What Adults Have Influence With Your Teens?

 

Did you know that teenagers who seem to have the best success moving into healthy adulthood have a “community” of adults walking beside them?

The first place to look for that community is obviously at home.  Are both you and your spouse invested in your children in a positive way—daily? If not, find ways to connect on a relational level and not just a transactional level.  In other words, talk about something that is important to your child.  Don’t just focus on what he needs to do.

The next thing to consider is the connection of extended family.  Are grandparents and maybe some aunts, uncles, and cousins engaged enough to enhance the spiritual growth of your kids?  Extended family is important as it helps kids figure out who they are, where they belong, and is an essential piece in helping our tweens and teens understand the bigger picture of the world they will be launched into.

However, let’s face it, with the transient nature of our world today, it’s not the norm for extended family to live in close proximity.  If your family is like ours, we’re scattered from one coast to the other and even across the Atlantic.  Family get-togethers are next to impossible.  For us cousins see each other at weddings and barely know each other. Aunts and uncles sometimes have only bits and pieces of information about our kids.  That means our kids are not truly known by the family.

That’s why community is so important.  We need to help our kids connect to people who can impact their lives in a positive way.  They need to have relationship with people that have similar values to our own.

I love what Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof say in their book, Parenting Beyond Your Capacity. “When you widen your circle, the goal is to have other trusted adults in the lives of your children before they need them so they will be there when they need them.

Think about that.  What Joiner and Nieuwhof are really saying is that those relationships need to be forged now while our kids are still under our roof.

We’re not talking about acquaintances here.  We’re talking about people who are willing to pour into our kids, affirming them, giving them sound advice, and building trust.  These are people who are actively choosing to connect with our teens.

If these people are in place early in our kid’s lives, then when trouble brews (and it most likely will), and our kids don’t feel as though they can come to us, there is someone who can be there for them pointing them in the right direction.

Here’s a statistic for you–  

Mark Kelly from LifeWay Christian Resources says “Teens who had at least one adult from church make a significant time investment in their lives…were more likely to keep attending church. Of those who stayed in church—by a margin of 46 to 28 percent—said five or more adults at church had invested time with them personally and spiritually.”

That means we need to help our kids find meaningful relationships in the church—and lots of them.

So where do we start?

Create community with those who live near you and have similar values.

I didn’t realize the significance of that community until my son’s graduation party several years ago. 

The whirlwind day had been planned and the only thing left was execution—or so I thought.  As we hurried out of church to start the setup before guests arrived, I saw my son walk up to a man and shake his hand.  “I’m looking forward to seeing you this afternoon at my graduation party.”

Shocked beyond belief and feeling like I wanted to hide under a rock, it hit me that I had obviously left someone important to my son off the guest list. Somehow I managed to pull myself together enough to apologize profusely and invited the man and his wife to our home for the celebration.  In the car on our way home my son rattled off his list of memories with this important man in his life.  I was absolutely amazed at the depth of their relationship.

Even though my son has graduated from college and been out on his own for several years now, he has maintained a relationship with this dear man—and to think that as a mother I had no idea as to the significance of their connection. 

What I discovered was that this man had impacted my son from AWANA and continued connecting with him regularly—just to say “hi” and ask him what he was doing in his life.  He made my son feel important and significant.

What more could a mom want for her child?

So how do you build that community? 

  • Encourage your kids to participate in activities that will naturally breed relationship. I mentioned AWANA which is a fun kid’s program that focuses on scripture memory, but good youth programs or retreats will do the same thing.  Find a program where the leaders want to be there and love kids.  Make sure your kids are encouraged by the adult leaders and that relationship is built one-on-one.
  • Find families with similar age kids and create your own community. Have a cookout, go camping together, find ways to engage the families such that the adults get to know the kids and are willing to pour into them.  Create activities where your kids will be known by the other adults.
  • Become friends with parents who are further along in the parenting process. Empty-nesters are a great place to connect.  Not only do they have time to pour into our kids but they have the experience to help us navigate the bumps in the road when things get difficult.  Treasure these people like pure gold.

My oldest had one of those ‘pure gold’ people in his life.  This gentleman met with my son weekly over coffee from the time my son was 16.  Not only would they meet at my son’s favorite place, but I’d frequently see them together in the hallway at church on Sunday morning.  On occasion, after my son had given him permission, I would get a call from this dear soul asking to pray with me about a particular situation my son had shared with him. 

Wow!  Talk about connection.

There was a time in my son’s life when he was contemplating some heavy decisions about his then upcoming marriage.  Yes, my son spoke to both my husband and me about what he was wrestling with, but his first thought was to go to this beloved mentor.  I thank God for this awesome man who has so touched our family.

Whether we want to believe it or not, our teens don’t want to tell us everything.  They need people who will pour into them and bridge the gap just like this Godly man did for us.

Dare You to start looking for adults outside the family to create connection for your teens.  I guarantee it will be worth the time invested!

