My suitcase bears the proud scars of a gazillion air miles accumulated while traveling the country for presentations to parents and professionals. In the past I’ve written about some of these events, about how wonderful they are in helping us parents to help our kids. But after most programs, the organizers inevitably gather to say, “Well, that went great, but are we mostly ‘preaching to the choir?’ How can we get more parents in who will otherwise never hear this respect-based parenting stuff? And what about the kids? What can we do for them?”

Well, The Community Coalition for Children in Connecticut has done it again. They keep stealing great ideas from me that I am always about to have. As I wrote before, this is the group that clued me to the idea of getting state legislators to provide tax credits for parents who attend parent training programs, a win-win proposition based on research proving that trained parents raise happier and more productive kids who contribute tax dollars instead of sucking them up with costs like rehab, police intervention, court time, and incarceration (Attention, Federal Congresspersons: Wouldn’t you look great sponsoring a national bill like that?).

Now the “Connecticut Kids” have stolen another great idea I was about to have (since they invited me to moderate the event, I guess I have to forgive them). They sponsored a seminar with a panel of parents, educators, and teens that discussed the toughest problems facing homes containing teenagers and parents. Problems like power/control, risky behaviors, and respect. Now that’s been done before, more or less, but the difference here was the audience, and the technology (which, in turn, opened up a whole new audience).

The technology part consisted of a team of teens who taped the seminar for airing on the local cable channel. This allows folks who are unable to get to such seminars to watch the program whenever they do have the time, such as parents who are awake at 2 a.m. awaiting the return of their 11 p.m.-curfew-defying-kids.

The audience was also different than most. The Coalition invited teens from a wide range of places such as gleaming, prosperous academies and gritty, barely-surviving “tough” schools. And the kids were not all the gung-ho, student council “Marine” types. These were draftees. Half of them stumbled into the auditorium half-asleep, and most were mostly disinterested. Until the talking and the magic began.

As the program unfolded, I watched them slowly become more and more engaged with what they saw on stage, until at the end, almost every kid was riveted, with many literally on the edge of their seats, leaning forward as if to hear more. It was pretty amazing. The back-and-forth between the panel adults and teens seemed to be as an unfinished novel to them, as if they had read the first half of the book in their own families, and now were obsessed with seeing how the book might end. The “chapters” were endless: Should parents spy on their children? When are teens old enough to make independent decisions? What if a kid is doing sex, drugs or violence—should a parent physically restrain them? What if you don’t? Might they die? What builds and destroys respect? And what the heck is respect anyway?

After hearing the panel’s thoughts, the kids broke out into small discussion groups where they had amazingly animated exchanges of their own thoughts. We pretty much had to throw them out at the end. As we wrapped up the event we challenged the kids to challenge their own schools to host similar events in their own communities, trying to spread the wisdom that the panel offered. What I would give to know how many of those kids took those questions and thoughts back with them to their own worlds. If not to change their present families, at least to start thinking about how they might parent their own kids one day, perhaps setting off an endless chain of wonderful parents. Isn’t that close to touching infinity?

And now I challenge all of us to do the same. Go and harass your poor school principal to see if she/he will host a similar event. I promise it will be well worth the time and effort. Quote me as guaranteeing that this model of teaching teens and parents how to more peacefully coexist is a valuable one. And if the principal starts to balk, quietly ask, “Have you ever dreamed of touching infinity?”

Good luck and be well.