Every neighborhood has one: the home where all the kids hang out to talk, watch television, play video games or Ping-Pong, and eat. The home away from home. My wife and I have become close with that family in our area, because we can visit our sons when we visit with the parents (just kidding).
But sometimes the “teen place” also becomes the parents’ place. From time to time, our family and several others converge in this home. The teens run around together, ignoring the parents, and the parents sit at the kitchen table talking about the teens. Since the parents feel safe with each other, we swap problems and crises. I come away feeling more normal than I did when I arrived, realizing that I’m not alone.
The kids can sense our connection too. When they walk by us, they will ask, “What are you guys talking about?” One of us will say, “Your demise.” “Whatever” will be the response, and off they will go.
Here is my point: your teen needs for you to be connected to other adults in meaningful relationships. The sooner the better. A parent who does not have some relationships at deep and significant levels is in jeopardy of not being able to set, keep, and enforce loving boundaries. So get connected — not only for yourself, but also for your teen.
A Physics Lesson
I can’t overstate how important relationships are for you as a parent of a teen. It’s a matter of physics, as demonstrated by this metaphor. You, the parent, are a car, and relationships are the gasoline that provide the energy and power you need to drive down the highway of life. Parenting demands a lot of energy from you when things are going well, and when your teen resists your boundaries and requirements, parenting requires even more energy. If you don’t stop at the gas station to get refueled, you will soon run out of the energy required for good parenting, and you and your kids will be in trouble.
God designed us so that we need relationship and connection to survive and make it in life. All the dedication, good intentions, will power, and discipline in the world will not help you parent your teen as much as relationships with other healthy adults will. As the wise man Solomon said, “Two people can accomplish more than twice as much as one; they get a better return for their labor. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble.”9 As the parent of a teen, it’s only a matter of time before you will fall. You need warm bodies to be there with you and for you when this happens.
Parents who live in an emotional vacuum run the risk of accidentally putting their teens into that vacuum. If their teen is available, warm, and connecting, these parents will sometimes use him to fill up their emotional tank. When this happens, the teen is parenting the parent. God did not design parents and children to function like this. When the teen is the parent, he can’t bring his immaturity and problems to his parents for help. Parents can’t support their child if they are depending on him to be their support system. So don’t look to your teen for support. Reach out for connection elsewhere.
Four Characteristics of Good Connections
You need friends who can let you be yourself, who accept your vulnerabilities, and who love you and give you grace, no matter what. They don’t have to be parents of teenagers. What matters is their character and what transpires when you are with them. Some friends have the capacity to truly fill you up. Others are enjoyable, but they can’t give you what you need on a deeper level.
So look for adults whose friendships will provide the following:
Grace. It’s easy to condemn yourself for not parenting right. That’s why you need people in your life who can give you grace. People who don’t have a judging bone in their body, who will be “for” you, no matter what. Spend time with friends who will accept you, love you unconditionally, and support you, no matter how miserably you think you are failing.
You also need friends who are “unshockable,” who have the capacity to hear anything about your teen and not freak out. When you have a friend like this, you will find yourself being more honest and open about what is going on at home. This openness then leads to more successful solutions.
God’s greatest gift, grace, comes from him and through us. As the Bible says, grace helps us in our time of need: “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”10
When you have relationships with people who have grace, you know that you don’t have to have it together. You don’t have to put on a happy face; you can talk about your fears and your failures as a parent. People of grace will move closer to you and not be put off by your issues.
Identification. Parents of teens sometimes feel like they are insane, living in a bizarre world that no one else inhabits. But when you find the right people, you realize that others’ lives are just as crazy, and that helps.
Some people want to cheer you up, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But before you get cheered up, you need to know that others identify with your difficulty, confusion, and frustration. This knowledge provides connection, encouragement, and hope.
So get connected with people who live in your world and help you experience that you aren’t alone. You need to be around people who let you know that they also get too angry, let go of their boundaries, and make bad choices with their teens.
Several of my wife’s and my closest friends are parents of teens who attend our church. Without planning it, we have all migrated to the same spot at Sunday services. After church, we catch up on the latest emotional drama, school problem, or even good times with our kids. I find myself looking forward to this time, because I know they know how my life feels.
