Parenting | Teen Life

The Outsider/Insider Parent

by Chris Robey | Mar 16, 2017 | Mental Health, Parenting, Resources

This is one of those blog entries which could be filed under: “Chris, you don’t know what this is like.” While I have kids, they are all little, and we are dealing with very different issues than parents of teenagers. And when you are in the thick of battle, often times perspective isn’t an available tool to explain certain behaviors of your child.

Outsider/Insider

My wife works in pediatrics at a children’s hospital. She really gets kids. So when my kids meltdown or do something that is “kid appropriate” but doesn’t mesh with my adult sensibilities, she is calm while I lose my mind. Being around little kids all day long has taught her what to expect developmentally, socially, and behaviorally. To boil it down, she is just a much, much better parent than I am to little kids 🙂

She kind of has an outsider/insider perspective of children. Being around kids all day long gives her enough perspective for when she comes home to the chaos of a house with three kids ages six and under. It doesn’t make the job any less difficult, but her perspective acts as a separating tool, giving enough space to know what is normal kid behavior and what crosses the line.

The denial problem

I’ve worked with teenagers a long time and to be honest, working with their parents is much more difficult. I always love the parents I get to work with, but I’m also a little shocked (and I don’t use that term a lot) on how little perspective parents of teenagers can have. Or at least, there tends to be a lack of mindfulness when it comes to how parents are feeling about the whole teenager thing.

From my perspective as an outsider/insider, I see some parents of teenagers take this path:

Parents are not ready for their kids to enter adolescence.

So they…

Go into denial about their kid going through the adolescent journey.

Then they…

Spend too much time agonizing over/fighting with their kids through adolescence.

This can be really sad to watch. When the kid starts pushing their parent away as they enter adolescence and the parent takes it personally, conflict abounds and the divide widens. Battle lines are drawn and understanding gives way to hurt feelings and resentment.

What parents of pre-teens and young adolescents could benefit from is perspective and a general understanding of what their kid is going through. The most successful parents I have seen with their teenagers are the ones who can deal with the difficulties of adolescence with the perspective of an outsider.

The “outsider/insider” parent

Sometimes we a just too close to the situation. To gain perspective, we need to get “outside” of things to see what is really going on. When we get “outside” of things we see:

Adolesence is a journey towards adulthood. This often begins with a teenager making space to figure things out. It isn’t personal, it’s developmental.
With this space, teenagers will try on “new skins”. Things won’t connect or be consistent. Your kid isn’t going crazy. They are figuring things out.
With these “new skins”, they will inevitably fail. Let them, and help them process what the failures mean.
Just because they are pushing you away doesn’t mean that is what they actually want. Find new and creative ways to remain close and available.
Your role as a parent needs to change. The time for correction is over. Now you get to be a coach.

How to get “outside”

Well, reading this blog is a good start. No, really – continue to find good, reliable resources on parenting and adolescence. Also, be on the lookout for parents who do this teenage parenting thing well. Ask them questions. Watch what they do and let them be a mentor.

Finally, ask your teenager what they need. To be honest, they probably won’t have a good answer, but it will help them understand that you are with them and trying to understand.

Being a parent is hard at all stages. When we can find ways to separate ourselves from the fog of parenting, we find there are new and creative ways to interact with our kids. We better understand what they are going through. Empathy and understanding take the place of resentment and exasperation.

We find that this phase of parenting might not be so bad after all.

Chris Robey, Teen Life’s Program Director, has worked with teens for over a decade and strives to help students see the best in themselves.

Moving in the Right Direction

by Karlie Duke | Mar 2, 2017 | Mental Health, Parenting, Personal Development

Moving is the worst. It’s stressful, expensive and downright exhausting!

My husband and I just moved into a new house. We have spent months planning, looking for the perfect home, packing and finally moving. Now that we are in our new home, I have a chance to catch my breath and reflect on the moving process.

