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Barbara Curtis, in Dirty Dancing at the Prom: And Other Challenges Christian Teens Face (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, c. 2005), provides a deeply personal insight into the lives of today's adolescents. Prodded by one of her son's remarks regarding the school prom—where "freak dancing" rather resembled sexual foreplay—she launched an investigation, primarily through interviews, into teen culture, hoping to help parents struggling with the issues she faces. What she found is (to her) alarming. Neither today's dances, nor today's teenagers, are quite the same as they were 40 years ago. Indeed, perhaps "it's time proms carried warning labels" (p. 8). And not only proms but many aspects of teen culture merit them as well!

Curtis has twelve children (three of them, Down Syndrome children, adopted) and became a Christian only after she was well into the parenting process. In fact, her oldest daughter went to her high school prom and spent the night with her boyfriend. Having almost no religious roots, living in northern California, they took a laissez-faire approach to most everything, lacking any "moral compass to guide us, just following the crowd" (p. 10). She and her first husband were "hippies" who named their first two daughters Samantha Sunshine and Jasmine Moonbeam! Her second husband, a "spiritual seeker" was similarly rooted in the '60s ethos. "Drugs, promiscuity, and radical politics" were part of the air they breathed in Marin County!

They became Christians, however, as a result of attending a conference where they were presented with Campus Crusade for Christ's "Four Spiritual Laws." Everything changed! They suddenly saw the world differently, bathed in the Light of Christ. "Though Tripp [her husband] and I had known about Jesus, we had thought of Him simply as a great spiritual teacher. . . . . This was the first time we had heard the truth about who He was. We did receive Jesus, then and there, on March 21, 1987. Tears were streaming down our faces, and we knew something profound had happened" (p. 108). And they wanted to rear their children differently. So, after home-schooling some of their children in California, they moved to Virginia, hoping to find a more solid, family-friendly society. But teen culture respects no state boundaries, and she found herself facing the great challenge of helping her kids deal with its harmful currents.

In the process she discovered the importance of seven items that constitute the chapters of this book: 1) Being Grounded in God's Love: Self-esteem; 2) Setting Limits: Self-Assurance; 3) Avoiding Temptation: Self-control; 4) Developing Compassion: Self-sacrifice; 5) Standing Up For What's right: Self-Respect; 6) Making the Most of Mistakes: Self-help; 7) Living with Integrity: Self-satisfaction.

Curtis discovered, firstly, how important it is to anchor teens in the reality of God's love. When battling with self-esteem issues, so frequently savaged by their peers in the desensitized atmosphere of the schools, kids need to know they are precious in God's sight. Those who grow up in homes where they know that both God and their parents love them are far more likely to be self-confident and resolute in resisting temptation. "Self-esteem is tied to knowing God's love for us," Curtis says (p. 21). Loving children requires parents to stick together. "So perhaps the most loving thing parents can do for their children is to honor their own wedding vows—for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, until death" (p. 25). Statistical studies demonstrate the significant suffering kids endure when their parents divorce. Curtis herself grew up "fatherless" and feels "the hole in the souls of fatherless girls" (p. 25). Girls also need godly dads who protect them! "There's a part of every woman that still longs to be Daddy's little girl, to feel completely safe and protected" (p. 26).

Protecting kids means setting limits. Curtis confesses she "was once a permissive parent. Having grown up with no spiritual foundation or moral guidelines myself, I didn't have anything really to pass on. And since my background wasn't undergirded with love, I had no understanding of what parental love looked like" (p. 31). She had no rules for bedtimes or much of anything else. She thought loving meant letting others do whatever they felt like. Then her oldest daughter, as a high school junior, began coming home at two in the morning. Mom awakened to the fact that youngsters lack wisdom and need guidance—and even clear rules. She also discovered that "kids don't just need limits—they secretly want them" (p. 32). Love issues reasonable rules. Youngsters will always test them, but parents must uphold them for the good of their kids. This means that a mom or dad can't be a child's "best friend"— something 43 percent of the nation's parents aspire to! Best friend parents, of course, never make rules or require homework or do anything to displease their "friend." Truth to tell, however, kids both need and want parents! As one of the girls Curtis interviewed said: "'I want my mom to be my mom'" (p. 46).

Many of the rules, in our world, necessarily focus on protecting kids from illicit sexual activities—evident in the fact "that more than one third of babies born in the United States were born to unwed mothers" (p. 48). Youngsters obviously need to develop the invaluable trait of self-control, though they find little encouragement to do so in the movies, songs, and TV programs that powerfully shape them. "The switch from romance to eroticism in entertainment has put enormous pressure on today's teens" (p. 50). Thus parents have a great task: to both require obedience and encourage self-discipline. Curtis lists helpful ways to do so: encourage group dates; open your home to your kids' friends; give them cell phones and keep them accountable; "eliminate latchkey hours;" and supervise entertainment.

Kids also need to learn compassion. By nature, they're not so, necessarily! They learn to recognize, as Rick Warren says, "It's not about you." Others matter. And they should matter to teens. Being part of a big family certainly helps cultivate this, as Curtis makes clear. But kids still need to be taught to care for others—often by serving siblings at home. They need to know the difference between loving sinners and hating sins. They need to become aware of a world full of needs and hurts—something easily acquired through an acquaintance with world missions. Parents praying for missionaries and supporting World Vision or Compassion International clearly teach children elementary compassion lessons.

Standing up for what's right, even when it's unpopular, elicits a profound sense of self-respect. So parents need to both illustrate and encourage it, because our kids are on the "frontlines" of the culture war. Persecution—albeit it often subtle—is a fact of life for Christians in the public schools. The kids she interviewed all testified to the challenges they face at school. Getting involved in athletics or drama frequently forces a teen to make choices regarding his values and convictions. In the Curtis family, the author's husband has consistently insisted: "It's not who's right but what's right." Films, such as High Noon, to Kill a Mockingbird, and Bonhoeffer, afford opportunities to emphasize the need for courage in living righteously. Kids thus nurtured generally find the courage to stand up for what's right and discover, in the process, a great sense of personal dignity.

Growing up is marked by successes and failures. Learning from one's mistakes, growing through disappointments, prepares one for adulthood. Curtis, of all people, knows the truth that "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The doctrine of original sin was validated by both her own transgressions and with every baby she reared! Confessing her own failures to her kids, as well as to God, showed them the value of openness and honesty. Failures aren't fatal. With God's help, the slips and sins of youth can be both confess and transformed into wisdom and strength. And that's what's needed for the integrity that makes one satisfied with life.

For parents seeking to understand and rightly rear their teenagers, Dirty Dancing at the Prom provides welcome assistance.