It was a tough issue. Several friends and I were discussing the negative influence a girl was having on one of their daughters. She was said to be deceitful, unsupervised, dangerously experimental. She ran with "the fast crowd." And she was not yet twelve years old.

We recognized the difficult circumstances surrounding this child's behavior—a broken home as well as a parent with a reputed drinking problem. But my friend, a conscientious mother, was most concerned about protecting her own child. She planned to limit her daughter's contact with this girl, and we agreed that this seemed a wise course of action.

As I drove home, however, I remained troubled—as I know we all did. I knew I was missing something of vital importance.

It was the worth of this child.

I didn't know this girl—except by reputation. Were my diminished expectations of her deceiving me? Was I failing to perceive her God-endowed purity because I was influenced by what others had said about her?

Another friend took a different approach to a similar situation. She had watched her teenage daughter's grades and behavior plummet as the girl chose to be part of a rebellious clique. But this woman could not suppress the compassion she felt for her daughter's friends. She saw how desperately they were hungering for love, a home, a sense of worthiness. She decided to keep her door open to them. It meant daily anguish, personal sacrifice, and marital stress. But she said to me, "I still believe my daughter is a positive influence on the others."

Both parenting philosophies have merit in today's increasingly frantic search for ways to keep our children safe and to help them have productive and satisfying lives. To shelter them from adverse influences, to try to counteract these influences. Still, our best efforts, if left in the chaotic arena of human affairs, may never be enough. Perhaps only when we perceive that lasting solutions can't be found in that arena are we impelled to search for deeper answers.

We don't have to look far. Nor is there a need to engraft upon others some new and improved morality. When the answers are spiritual, they're already within our own thought. In the Preface to her textbook on spiritual healing, Mary Baker Eddy writes about the spiritual influences that offset the immoral, hateful, sensual feelings that sometimes contaminate us and our young people. These influences are not just good thoughts, although they surely do lead to good. The author calls them "the sign of Immanuel, or 'God with us,'—a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,

This divine influence is operating within everyone's consciousness, ready to redeem both individuals and situations. And because its purpose is to save and heal, it won't speak to us or our children just once and then go away. It's going to continue repeating itself to us until our hearts are softened and we are able to perceive the spirituality that is ours—everyone's—as the gift of God.

The essence of this spiritual force is eternal, all-powerful divine Love. Recognizing this influence within ourselves and others bridges that perceived gulf between adult and teen. And because there "is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear" (I John 4:18), it progressively eliminates the fear adults may have of teens and the fear teens may have of themselves.

I was once assigned to teach spiritual concepts to a small class of teenagers who ranged from silent and sullen to outrageously provocative. It seemed an overwhelming task. In fact, the kids' attitudes terrified me, and I was sure I would fail with them. A fellow teacher, who had raised four teens herself during the tumultuous 1960s, smiled at my distress and gently reminded me, "They're teenagers. Just love them."

Her insight provided the turning point for my class. I recognized that these teens were no different than I had been. During my years of adolescence, when I looked in the mirror, I sometimes saw little worthy of love. But some of the ideas I had been learning in Sunday School began to change that perception. We studied the definition of man in Science and Health, part of which states that man is "the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind" (p. 591). This was an inclusive and spiritual definition. It moved beyond a material conception of men and women. It was instead an understanding of each individual's permanent identity as complete, wholly good, without flaw or limitation.

What God saw in me was not what I saw in the mirror. Rather, He saw and rejoiced in the spiritual qualities imparted to me as His child. Like produces like, so these qualities had to include intelligence, joy, goodness, grace, and beauty. I knew they had to be there, even if I couldn't yet perceive them. God could. That became enough for me.

Later on, my teen experience brought me into contact with binge drinking, drugs, and promiscuity— all influences I'm sure my parents wouldn't have chosen for me. But the divine influence was strong both in me and in those around me. It allowed me to hold fast to the spiritual ideals I had begun to value more intensely. I was protected, nurtured, and strengthened. As a result, I emerged from those years not with mental scars and baggage but with friends whose spiritual identities I treasured as I did my own.

So when the skeptical faces in my class of teenagers stared back at me, I was compelled to look past these masks and recognize in each of them the pure qualities of Spirit that they had inherited from our mutual Father-Mother. It became easy for me to love these kids, and a deep bond of friendship was forged between us that has lasted for years.

Whether teens live under our own roof or another one, if we learn to see their untainted spirituality and to love them for it, we are helping them discover their own worth as children of God. And this love, which they reflect in turn, spreads outward. It builds networks of support and confidence that save and heal.