Parents Just Don't Understand

Look Familiar?
Do you remember the day, the month, the year that you looked at your parents and thought to yourself:

 "They have no idea what it is like to be a kid."

I do and I suspect that most all of us could agree it happened somewhere around 12 or 13 years old. (For me, it was 1992-1996ish)  I remember when my dad picked me up from school one day, and as we were walking to our car, ran into some of the boys in my class tossing football, when Dad decided he should play too.  The boys thought it was awesome, I was horrified.  I also recall my mom always wanting to call my friends parents to confirm that it would be ok if I came over to spend the night, and also to confirm they would be home.  My parents were known in my circle of friends as being "strict." I always felt so uncool.

 It's as if, over night, our parents became completely oblivious to anything near the "cool" spectrum.  Everything that they did and said was horribly embarrassing and never relevant to your life or way of thinking. 

Turns out, they were actually onto something!

There are two things I think parents of teenagers must remember.

1. Parents are THE MOST influential people in their kid's life.  Influential doesn't always mean you will be popular or that you will be your child's "BFF."  Being influential means that we make the rules, we set the tone, we lead by our example, we provide, we point to what is most important, we give advice, we protect, we get nosey, and we hold them accountable. Most importantly our influence, like leadership, is a stewardship, and parents, WE are accountable.

2. There WILL come a time when your kids will shut you off. Their friendships will become the center of their world.  As parents I think part of our influence is to be very intentional about planting mentors in our kid's life. What if, when our kids turned 13 years old, we assigned them 3-4 mentors for them to interact with that year.  Someone who will be a voice in our kid's life saying the same thing we are, only in a different, maybe even cooler way!?

I can think of several people who were planted in my life as a teenager that, without their influence, I might have made some wrong turns along the way.  These people were Sunday School teachers, school teachers, older cousins, cheerleading coaches, youth leaders, camp counselors and so on.

By WIDENING THE CIRCLE in our kid's life, we leverage our influence in a proactive way!  When we as parents start leading with the end in mind, we become less concerned about our popularity with our kids or even about our kid's popularity and more about a bigger picture.

Who can you purposely plant in your teenager's life?  Be intentional. Keep in mind of what your kid's interests are, what they are good at, what they struggle with and from there, think of who could speak into their lives that have similar interests or stories so that can easily relate to.

Remember, it's not about WHAT they will become, but WHO they become. What we do now, counts later.

Orange Parents: Widen the Circle
Parenting Beyond Your Capacity

Widen the Circle.