“Let go…and let God”,

Kids are back in school (at least some of them) and it’s a great time to get a group of moms together to grow in your parenting–even if it is on-line.  Why not grab a copy of With All Due Respect: 40 Days to a More Fulfilling Relationship with Your Teens & Tweens and go through the book?  Churches across the country are using it in their Women’s Bible Studies as well as their parenting groups.  In 9 weeks you’ll have built a community to lean on during your parenting struggles.  And if you have great kids already, you’ll still grow as you move into the launch phase of parenting.  If nothing else, we know that the book will help you grow in your relationship with God.  Try it!  We Dare You!

Want to lead with confidence?  Check out our With All Due Respect Leader’s Guide.

 

 

Does Your Church Youth Group Offer Acceptance or Judgment?

Keeping our kids in church through the teen and twenty-something years requires many factors.  Peer friendships, adult community, and relevance to our teen’s world being several pieces to the pie.

Finding an accepting environment is also critical in the process.

Shaunti Feldhaun’s research  attempted to get into our teen’s head to understand them better.  The information she gathered indicates that kids at this age are insecure and are fearful of rejection. They want people to accept them for who they are and to be seen as a significant person within the group.  This is especially important as the child moves from junior high to high school.  Typically the freshman year is where the big shift in acceptance is made.  Still immature in their relationships, 14 year olds sometimes struggle with who they are because they are now at the bottom of the rung in age range with the shift in peers.  It’s as if they are suddenly found swimming in a pit with bigger, stronger, faster, prettier 15-18 year olds.

The problem is that clicks can easily form in any youth group, especially in churches where kids have grown up together. New faces might not be readily accepted or worse, be totally ostracized or go unnoticed.

Kids can sometimes be harsh in their “who’s in – who’s out” mentality.  While parents might not see it, kids typically identify rejection quickly.  While it is easy to think that our kids are not trying to connect, it is important for parents to see what “truth” is for the teen and encourage ways to get involved.

Keep in mind that this acceptance needs to also come from the adult youth workers.  I can’t say this strongly enough.  As parents we want to think that youth workers or pastors will connect and treat all the kids the same.  However, truth is that they are human just like us and some kids will naturally become favorites.

Every youth pastor and adult volunteer is serving in that capacity for a reason—and it may not necessarily be for the reason you want.  For some it is ministry and they want to connect with your child and love them unconditionally.  If that’s the case for your youth group, you’ve probably found the right church.  Just know that for others it is a job, not necessarily a calling.

Volunteers are often there because their child is part of the group and they want to protect their child or be part of their child’s world or they’ve been coerced by someone to get involved even though their goal isn’t necessarily to love the kids where they are at.  Maybe the adult leader is a big kid at heart and loves teenagers and enjoys the energy they breed, but doesn’t have the maturity to pour into your child in a healthy adult-like way.

Youth workers also have varying degrees of experience working with kids and parents.  Knowing who these people really are and their true heart’s calling can have a huge impact if your teen starts complaining about attending.

This played out with a friend of mine whose daughter attended an out of town youth conference.

Running a little behind to get to the arena, my friend’s daughter Rachel (name changed) rushed out of the hotel room to catch up with the other girls.  As luck would have it Rachel ran into one of the adult youth workers and was not only ordered on the spot to change her top but received a tongue lashing for breaking the rules for dress code.

Seems reasonable, right?  Depending on the amount of tongue lashing?

Here’s the rest of the story.

It turns out that Rachel who was 14 was sharing a hotel room with three older girls.  The four girls had gone shopping earlier in the day and one of them had suggested they buy matching tops to wear to the conference that night.  Rachel had bravely spoken up and told the girls that the tops they had chosen didn’t meet dress code.  However, the older girls told her that because it was so hot outside no one would question it.  She gave in wanting to be accepted into the group.

Truth is that all the girls wore the same top that night.  Only the 14 year old was reprimanded.  When Rachel questioned why she was the only one made to change she was told “The others just didn’t get caught; besides you have more to show than the rest of the girls.”

When the mother heard what had been said to her daughter, she invited the youth worker to lunch to apologize for her daughter’s behavior and to also try to connect with this woman and understand what really happened.   At lunch the youth worker responded with, “You know our job is to play traffic cop for these events.  If we see them break the rule, we nail them.”

No compassion. No apology. No pulling all the girls together to talk about the reason behind the dress code and make a heart connection — just judgment and sentencing.

Let’s face it, mistakes happen, relationships need to be mended, and hopefully our teens can learn from those experiences.  But sometimes when those difficult people in our teens’ lives are part of the church they can have a negative impact on our kid’s spiritual life.

When these things happen get involved.  Once you’ve had opportunity to assess the situation, use it as a launching pad for a spiritual conversation with your teen.  Talk about adults not always getting it right, forgiveness, and her mistakes in the situation.  Then decide for yourself if judgment is a congregation mindset or just a problem for the adult involved.  

If it is pervasive, find an environment where your child will be accepted and cherished.  You’ll be glad you did.

“Let go…and let God”,

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