Teens are not one hundred percent of our population, but they are one hundred percent of our future. The statistics on poor choices some teens make are staggering. The solutions to the problems our teens face are not necessarily difficult to implement, but parents need to know how to access them and get support to follow through. And teens need to know they are loved regardless of those poor choices. Each week hosts Sean Mulroney and John Martin interview parents, teens, celebrities, sports stars, and experts who have been affected by the dangerous consequences of bad choices. Sean and John cover the issues that people often candy coat, not by just revealing the problem, but by focusing on pursuing a solution. They strive to care and make a difference in every listener’s life. Tune in every Monday from eleven a.m until two p.m. to Reality Check Nation, here on Westplex News Talk 1280.

Women set the temperature of society, culture, community, and homes The role of women in community development can be crucial to the health of a society. According to some sociologists, women make many of the decisions that determine a household's participation in the community, including healthcare, educational, and cultural decisions. In many families, women often decide where the family will shop, what schools and activities children will attend, and the extent to which the family will participate in community events. As a powerful decision-making force, women are often well acquainted with the pros and cons of their community, and may be in a good position to analyze how best to improve society. As members of community development organizations such as outreach programs, parent-teacher associations, cultural societies, and city planning boards, women can use the knowledge they garner from household decisions to make a substantive contribution to the future of their city or town. Some sociologists also claim that the way women process information, prioritize, and plan, may be highly beneficial to community development. In general, women may be likely to consider community development as a holistic process, in which the goal is the improvement of society for everyone. Furthermore, some studies suggest that many women work better as collaborators and teammates, making them ideal candidates for community organizations in which decisions must be made together. While these tendencies are far from universal, increasing the role of women in community development can lead to more cooperative organizations that seek to improve life for all citizens.

Why do today's teens answer the question, "What is character?" with good looking? Since when did physical appearance become a character trait? Society and pop culture send messages like: It's all about me. Sex outside of marriage is the norm. Girls must dress sexy to be attractive. What's at stake with this kind of thinking? Our culture's moral compass — and our sons and daughters' future. Can we help our teens reclaim Christian values so their lives make an impact? Yes. Our influence still matters. The teenage years are a time of self-discovery for most people, and that stage of life can be difficult to navigate for some people. Teenagers can be quite self-absorbed, so it is good to show them that there are other things in life that are important. Character-building is planned & doesn't happen by accident. It is up to us as adults to instill character in the next generation whether they are your children or your students, so that they can learn some important life lessons.

Times have changed, but teens still need someone on their side. Today’s teenager is said to love luxury, have bad manners, have no respect for elders, don’t take school seriously and have contempt for authority. “Times have changed,” it has been said, and today’s teenagers have changed to reflect the changing times. Before we take a look at today’s teenagers, let’s look at the influences acting on the adolescent stage perhaps since the beginning of the human race. These influences were present on our grandparents and parents when they were teenagers. Times have not changed the following observation: Adolescence seems to be a time of seeking status as an individual, an attempt to emancipate the youth from childish submission to parental authority. It is during this time that the teenager is asking in a serious manner, “who am I and how am I different from my parents and perhaps from every other teenager?” Adolescence tends to be a time when group relationships become of major importance. The adolescent is very anxious to attain status with and recognition by his age mates. He tends to desire intensely, to conform to the actions and standards of his peer group. There is much security in conformity. Adolescence is a time of rapid physical development and growth. Teenagers must adjust to changes in body image, primary and secondary sexual development, coordination, increases and decreases in appetite, quick shifts in need for rest and physical activity. Much physical and psychic energy is spent trying to cope with school, with peers, and with parents. School is viewed as a very artificial environment for the teenager. It is physically restrictive and unnatural to their desires for activity. Of course, they must also accept pubertal changes and adjust to psycho-sexual needs within the framework of societal expectations. Adolescence seems to be a time for complex intellectual and cognitive development. Believe it or not, teenagers are capable of mental functions equal to most adults, and better than some adults. They lack experience, however, to go with their new found intellectual capacity. Unfortunately, they often reject the experience offered by adults. Within the development of thought and thinking, many adolescents lack immediate motivation for academics, studying and performing “up to their capacity in school.”

The best way for a parent and adult to understand a teenager is to hear what they have to say. They know what's going on in their culture. Teens have a built in lie detector, they know if an adult is genuine or not. So, in this episode you will hear what they have to say. Plus we have John Berlin who made a video plea to Facebook to make the Facebook movie in honor of his son Jesse who passed away.

