I am no expert on parenting teenagers because I’m not a parent. However, I have had the unique opportunity to spend time with many of you parents and your teenagers over the past several years. Here is what I’ve come to learn – being a parent and being a teenager can both be extremely difficult times of life! Parenting seems tricky because you are always on, constantly making decisions about what is best for your teen, wanting to keep them safe, and continuously putting the needs of your family before your own. Being a teenager is difficult because you’re trying to figure out who you are, what you believe, who you want to spend time with, and beginning to explore what independence looks and feels like. It can feel like parents are going in one direction and teens are moving in the other.
There is a phrase that keeps coming up in conversations I’ve had in different settings and with various groups of people lately – “it takes a village.” When we hear the word parenting I think many of us picture one or two people who are solely responsible for raising, shaping, and providing for a child. Yikes! If you ask me, those shoes are way too big to fill and the task too large for one or two people to tackle on their own. I wonder, though, how our families would change if we pictured a parenting village instead of just one or two adults? What would it look like to be a church family that agreed to share the parenting load with each other? I am not talking about judging or shaming other parents for doing things differently than you have, or trying to change them. I’m talking about coming alongside one another and essentially saying through our presence and actions, “How can I help?”
I think one reason we don’t always do this well as a church is the fear of needing others. It’s in our DNA to want to be able to handle parenting or life in general on our own; to always make the right decision or give the best advice to our teens. The reality is we’ll make mistakes like Tom talked about last week. Needing the help of others isn’t weakness but actually strength; to acknowledge the fact that there will be topics your teenager needs to talk about that may be too uncomfortable for them to bring up around the dinner table, to realize your teen may experience certain situations or struggles you never have but perhaps someone else you know well has, to admit you’ve never been faced with this particular decision that needs to be made but another family just coached their son or daughter through it. Satan wins when we get stuck thinking and believing we’re on our own.
Parents, I have a few questions for you to ponder. First, are you in a place right now where you’re already giving yourself the grace to allow others to help guide your teens? Secondly, do your sons or daughters have other adults that you trust who can talk about some of those uncomfortable things or offer advice about specific struggles? Who are they? If not, who might you prayerfully consider asking them to be part of your village? Lastly, are you a part of other families’ villages? Do any of your close friends have teens you could reach out to with the goal of sharing your experiences, the wisdom you’ve gained from good and bad decisions over the years, and simply being an additional set of listening ears?
Teens, what are the topics or conversations that might be challenging or uncomfortable for you to share only with your parents? Are there others who both you and your parents trust that you could grab coffee or Dairy Queen with? Maybe it’s your small group leader or best friend’s mom or dad?
The beautiful thing about a village is that it’s typically made up of people of all ages, interests, passions, gifts, and life experiences. I do believe “it takes a village” to parent teenagers and that teenagers need a village to help them navigate these self-discovery years. Are you in or out?
In Him,
Stacey