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Parenting

Beyond “Because I Said So” (Part 1)

Last updated on February 20, 2017 by TT Staff Leave a Comment

mother daughter talkingWhile young children are sometimes incapable of understanding the reasoning behind parental limits or expectations, teens are capable of higher-order thinking. Perhaps more significant than their mental capacity to understand and assess risks and participate in the decision-making process is the fact that they need to be taught how to make wise choices, since they will soon be legally and practically able to make major decisions for themselves. As you parent your teen through this important transition, it’s absolutely essential that you see your role as shifting from protector and caregiver to trainer and mentor.

Tapering Off Your Caregiver Role

Some parents can hardly wait to leave this stage of parenting behind them, while others have a difficult time letting go of it. Some parents may even feel guilty when they begin to taper off the intensive caregiving with which they provided their children when they were unable to care for themselves. Sometimes teens can intensify such emotions by saying things like, “You don’t love me anymore.”

carpenters assistantSometimes teens can intentionally be trying to emotionally manipulate their parents, but other times, they may truly feel as if their parents are communicating less love by no longer performing certain acts of service. (This may be tied to your child’s love language — you can have them take a “love language” quiz here.) Be assured that even if your teen’s love language is “acts of service,” you can find new ways to communicate love to him or her.

Understanding the Reason for the Shift

Especially if you’ve enjoyed fulfilling the role of caregiver and having children in the dependent stage, you may be hesitant to make the shift. Perhaps your own love language is “acts of service,” so you communicate love by performing tasks for those you love. Regardless of your emotions, your teen has real needs that you, as his or her parent, have to help fulfill. While you once responded to your child’s needs by caring for them, and that responsive care helped create a confident, secure child, you will now have to respond differently in order to nurture your child into a confident, secure adult.

Easing Into the Role of Mentor

father son chatThis transition is not going to occur overnight. As you continue to teach your teen what he or she needs to know in order to survive independently, there will be some areas where you’ll have to step in and model the activity for a while. You’ll want to progressively hand over more and more responsibilities to your teen, though, allowing a gradual shift from dependent child to independent adult. Your teen must understand that this transition comes with greater responsibility and risk. As small tasks are maturely and responsibly completed, both your teen and you as the parent will grow in your confidence of your teen’s ability to take on greater tasks. This time can be exciting and bonding for both of you.

Continue reading with Part 2.

Filed Under: Communication, Parenting

Comparisons & Good Goals: Evaluating Your Hopes for Your Teen

Last updated on February 10, 2017 by TT Staff Leave a Comment

young girl playing soccerEspecially if your teen is having trouble — spiritually, academically, or even legally — you can easily fall into the trap of comparing his or her failures to other teens’ apparent successes. Be careful, though: that over-achieving athlete or valedictorian might not be the ideal alternative, after all. Not only can comparing our kids to their peers make them feel as if we value them less, it can also send the wrong message about what success in life really means.

Talent Cannot Replace Positive Character

Maybe your kid is talented in some way and failing to live up to his or her potential. Encouraging hard work to maximize natural giftedness is certainly a worthy cause — whether that talent is artistic, musical, athletic, academic, mechanical, organizational, or social. At the same time, though, talent is not everything.

teen boy basketball playerComparing a kid without talent in a certain area to someone who does isn’t fair. But even encouraging a kid to make the most of his or her potential can lead to ignoring what’s really more important: Character counts so much more than performance. Regardless of the outcome of a game, score on a test, or performance in a concert, it’s important to emphasize what kind of person your teen is becoming. Humility, kindness, perseverance, and self-control are more important than any trophies or other awards.

Pressure To Perform Can Displace Empathy

In our culture of selfies, videos-gone-viral, and Instagram perfection, we’re becoming increasingly narcissistic. Growing up in such a culture is taking its toll on our young people, who feel great pressure to perform and to focus on themselves. Stress mounts, depression results, and we revert to survival mode that leaves little room to consider anyone but ourselves.

highschool girl studentAccording to a study from decades ago, the faster the pace, the less likely we are to demonstrate care for other people: “Our ‘busy’ school culture may be setting our children up to be less caring and compassionate about others as well. No wonder bullying is increasing; we don’t have margins in the day to stop, reflect and care about the needs or feelings of others. Life is pretty much about ‘looking out for number one’ and getting things done.”

This problem is only increasing as our culture continues to evolve; Dr. Jean Twenge, author of “Generation Me” and “The Narcissism Epidemic,” comments about the generational changes since the 1970s: “The one thing that keeps coming up over and over again is individualism. There’s been more focus on the self, and less focus on social rules and other people. That’s where the book title came from. So the first studies we did were looking at self-esteem and positive self-views, and then a few years into it, we began to find more extreme forms of individualism, such as narcissism, that had increased over the generations.”

So before we hold up that place on the team or honor roll for our teens, let’s shoot a little higher, a little lower, a little more on encouraging them to become the kind of people we know that our world needs.