As much as I dislike moving, there are some great benefits to going through a big move. Benefits that can even be applied to real life! While I hope to stay in this house for quite a while to avoid another move, I plan on using this experience to purge and clean up my own life.

With this move in mind, here are 5 simple ways to start moving your life (and the lives of teenagers) in the right direction:

Plan ahead.

A move would not be successful if you decided to throw everything together last minute. The same goes for life! Plan ahead, set goals, and think before acting.

Not every part of life can be planned or controlled. Most of life is made up of unexpected moments and uncontrollable circumstances. But it is important to set goals for where you want your life to go.

It is hard to make a move in the right direction if you don’t know where you’re headed!

In all of our support groups, we ask students to share where there lives are now and make a goal for where they would like to be in the future. These don’t have to be big goals; in fact, we encourage small, simple things at first. Maybe it is getting a few extra hours of sleep, having a more respectful attitude towards adults, or replacing a bad habit with a better coping skill.

Write down a plan. Be willing to be flexible, but don’t compromise on your goals!

Get rid of clutter.

We had so much to move…lots of boxes, décor, clothes, and more! But before we started packing, I took the extra time to purge clutter and items that I knew we wouldn’t use in the new house.

This was time-consuming and frustrating, but now that we are in the new house, I am so glad that I got rid of the clutter! I was not interested in moving broken, old, or useless things in this new home, which gave me a better chance to start fresh.

We have clutter in our lives that we need to get rid of before we start moving to the place we want to be. Clutter could include something like a bad habit, or clutter could also be something good that is taking up too much time or space.

The best way to get rid of clutter is to list the things that take up our time and energy. Once this list is complete, ask yourself, “What are the things that I dislike doing? What are the things that I could get rid of?”

Not all clutter is bad. But it is important to free up space in your life for the things that help you reach your goals!

Before you make a big move, start cleaning.

Total transparency – I learned this lesson by doing the opposite. Before we moved, I thought, “Why clean when we are about to move anyway? It’s silly to clean, pack, and then clean again!”

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

When we moved, our furniture was dusty and the rugs were gross. Instead of being smart and saving energy on the front end, I created more work for myself and brought dirt from our old house into this new home.

It is hard to have a clean start when you are bringing dirt and mess from your past.

Similar to removing clutter, it is so much better to clean up your life before trying to make a big life move.

Clean up your language, your time management skills, any grudges you are holding on to, or the way you handle stress. It is so much easier to move in the right direction when you know that you aren’t bringing dust from past experiences.

Surround yourself with the right people.

There is no way we could have made this move without friends and family. They helped us pack, gave us advice, and even gave up a Saturday afternoon to make sure we were moved into our new house. I can’t imagine how much more stressful this situation could have been if we did not have the right people around us encouraging us the whole time.

The same is true in life.

Connection and relationship are vital to success, especially when you are trying to tackle something new and big. When trying to reach a goal or make a life change, don’t do it alone! Reach out to those around you for support and encouragement.

According to the CDC, teenagers who feel connected are less likely to engage in risky behaviors and more likely to have higher grades and better attendance at school. That is no coincidence! Positive, life-giving people make all the difference.

Relax and celebrate the small accomplishments.

I am still telling myself this as I stare at the mountain of boxes and stacks of things to be put away around my house. It is so easy to get overwhelmed when going through a big move. You see a To-Do list a mile long and often don’t take the time to properly celebrate how far you have already come. Last night, we unpacked the study. It is one small room, but it is an accomplishment that doesn’t need to be overlooked!

Especially with students and teenagers, we need to celebrate the small accomplishments when they happen – this encourages continued growth and forward motion.

So maybe they haven’t made straight A’s yet, but celebrate that they passed their last test! Do they still have an anger problem? Celebrate when they handle one situation in a healthy way. Give them credit for helping out around the house even if their room isn’t completely spotless.

