The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything;
the young know everything.
OSCAR WILDE
If life were fair, we’d be born at about ninety-three and slowly grow toward our teenage years, where we would have enough money to really enjoy our good health. But life isn’t fair, and the teenage years move fast—unless you’re parenting your way through them. I told someone recently that I think Sundays are a particularly difficult day for raising teenagers. Also, Monday morning through Saturday night.
But when hasn’t this thing called parenting been difficult? When have you heard the mother of two toddlers say, “You know, we have such peace and harmony now. The house is so clean, and I’m feeling overly rested”?
We’ve covered the T and the first E. Let’s look at the last three keys:
3. Encourage Discernment
We taught our children, from the time they were small, with question marks. We challenged them when they spouted cliches. We asked questions they would be asked in the big bad world, and we did it in a way that was fun and challenging. To this day, their friends will sit in our living room a few feet from a dormant television and discuss everything from politics to alcohol to evolution. I believe there is no safer place to think through difficult issues than under the guidance of godly parents who love Gods Word and think teenagers are the coolest things since Brylcreem.
Never in history has a generation had more bad choices so close by. As parents, we’d find it easier to run than to reason. It would be easier to unplug than teach understanding. But model discernment we must, unless we want them to float through life with the crowd that’s heading toward the waterfall.
Teenagers have their baloney detectors set on high. They can smell a fake from clear across the church. They don’t expect us to be cool—to know who Tom Cruise’s latest wife is, for example. But they do need us to be real. To say we’re sorry. To be vulnerable.
When a friend of mine discovered that his son had left curious footprints on the Internet, he was devastated but not surprised. “I knew enough about my own wicked heart,” he told me. “So I sat down with him and talked of the difficulty I’ve had making the right choices, but how, with God’s help, I’ve taken steps to make them—steps that have likely saved my marriage.”
Child-Rearing for Dummies
It takes a village to raise a child, claims the old African proverb. But it takes only ten steps to raise the village idiot. Here they are:
Avoid laughter at all costs. Raise your eyebrows a lot. Glower, grimace, scowl, and frown. Don’t celebrate the good times. Make your home a miserable place to be. Show them that the fruit of the Spirit is dried-up prunes.
Spoon-feed them religion. Tell them the answers, don’t ask questions. Don’t talk about your faith. Hang nothing on your wall to indicate your beliefs. Stick with real nice wall hangings you won from vacuum-cleaner salespeople.
Rarely support your spouse in decisions or discipline. Criticize each other in front of the kids. Never let them catch you necking.
Watch so much TV that your eyes get square. Make it the central object in your home. Use the TV as a baby-sitter. Place at least one in each child’s bedroom at an early age. Wouldn’t want him or her reading books.
Buy everything on credit, and lunge at anything that says, “No payments until March.”
Gossip habitually. Have roast preacher for lunch each Sunday. Stew your boss. Chew on your mother-in-law. Talk about other people’s problems, but don’t admit to any of your own. And whatever you do, don’t pray for others.
Value your children for what they do, not who they are. Compare your children to their siblings. Comment often on their looks. Fixate on the negative. See all that’s wrong with your children and nothing that’s right.
Show them they are less important than your work, your car, and your golf game. Show them that sports are more important than church attendance.
Avoid reading the Bible and praying together. Turn them loose without a road map, road signs, guardrails, or a center line, and supply them with bald tires and faulty brakes, then be surprised when they crash.
When tough times come, run.
Our teens need to know that we were teenagers once, even if it was back before the invention of electricity.
4. Nurture Through Affirmation
Teenagers aren’t too old to hear how wonderful they are or how much they are loved. There are enough voices out there telling them they aren’t cool enough, thin enough, tall enough, or rich enough. So affirm them every chance you get.
My teenagers have doubted my sanity at times, but never my love for them. They know there is no hour of the day or night during which they are forbidden to flop on my bed and tell me their problems. I may keep right on sleeping, but at least they can talk. Sure, there are times I’d rather lecture than listen. I’d rather watch The Amazing Race than take them out for a greasy basket of fries. But in this kick-you-while-you’re-down world, our teens are starving for a pat on the back, a listening ear, and to hear those three magic words: “Hey, waytago! Youdabest!”
I once asked Bill Hybels, teaching pastor of the fifteen-thousand-member Willow Creek Church in suburban Chicago, what he would like his children to say about him when he’s gone. He replied, “That I was their biggest cheerleader.”
When I leave on a trip without my kids, I sometimes leave them notes pasted to their mirrors or placed atop their pillows. I always sign them with, Your Biggest Fan—Dad. They do not greet me at the airport with a hug and a kiss anymore, but I have yet to hear a complaint about one of those notes. In fact, I often find them propped up beside their beds.
Sprinkled throughout the diaries of atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair were these words: “Please, somebody, somewhere, love me.”8 We are never too old to be told how much we are loved.
5. Stay Connected
Do whatever it takes to keep the lines of communication open. We Callaways are not an extravagant bunch, but through the years we’ve invested in season passes at the golf course and dropped almost everything at the possibility of a family vacation. After our family returned from traveling across an ocean (thanks to Ol’ Uncle Air Miles), someone squinted oddly at me and asked, “You took your kids?” You bet we did. I have yet to meet someone in a nursing home who ever regretted such an investment. Besides, our children talk often of continuing this tradition after they have families of their own. They’re in…if I pay.
Those who are wise enough to allow their teens room to breathe, who listen more than lecture, and who remain calm when screaming seems like the better option will find that the teenage years are invigorating, adventuresome, and even—particularly when you least expect it—rewarding.
And for those who are afraid of seeing the teenage years come to an end, don’t worry. There isn’t a teenager I know who hasn’t gone out into the brave new world without eventually returning home starved. And carrying a bundle of dirty laundry.
