Shedding light on teenagers' dark places.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

I've just asked six rural high school kids in a class studying positive affirmations what the best and worst thing about being a teenager today is.

"I don't think there's anything good about living in the world today, honestly," says one young woman.

And the worst? "Everybody around us is greedy, selfish, disrespectful and hateful," she says.

Lake Wobegon innocence still lives; I've seen it. But as Marti Templeton goes from one rural school to another, trying to help at-risk kids, she knows a darker side to life in some such places.

"A lot of these kids are basically raising themselves," says Templeton, among four leaders in the new Reconnecting Youth program that seeks to help rural at-risk students in Lane County districts.

Many struggle because they're getting little or no guidance from parents. "People heavily using substances often get stuck in their emotional development and don't move past that," says Templeton. "Then, suddenly, they become parents - and so the parenting is basically from the perspective of a 12- or 15-year-old."

In essence: teenagers raising teenagers - even if Mom and Dad are 40-something.

Adolescents from rural areas are four times more likely to ride in a car with an intoxicated driver or to smoke cigarettes, according to a 2004 report by researchers at the University of California.

"Two or three of these six kids have parents in jail," says Templeton. `All of them - with one exception - have been (drug) users.'

Templeton let me sit in on one of her classes - with the understanding that I wouldn't, for privacy reasons, identify the students or school involved. Frankly, beyond a few cry-for-help statements such as the one from the aforementioned student, I didn't see much in the hour-long class that would distinguish these students from other high-schoolers. One, in fact, looks a little like Opie, from "The Andy Griffith Show."

Later, though, Templeton tells me the boy's drug use is already causing him to forget things. She tells of the student whose mom burned down the house for insurance money, another who is into self-mutilation, another who wolfs down the school-provided food because he's basically starving. And, of course, the preponderance of "couch surfing."

A number of rural kids bounce from one living arrangement to the next, she points out. "One girl here is living in an RV with her grandmother, in their aunt's driveway, because the girl got shipped out from Ohio. Nobody in Ohio wanted her. Another is afraid to go home because her brother's crack-addict friends might kill her."

Bottom line: "Some of these kids are basically homeless."

Reconnecting Youth does what it can. Lane Education Service District administers the government-grant program. Templeton and three colleagues support teachers in seven districts: Elmira, Junction City, McKenzie, Siuslaw, Pleasant Hill, Oakridge and Creswell.

Her goal? To help these young people avoid drugs, stay in school and survive the tattered home lives many have known since birth.

"A lot of them are having to make choices that parents should be helping them make. But if, as a parent, you get up each day and make sure only that your own basic needs are met - and that need is meth - forget it."

Evidence suggests parental dysfunction repeats; these young people, if they don't somehow break the generational cycle, will, in essence, become their parents.

"We can believe in statistics," says Templeton, "or we can believe in people. A personal relationship is the biggest influence on these kids' lives - having someone who cares about them."

Kudos to people such as Templeton who care enough to establish that relationship. And shame on those who don't - namely, those whose parental negligence leads to a teenager not seeing "anything good about living in the world."