Giving up WAY too soon!
Prayerful Counsel. Dr. Gary Straub. Meadow@StMatthews. Eastertide—
I am no World Expert on raising teens—that would be my wife. However, let’s find a hopeful word for parents of teens.
The assignment: “give our children roots and wings.” Lovely, but when our “kids” hit 13 (age 11-going-on-20) and surliness grows, it’s easy to throw up our hands and buy into the myth of instant maturity. ‘Poof—you’re all grown- job done!’ Or so we try to convince ourselves. This shift to auto-pilot is well deserved. It takes serious gumption and grace just to grow kids this far! Now what?
Getting pushback from teens creates exasperation to relinquish our role as parents. However, if we do so too soon, we may wake up to shock: our kids are now in charge! We become afraid to question, much less challenge them. Their rage and resistance is uber—unbearable. Avoidance becomes the better part of valor.
Their job is to push buttons and boundaries. Ours is to make sure they remain sane & in tact. During this tug-o-war, it would be easy to wave bye-bye and let go of the rope. They don’t know this is a crisis point—i.e. when teens need us the most and like us the least. Don’t expect any praise when you do not abandon them. Don’t listen for verbal consent. They need someone strong and tough to push hard against. That would be us. Delicate balance: we better not be pushovers; but we don’t need to be punching bags.
This scene is scary for us. Imagine “growing up” these days! Here’s a job we cannot “outsource” —even to the church! We gotta ‘hang in there’ and insist on being part of their lives—like it or not. This means shouting above their barriers; and insisting on respect for appropriate boundaries. They earn our flex when their trust is demonstrated. We become their absolute boundary—the limit beyond which they dare not go. To us falls the healing work or at least remaining open to reconciliation—even when its not happening. In other words, we are STILL the “designated adults”of the family. (I know: don’t you just hate that?) WE are the immovable object buffering the energetic force.
We deliberately chose to love and remain wholly FOR them; even when they can’t even be FOR themselves. For them EVEN MORE especially when we are met with sulky, frosty, obdurate attitudes. Yeesh! In these teen tribulations, only the parents who endure till the end may be saved!The slogan goes: “parents: the anti-drug.” But we expect more than avoiding addiction. We helped bring them into this world to serve a God—blessed destiny. Now we want to help as they embrace their worthy Life Goals. Our faith is that by grace and by golly, we (despite our own sins and stupidities) will serve their spiritual destiny.
Praying our teens toward their Life Purpose is a JOY we never get to enjoy if we give up too soon!
PS—Wish I’d thought of all this sage, sensible talk about boundaries & limits maybe 54 years ago.