Filed Under: Behavior & Emotions, Parenting

Parenting Blind Spots: The Kid You Just Don’t ‘Get’

Last updated on December 12, 2016 by TT Staff Leave a Comment

boy behind treeMaybe you have a better relationship with your other children — especially your “mini-me” (see Part 1) — but there’s one you just don’t understand. He’s as different from you as night is from day, and it’s a wonder he carries any of your genes. (Or maybe he’s actually adopted.)

There are some negative tendencies that parents have when dealing with a kid that’s different from them, and I’m sure many don’t realize they do them. But if you have a kid you just don’t ‘get,’ you might want to read on and find out if you might be leaning toward one of these extremes.

Ostracizing Words

I’m pretty sure most parents would never make their kids feel left out on purpose — I mean, we ache to see other kids leave them out, don’t we?! I’ve heard many parents say things like, “I’m not sure where this one came from” or “He’s just not like the rest of us.”

hiking father and sonSometimes kids find their identity in being the “black sheep” of the family, but even then, they want to feel accepted and included. Hearing your recognition of his differences can make him feel isolated or even ostracized — yes, even if he says he likes being different and embraces his uniqueness.

If you don’t understand your child, become a student of him, asking him about what motivates his behavior that perplexes you, comparing him with other people you know, and celebrating his uniqueness as well as his special place in your family and gifts to the world.

Painful Distance

Maybe your other children share your love of nature or artistic talent, while one child has contrasting preferences and talents. While it might take more effort on your part, it’s important to find ways to connect by entering into all your children’s worlds. That might mean trying something you wouldn’t otherwise try or spending time outdoors when you’d rather stay inside, but loving your kids was never about doing what you want to do, at their expense.

disconnect between mom and daughterWhen you have other kids who like doing what you do, it may be easier to spend time with them and build a relationship. You can be thankful for that easy bridge while putting in extra effort to build a bridge to your other child, the one who needs you just as much.

Nonverbal Disapproval

Even (or especially!) if you’re trying to bridge the gap through finding common ground and keeping negative comments at bay, your nonverbal cues can speak volumes to your teen about your attitude toward him. Maybe you roll your eyes at his off-the-wall humor or grit your teeth as you’re enduring an activity together that you really don’t enjoy.

Teens pick up on these things easily, so if you’re not going to be able to do them with a supportive attitude, you might as well not do them at all. Now, I’m not encouraging you to be a hypocrite! But pray for God to give you a special love for your child and to even enjoy being with him, doing things he loves. As you make an effort, I’d be shocked if God didn’t soften your heart toward him.

Filed Under: Family, Parenting

Parenting Blind Spots: The Kid Who’s Your “Mini-Me”

Last updated on December 2, 2016 by TT Staff Leave a Comment

mom smiling at young daughterYou had her pegged from the first time she put her hand on her hip the same way you do. “Just like her mama,” everyone said. It was cute when she was a toddler, but now? Not so much. Maybe she’s too much like you, mimicking your weaknesses. Or maybe she’s a bit like you, but she doesn’t seem to be living up to her full potential. There are some pretty predictable ways you may be responding to your mini-me child without intending to — or even realizing it. Consider taking a step back and evaluating whether you may be falling into one of these pitfalls.

Excusing Problem Behavior

Do you find yourself recognizing the same weaknesses in your teen as you do in yourself? Perhaps some of them are ones you’d rather not admit — partly because you haven’t overcome them or don’t want to try. Some cited this kind of thinking to explain why so many Americans still supported Bill Clinton’s presidency, even after his affair with Monica Lewinsky was made public: to condemn him would be to condemn themselves.

girl hugging daddyAs parents, we’re not doing ourselves or our kids any favors by overlooking problem areas in our or their lives. A judgmental, condemning attitude is not needed in order to confess sin (if appropriate), to try harder (if possible), or to seek help (if needed). Maybe it’s something you can even do together, as you grow.

Coming Down Hard

Some parents may more easily react the opposite way, when they see their own weaknesses reflected in the lives of their children. They may be reacting out of fear that their kids continue to struggle the way they have, or they may react out of anger at their own insufficiency.

If this is your tendency, try to evaluate how you handle similar weaknesses or problems in your other children. If you have been coming down disproportionately or inappropriately hard, the best thing you can do is to apologize to your son or daughter and explain why you have acted the way you have.

son and father hunting

This kind of openness can open the door to allowing you to share the way you’ve grown through or past a similar struggle in your own life, giving you the chance to use your similarities to draw you closer, rather than further apart.

Projecting Personal Expectations

Just because your child is like you in some areas doesn’t mean his IQ or other aptitudes are identical to yours. Sometimes, we make false assumptions and expect our kids to measure up to what we know is or was reasonable for us when, in fact, they’re unique individuals, strong in some areas where we’re weak and weak where we are strong.

Continue reading with Part 2.

Of course, sometimes we can also make our (unfulfilled) dreams into our (unfair) goals for them, trying to live life better than we ever did, but this time through our child. Not only is that kind of thinking unfair to them, it robs us of the potential for a real relationship with our mini-me.

Filed Under: Family, Parenting

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