us at 1 (888) 680-6100.

10 Quotes for Success, Part 4, brought to you by ARISE Life Skills & Training

Sometimes we all need a little inspiration when life gets rough. Throughout history, great thinkers have come up with fantastic nuggets of wisdom. The ARISE Get Smart! Series is a virtual Fort Knox of these golden pieces of advice. Enjoy!

ARISE Life Quotes for Success, Part 4

1. “One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” – Elbert Hubbard
2. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
3. “Nothing on Earth can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goals; nothing on Earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson
4. “What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.” – Joseph Addison
5. “If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

10 Tips for Finding & Keeping a Job, brought to you by ARISE Life Skills

In these tough economic times, employers are hiring fewer people, making the pool of applicants more and more competitive. Here are 10 tips for finding and holding on to a rewarding job. For more life skills lessons or to schedule a staff training session on anger management, please visit the ARISE website: http://www.ariselife-skills.org.

1. Be prepared to fill out an application. Write down and bring with you all important information: names of your previous employers; dates of employment; duties and salaries at past jobs; lists of your skills, education and training; names, current addresses and phone numbers of references; and a drivers license and social security number.
2. Be prepared to “sell yourself.” Don’t be shy about discussing the things you do well.
3. Drop off your resume or ask to fill out an application even if a company is not hiring at the time; they might need you in the future.
4. Prepare for the possibility of an on-the-spot interview when picking up an application.
5. Do some homework on the company you want to work for. Know exactly what kind of work they do or products they produce. Find out how long they have been in your city. This way, you will be better able to talk about why you want to work for this business and why you think you should be hired.

25 Tips for controlling stress, brought to you by ARISE Life Skills & Training

It’s a stressful world out there. Work, family relationships, traffic, economic worries, environmental concerns… it all adds up to life in a pressure cooker. What can you do when your heart is racing and you feel close to losing control?

Relax. ARISE to the rescue! Here are 25 helpful tips to bring a little peace to your life and help you handle the strains of everyday life.

If you like what you see, please visit the online store at http://www.ariselife-skills.org for more of our fantastic life skills materials.

25 TIPS TO CONTROL STRESS:

1. Confront problems, don’t ignore them.
2. Don’t be stressed when others tease or criticize you; they may just be envious of you.
3. Identify stressful situations in advance and keep a positive outlook.
4. Reach out to a new person in the neighborhood. Be aware of his feelings and invite him to join in the activities.
5. Ask others for support and guidance when faced with stressful situations.
6. Choose your own behavior. You CAN make a difference.
7. “There are thousands of causes for stress. One antidote to stress is self expression. That’s what happens to me every day. My thoughts get off my chest, down my sleeves and onto my pad.” – Elia Kazan
8. Don’t get stressed out over things that are out of your control. Life is too short to worry about things you can’t change.
9. Take deep breaths.
10. Work to eliminate the problems that you CAN change.

What is ARISE? 10 Facts about the ARISE Foundation for Life Skills Training & Curricula

Over the last month that I have been writing this blog, our readership has grown each day. I want to extend a personal welcome to each of you and thank you for reading. I plan on continuing to bring you tips, quotes and media releases about what ARISE is up to. I also plan on introducing you to the fantastic curricula ARISE has to offer on our website. If you like what you see here each day, I also invite you to join our group on Facebook and Myspace and follow us on Twitter.

And now, 10 Facts about ARISE Life Skills:

1. ARISE was started in 1986 by a former at-risk kid and high school dropout, Edmund Benson. He and his wife Susan, an experienced teacher with a Masters Degree, started the foundation as a way to reach at-risk youth.
2. ARISE lessons teach everything from hygiene and manners to sexual abuse prevention, interview skills and self esteem. One of the most important life skills we offer is anger management.
3. The newest ARISE program is called CHOICES: Drop It At The Door. CHOICES is an innovative workshop for anyone that wants to learn how to relieve stress and manage anger, stopping the “boomerang” effect of bringing stress from work home with you or taking unhappiness from home with you each day to work, poisoning both environments.
4. ARISE co-founder Edmund Benson will celebrate his 79th birthday on September 14th. Mr. Benson still adheres to his “Two-a-Day” work ethic. He works 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
5. The Bensons have written over 125 books.
6. As of 9/9/2008, ARISE has certified 5,284 Life Skills Instructors who have gone on to teach almost 4,000,000 hours of ARISE lessons for at-risk youth and teens in the U.S. and abroad.
7. All the ARISE materials are designed for people who have trouble with reading and writing. They are easy to understand, with no large words or run-on sentences.
8. Mr. Benson has a street named after him in Miami: Edmund Benson Boulevard.
9. ARISE offers great material for pre-k, elementary and middle school kids as well as teens and adults. The pre-k books encourage young minds and inspire imagination and creativity, as well as teach basic safety skills. The middle school books help kids resist peer pressure, deal with bullies, avoid drugs and alchohol, build their self esteem and practice sound study skills.
10. ARISE is a NONPROFIT Foundation that relies on public donations to reach at-risk populations. If you would like to donate, please visit the website.

Tomorrow, the blog will feature more insightful quotes to inspire and enlighten. But just for today, we wanted to introduce ourselves. Thank you for reading.  

-Amy Doucette, ARISE Writer/Web Coordinator adoucette@arisefoundation.org

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10 Things to Remember about Conflict Resolution, brought to you by ARISE Life Skills Training & Curricula

Anger management and conflict resolution are a big part of the innovative WORK IN PROGRESS  series.  This series, like all the ARISE lessons, are interactive, dynamic and anything but boring! Work in Progress also features lessons on: drug prevention, peer pressure, alcohol abuse, gun safety, violence and domestic abuse and sexual abuse

Without further ado: 10 Things to Remember About Conflict Resolution.

Five Quotes to Ponder, brought to you by ARISE Life Skills & Training

Life is a perpetual quest for knowledge. Here are 5 quotes from some of history’s smartest people to help you in your own personal journey. For more quotes like these and to learn how to use them to teach life skills lessons, visit the ARISE website: http://www.ariselife-skills.org to order ARISE books or sign up for a training course.

Taneka’s Tales: Urban Fables brought to you by ARISE Life Skills & Training

Everyone loves a good story. Stories are memorable. They inspire empathy, encourage imagination and have the capacity to be great teaching tools. Most kids and teens have trouble sitting still for lecture, but they will gladly listen to a story. Tell them a good tale, and you teach life skills through a “side door” in their mind.