When I talk to teens, I hear this time and time again. Teens want to be heard, but they feel like their parents are not listening. Parents tell me that their teen doesn’t talk to them. Your teen has few true choices at this point in their life. You are choosing where they live and where they go to school. Their choices in food and clothes are likely limited by budget or other restrictions. They are desperately trying to mature from a child into an adult, but they are not going to navigate that path perfectly. Some of the tension comes because you as the parent need to work on creating your unique parenting style and figuring out how that fits with your unique child.
Parenting Styles
There are a lot of parenting styles out there. You can do a quick search online and find the big ones named and defined. I also talk about this in Parenting Beyond The Rules. Here are a few styles that you’ll likely come across:
Authoritative
Permissive
Hovering
Helicopter
Lawnmower
Sweeper
Do you fall into any of these parenting styles? How is that working in your family?
The Goal of Your Parenting Style
Relationship with your child should be the goal of your parenting style. If you feel like there’s something missing in your relationship with one or more of your kids, it might be your parenting style. You have to be in tune with each kid. What you say or how you say something to one child could crush another child. It’s all about speaking in a way that the child can hear you.
Can I Change My Parenting Style?
Yes! Your parenting style needs to change as your child grows and matures and as they learn to show respect and honor. When you pivot and make changes to your parenting style, it shows your child that you’re working together with them. Now, about half of you are likely thinking that this is no big deal. You’re the go-with-the-flow type, and making these changes may come more naturally for you. The other half of you are freaking out right now because you don’t like change. But relationships change over time, and so must your parenting style.
How Do I Change My Parenting Style?
I’m here to tell you that changing your parenting style is simple. Ok, maybe not as simple in the sense that I can lay out all of the steps for you like an instruction manual, but I can confidently tell you the starting steps.
Step One: Pray
The first step is to pray. Your child, each of your children, is a masterpiece fashioned by a master creator and architect. I purposely used this imagery of paint and paintbrushes on the front cover of Parenting Beyond the Rules.
This isn’t a paint-by-number craft project. In contrast, God created your child with unique strengths, gifts, and talents. It’s your job to help your child figure out where to put the colors and shapes onto the blank canvas of their lives. When you pray, you’re talking to the master architect! Consult him about how to teach and train your child.
Step Two: See Through the Lens of Your Child
You need to work towards seeing the world the way your child does. You have to talk to them in a way that they can hear and understand you. Your strong-willed child may not flinch when you reprimand them with a harsh tone, but your sensitive child could be devasted by the same words and tone. Figure out who they are and treat them like the unique masterpieces that God created them to be. They need to know that you’re going to be there for them, no matter what happens. This is about having mutual respect and honor. To listen to each other. It’s not about winning a battle or even today’s argument. The goal is a relationship, and that means being the best parent you can be… for each of your children.
Creating Your Unique Parenting Style
Your unique parenting style will change over the years and for each child. It’s okay to change. It is necessary to change. You will have to keep creating your unique parenting style and keep adjusting it to meet the needs of your family and each of your children. Your kids are counting on you!
I was reviewing some data recently for a project that will soon lead to another book. As I analyzed that data, it made me think about excellence. I pondered what it means to live a life of excellence. What are God’s standards? Excellence is important in education, in your parenting, and in your business. Whatever your task is today, excellence in that task is of utmost importance!
The Little Things Matter
Maybe you don’t think that all of the little tasks that you do in a day matter. There are little things that seem menial to us but which make a big impact on others. Maybe it’s something as simple as making breakfast for your kids each day. Simple to you, but a big deal to them. Without breakfast, they’d starve!
“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”
Colossians 3:23-24
Do Your Best
You have a unique assignment from the Lord. You need to run that race without falling into the trap of comparing yourself to someone else and their race. Don’t measure your best against someone else’s standard! That person has a different focus and different skills from what God has given you. Run your race to the best of your ability.
Don’t Grow Weary
It’s easy at the beginning of a new year to have big goals. Maybe you’ve chosen this weighty word to define your coming year. And then just a few weeks into the year, now you may have waxed and waned. Or maybe you are just plain tired. It’s tempting to say that good is good enough. Nope. Your best effort is what’s needed.
