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Are you a mother who has been replaced by a mentor in the life of a child?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If you’re been replaced by a mentor, pursue the heart of your child!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.
Tom and I did a lot over the years to cultivate close sibling relationships within our family. I hear frequently that this is an issue of importance and concern for you as you raise your kids. You want to build strong sibling relationships between your kids. So, what do you want to see for your relationship with your kids when they become adults? What do you want to see in the relationships between your children when they become adults? Let’s talk about how you can build a strong foundation starting now to achieve that vision.
Throughout the day we spend a lot of time settling arguments and soothing hurt feelings between the kids, don’t we? Someone did something to someone… again.
“Mom! So and so looked at me funny.”
“Mom! So and so broke my lego set.”
“Mom! Why does he always get to stay up late?”
Sometimes it’s an endless list of offenses, isn’t it? By the end of the day mom falls into bed worn down and worn out. Maybe she’s even begging the Lord to please make the kids stop fighting and start getting along. I bet that happens in your family too. If you have several kids, the amount time spent being a peacemaker or referee can quickly add up.
The truth is that teaching your children to love and honor and accept each other for who God made them to be is necessary to the future of your family. I believe God established the family unit to not only bring Him glory but to help us live a life of togetherness.
You probably already spend countless hours investing in your child:
Reading
Playing
Teaching
Going to church
Reading God’s Word
What more can you do?
Relationships, Relationships, Relationships
You want to build a strong family. You want what’s best for your family. It’s going pretty well until maybe around middle school or high school or college and then you might find these relationship related things are becoming a little harder.
People often ask me about my kids and our relationships. How are the relationships now that they are adults? How did we get there? Well, it is important to know first that how we live life has changed over the years. This is something I write about in Parenting Beyond the Rules. The schedules and routines we clung to when the kids were little, like nap times and bedtimes, shifted when we hit new seasons like high school. I suggest not becoming perplexed when what used to work stops working. There is a natural shifting and changing that takes place over time. Let God lead you in how to change these things as you and your children grow and change.
I don’t think when I was a younger mom there were as many self-proclaimed experts telling me what to do, but I was still careful of who I let give me advice in those days. Back then, I would sometimes get down thinking about how imperfect our family was or how I wished things could be better. That’s the internal drive I have towards ideal. The problem is that’s not realistic. What is realistic is that we have to cultivate that which we want. We have to put in the effort it takes to guard and protect and nurture those sibling relationships. Then we must be willing to adjust along the way.
Richard Plass and James Cofield wrote in The Relational Soul (page 12): “We are designed for and defined by our relationships.” Think about that for a minute. You are designed for relationships. First with God, then with others. Next, you are defined by your relationships. First with God, then with others. Being designed for relationships with others starts within your home with the imperfect people God chose for you to do life with.
“We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others… We cannot not be relational.”
The Relational Soul – Plass and Cofield
How to Build Sibling Relationships
We must nurture trust with and between our children. They need to know that your family is safe. This is a safe place to be you. Here are some ways that you can do that:
Don’t allow your children to poke, make fun of, or shame their siblings for their weaknesses.
Listen to learn why a child struggles with another sibling.
Don’t allow your kids to compare between each other.
Ask leading questions
Don’t let joking cross the line to making fun of a sibling.
Remind each child they are part of something larger – the family!
Trust is the key to building the relationships that hold your family together. It takes sincerity, reliability, competence, and care every step of the way.
How can you learn to love struggles and trials? We are conditioned to ignore and suppress struggles and trials in order to not appear weak or vulnerable. But, God can use struggles and trials to grow and change you if follow His leading.
It is important that you know that God has equipped you to walk through struggles, and you should not be consumed by them!
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
Lamentations 3:22 NKJV
Struggles and trials are common to everyone. I’ve been in difficult situations many times in my life. I’ve learned that these struggles and trials are teaching you something you wouldn’t learn without them. God can teach you things like:
Patience
Perseverance
Perspective
and more!
These struggles and trials are making you stronger! My husband and daughter recently went on a cross-country motorcycle trip. From the outside, it looked like an amazing trip. The reality is that they faced all kinds of storms and winds along the way. In pursuit of their dream, they endured incredible trials and struggles. God took them on unexpected detours that allowed them to experience the most beautiful places, but it wasn’t easy.
