MHS speaker: ‘Saying no’ is not enough

TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Teen-culture expert Jeffrey Dean talks to students at Maryville High School Thursday during an hour-long presentation focusing on how young people can make decisions that allow them to successfully negotiate the often-difficult journey into adulthood. In describing the choice he and his wife made to postpone sex until after marriage, Dean said, “I know what I missed out on — consequences.”

For Jeffrey Dean, a Nashville, Tennessee-based, preacher and motivational speaker whose ministry focuses on reaching out to teenagers, growing up is all about making the right choices.

Dean spoke to nearly 500 Maryville High School students Thursday during a presentation built on the premise that, “It’s not just how you live, but that there is stuff in your life worth living for.”

Though Dean is ordained through a non-denominational church in Nashville and frequently appears at Christian music festivals and other faith-themed events, his message at MHS was secular with the exception of a couple of passing references to being “a person of faith” and his family’s shared Christianity.

What was on display, however, was Dean’s belief that many teens are facing “adult-size choices” and life situations ranging from troubled homes and the loss of loved ones to decisions about alcohol, sex, and self-esteem.

Drawing on conversations he’s had with young people all over the country, Dean kept his audience rapt with stories about the consequences of poor decisions, bad company, and self-harm.

He told of meeting a young girl, a compulsive “cutter,” who bared her arm for Dean to reveal “all the scars from the reality of her brokenness.”

While the teen years are tough for just about everybody, Dean said young people can avoid many pitfalls by simply realizing their decisions matter and affect others as well as themselves.

“My goal is that you just feel better about you,” he said.

Using one’s teen years to build the foundation for a functional adult life, Dean said, involves more than “just saying no” to drugs, alcohol, pre-marital sex — he is a strong proponent of abstinence — and other temptations. Too many teens, he said, fail to realize the choices they end up making are often bound up in the friends they choose and the social situations in which they place themselves.

Teens can make all the right choices,” Dean said, but still face negative, and even tragic, outcomes because the people around them are making the wrong ones.

“Be very careful who you spend your time with,” he said, “because that can change your future.”

He added that the bad-example scenario is a two-way street, and that young people also need to be aware that others are watching them and following their lead.

“The question is not, ‘do you have influence?’” he said, “but ‘What do you influence?’”

Sexting, the practice of sending explicit photos of oneself or others via the Internet, was among the mix of youth-culture issues Dean touched on during his hour-plus talk.

He dismissed texting as a “flavor of the day,” but said the practice has broader implications in terms of self-esteem and self-worth, especially for women.

He cited a Duke University survey indicating that most teen girls who sext say they do so in order to make themselves more attractive to someone with whom they are having a relationship or with whom they want to have a relationship.

“What you post says the most” in terms of one’s character, said Dean, who displayed a preacher’s knack for rhyming slogans. “No guy should ever be able to compromise who you are.”

On a related note, Dean said unwise Internet use in general does real harm to many teens these days, and that Google searches through an applicant’s online past have become a major evaluation tool for college admissions officers.

Dean ended his presentation with some frank talk about sex, which he said he is all for as long as it takes place between two married people.

“No one should feel awkward talking about sex,” he said. “Let’s face it, the only reason any of us are here is because our parents did it.”

The quip drew groans and cries of “too much information!” from the audience, which only grew louder when Dean added, “and the only reason (your parents) are here is that your grandmother and grandfather did it.”

Dean held up his own life as an example of sexual abstinence before marriage by saying that he fell in love with his wife as a freshman in college, and that the couple dated for more than three years and were engaged for 13 months before going to bed together for the first time.

“I’m proud to be able to say that,” he said, “and I know what I missed out on — consequences.”

His own experience notwithstanding, Dean’s said that teens whose lives may already be marked by decisions they regret, or who are encountering problems at home or school through no fault of their own, should not fall into the trap of thinking a happy and productive life has passed them by.

“It’s never too late to be great,” he said. “The thing about life is that every day you’re putting a pen to paper and writing your story.”