Selfie Esteem: A Generation Unmoored - Identity Crisis in Our Children

What’s the matter with kids today?

It’s a question that consternates every generation as they consider the generations coming behind them. We laugh about it, knowing that our parents said the same, and that we, too, had our problems when we were young. We understand that there is truth in that old proverb, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Still, when we turn on the news, and even when we look around us, we see some alarming trends manifesting in the younger generations. “Do they not have any reverence for human life?” we find ourselves asking of some. Of others, “Why are they floundering around so, when they’ve been given so much opportunity?” And of still others, maybe, “Why do they demonstrate such entitlement?” or “Why do they seem so fragile?”

I must confess that each of these questions has entered my mind at one time or another. But the most important may be related to the latter question. Why are so many of them, even among those who seem to have it all, so anxious and depressed? And why do so many choose to take their own lives? One of my own children lost a classmate to suicide during high school; and, sadly, during last spring and summer alone our community lost four teens to suicide. What is going on?

Obviously these are complex questions, but this book (which, though written from the Christian perspective, is intended to be an encouragement and help to anyone who cares about kids) makes an effort to discover some answers and propose some solutions. It’s no silver bullet, and even in this presentation there is a sense in which, like the proverb says, “there is nothing new under the sun.” But hopefully the thought process represented here will be helpful to parents, teachers, and others who care about kids --and even and especially to any Selfies who are willing lay the phone aside and take up a book! After all, the Selfies of today are the superintendents of tomorrow.