The growing epidemic of fatherless families has taken a grave toll on children, both young and old, in the form of emotional, social, spiritual, academic, physical, criminal, and suicidal issues later on in life. There is no doubt that we live in a fatherless generation. We either have fathers that are absent physically or mentally, and relinquish there responsibilities, fathers aren't taught to be fathers, or teens are becoming fathers prematurely. It's time for fathers to step to the plate and start teaching and training your sons, those that don't have a father it's time us as men to step in and mentor them, & teens need to wait until they are married, have a job, & not living off their parents Adolescent fathers have remained an understudied and underserved population.1 While teen fatherhood appears to be associated with similar consequences to those observed for teen mothers,2 most national programs serving low-income families focus on mothers rather than fathers.3 Recently, attempts to include young fathers in services have increased, but relatively few programs for young fathers exist.4

Teens are more advanced than their parents and the predators more advanced than teens. It's time for parents to parent up! So, who's at the other end of your teens devices? We must be aware of the dangers lurking behind the computer screen.

Many parents warn their children about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Fewer parents, though, know that they should also warn against so-called "games" that are so risky they can lead to injury or death. Teens frequently keep details about these games under wraps. Parents often don't hear about them until someone in the community is rushed to the emergency room or dies.

Reality Check Nation fulfills the promise of "getting real on every level". The 2-hour radio program features stories, advice, inspirational insight, and gets right to the point. It spares no details about the gruesome effects of growing problems in this generation such as the abuse of alcohol, drugs, and harmful practices such as bullying, self-injury, and much, much more. It's funny, serious, educational and filled with attitude. Each week the hosts Sean Mulroney and John Martin interview parents, teens, celebrities, sports stars, and experts who have been affected by the dangerous consequences of bad choices. Sean and John cover the issues that people often candy coat, not by just revealing the problem, but by focusing on pursuing a solution. They strive to care and make a difference in every listener’s life. Reality Check Nation targets pre teen, teens, parents, and families and the rapidly growing list of advertisers interested in connecting with the largest group of teens and parents in U.S. history.

The struggles of a single parent Regardless of family structure, the quality of parenting is one of the best forecasters of children's emotional and social well-being. Many single parents, however, find it difficult to function effectively as parents. Compared with continuously married parents, they tend to be less emotionally supportive of their children, have fewer rules, dispense harsher discipline, are more inconsistent in bestowing discipline, provide less supervision, and engage in more conflict with their children. Many of these shortfalls in parenting presumably result from struggling to make ends meet with limited financial resources and trying to raise children without the help of the other biological parent. Many studies link incompetent parenting by single parents with a variety of negative outcomes among children, including poor academic achievement, emotional problems, behavior problems, low self-esteem, and problems forming and maintaining social relationships. **Today, one-third of American children – a total of 15 million – are being raised without a father. Nearly five million more children live without a mother. According to the Single Parent Success Foundation, a national nonprofit that encourages educational opportunities for single parents: • 63 percent of suicides nationwide are individuals from single-parent families. • 75 percent of children in chemical dependency hospitals are from single-parent families. • More than half of all youths incarcerated in the U.S. lived in one-parent families as a child.

What is Sex Trafficking? The Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act defines the crime of human trafficking as: The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act where such an act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age. Domestic minor sex trafficking occurs when a U.S. Citizen or lawful permanent resident minor are commercially sexually exploited. Children can be commercially sexually exploited through prostitution, pornography, and or erotic entertainment. Commercial aspects of the sexual exploitation is critical to separating the crime of trafficking from sexual assault, molestation or rape. Commercial sex act is the giving or receiving of anything of value (money, drugs, shelter, food, clothes, etc.) to any person in exchange for a sex act. The age of the victim is the critical issue, there is no requirement to prove force, fraud, or coercion was used to secure the victim’s actions. The law recognizes the effect of psychological manipulation by the trafficker, as well as the effect of threat of harm which traffickers/pimps use to maintain control over their young victims. Now that we have all the legalese out and defined, we can start talking about the Who, What, Where, Why, and Hows. Who are the victims of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking? Kids are especially susceptible to the deception and manipulation of traffickers. Traffickers recruit at locations that commonly attract youth, like schools, malls, parks, protective shelters,and group homes. Over 1.68 million American kids run away each year and become targets for traffickers. About 85% of DMST victims have experienced contact with the child welfare system, according to a New York Study. Boys and girls can be victims and the number one factor of vulnerability is the child’s age. Human trafficking in the U.S. is a $9.8 Billion industry. At least 100,000 US children are exploited in prostitution every year in America. Thirteen years old is the average age a child is first exploited through prostitution. The traffickers are called pimps and more than 90% of victims are under the control of a pimp. Pimps commonly sell girls for $400.00 an hour or more. I have seen the research indicating that the majority of pimps control about 1-5 girls and can sell the girls several times a day. This has become more profitable than selling drugs. We need to protect our children, It can, has and will happen in our backyard.