Ready for a ride???
Fasten your seat belts as raising teens can feel like a speedway with a lot of hairpin turns!
Change. Flexibility. The teen adventure is about shifting gears.
These years are challenging because our youth have a natural curiosity and belief in invincibility. For some kids, there is no fear. For many parents, there is nothing but fear!
So how do we navigate the winding roads of adolescence and emerging adulthood?
TRAVEL GUIDE
Our travel guide is needed to help navigate the on-ramps and off-ramps of teenagers. God didn’t provide us with a specific manual for child-rearing, but he gives us guiding principles to help us along this path.
Scripture offers some free navigation:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
Proverbs 3:5-6 [NIV]
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways [of your adventure] submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Show me your ways, Lord,
Psalm 25:4-5 [NIV]
teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
Whatever your journey, whenever there are dips and roadblocks in the road, the Lord will make a way around the detours. In this stage of parenting, it is important to pray for an open heart and wise words. I love this quote from a blog by Dan Nielsen, “We cannot force someone to hear a message they are not ready to receive. But we must never underestimate the power of planting a seed.” As parents, our job is to plant seeds and open files. Open files for skills. Open files on truths. Open files on what God says. Open files on how much you love them.
ROADBLOCKS & DETOURS
What are the biggest roadblocks when raising teens? As we talk with parents, we find these are some of the major ones:
- Feeling entitled
- Wanting freedoms
- Not taking responsibility
- Misuse and overuse of technology
Road map for raising children who do not feel entitled
One of the most effective ways to reduce the feelings of entitlement is to map freedoms with responsibilities. Help your teen with a plan and goal that they can own by asking the following questions:
- Where do you want to go?
- Where are you now?
- How will you get there?
- What obstacles can you anticipate along the way?
Here is how it might play out if your student wants a new phone or to improve a grade:
Where do you want to go? I want to get a new phone.
Where are you now? I can’t afford one. I only have $50 saved.
How will you get there? Are there some extra jobs I can do around the house to earn some money? Maybe I can get a part-time job this summer.
What obstacles can you anticipate along the way? I can start by not going to Starbucks after school and bringing a lunch to campus instead of buying food.
Where do you want to go? I want to raise my math grade to an A by the end of the semester.
Where are you now? I bombed my last test. I currently have a C in the class.
How will you get there? I need to find some people to help me. There are group study sessions after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Maybe someone there can help.
What obstacles can you anticipate along the way? I’m not a good test taker. I get stressed and get mental blocks. I can ask the teacher for some practice tests or extra help. Maybe there is some extra credit.
Roadmap for dating
Communication is talking and listening. In the early years, parents did more of the talking. Perhaps it was more directing and commanding. A shift needs to happen in the tween and teen years. We need to create space to listen. Instead of a rapid fire of questions (How was your day? Who did you eat lunch with? What did you do at practice?), do we create gaps in our conversation for them to talk? Ask more open ended questions and… pause. Take a breath. Create a little space for a response.
This is especially relevant when it comes to dating. Ask questions. What classes do you have together? Tell me more about him. What do you think he likes about you? What do you have in common? Parents, set your dating guidelines ahead of time (be clear on driving, time back home, etc). Take the opportunity to meet the date in advance and learn a little more about him/her. As time progresses, try to spend time with the boyfriends/girlfriends to observe and speak into the hearts of your teens.
Roadmap for managing technology
During the grade school years, parents managed the technology. It is perfectly appropriate to create hard boundaries and rules where the underlying value is to focus on interacting with the people who are present. Electronic curfews or phones away a mealtimes are all such rules that communicate, “I want to spend time with the people in front of me.”
As you transition into the preteen/teen years, we need to teach our children how to self-manage.
Consider a social contract or family agreement of cooperation when it comes to phones and tablets, for example. Ask your teens, “How do you like to use your phone/tabet/laptop?” Create a list of uses – academic, social, entertainment along with some values associated with them (work-ethic, kindness, respect, etc). Go through some of the negatives that can also be associated with them (cheating, hate, insecurity, low-self-esteem). Finally, discuss some boundaries and consequences if these social expectations are broken. Periodically, keep each other accountable (kids can keep parents accountable too!) to the rules and accomplishments you created together.
If we want our kids to understand the cycle of positive and negatives associated with technology and various social media platforms, we need to give them the life skills to develop self-management. In addition, we can point to good examples of peers who have used technology positively and humbly call attention to our own personal social media struggles and ask for accountability from the family.
We as parents have the long term task of helping our children to be more and more independent of us, interdependent with family and community, giving and serving, and always remaining dependent on their Creator for guidance and strength.
It is not easy being a teen. And it is even harder to raise one. At Warm an’ Loving, we are here to support fathers and mothers as we journey parenthood together!