Leading Your Kids
When I decided to homeschool my kids, there were still some remnants of the myth going around that you couldn’t teach your own kids without a formal degree in education. Well, that’s been thoroughly debunked now. What you really need are conviction and passion. After that, you just have to do the work. Learn and figure it out along the way. But, you’re selling your kids short if you don’t teach them to strive for excellence. I’m not talking about perfection. Perfection isn’t achievable or attainable. That’s unrealistic. Excellence on the other hand is attainable because it’s about doing your best with what God has given to you.
Persevere
Sometimes life is hard. Caregiving for an elderly family member. Living with a difficult diagnosis or illness. Dealing with a wayward child. You have to get up each day and do the best you can. Tomorrow might be different. You might be able to do more or you might have to do less. Either way, you’re going to do your best. Rinse, repeat. Do your best again. The results of this perseverance are hard to see when you’re in the messy middle. I can look back now and see how things that were started years ago have turned into something put together by God. Press on, doing your best.
“What God calls you to, he’s going to equip you for it.”
Connie Albers
Stop Making Excuses
Your goal in life is to be able to stand before the Lord and have him say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” Your life does not need to be a hot mess. Sure, life is messy, but you don’t have to be a hot mess! No one can know it all or be it all. Run your race in your lane. There are reasons and there are excuses for not doing your best. Are you making excuses? Are you afraid to fail? Afraid to succeed? Take some time to examine the reasons why you make excuses for not doing your best.
Living with Excellence
You can do what God has called you to do. It is possible to live equipped. Work on gaining knowledge and skill for your tasks. Listen to the Lord’s leading. Learn when to say yes and when to say no. Be wise and discerning.
When I decided to homeschool my kids, it wasn’t because I was running away from something. No, I was actually running towards something better. I was aiming for excellence for my kids’ education. There was a lot I didn’t know, but I put in the work and showed up every day to do my best for them. This is how we should live in all areas of our lives. Strive to live a life of excellence in everything that you do!
What’s in a name? You could call it leaving a legacy or building a heritage, but are you casting a vision to your kids for what you want your family to be? Are you building a family name that has lasting meaning to your kids? What do you want your kids to say about your family after they’ve left the nest? You can start making changes now and cast that vision to your kids of who you want your family to be.
When you think of the name of Jesus, what comes to mind? Some things that come to my mind are:
Hope
Salvation
Comfort
Truth
Refuge
Guide
Provider
Protector
There’s a lot in a name!
What’s in a Family Name?
What about your family name? I thought about this a lot before we started having children. Some people now refer to this as your legacy or heritage. My husband and I wanted to break some generational dysfunction and be a witness to our extended families. What did we want the Albers name to mean? We knew our family name didn’t mean perfection. We knew we didn’t have it all together. A kid can throw you a curveball at any second and shatter that perception!
Building Your Family Name
You and your children represent your family. It’s not the way a brand would build its reputation with a tagline. Sure, maybe you’ll get labeled from time to time, but this is not about what others have to say about your family. This is about what your kids say about your family.
What does your family name mean to your children?
Have you communicated that to your kids?
When my kids were younger I’d say things like: “We are the Albers. This is how we live life. We’re honest. We don’t steal. We help people. We care for others. We serve each other. We walk with the Lord. We pray for one another. We take care of each other.”
I’d regularly made lists of these things. The beginning of a new year is a great time to think through this and make your own list. Start by writing down your family name. What are the things you want your kids to know or say about your family when they no longer live with you any longer? Think about things like:
What does your family name represent?
What does your family name represent to your kids?
Who do you stand for?
What do you stand for?
What do you believe?
What character traits do you want your family to have and display?
Who are The Albers?
I talk more about family identity in Parenting Beyond the Rules, but to help you with an example, here are the three things that were important to our family name:
We wanted our children to love the Lord and understand the difference between relationship and religion.
We wanted our kids to do life with us when they didn’t have to any longer.
