What are you learning about Jesus?

While bagging for one of my fellow cashiers last week, we met a very interesting person. She is the mother of Patrick Warburton and an abstinence advocate and activist, beautiful, elegant, and passionate. She told us that she is always looking for young people to talk about abstinence and encourage parents to talk to their children: "they'll listen to you, they won't listen to me."
But as a cashier in a grocery store, communication in families is frequently rude, ungracious, impatient and tense in very small matters like "what are we doing for dinner?" "did you get everything on the shopping list?" If grace and courtesy have become alienated from everyday discourse, why should it be any better in more serious matters?
If I did do a talk for Ms. Warburton, I could say "Talk to your kids," but I'd also have to say, "Go to church, get right with God, improve your communication with God, else why should they listen to you?" Just "talking" won't get you anywhere. You talk enough already! And you often sound grumpy and pouty when you do.

And while we're on the subject of communication, here's a lovely piece by Ted Tripp, "Dazzle Your Teen." It seems that often there's a disconnect between parents and their teen-aged children because the parents emphasize the doing and the teens want to emphasize the being. It's easier to lecture than to inspire. It goes back to what my pastor says, parents must teach their children to love the standard, not just mind it.