Category Archives: MARRIAGE & FAMILY

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5 WAYS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR TEEN

Good relationships are vital to health. Family relationships, especially, are fundamental in equipping children to live a happy and successful life. Achieving strong family relationships take care, work, and effort. It is no surprise to anyone that the teen years bring challenges that can threaten good, positive relationships between parents and their children. There is hope, however, of combating these challenges and maintaining or developing strong, healthy relationships with your teens.

parent-teen relationships

ParentFurther is an online resource that has tools to help families strengthen relationships through shared activities. They have identified 5 research-backed relationship strategies to help us learn and grow with each other.

  1. EXPRESS CARE

We all need to know that we are cared about. Teens especially need to feel that their parents care about them. Care is shown when we listen, when we are warm to each other, when we invest in each other, when show interest, and when we are dependable. Research shows that when children and youth have warm caring relationships, they do better in school, have less risky-behavior, work harder, and have a hopeful sense of purpose.

  1. CHALLENGE GROWTH

Challenging occurs is many forms in the parent-child relationship. Part of a parent’s role is to challenge their child to grow, learn, and improve. Inspire your teen to see future possibilities for themselves. Give expectations that are clear and communicate that you want your child to live up to their potential. Stretch your child by encouraging them to push beyond their abilities Provide limitations that hold your child accountable to rules and expectations

  1. PROVIDE SUPPORT

Support also come is many ways, but there can never be too much of it! Supporting your teen in practical and noticeable ways occurs through encouragement, guidance, modeling, and advocating. As relationships are two-way, so is support. It is good for parents to have support from other adults as a model for your teens.

  1. SHARE POWER

“Sharing power” refers to the actions used to influence, learn from, and work with each other. How do you share power then? In our relationships it looks like sharing respect, negotiating (giving each other a voice in making decisions that affect them), responding to each other, and collaborating to accomplishing goals and solve problems.

  1. EXPAND POSSIBILITIES

Trying new things, meeting new people, going to new places, and thinking about new ideas are all ways in which you can expand possibilities for yourself and for your teen. Help your teen explore by exposing them to new people, places, and things. Connect them to others that can help them grow. Navigate through problems that could prevent them from expanding their possibilities with them.

Visit parentfurther.com for more information about these strategies and to read about the research backing them. You will also find quizzes and discussion questions to ask your teens.

I highly recommend you visit their website and take their free inventory to see growth areas in your own parenting skills with teenagers.

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10 Ways Your Parenting Might Be Crippling Your Kids’ Leadership Potential

Kathy Caprino’s recent article in Forbes highlighted 7 ways parents may be contributing to the stunted growth of their kids’ leadership potential. She interviewed a guy named Tim Elmore who has written some books on leadership. From the article, he seems to have a pretty good pulse on the current generation of youth and parents.

7 THINGS ABOUT YOUR PARENTING THAT MIGHT BE CRIPPLING YOUR KIDS’ LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL:

  1. We don’t let our children experience risk
  2. We rescue too quickly
  3. We rave too easily
  4. We let guilt get in the way of leading well
  5. We don’t share our past mistakes
  6. We mistake intelligence, giftedness and influence for maturity
  7. We don’t practice what we preach

I love this list and it really challenges me in some of my common parenting mistakes (the article really fleshes this out, I recommend reading it).

3 MORE COMMON MISTAKES SOME PARENTS MAKE THAT STUNT LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL IN THEIR KIDS

As a parent and a youth worker I thought of three more things that I would probably add to this list. These are 3 common ways we stunt the leadership potential in our kids:

  1. We subtly communicate the false notion that we are more different from one another than we are alike.
  2. We fail to show respect to our kids in ways they need it.
  3. We unknowingly communicate that we are doubting they have what it takes.

If you’d like to delve further into ways you can avoid these pitfalls, please read my post: 3 Things Teenagers Need to Hear from Adults.

To read Caprino’s full article, “7 Crippling Parenting Behaviors That Keep Children From Growing Into Leaders,”  just follow the link below from my Twitter feed.

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3 Things Teenagers Need to Hear from Adults

The best way to keep the communication lines wide open with teenagers is to consistently show them respect. Distance is what adolescents often feel from adults. They think adults don’t understand them, are vastly different from them, and don’t struggle with what they struggle with.

Adolescence pic

This could not be further from the truth. Here are three things that teenagers need to constantly hear from you through verbal and nonverbal vibes…

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Helping Youth Align with God’s Design for Relationships & Sexuality

alpha center logoOne of the more important issues to address in modern youth culture is how to help youth align their lives with God’s design for relationships and sexuality. There are so many mixed messages. Young people are so wounded and looking for love and acceptance. Girls are willing to give themselves away to a guy to get love, and guys are willing to give some relationship if they can get sex. Young people, who are so relationship hungry are being misled in ways that you may not even be able to imagine.

YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE TOO MANY BLIND GUIDES REGARDING SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS…

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Empowerment: 8 Ways You Can Increase Someone’s Potential

 build someone up today

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up… – Ephesians 4:11-12

LEADERSHIP IS ABOUT EMPOWERMENT: BUILDING SOMEONE ELSE UP

Jesus spent most of his time building up Peter, James, and John. Three guys. And the rest of his time was primarily invested in building up the other eight disciples. Then the crowds got a little bit of his time too as he spread seeds of the Gospel extravagantly up on the masses. Things happen in a person’s life when they have someone intentionally trying to build them up. Empowerment is God’s design.

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God’s Amazing Design for the Parent-Child Relationship | Colossians 3:20-21

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. – John C. Maxwell

Talking about parenting

Becky and I on a retreat in Northern California

Recently, my wife, Becky and I took a much needed retreat to Northern California with some friends to talk about life, marriage, leadership, and parenting. I talk alot about the need for retreat… and it was time to practice what I preach.

As a parent, and a leader in youth ministry development, I see a real need for encouragement from God’s Word on how to pursue God’s design for the parent-child relationship. The Apostle Paul offers some simple but life-changing instruction in Colossians that is probably drawn from his understanding of Exodus 20:12 which is the a commandment directed specifically toward the parent-child relationship: God instructs children:

“ ‘Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.”(Exodus 20:12 )

This is the one commandment that is coupled with a direct blessing. All of the commandments are equally important, yet for some reason God adds a special blessing and motivation for following this commandment. Why? I think it is probably because FAMILY is the foundation of society. If we get this wrong, society will erode at break-neck speed. If we get the Parent-Child relationship wrong, patterns will get established that could govern the rest of our lives… and effect all of those other institutions God has ordained.