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Renee Swope

Encouraging and equipping moms to parent with God's grace and confidence.

Chicken Soup For The Teenage (Parent’s) Soul

If you’re a mom of younger children (who read today’s post title) and are about to leave my blog, don’t do it! Today’s lessons can never be applied too early, I promise. For those of you visiting from Marybeth’s blog looking for my chicken noodle soup recipe, it’ll be here shortly. First I want to share a recipe from a friend who’s joining us for our “D6 Month of Encouragement for Moms”.

Author, Suzie Eller, is here to what she learned during her survey of hundreds of teenagers for her book, “Real Issues, Real Teens: What Every Parents Needs to Know.” Susie wanted to find out how parents can hinder or help their teen’s faith. Here is what she wrote:

Listen to what these children had to say about faith:

  • God gets sad if you tell a lie, or if you hurt somebody, or if you sneeze on someone on purpose (Shelby, age 7)
  • God is in love with your heart. He made people with hearts and he also made trees. But people are harder to make than trees. (Sara, age 6)

Sweet, isn’t it? But what happens as a child grows up and their view of God becomes more complex? It might just look like this:

  • My parents could impact my faith if they would believe it themselves. (Gemma M., Age 13)
  • I know that you want to protect me, but I need to figure out some things on my own, including where I stand with God and making God my own instead of my parents’ God. (Janelle T., Age 15)

I was 15 when I became a Christian. My family was unchurched. All I knew is that my life was turned upside down by a God I formerly didn’t believe existed. When I became a parent I wanted my children to love and know His amazing love. I read devotions. I prayed with them. I shared Scripture. But many years later I’ve learned one very powerful truth: Most of what we teach our teens about God is not about what we say. Rather they learn about God as they watch our lives.

Scary thought, isn’t it?

Paul the Apostle, a straightforward kind of guy, once said in Philippians 4:9, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice.”

Your teen will hear a thousand messages about faith in their lifetime, most of them from people who don’t believe. So what we show our children about faith becomes even more vital.

But what are we teaching them? I talked with hundreds of teens and they said there are four things that parents do that can make faith difficult to comprehend. I’ll share two of them with you today and two more tomorrow:

Mistake #1—Make Everything a Religious Issue
A teen was making Mac and Cheese and added water instead of milk. It was a sticky mess. Her mom came into the kitchen and gave her a long spiritual discourse on wastefulness. This teen was ripe for a lesson on how to read a recipe, but instead it became about God. To a teen, it’s confusing when your faith is judged on how clean your room is, or what you are wearing, or what your friend did last weekend. Faith becomes less about Christ and more about pleasing you.
I can hear a parent now. Do we just let them run rampant? Absolutely not! As parents, we have a responsibility to teach our children core lessons about responsibility, respect, etc. But when we tie God into it, a teen might begin to perceive God as a boomerang God who zaps down from Heaven every time they don’t pick up their socks.
The question becomes: If God gets mad over something like not following directions to make mac-and-cheese, what will he do if I make a serious life mistake?

Mistake #2— Not exploring the Christian faith
I wasn’t raised in church. One day I didn’t have faith. The next day I did. It was black and white for me. Jesus transformed my life! But my children were in church the week after they were born. It is a rich heritage, one I wish I had been given, but my children had to eventually sort through what was faith vs. church activities to discover the reality of Jesus for themselves.
When a teen squestions about Christianity, some parents feel threatened. But for most it’s the beginning of a personal faith journey. They are sorting through to find out who God is to them. When my son asked the hard questions, I wanted to give a pat answer: just believe!
But instead, we talked about it. When I didn’t know the answers, we found resources or books that addressed his doubts so that Ryan could dig deeper. I prayed often. It was a hard time because I wanted Ryan to know Christ in an intimate and powerful manner. But I was forced to acknowledge this truth: Christ had drawn me to him. He would do the same for my son.
We continued to go to church as a family, but as a young adult Ryan’s personal faith life was between him and God. Ryan told me later that the determining factor had nothing to do with what we said. He saw his mom turn to God in hard times. He saw joy when his dad prayed.
I wanted to say a million words to him during that time, but it was our lack of words that he heard the loudest.”

T. Suzanne (Suzie) Eller is a Proverbs 31 speaker, youth culture and parenting columnist, and author of several books including Real Issues, Real Teens: What Every Parents Needs to Know. http://tsuzanneeller.com or http://realteenfaith.com.

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Mom Give-Aways

Today’s give-away includes a copy of Suzie’s book, Real Issues, Real Teens: What Every Parents Needs to Know and Finding Home by Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family. To be part of the give-away, click on the words “comments” below this post. PLEASE include your email so we can get in touch if you win!

If you’d like a reminder each time I post, enter your email address in the box on my sidebar where it says, “Delivered by Feedburner.” If you’d like to know more about D6 and the D6 Conference, click on “What’s D6?” in my top menu bar for lots of great information. And remember, we’ll be giving away gifts every day, so be sure to come back for more mom encouragement and resources from D6and Proverbs 31 Ministries!

 

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  4. Wow! This has brought me to tears.I have been praying and these past 2 weeks God has shown me some truth. I am a single mom with an 11 yr. old daughter whom I share custody of. Her father and I live very different lives. She and I have been distant lately. I’ve realized that I cannot keep pushing her. She is a beliver, I will continue to pray for her. Thanks so much for this story.

  5. Thank you for the insights this morning. Faith vs Church activity is exactly what I needed to read today. I am separated from my husband and our 14 yr old daughter is given the choice of church with me or church with her dad. It is a very sad circumstance. She lives with me and with all my heart I want to give her my faith. I cannot. She will need to develop her own personal relationship with Jesus. Your book sounds like part of the answers I am looking for
    [email protected]

  6. Great devotional today. I always find strength and encouragement in your words.
    I have a 17 year old son and a soon to be 3 year old daughter. I wish I knew what was going on with my teenage son. He is quiet and doesn’t talk about whats on his mind. He’s a good kid, goes to church without being told to but really lacks respect for me and his grandparents. Never picks up after himself. It seems like he doesn’t appreciate anything we do for him. Maybe thats just a typical teenager, LOL.
    My 3 year old daughter, is beautiful and makes we want to pull my hair out on a daily basis. My nerves has definitely worsened over the years. She doesn’t mind at all and is quick to say NO a hundred times a day. I’m praying this is just the terrible two’s as they say.
    God Bless,
    Cheryl
    [email protected]

  8. I am a mom of two daughters, 26 and 30 who are now moms. I am now sharing the wonderful truths God has given you with them.
    My youngest daughter who is a single mom of a 2 year old boy has voiced the thoughts in today’s message so many times. She doesn’t have a computer, so I try to print your messages of encouragement and hope and mail them to her.
    She has thanked me, more than once, for being real in my faith (I didn’t see it; I’m glad she did).
    My oldest daughter just became a mother of a beautiful little girl at Christmas, so I am forwarding your messages to her.
    May you continue to stay in God’s presence and may He continue to bless you with His wisdom, mercy and strength.

  10. I am not a mom of teens, but I have 4 siblings-in-law who don’t know the Lord and a mother-in-law who knows she needs to be back with Him for things to start improving. Thanks for the reminder that even as an older sister, these kids are watching what my husband do and how we act. (reality check) Whoever gets the book will have a blessed legacy! God bless.

  11. Teenagers! I can’t wait until tomorrow for the next two mistakes I most likely have made. This sounds like a book my hubby and I should study together. Thanks!