As parents approach their children’s teenage years they may benefit from some reflection under three headings.

Review

Even where children have been raised under good guiding principles, a parent may find it helpful to review how effective those strategies have been. Should some adjustments be made? Proverbs is big on pitfalls: know what they are and avoid them. So, without apology, here are nine pitfalls and with our adolescent in mind, let us ask ourselves some questions.

• Allowing anything: Have I abandoned all attempts at setting boundaries? Do I fear confrontation? Who is in charge in our house?
• Bribery: Have I resorted to negotiation to get the behaviour I want? Is behaviour set firmly in a moral framework? Are my children only motivated by material considerations?
• Child-centred: Is our house revolving around this child and his needs? Does she know how to be, and not be the centre of attention?
• Distant: Have I thought of parenting as merely providing? Do I avoid personal involvement with my child?
• Explosive: Do I boil over with anger and shout to make my point? Is it decibel level that moderates my children’s behaviour?
• Fault-finding: Am I always nit-picking? When did I last say something personally encouraging?
• Guilt: Am I trying to compensate for my own parental mistakes by buying them stuff? Do my children know how to make me feel bad and manipulate me?
• ‘Hedging’ - by which I mean attempting to control your children by narrowing the environment in which they function. Are my children learning to use independence well?
• Inconsistent: Am I only concerned about my children’s behaviour when other parents are watching? Do I make threats or promises and not deliver?

Even a short reflection on the above may reveal where you have been letting things slip. Proverbs is very real about the making of mistakes. It is saying to us that the wise person is not the one who never makes mistakes; the wise person is the one who makes a mistake and is not too proud to learn from it so as not to repeat it. This is tremendously encouraging! It is not too late to change (Proverbs 11:2).

Regrets

The parenting road is strewn with regrets. When you read the above list of questions, did you blush? I will freely own that I have many regrets about what I did or left undone with my children. I wish I’d known then what I know now.

If you have a deterministic worldview then you have no place to go at this point. The die is cast and you are to blame. Some people read Proverbs 22.6 deterministically: ‘Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.’ Many Christians read that and assume that, if all the correct components in the training are present, the child will emerge at the end of the parenting conveyor belt bright and shiny and just as you would want her to be. Furthermore, they look at a rebellious youngster at church and judge that the parents must be at fault. Or, when viewing their own wild child, they bitterly blame God for reneging on his promise.

But determinism is not the Bible. The book of Proverbs is consistent in teaching that there is only one right way. It is much more likely that a child will become a responsible adult if trained in the right path. However, this is not a guarantee; it is just saying that, all things being equal, this is the way things tend to go.

Proverbs is also wonderfully balanced in its teaching on the sovereignty of Almighty God alongside the responsibility and accountability of humankind, his creation. Take for example Proverbs 16:1-6.

• v1. ‘To man belongs the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the reply of the tongue.’ This verse is telling us that a proper recognition of God’s sovereignty over our future and our children’s futures will produce in us an appropriate humility.
• v2. ‘All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.’ This reminds us that we are always all too ready to deceive ourselves about how right we are or have been in our behaviour or attitudes. When it comes to reviewing our own parenting, we can be very defensive about the choices we have made. It is important to remember that God is the final arbiter.
• v3. ‘Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed’. Verse 3 recommends that all planning be done in recognition of the fact that God can overturn it. We would be well advised to continually submit our entire life’s action, including the raising of our children, to God.
• v4. ‘The Lord works out everything for his own ends - even the wicked for a day of disaster.’ Here is a further statement of God’s control. God can use the very act of human (or teenage) rebellion and autonomy for his own purposes. We may not always understand those purposes in the short term. We may find them painful. But there is also comfort in knowing that evil will be punished.
• v5. ‘The Lord detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: they will not go unpunished.’ This underlines the serious danger of pride. It is pride that makes children (and adults) unteachable. God holds your children accountable for their response to your training as surely as he holds you responsible for that careful training.
• v6. ‘Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the Lord a man avoids evil.’ Verse 6 is good news for all us guilty parents. There is something to be done with guilt. Sin cannot and should not be denied or minimised, but it can be covered over. Not by us! Because of what Jesus did on the cross, believers can be and are forgiven. Their sin and guilt is covered over. It was the love and faithfulness of God that was the driving force of that death on the cross. At a much lower level, the principle of love and faithfulness will encourage the failing parent. Certainly you will make errors. But, in parenting, a solid love for your child will cover a multitude of sins. Your child will not be irreparably damaged by your mistakes as long as your child is aware throughout of your unflinching love.

