Preparing for and Surviving the Teen Years of Parenting

From the time I had my first child, I had heard so many horror stories about the teen years.  “Just wait until he’s a teenager.  You think she has an attitude now?  Wait until she’s 16!  Parenting only gets harder as they become teens.”  I’m sure every parent has heard these same types of remarks from fellow parents.  I have to say, though, that I disagree with this assessment of teenagers.  As the mom of 4 children ages 21, 17, 15, and 10, I can honestly say that teenhood has been one of my favorite stages.  It’s incredibly exciting and rewarding to watch as your children begin to form their own opinions and decide the path they want to take in life.  You can begin to enjoy the fruits of your labor as your children mature into young men and women.   I’m not at all saying that this phase of your child’s life will be easy to navigate.  It can be HARD (is there anything in life that isn’t difficult at times?), but with lots of prayers, love, laughter, tears, attention, and hard work, these can be some of the best years of your life.

Teach them while they’re young

Preparing for the teen years starts when your child is small.  If you’re new to your faith and didn’t begin when your children were young, it isn’t too late.  God will redeem all of those years. Here are some verses that my husband and I try to live by that will prepare both your child as well as you for the young adult years.  Or if your child is already a teenager, these verses are equally as important.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”  Deuteronomy 6:5-9 (emphasis mine)

Teaching our children to love God with their whole heart (which is the greatest commandment) can only be taught by living it out.  Talk about it at home, when you’re driving to soccer practice, in the morning, at night, and all throughout the day.  It’s a lifestyle.  These lessons need to be at the forefront of our minds as we go about our days with our children.  This will set the foundation for them as they grow older and become more independent.

I am absolutely in NO WAY a perfect parent.  I am so far from it.  And my children are not perfect.  We were all born with a sin nature and we are struggling to reach the finish line.  I have made so, so many mistakes along the way, but I’ve learned a lot, too.  The purpose of this blog is to share with you some things that I’ve learned about parenting teenagers so that perhaps you will learn from my experiences and mistakes.

Things I’ve learned from being a parent to teens:

1. Enjoy these years with them!  You’ve heard the saying, “The days are long, but the years are short,” and that’s so true.  My 21-year-old is less than 2 months from moving into his own apartment.  I look back at his life and I swear it’s a blur, although we went through tough times that seemed to last forever along the way.

2. Learn when to speak up and when to just sit back and pray.  This is something you will use for the rest of their lives and needs to be woven into the very fabric of your parenting.  It isn’t always necessary to give your opinion on matters.  Often learning lessons for themselves and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach them is going to go way further than nagging.

3. Allow them to form their own opinions.  It’s unhealthy to expect your child’s viewpoints to line up exactly with yours.  The Lord has reminded me through the years that I am not training robots and programming them to think and believe exactly the way I want them to.  Instead, I’m rearing living, breathing human beings that should believe and think independently for themselves. Consider this – do you 100% agree with your parents when it comes to politics and religion?  I’m sure you don’t.  The case will be the same for your kids.  All we can do is guide them and pray they come to conclusions that line up with God’s Word.  And we can’t shame them for their opinions.  Instead, we need to provide a safe place where they can talk through issues without feeling guilty for the way they feel. You may see them waver as they are trying to decide what they think about certain issues.  I have found this to be perfectly normal.  

4. Take time with them.  Learn about the things that they enjoy even if you don’t “get it.”  My kids love to save videos for me on their phones (typically on the app “Tik-Tok”).  They usually save several that they think I will enjoy, and often after dinner, we will view the videos together.  I have to admit, half of the time I don’t even understand the humor in the videos.  Also, their timing is not always super convenient.  But, I remind myself that one day they will be gone and I’ll only WISH they were around to show me Tik-Toks.  So, I’ll find the time and try my best to understand what they’re showing me which often ends with fits of laughter on their end as they try to explain to me what I’ve just seen.  Also, I try to find the time to take one kid out at a time, even if it’s just to run errands. This enables me to hear what’s going on in their world and in their heart without any interruptions.  

5.  Give them permission to decide what they believe spiritually and why they believe it.  Doubts are TOTALLY acceptable in our house and often lead to great conversations.  If my children do not know why they believe in Jesus, the world is going to eat them up.  They will easily be swayed and may ultimately turn their back on God.  They can’t believe just because dad and mom said so.  Our kids have all had periods where they didn’t know if they believed the same as we do.  They’ve asked questions such as,  “How do we know that God is real?”  They’ve said things like, “How do we know Christianity is the right religion?  Don’t you think every person believes that their personal religion is the correct one?  What if they are right and we are wrong?”  These are HARD questions!  We always answer them as best we can and then we have to allow them to dig deeper.  As a parent, that can be a scary place to be.  But, as each child has gone through their periods of doubt, we’ve had to release them to God, trusting that He would reveal HImself to them.  Without fail, He has done just that every single time. 

6. Get to know their friends.  Be the house that is a safe, fun place to hang-out.  The best way to stay connected with your teen is to know what’s going on in their world, and their social life is always a huge part of that.  Getting to know who is influencing them and who they are spending time with gives you great insight into their lives.  We also always try to get to know their friends’ parents so that when they hang out at their house, we know a bit about their family.  