We wanted our kids as siblings to know they could lean on and count on each other.
Cast the Vision
I encourage you to cast a vision of what your family is and stands for to your kids. Talk about it often. Let your kids see where they fit in your family. They are in your family by design and not by accident. God uniquely placed them right where they are on purpose. They are valued, loved, and celebrated! Through this, you are building a family name that your children will be proud to be a part of as they grow into adulthood.
A new year always brings some kind of change that must be embraced. And there have been so many changes in these last couple of years of disruption! Maybe you’re homeschooling or distance learning now, but you weren’t last year. Maybe you’re still working from home or maybe you’re transitioning back to the office. How do you adapt to these changes? Are you holding on to the One who can help you be stable in the midst of disruptions? Are you confident in the One who can help you with embracing change?
The rules of life seem to be constantly changing. How do you adapt without losing your focus or losing your why? To thrive and not just survive in 2022, it’s time to take a look at our thinking patterns of why we do what we do. Let’s walk through how you can embrace change this year.
List the Rules
Start by listing the rules that you have in your life and that of your home and family.
Why do you work the way you do?
Why do you have the curfew set that you do?
Why do you have the rules for your household that you do?
Other rules?
What is Not Working?
Make a list of things that you are struggling with in your family:
Are you struggling with sibling squabbles?
Is there a broken relationship?
Rules and practices that aren’t working?
Something else?
What Could Change?
Allow yourself to think outside of the box to make the relationships in your home better. Think about these kinds of things:
Why do you have the rules established the way that you do?
Do you need to pivot and adjust anything because of how the world has changed?
What if you had different thinking that still fit the narrative of what your family values are?
What if you tried something different?
Could you…
Listen more
Set new boundaries
Talk more as a family
As a parent, you set a lot of the rules and habits in the family. You control the zip code you live in, the shopping day, the cleaning day, the bedtimes, etc. Your kids are often left out of these decisions. How can you involve your kids in the changes and new rules?
Challenging Times
The reality of this new year is that your faith is being challenged in the midst of this culture shift. There’s pressure for you to change how you think, feel, and behave in relationship to God’s Word. Your kids are caught up in this too.
How are you teaching and protecting your kids in the midst of this change? Depending on your family and the area in which you live, your kids will have a different awareness level of what is going on in the world. Are you teaching them to be kind? Are you teaching them to be mindful of what others think or feel and how they process the world around them? Are you teaching them to be respectful without bending to the whims of what everybody else is saying or doing?
There’s a cost to standing up and being different. You have to be careful that you don’t become bitter or angry. Maybe you’ve had hard times or lost friends in standing up for your family or convictions. Remember that God is not absent. He is your refuge and gives you wisdom. You have to figure out what standing up looks like for you and your family. For some of you that will mean speaking out more. For others of you that will mean more time spent on your knees in prayer.
May God bless and lead you as you are embracing change in 2022!
Mentors are important and play a special role in our lives. Unfortunately, it is far too easy for mentors to replace mothers, or fathers, in a child’s life. God has given parents a special calling and responsibility that mentors cannot replace in the life of a teen or young adult. What do you do when the mentor-mentee relationship lines have been blurred to the point that the mentee sees the mentor as an authority above the parent?
The Mentor
When I was first starting to mentor teens, I quickly found times where a teen was listening to me more than they were listening to their moms. She’d say something like, “I can’t talk to my mom like I can talk to you.” Red flag! Warning! Be sure to explore issues like this with your mentees when they arise. As a mentor, you have the responsibility to go deeper and get to the heart of the matter. The ultimate goal is for the mentee to live life with their parents.
Here are two important things to keep in mind as a mentor:
Always be mindful of the parent behind the child.
Remember that you’re not getting the full picture of the dynamics within the home.
If you’re a mentor, be mindful of your influence. Always direct the mentee back to their parents. It’s an honor to be used by God to mentor others, but don’t ever allow yourself to replace the parent. That is a sacred God-given place reserved for the mother and father. Help the mentee see that you don’t have the final authority that their parent has. It can also be helpful to show the mentee how they might be contributing to the angst in the relationship. Give her tools to help rebuild the relationship with the parents.
