The Baltimore Jewish Times

Karen Buckelew Staff Reporter
MARCH 11, 2005

If the Jewish teenagers of Baltimore are worried about one thing — sex, divorce, their friends, what adults think of them — their parents are worried about another, namely, suicide, alcohol and drugs.

That's what Rabbi Yehuda Fine, the family and at-risk youth expert known widely as "the Times Square rabbi," found during his numerous visits to various local schools last week, at each stop probing the teenage student population for its deepest fears and secrets.

Rabbi Fine, speaking to parents at the Owings Mills Jewish Community Center last Sunday night, March 6, told them the disconnect between their fears and those of their children is a serious problem.

"We have such a barrier between ourselves and our children," Rabbi Fine said. While parents often are concerned with their kids' future careers, how they're going to get into a good college, the rabbi said he has other issues on his mind.

"I really worry about how they're going to be able to have emotional happiness in their lives," he said.

Rabbi Fine, a national expert on troubled children, alternative education and Jewish education, visited Baltimore last week for the third time, this time at the behest of the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore's Connections program. Jewish Family Services, Jewish Addiction Services and other communal agencies also were involved in his visit, free to create programming around his presence.

Meeting with nearly 600 teenagers at the community's schools — from public (Owings Mills High School) to sectarian (Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School) — and other stops like the Mitchell David Teen Center, Rabbi Fine asked the kids the kinds of questions they don't usually answer.

And, he told the parents with a sly smile Sunday, he got the answers he was looking for.

"I know all your children's secrets," he said. "They always tell me everything, and they're always ticked off because I have to leave and there's not enough time to discuss everything."

Rabbi Fine, an alternative educator, family therapist and addiction and recovery specialist, has traveled the country meeting with teens and presenting his findings and advice to parents, just as he did in Baltimore. He estimates to have spoken to more than 20,000 children.

At the end of each program, he asks the teens to fill out index cards — anonymously — divulging their deepest, darkest fears and secrets. More than 85 percent of the teens have filled out those cards, which he then returns to the community, he said.

In Baltimore, several of his findings were surprising, Rabbi Fine told the group of parents gathered at the JCC. From young mothers cradling infants to middle-aged couples to Orthodox parents of teens, the audience sat quietly — albeit a bit anxiously, anticipating the dark secrets about their children — as he spoke.

In his visits to schools, the rabbi asks the groups of students to raise their hands in response to various personal questions. Each question, he said, is phrased carefully so youngsters don't feel like they're betraying their own secrets — each is worded to refer to a "friend."

"Do you have any friends who drink and drive?" "Do you know of any friends who are sexually active?" "How many of your sexually active friends use protection?"

Among his surprising findings, said Rabbi Fine, was the 100 percent rate of drunk driving among local teens. The result was the same at each school, he said, whether public or private.

"Whoever can put the key into the ignition is your designated driver here in Baltimore," the rabbi said with a wry laugh in an interview with the Baltimore Jewish Times after his presentation to parents. More programming on the issue, he said, clearly is needed in local high schools.

Also surprising, he said, was the extremely low rate of teens who said they would go to their parents for help if their worst fear were to occur. The rate among Baltimore kids, he said, was about 2-3 percent — nationally, he sees 15-20 percent.

"That's the lowest of anything I've ever seen," he said. "I'm not sure what that is all about. It might mean their brothers and sisters [serve as confidants, rather than their parents]. I don't know what they are thinking about."

Another shock — this one pleasant — came when Rabbi Fine asked the children how many of them, if a friend threatened suicide, would seek help. Nearly every child raised his or her hand. The national average is much lower, he said.

Not surprising, Rabbi Fine added, were the discrepancies between what parents listed as their greatest fears for their children, and what the children listed as their greatest fears for themselves.

Parents in the audience said they believed their children most feared being failed by their parents, not being accepted by their peers, incidents of school violence, getting into college, sexual issues and world unrest. On their own index cards, the parents confided what they most feared their child confessing — suicide, sex, drug and alcohol abuse.

On their index cards, however, children stated much more specific, down-to-earth fears. One teen wrote that he was afraid of forgetting his brother, who died two years ago. Another was struggling with how to help a friend being abused at home. One card came from a young boy worried about having impregnated a 17-year-old girl; from the same school, the rabbi received a card from that girl, worried about having become pregnant.

One card that drew a gasp from the audience came from Beth Tfiloh — the writer related the struggle to suppress inside an urge to kill randomly. Rabbi Fine assured the parents the cards would be returned to the schools, where hopefully administrators could deal with the problems contained therein.

Most importantly, Rabbi Fine told his audience, parents need to talk to their kids.

"You don't have to be an expert in anything," he urged. "But they've got to know how to navigate life. You contain this entire storehouse of struggle — how you fell in love, out of love, why you maybe yelled too much when they were younger. Where else are kids going to learn that unless you talk to them?"

Maia Hoffman, the Associated's director of outreach and missions, who runs the Connections program, said schools hopefully will be able to act on the information with which the rabbi has provided them. Rabbi Fine's visit was intended to reach out to families in the community. Many parents approached the rabbi after his speech, or asked Ms. Hoffman for information to contact him personally. The rabbi said he often stays in touch with the families he's met.

"If there really are families struggling with issues and we helped them in some way, to me that's really what it's all about," Ms. Hoffman said.