On Raising Teens
(Reflection #4 – Sacrifice)
Adolescence, says the dictionary, is the period following the onset of puberty (hormonal development) during which a young person develops from a child to an adult. Though I’ve worked with teenagers most of my years in the ministry (plus raising three of our own — and me being one eons ago) I still say to myself Wow! whenever I review that definition. It’s a tall order — in essence, from babyhood to adulthood in five or six years! Little wonder Dr. Robert Coles, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, describes adolescence as: A time that is like a second birth of sorts, only now accompanied by a blaze of self-awareness… telling us of rebelliousness, of stubborn assertiveness, of isolation and loneliness, of melancholy… embracing a cynicism, often feeling alone, a touch peculiar, sad, and, not least, angry. Given this scenario what adjective best describes the word teen besides the word crazy?
Terrible Teen
Pardon the term, but Terrible Teen fits for me. And even though your teen may be a wonderful, loving, thoughtful person, you will likely have to agree that the TT title is still appropriate. Whether it seems a terrible time to the teen herself or not, most parents will agree it is for them. At least it’s a challenging brief stretch of years involving parents’ time, energy, and resources. The word sacrifice is applicable when we’re thinking of stages like birth, infant, toddler, pre-school, etc. But that “S” word takes on an even more daunting meaning when adolescence arrives. That’s because we’re no longer dealing with a stage or phase (to quote Coles again). We are dealing with a person who has entered another culture with all its mores and values. The first parental teen challenge that comes to my mind is…
Patience!
As a parent, “losing it” is easy to do, and with a teenager it can often take a lot of creative effort to keep it. A teen is adept at knowing how to hit a parent’s bull’s-eye — time, place, and circumstance. Many times, as a youth pastor, I received calls from parents in a teen crisis. In some homes crises was the norm. I heard a single mom once tell an audience, “By learning to live with my son’s anger I earned his love later.” That quote introduces a principle that has patience written all over it — Don’t react. Do respond. That means when hit in the bull’s-eye, though tempted, resist a knee-jerk reaction. Such a blow-back could become the issue — each slung mud-ball being a little bigger — the real issue being untouched. There could begin a war. I’m sure you, like I, have gotten to know families well enough to learn there is often (though kept on the quiet) a parent/child war going on — sometimes a lasting cold war — the standing rule of which is one of life’s most crushing statements, “Don’t ever speak to me again.” It’s crushing because we know love lies mangled at the bottom of that nasty heap that began to accrue years ago. So, what does respond look like?
Oil the Squeaking Wheel Only
If a teen horribly breaks a standing family rule it’s easy to suddenly react with an equally harsh counterblow by denying them something dear to their heart — the use of the family car, a long-planned trip with their friends, or any upcoming goodie they eagerly looked forward to. What’s the alternative? Though it may take time, energy, and resources Don’t react. Do respond. Focus at the point where a rule was broken. One man I knew in a church I served enforced a rule concerning his son and the family car. His son repeatedly couldn’t get the car home at the appointed hour. The dad devised a creative plan. He would accompany his son on every outing for a designated period of time to help his son get home on schedule. It worked beautifully. With the father present the son was always on time without fail. And that punctuality continued beyond the designated period when the dad was present. You can imagine the sacrifice on the father’s part, especially considering that one of the son’s outings was a newspaper route — an occurrence happening extremely early every morning, seven days a week! Results? A very tired but very effective dad.
Sacrifice, Baseball, and Thanksgiving
The world over knows a sacrifice bunt in baseball mean the batter is thrown out but the base runner is likely to score thus contributing to a team win. Parenting and bunting are very similar, the difference being that in baseball the bunter is hailed a hero. In parenting, not so much. You and I are here because a person (or persons) unselfishly sacrificed so we could cross home plate to adulthood. It’s Thanksgiving — a good time to thank the One who placed us in those unselfish hands. And speaking of our Maker, if you’ve never done so, consider extending a thanks that could make you into a new creation — i.e. thanking the Master Bunter of all time and space who loved us enough to get thrown out so we could have a Home with Him forever.