Celebrate the little moments. This doesn’t mean that you have to throw a party or lower your expectations but stop for a reward when you make steps toward your goal. Go out to your favorite restaurant. Spend a fun weekend with friends or relax in the bathtub. Take the time to be proud of the progress you are making.

Moving houses or moving directions in life can be frustrating, overwhelming and simply not fun. But let’s encourage each other to continue to move in the right direction toward a healthier place!

Karlie Duke

Director of Communications

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A Teenage Love Story

by Karlie Duke | Feb 9, 2017 | Dating, Mental Health, Personal Development

The importance of talking about true love with teenagers

Think about your favorite love stories…are they real? From movie scenes? Are they written by your favorite author?

Teenage love stories are often awkwardly, impossibly romantic. The kind you find in sitcoms, books and blockbuster movies. Think awkward teen falling in love with a vampire who is 100 years older than her. Best friends finally realizing they love each other and living happily ever after. Imagine Inside Out’s picture of an imaginary boyfriend claiming, “I would die for Riley.”

In the midst of awkward imperfection comes perfect romance. We don’t watch movies or read books that end with a horrible breakup and no happy conclusion. We enjoy love stories that end with hope for a better future and hope that we could also one day find a love like that – a love that reads a notebook full of their love story every day, the kind of love that changes the beast into a man, a love that can even survive carbon-freezing in a galaxy far, far away.

But why don’t we put the same emphasis on the kind of love that is hard and real? Sometimes love hurts, it disappoints, it is jealous, it is almost always messy. When we have a view of love that is only good and sweet and always smells good, it is easy to walk away when it gets hard. Why would we settle for a love that doesn’t always bring joy? There must be something wrong with this person if I don’t always find them cute and charming like in the movies…

We do a disservice to teenagers when we encourage them to settle on surface-level, easy love. Because that’s what it is!

True love, faithful love is the kind of love that sticks it out when it isn’t easy. The kind of love you really want will be hard and difficult, but it is so worth it! That is what I want teenagers to hear.

Don’t settle for love that only comes around when your makeup is done or your shirt is clean – fall in love with the person who still kisses you when you have morning breath and a hole in your shirt. Don’t look for a love that completes your world – find someone who will make you better for the world.

Click or tap on the images below to read an excerpt from the journal of a High School girl (taken with permission). In this entry to God, she is realizing that hope, joy and purpose are not found in her boyfriend. He isn’t perfect but neither is she. I love her vulnerability and the way that she acknowledges the difficulty of finding a love that matters – in this case, a love with her Savior, Jesus Christ.

I’ve ended up changing myself to fit his lifestyle to fit his lifestyle when all along I’ve been trying to change his lifestyle. If anything I’m doing more harm than good.

Teen in Love

So what do we do with this? There is pain, confusion and uncertainty with all love, but especially when it comes to teenage love. Our teenagers are trying to figure out school, family, friends, extracurricular activities, and then you throw hormones into the mix and everything gets jumbled!

From this letter, I hope you see the importance of talking to teens about love, expectations and balancing all the exciting things (or distractions) that come with being a teen. Use the television shows, movies and books that they love to talk about the reality of love and where they should find their value. Don’t hide your own relationships from them, but model healthy, hard, real love (whether that is with a spouse, friend, or family member).

As Valentine’s Day quickly approaches, I hope you will be extra sensitive to the vulnerabilities and temptations that can come with teenage love. They need you to show them what real love looks like – don’t miss the opportunity!

We do a disservice to teenagers when we encourage them to settle on surface-level, easy love. Because that’s what it is!

Karlie Duke

Director of Communications

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Why Parents Need Snapchat

by Karlie Duke | Jan 19, 2017 | Mental Health, Parenting, Social Media, Technology

You need Snapchat. Or Facebook. Or Instagram. Or Twitter. Or all of them if you are a real overachiever!

