Being A Parent

As Teen Lifeline continues to work with teens, there is that ever present parent factor. You know the one where you wish you could say just the right thing to the parent to help them better connect and guide their child(ren). A couple of things bring this home for me. I spent an hour or so at the CareNow clinic this weekend so that my 17 month old could get stitches for trying to fight with the bed frame (he lost). So he now has 4 stitches right between the eyes, which I am sure will be a scar to proudly show friends one day. Amid all that went into that happening, the nurse was putting a Sponge Bob band aid on his nose. As she did she asked if he liked Sponge Bob (to which I thought, really he is way too young). Good thing I didn’t say anything because she followed that with saying her 18 month old really likes it. I was a little stunned. Not enough to react but still stunned. Here her child can’t even talk yet and is already being influenced by Sponge Bob. I am not a fanatic against SB but the episodes I have seen tend to promote bad attitude and rude comments at the least. And one day she will wonder why her child has such a bad attitude and is so sarcastic, hmm let me guess.
The second was at the mall today. It was very much a first impression and so a judgement on my part. However, even if it didn’t apply here it does in other situations I’ve seen. My wife and I were eating at the food court with our boys and a family walked by. The mom was very lazily holding her baby and goofing off with whoever was with her. My wife and I looked at each other just thinking about, if she would hold the baby like that how well does she really care for it. Like I said this isn’t necessarily the case but there are definitely cases like that where parents really don’t care for their children well. The hard thing is it gets so much worse as they grow into teenagers and the repercussions are that too many times the cycle is repeated rather than avoided.
So for you parents out there that are looking for some help, here is one resource. A book by Dr. Walt Mueller that I have begun reading. It is called The Space Between. Just real quickly I want to wet your appetite for finding out more. At the end of chapter two he outlines what a parents job is. He says,

“My job as a parent is to seize the God-given opportunity to come alongside my kids, encourage and help them to make good decisions, support them, teach them, pray for them, and help them prioritize their “plates” so they can move through adolescence and on into the independence of a God-glorifying adulthood. In effect, parents are to gradually ease their children into taking ownership of their own lives.” (The Space Between, p. 35)

The thing is this should be a relief, but for so many parents it is not. They want to hold on and help their little ones as long as possible and then when they are ready to let go the child is still that, a child and doesn’t know what to do. Even as my oldest turns 3 I am already thinking about what I am doing to help him take ownership of his own life.

So here is my question for you as a parent, what are you doing to release your child rather than trying to shelter them? How can you start now preparing your son or daughter for the day that they will launch into their own future? The goal for them, and you, is to have a Life Lived Better.

Parenting from the Teen Perspective

I want to share what I experienced the last two weeks. As I spoke to students last week the subject of parents kept coming up. Two groups independently wanted to address the topic and so we did. As we talked I realized that the students needed to get this out, so we continued the discussion this week.

The topic of parents is not an easy one to address. As a new parent myself I have already made many mistakes and had to apologize even to my 3 year old about my inability as a parent (specifically, getting angry over nothing and not handling things correctly). As I sought to help these students vent their frustrations, I hoped to help focus them as well on what would be helpful for them to know about dealing with parents.

Here are the questions that I used to help lead the discussion:
What is your purpose in life?
What is your parents purpose for your life?
What things are your parents doing to help you succeed?
What about things that are in the way of you succeeding?
What would you do differently than your parents have done?
How do you deal with not being able to control your parents?
What can you learn from situations you are in with your parents?

In order to not make this too long I will hit the highlights.

The first thing I noticed was that about half of the students have at least an idea of what their “purpose” is. All I wanted them to do was think about the possibility of a purpose for their life and several had. The sad thing was almost all of those said their parents had a different plan for their life than what they were thinking and that the ones that couldn’t verbalize a purpose did know what their parents plan was. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t all bad. I think it is great for these parents to let their kids know their expectations. The problem is, the fact that teens didn’t know what they wanted to do themselves says to me that parents don’t ask that either, they just tell what they want.

Secondly, almost all of the students could come up with ideas for what they would do different from their parents. The problem is that most of them will not follow through. Why is that? I believe because they don’t think they really can or don’t see any reason to (goes back to the purpose question.) They will do what many of us do and fall back into what we know. So how do we change that? Teen Lifeline is hoping that these groups and in the future working with parents will stop the cycle of bad parenting and start helping the next generations know how to parent well.

Finally, I have a question. How do we balance the fact that teens are immature but yet need to grow up? I believe this balance is possible by having a mix of boundaries and responsibilities that teenagers know and accept. This is complicated when you have multiple teens and the boundaries and responsibilities needs to be different for each one. That is why it is up to the parents and why Teen Lifeline is looking for ways to help equip parents to have the tools they need to find that right balance.

As I have been doing these groups about parents I have also been reading a good book about parenting. It is called The Space Between by Walt Mueler. Take the time to find it at a store or on Amazon.com and then read it or something like it. It will help you be a better parent and may even help your kids be better teenagers. Allowing you both to Live Life Better.