Struggles and trials force you to your knees, not to crush you, but to make you look to the Lord. In your weakness, God’s strength is made known. Struggles and trials change you. You will come through a struggle or trial differently than when you entered. Your faith will grow. Your resilience will increase. Your attitude will improve. Think about grandparents. Why are grandparents typically easier on grandkids than they were on you? They learned everything isn’t the battle we think.
How will you look at your next difficult circumstance? Will you learn to love struggles and trials?
Grief is part of life. Death, loss, separation, trials, unmet needs, or unfulfilled expectations are a few things we find ourselves grieving over. How can you walk wisely through seasons of grief?
How we deal with grief can depend on our age, temperament, the ages of our children, faith or lack thereof, and the circumstances surrounding the situation. With all these factors to consider, walking through seasons of grief is a rather personal matter. How you process what you are feeling is unique to you.
Planning for Grief
By the time I had hit my late teens, I had survived a boat explosion, my parent’s divorce, abuse, abandonment, and betrayal. That is quite a lot for a child to endure, but I learned lessons through these events that would serve me well throughout my life. I learned that:
God had a plan.
Life will still go on.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, if you choose not to get bitter.
We can’t plan for accidents or losses. Oh, I wish we could. We can’t count on friends to walk with us — though some will. We can’t expect our spouse to know what to do — though many do try. People won’t fully understand what you are going through — so don’t expect them to. That isn’t fair to others.
While we can’t plan what will come our way, but God does. He knows precisely what is coming and how He will make a way if you lean on Him. His ability to help you overcome and walk through dark times is unmatched! You can’t do it on your own. And you were never meant to either.
I’ve learned people don’t get to the other side of grief in the same way. How will you choose to walk through grief?
How to Walk Wisely Through Seasons of Grief
These are some things to hold onto as you walk through seasons of grief:
Discover the joy within the stop and go of life.
Remember that the grieving process takes time.
Keep in mind that seasons of grief shape you.
Have patience. Transformation happens slowly. It’s doubtful you’ll see the change happening until you reflect back at a later time. But, if you walk through your season of grief well, you will be refined.
See how God gives you a greater capacity to walk with others in their seasons of grief.
We all will suffer. Suffering is as much a part of life as joy and happiness. What you do with that grief and how you allow God to refine you during those seasons of grief are what will define you.
You can learn so much about your children from playtime. Playtime for children can be more revealing about who they are than talking or even watching them in a vocation as they get older.
The Need for Playtime for Children and Adults
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
-Plato
When there is no test to pass and no educator to please, God-given strengths can flourish through playtime. So, as parents, it’s important to remember not to confuse an interest that your child has in something with a strength that remains through life.
Helping children pursue interests is not about pushing them to be their best at something or jumping into something you think is a natural fit for them.
The best way to lead your children in the process of discovery is through observation.
When you pay attention to your child’s interests, their strengths start to emerge. So, ask questions, listen, and watch what they wonder about. Children are full of surprises.
Play Can Lead to Interest
Play is very positive. It opens the mind to a world of possibilities, allowing new thoughts and behaviors to be formed.
Encourage your children to try new experiences. For example, playing a new game or sport or meeting new friends can lead to discovering interests they didn’t know existed.
5 Ways You Can Help Your Child:
Help them step out of their comfort zone
Encourage without pushing
Plant seeds of possibilities
Tell them about ‘what if’ outcomes
Give them a reason or benefit for trying something new.
Watch, Don’t Control
Try not to spend your child’s playtime controlling everything they do. Instead, allow this time to be spent observing their behavior and actions. You can learn a lot through watching them.
Create Time for Exploration, Experimentation, Innovation, and Creativity
As parents, we must balance allowing children to discover interests and restricting choices. Of course, children need to learn social norms and obey the rules, but sadly, there’s a great deal of pressure on children to compete and conform, and little time is spent encouraging the joys of exploration, innovation, and discovery as it pertains to cultivating your child’s strengths.
Help Them Learn from Failed Attempts
Some children are risk-takers, and some children are afraid to take risks. I know some kids who naturally view failure as part of trying; therefore, they don’t get discouraged when one of their great ideas doesn’t pan out. Instead, that optimistic child sees life as a great adventure with a few pitfalls along the way. While other more competitive children don’t want to do anything unless they are reasonably confident will bring success.
Knowing how your children think about stepping into uncharted territory will help you construct the proper scenario to help them learn how to work through not winning, being successful, or failing.
