Welcome back from summer once again! We are revving up for a banner year in which we will support you in putting the passion back into your compassion! Our goal is to assist schools, associations, and corporations in lifting attitudes by guiding teens and adults to freedom from despair, overwhelm, burnout and stress. Re-creating ourselves and reclaiming a life of joy and enthusiasm!

This summer I learned more about my attitudes and my own journey towards a meaningful life. I became a weekly columnist for the Wellington Daily News writing a column for adults in Kansas about the teenage experience as it is today. Writing this weekly column motivated me to search for patterns, personal truths and awareness gained from my ten years of experience talking nationwide to teens and the adults who care about them.

In digesting these experiences, I have decided to share with you…parents, educators, counselors, socially conscious teens and adults. Because, “where there is knowledge, there is responsibility!” So, I would like to share on a topic that I became acutely aware of this summer, wrote about for the newspaper, and may provide a thought-provoking start to your fall.

I have probably participated in over one hundred teen dances over the past seven years because I like to stay and interact with audiences after speaking at a conference or school event. What may be unique to my experience is that at 5 feet tall, 105 pounds and twenty-plus years as a professional jazz dancer, I can slip into a teen crowd fairly unnoticed, pick up on current moves, and enjoy myself because I LOVE to dance!

As a result, I often get an insider’s view of a teen dance that few other adults ever get. Unlike teens, however, I am observant of dance trends not just as a vehicle for fun, but what it says about our teens and their socialization. I’ve begun to see a disturbing trend.

Over the summer, I helped chaperone a couple teen dances at youth conferences. Teens ranged from ages


twelve to eighteen. At the first dance, I joined in and found myself near the center core of teens in motion on the dance floor. My attention was drawn to four thirteen year-old boys taking turns positioning themselves behind two twelve year-old girls and unselfconsciously ‘grinding’. No more than a couple weeks later, I was again at a teen dance at a school; and I was shocked to see dozens of freshman through senior teens coupling and grinding. This group of teens gave a whole new definition to the Conga Line! At one point, no less than twenty teens assembled into a line and performed a mass “grind”.