So, fellow parent, do not be overcome with regret. Understand that both you and your teenager are work in progress. Don’t give up hope - the Bible gives us every reason to hope.

Relate

Discipline problems in the teenage years nearly always boil down to a failure in relationship. This is one of my favourite parenting sayings: ‘Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.’

When you have a teenager you are made aware that your authority is waning. If you go into your teenager’s bedroom on a Monday morning and tell him it’s time to get up and go to school and he pulls the duvet over his head, what do you do? You can pull the bedclothes off, but you can’t pull him out of bed. He is six feet tall and weighs eleven stone. You can rant and rave but you cannot make him do what he has decided not to do. That is why you must hope and intend that your authority will become influence.

It is your influence which will persuade your child to do what he doesn’t really want to. And you will have no influence over him unless he trusts you. You will have no influence unless you have a warm relationship. Teenagers are acutely sensitive to the attitudes of adults towards them. All your good advice will go unheeded if your son is unconvinced that you really, genuinely like him. It is harder to relate to a teenager than it is to a younger child. He is less accessible to you, the parent, because:

• He has discovered the truth - you are not perfect as he once thought you were. You are off your pedestal.
• He has most of his social needs met by his peer group. He doesn’t need your input when he has theirs.
• He is busy with other agendas - his grades, his spots, his feelings for the girl over the road - agendas with which you might not sympathise.
• He has developed his own interests in music, reading materials and leisure activities, which don’t necessarily coincide with yours.
• He is on the receiving end of many messages which are anti-parent.
• He is inclined not to like himself very much and fears that you share his opinion.
• He sometimes suspects you only communicate to disapprove.

In summary, your teenager occupies a different world. And that is his perception as well as yours. Other friends, other technologies, other issues make his statement, ‘You don’t know what it’s like ’, absolutely true. Even your concept of the role of the traditional family is one he may not recognise. After all, countless numbers of his classmates will be doing it differently. ‘What is wrong with that?’ These realisations will not all happen at once; they will be gradual. They will be largely unspoken. Because of those barriers, you have to put in extra effort to keep the relationship warm and positive, to maintain trust and the sense of belonging together.

‘Teenagers – Biblical Wisdom for Parents’ – Ann Benton
A review by Lois Collier, Great Ellingham

The aim of Ann Benton’s book is to help and encourage Christian parents as they seek to lead their teenage children towards the path of wisdom, a path described in detail in the book of Proverbs. While dealing with the issues in an honest way and admitting that this phase in life can be extremely painful, it strikes me as a positive book. Indeed it was ‘written in the hope that parents will do more than merely survive the teenage years. I hope that they will relish them, look back on them with pleasure and use them as the foundation for something lasting and excellent in the future.’

Faith family versus faithless world

The introductory chapter, which covers the 3Rs of parenting teenagers: review, regrets and relate (see Ann Benton’s article). Chapter 2 contrasts the ‘faith family’ and the ‘faithless world’ and shows that, while Christian families do not have the monopoly on loving and well-disciplined homes, they are distinct from secular families because the latter are dominated by fear of man, by treating the child primarily as a ‘buddy’ rather than someone who needs clear boundaries and guidance and by an obsession with performance. Christians are warned to resist the invasion of secularism and pursue the fear of the Lord, accept that the family is God’s idea and focus on the heart, rather than externals.

