Joyce Divinyi, a Peachtree City-based psychotherapist who combines humor with sound advice for parents and teachers, mesmerized an audience of about 75 at Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church last weekend.

Beginning with the premise that the world of the 1990s is vastly different from the one most of today's parents grew up in, Divinyi maintains that economics have little bearing on the problems troubled youngsters are experiencing.

"I cover America," she said, "and this has nothing to do with the affluence of Fayette County." The alienation of young people is the same in East Coweta and in New York City, she said.

While she says there is no one single "magic answer," Divinyi faults the prevalence of violence in today's culture, the accessibility of information, an "anything goes" morality, and the disconnection of feeling from thinking in depressed teens.

Divinyi reflected that when her children were adolescents, she would not let them watch "Laverne and Shirley," the top-rated TV sitcom of the era, because differences were too often settled by hitting. If she had teens today, she says, she'd be delighted for them to be watching "Laverne and Shirley" instead of "90210" or Jerry Springer.

"We have removed the line between adults and childhood," the counselor said Sunday.

Among mammals, the primary function of the adult of the species is to protect the young "so they grow up to be the adults of the species." To that end, the adults have to be smarter and influential, she said.

But now children, and not parents, have information and knowledge "about big, important, deadly things. The kids in Littleton [Colo.] knew how to build bombs and buy guns. You can bet their parents didn't. When I was growing up, my parents were the Internet. They had the information and a sense of power and authority that we didn't have.

"In our culture," she continued, "it's acceptable to be rude and arrogant. Zapping people is entertainment in our culture; Neal Boortz is considered funny. Kids see us as not in touch with their reality."

Outraged parents confront children with questions like, "What were you thinking?" They weren't thinking, says Divinyi.

Kids feel things so intensely, she said, that the brain's "bridges" between feeling, thinking and action, needed for good decision-making, are out. When young people are driven by emotion, there is no plan, no reason, no perception of consequences a condition Divinyi calls "futurelessness."

"Adolescent suicide kills more children than all diseases combined," the speaker said, "and homicide kills more than suicide."

In answering specific questions from the audience, Divinyi explained some of her strategies.

How to enforce curfew: Tell your young person if she comes in late, she will not be allowed to do something very important to her. That makes the decision hers is not being allowed to use the telephone worth giving in to friends? "You be thinking about that choice," she told her daughter.

At what age should a parent tell a child about drugs? As soon as they start going to school, even preschool.

How intrusive should a parent be in monitoring a 17-year-old? She should have cause before snooping around the teen's room, Divinyi said, such as catching him in a lie. "But monitoring Internet use is a given."

At what age does a teen connect feeling-thinking-action? That may not happen until he or she reaches maturity, the counselor said, and "maybe never."

Give an example of a family drug policy. "In my family, it was zero. Not one joint, not one drop of alcohol, no tobacco."

How to deal with a co-parent who takes kids to violent movies the other parent disapproves of: "Don't cut down the other parent, but talk to the child about why this is not good. Explain what's wrong with the behavior depicted."

Coordinators of Sunday's event, leaders of the church's support ministry, said they plan to sponsor a workshop for parents, teachers, and teens with Divinyi.