“Don’t allow yourself to be a mentor that replaces a mother.”
Connie Albers
The Mother
Are you a mother who has been replaced by a mentor in the life of a child? First, you have to avoid mocking, marginalizing, ridiculing, or besmirching. It is difficult to hear your child say, “Coach says I need to do this…” when you’ve been saying the same thing for years! If you are not kind towards the person who has influence in your child’s life, they will put up more of a wall between the two of you.
If you’re been replaced by a mentor, pursue the heart of your child! Your next best steps are:
Listen
Pray
Interject where you can when asked
Sometimes mentors are just around for a season. A coach can push your child in a way that you can’t. So, get to know that person. Keep your heart from becoming resentful towards the person trying to help your child navigate life. Mentors have their place in the lives of your children. At the same time, don’t go to the mentor and “out” your child either. Instead, pray that the mentor would see the situation clearly.
Mentors, please remember that there is a parent on the other end behind that child you’re mentoring. If you’re the mom who has been pushed out, ask God to heal the relationship, keep your heart tender, and be thankful that someone is pouring truth into your child.
Your older children are facing a world with so much chaos and conflicting information. If you’re like me, you want them to know what you think. You want to protect them from failure or pain. But whether your older children are teens, college-aged, young adults, or older, there comes a point when you can’t make them do or say the right thing. You can’t force them to navigate a situation well. These older children are now adults, or close to being adults. It’s a new season and you need to learn how to give advice to older children.
My mom used to regularly say that she was going to give someone a piece of her mind. I used to silently (and not so silently at times) think that no one wants a piece of her mind! When your older children are in a difficult situation and you have opinions, it’s so easy to jump right to giving them a piece of your mind. But, there’s a better way!
First, let me encourage you with this. If you’ve been pouring God’s principles into your kids, that wisdom is still all inside of them. It can be painful to watch an older child not listen or seem to not listen to those years of guidance. Rest assured that the phrases you’ve said repeatedly and things you’ve taught them are inside their brains and hearts. Those things will come back to them in times of need.
Let the words you speak land in a tender place in their heart.
Connie Albers
There’s a better way to give advice to your older kids than to give them an unsolicited piece of your mind.
Wait for Them to Ask for Advice
I know that you desperately want your older kids to know what you think, but wait until they ask. Show them respect by restraining your mouth. Know the child you’re speaking to, regardless of their age. Give them a chance to learn to be a problem-solver. They need space to develop discernment. Sadly for us as the parent, this means watching our kids make some poor decisions as they learn these skills.
Ask If They’d Like Your Advice
Before you dish out that piece of your mind, pause and ask if your older child would like to know what you’re thinking. This also requires discernment on your part for good timing. When your older child is no longer living under your roof, gauging the best timing becomes more difficult. You must hold your thoughts for the right time. If necessary, write your thoughts down in a journal and hold them there until the time is right to share.
When the time is right to ask for permission to speak into a situation in your child’s life, try phrases like:
Would you like to know what I’m thinking about…?
Would you like to know how I’d encourage you in…?
Would you like to know some things to consider about…?
Would like like to hear a different perspective on…?
If you don’t ask permission first, your words are less likely to land in that tender place in their hearts and will instead be rejected. Timing is crucial to being heard. Wait for your kids to ask. If you can’t wait, then ask for permission to give your advice.
Pray for Your Older Children
Be fervent in praying for your older children. Pray for things like:
Protection
Discernment
Guidance
Someone who can say what you’d like to say
Be a sounding board for your older children. Let them know you’re praying for them. They need to know that you’re there for them. The fair-weather friends will disappear. Cancel culture will try to shut them down. But, I as your parent… I will always be here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.
I’ve walked through this season of life with my teens, my college-aged kids, and my young adult children. I assure you, it is possible to lead your children without saying a word. When they do invite you into their lives to share your thoughts and advice, handle that trust with care. Your long-term goal is to create rich, lasting relationships with your kids.