Perilous pitfalls and godly guidelines

The third chapter draws extensively from the book of Proverbs in highlighting seven areas in which teenagers are particularly vulnerable. These are making reckless commitments, (6:1-3), laziness (6:6-11), unhelpful role models (6:12-19), sex (7:6-10), money and style (23:1-5), alcohol (23:29-32) and attitudes to parents (23:22-23; 6:20-23). In these contexts, teenagers need guidelines - parents must neither control, nor abdicate but equip. Teenagers need to acquire wisdom as they are inherently fools, mockers or simpletons! Having made such a grim diagnosis, chapter 4 outlines routes to wisdom and gives examples of how these routes could be followed in daily life. The first three routes of learning through observation and interpretation, through instruction both formal and informal and the hard, but often effective, route of learning from mistakes, can ‘deliver healthy, happy, civilized adults’. As Christians we long that our children also learn the fear of the Lord. This is not something we can instil into them. However, we can and should teach them about God, commend and model the fear of the Lord and pray for him to shine his light into their hearts.

Meet the parents

‘Meet the Parents’, chapter 5, addresses the problems arising from the fact that parents are themselves sinners, dealing with erring children. Two emotions can easily result from the disappointment parents face when their children let them down: fear and guilt. Fear in turn brings anxiety, a desperate attempt to control and often anger. The only answer to fear is faith and the solution to guilt is forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Otherwise guilt can lead to vain regrets or to giving up completely. Conversely, we can allow our ‘parental guilt to metamorphose into an excess of zeal’, which is also counterproductive. We need to remember in all this that ‘it is not only children who need to take correction well, in order to become wise. We adults have that opportunity also. The point is, will we embrace correction as such, or will we resent it?’ Having confronted the problem that we face in ourselves, chapter 6 offers key strategies in being the best parents without giving way to fear or guilt, while recognising that there is no magic formula to get the desired result. We need to ‘screen the messages’. At this point the author helpfully outlines some of the current messages of the world (this is perhaps particularly valuable for those mothers who have left the workplace for several years and perhaps become out of touch with some of the evil voices around). Strengthening relationships, spotlighting the hearts and shaping dependence on God are other key strategies. It is a chapter full of practical advice about adopting these strategies such as discussing issues from newspapers or films, ensuring the family eat meals together as much as possible, guarding our words, finding common ground and making sure our children see us taking Scripture seriously.

When dream turns to nightmare

Chapter 7, ‘When Dream turns to Nightmare’ addresses times when ‘A foolish son brings grief to his father and bitterness to the one who bore him’ (Proverbs 17:25) in an open, flagrant way. While recognising that there could be several factors leading up to this, it recognises that there doesn’t have to be a reason. ‘The underlying cause is the folly of teenagers.’ Parents whose children have gone off the rails are urged to seek to control their emotions. Healthier alternatives are offered to the natural emotional responses, though it is acknowledged that these can only be embraced with help from a prayer answering God. Parents are called to keep loving, praying and watching and are encouraged to keep in touch and be consistent. No easy solutions are offered and the reader is warned that ‘even where there is a mellowing of the relationship between you, there may be scars.’

‘The very best of parenting years’

After the painful honesty of chapter 7, chapter 8, ‘More than survival’ comes as a refreshing conclusion. It points to how the teenage years can be the ‘very best of parenting years’. It speaks warmly of the affection and stimulation that can emanate from teenagers and shows how often advice rejected at one stage, is later embraced and followed as a young person ‘finally realises that his parent is a pretty useful source of advice.’
This book is readable with frequent illustrations and practical suggestions, and the clear headings make it easy for follow. I highly commend it to all parents, particularly those whose children are about to embark on the teenage years.

‘Teenagers – Biblical Wisdom for Parents’, is a 192-page paperback, published by IVP, and costs £7.19. ISBN: 9781 844743544

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