7. Help them find their strengths and passions.  I’ve noticed one of the most difficult phases of life is deciding which career path our children would like to start on.  My husband and I think a little differently than some on this and we don’t expect our kids to know at 18 what they want to do with the rest of their lives.  I still don’t even know what I want to do with the rest of my life and I’m 44!  So instead, we help them to find their strengths and passions.  What is it that really excites them?  What are they really good at?  What are their weaknesses?  How can they use their strengths most effectively?  What did God create them to be?  And then we encourage them to find ways to utilize their strong suits as stepping stones as they continue to discover who they are (which is ultimately a lifelong process).

8. Recognize that they are of a different generation and will see and do things differently than you.  I remember being a teenager myself and thinking my parents didn’t really understand me.  I think every teenager feels the same.  They feel that way because it’s absolutely the truth.  Yes, I was a teenager once and can identify with my children, but I grew up in a completely different period of time.  Kids in our current world see and know things that we didn’t know at their age, mainly because of the internet. TImes are just totally different.  I can’t expect them to do things and think the same way I did back in the late eighties and early nineties because the world was different back then.

9. Don’t try to parent the way others do.  It’s so easy to look and compare ourselves to other parents.  But, this is such a dangerous place to be in.  Just because Suzie gets an iPhone at 13 doesn’t mean your child should.  Or don’t feel guilty if Johnny’s parents seem to always know how to handle every situation.  Instead of looking to other parents for parenting wisdom, look to the One who entrusted you with your children.  He knows them better than anyone and can give you the exact wisdom you need.

10. Don’t compare your child to other teenagers.  This goes for siblings as well as friends.  Saying things like, “You don’t work as hard as your brother/sister,” will only cause damage.  Each child is going to learn, grow, and mature at different rates.  Allow your child to develop at a rate that’s appropriate for them all while praying for wisdom on when to give them a little push and when to be quiet and allow them to learn for themselves.

11. Keep the dialogue open.  The best way to know what’s going on in your child’s mind is to not only talk to them but also to listen as well.  As tempting as it may be, there’s no reason to criticize everything they say.  Like I mentioned earlier, they are trying to figure out their views.  If you knock everything that they say or turn every conversation into a life lesson, you will turn them off and the lines of communication will be broken.  Sometimes they just need someone to listen without unsolicited advice.

12.  Be a soft place for them to land where they can make mistakes.  Oftentimes, making mistakes is the best way to learn.  Sometimes teens need to see things for themselves in order for lessons to really sink in.  God has taught me the importance of showing grace to my children, though I didn’t start out that way. I was pretty tough on my first child as I’ve shared in previous posts.  I was a perfectionist within myself and that bled over some into my parenting.  Fortunately, God gently reminded me early on of the amount of grace and mercy that He’s shown me over the years.  He has often withheld punishment from me that I no doubt deserved and instead, He simply showed grace and love.  The world is going to be tough enough when my kids go out.  They need a safe, peaceful place to come home to where it’s ok to mess up.  When mistakes are made, they often hear me say, “Chalk it up as an experience.  Did you learn from it?  Will you do it again?  God forgives you, I forgive you, now you need to forgive yourself and move on.”

13. Trust them!  If I crowd my teens and micromanage everything that they do, they’ll never learn to make good choices in life.  Through Christ, we have managed to build a trusting bond with our children, but at times I’ve wondered if I’m too trusting. They’ve never given me a reason NOT to trust them, so I don’t check my teens’ phones every night as some parents do.  I don’t keep a close eye on what they listen to or watch (especially our older teens).  Rather, I trust them to make good choices.  So many times I’ve wondered if that will come back to haunt me.  But, my three oldest kids have started telling me something really interesting.  They’ve told me that since we trust them as much as we do, that makes them want to make good decisions because they don’t want to disappoint us and break that trust.  I’ve found that if they mess up, they come to us and tell us instead of hiding it.  And that’s when guidance comes into play.  If there is a show or YouTuber who brings on weird thoughts or feelings, we talk about how that’s probably not a great thing to watch because what we put into our minds truly affects who we are.  They have always willingly made the change on their own.  We’ve also had a few instances of anxiety during the last few months due to the excessive fear-mongering by the media.  We’ve had conversations about taking a break from social media which they have easily agreed to.   I know that it is totally due to God and His wisdom that we’ve been able to build this trust.

Don’t Wait to enjoy these days

I pray that these words bring peace to your heart as a parent.  Remember that apart from Christ, you can do NOTHING.  You must be in His Word every single day asking for wisdom.  I have no clue how things will turn out with my children.  I pray that they all will walk with the Lord all the days of their life, but I have no guarantees.  All I can do is keep myself anchored to the feet of Jesus as I plead for His wisdom.  I can teach my children through my own life and words and trust that they will see Christ in me. 

If you have teenagers, DON’T WAIT to enjoy them!  Spend time with them.  Love them.  Cherish them.  Trust them.  Guide them.  Talk to them.  And allow them to make mistakes.  Show them grace and mercy and remember that one day they will be gone and your refrigerator will stay full longer and your house will be quiet.  So, make the most of these days because they are quickly fleeting.  And whatever you do, DON’T WAIT!