Something about the universal nature of the shared chaos and craziness creates a deep empathy and identification among parents of teens. Parenting at this stage is different from other stages. Barbi and I certainly talked with other parents about kid problems when our boys were younger, but when our kids entered adolescence, we became vulnerable at a deeper level. We opened up, not only about parenting issues, but about our personal struggles too.
Guidance. Get connected with mature people who have been down your road. You’ll face many decisions regarding your teen that don’t have a simple answer. As you share new ideas, advice, solutions, and brainstorming, you can receive guidance and wisdom about what to do.
One of our friends recently told me, “I think you need to increase your kid’s allowance.”
“Really? He hasn’t said that to me,” I said.
“Well, I just see him borrowing money from other kids all the time and not paying them back.”
I thanked her and went to my son, who admitted that he was always short on money. He hadn’t said anything because he didn’t want me to think he was a spendaholic. I checked around, found out what parents were giving their teens, and increased my son’s allowance. I may not have known about this if my friend hadn’t been in my life, and in my son’s life.
Reality. Get connected with people who will keep you grounded and centered in reality. It is easy to overidentify with the teen’s world and feel as tumultuous inside as your teen does. That doesn’t help either of you. People who are grounded can help stabilize you.
A friend of mine told me recently that she had discovered that her son had been drinking. She confronted the situation, talked to the people involved, and enforced appropriate consequences. But she was shaken and frightened. I told her, “It’s a problem, no doubt about it, but I think you’ve taken good initiative to deal with the drinking. As much as I can tell, you’re doing a great job, and your son is simply a good kid who is experimenting with drinking. I have seen you and your husband spend many, many hours of positive time with him. I have seen how he behaves at my house and when he doesn’t know someone is looking. I hear what other kids and parents say about him. You’re nipping this problem in the bud, and I just don’t see major problems ahead.” I was able to give this mom a broader perspective about her son’s character than the one she was currently experiencing.
Find people who will give you reality, people who aren’t black-and-white thinkers and who don’t pretend to have an answer for every problem. People who live in reality can live with conflict, failure, and pain. And when you are trapped in the present crisis and can’t think beyond the next ten minutes, they are able to keep the long view in perspective.
Back to God
God designed us to be connected to him. He also is your support — for you as a parent and for your adolescent. You need the help that only he can give as you parent your teen. Parenting a teen is likely to bring you to your knees, and that points you to heaven, where the one who created your teen is waiting to help. He understands the adolescent passage, and he knows the intricacies of these times.
When you ask God for help and support, you are relating to your teen’s real and permanent parent. Your teen will leave your home at some point, but God will always be your child’s real home. There is a verse in the Psalms that says, “Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother’s breast.”11 This illustrates the profound reality at the core of all parenting: our connection with our teen, from the womb forward, is meant to guide that child into a loving, trusting relationship with God.
Value in Community
You can’t parent your teen and impose boundaries all by yourself, even if you wanted to. However, as you surround your life with the right people, you will end up not wanting to do it alone anymore anyway. Community fills up our empty spaces.
Relationships are niether a luxury nor an option for parents of teens. Your teen needs you to give him love, grace, truth, and strength. And you cannot manufacture these elements. You can only receive them from outside of yourself. So if you’re not connected and plugged in with others, make it the next thing you do.
GET OVER YOUR EXCUSES
Here are some common excuses I’ve heard from parents about why they aren’t connected with others, and my response to them.
I don’t like to burden people. The right people will love you more.
I should be able to do this myself. That’s not how the universe runs. It runs on relationship and support, not self-sufficiency.
I am embarrassed by my teen’s situation. Most parents of teens have become unflappable; reality has been thrown in our faces so much that we don’t get embarrassed anymore.
I have problems trusting. Then make that a relational issue, and ask others to help you learn to trust.
I’m too busy. The more out of control your adolescent becomes because of your isolation, the busier you will get.
I don’t know where I can find the kind of people you are talking about. You can find personal and supportive relationships in many places. For instance, find a healthy church that has a good teen ministry. It will likely have some sort of supportive group for parents of teens. Or ask around about a good parenting class in a church or community college, and enroll in it, or join a support group for parents of teens.