Before you get your defenses up about how you’re too old for Snapchat or how you can’t stand the rants people post on Facebook or how you don’t understand the draw of Twitter, hear me out! If we want to know more about teenagers and their culture, we need to be where they are. And they are on social media all the time. According to Pew Study in 2015, 92% of teens say that they go online daily while 24% of those teenagers are online “almost constantly.”

For these teenagers, social media is not just an app or a hobby, it is their social life. It is where they connect with friends, find out about the latest gossip, watch the video everyone will be talking about tomorrow, flirt with the opposite sex and define their social status through likes and followers.

Earlier this week in one of our Support Groups, I was talking to a boy who was about to go back to his home campus and leave our group. When he asked how we could stay in touch after the group, his first question was not, “What’s your email?” or “Could I have your phone number?” No. The question he asked was, “Are you on Snapchat?”

Now, I could write an entire blog on setting social media boundaries with teenagers who aren’t related to you (and maybe I will soon!), but even though I am not going to connect with him on Snapchat, it is telling that it was his first step to connect outside of face-to-face interaction. To teenagers, where else would you go to talk? How else would you keep up with friends?

If social media is that important to our teenagers, then we need to be willing to go where they are. That doesn’t mean that you should write embarrassing things on their wall or post baby pictures that will cause social homicide, but being on the platforms they are on gives you credibility and something to talk about. It gives you insight into those “scary apps” that you hear about from other parents or mommy blogs and puts you in control of what platforms they are allowed to participate on. Before you knock Snapchat, try it! You might like seeing short videos and pictures throughout your teenager’s day. You’ll probably laugh at the goofy filters and voices they use. You might even find out a little more information about where they are and who they are spending time with.

Social media can be a good thing both for teenagers and for parents, but we must take the fear and anxiety out of these apps. The easiest way to do that is to get informed! If you are still unsure about the whole social media thing, give this podcast with Sarah Brooks a listen, or find out more about Snapchat with this podcast!

I will make one note about social media interactions with those who aren’t your children: a safe rule is to make sure that your interactions with teenagers are public on social media – Snapchat might not be the best place to check in on teens of the opposite sex or to go back and forth with private snaps throughout the day. Keep Facebook interactions public and on their wall – maybe even wait for them to friend or follow you first! Above all, be smart about how you interact with teenagers in any situation, whether digital or not.

What apps are your teenagers using? What do you think about getting on these social media platforms yourself? Try it and let us know how it goes!

Karlie Duke was in one of Teen Life’s original support groups and now is our Communications Director. She is passionate about encouraging students to live better stories.

Dr. Beth Robinson Talks Teen Sexuality

by Karlie Duke | Dec 13, 2016 | Mental Health, Parenting, Podcast

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Kids are learning about sex education from birth on. This can be a big task for parents, schools and churches! Join Chris and Karlie as they interview author Dr. Beth Robinson about having healthy conversations about sexuality with children and teenagers. Using her experience in this area, Dr. Robinson calls parents, schools and churches to stop being silent and engage teenagers in conversations about sex. Instead of being afraid of these discussions, listen and be equipped with questions and principles that can make these conversations beneficial and empowering.

In this episode, you’ll find out…

How to have healthy conversations about sexuality with a teen.
When teenagers and kids start getting curious about sex.
How parents can respond in a positive way when their kids start asking questions.
The dangers of pornography viewing for teenagers.
How parents can have an open dialogue about pornography with their kids.
The roles that church and school play in sex education.

Ask yourself…

Where is my teenager getting their information about sex?
Am I willing to listen to my teenager more than I talk?

Go ask a teen…

What do you think about what we just saw?
What do you think I think about it?
What do you think God thinks about it?

Resources:

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

About Us:

Dr. Beth Robinson is a Professor of Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. She is a licensed professional counselor, and approved supervisor for licensed professional counselors, and a certified school counselor. Since 1992, Dr. Robinson has worked in a variety counseling positions. She currently has a private practice specializing in traumatized children. Dr. Robinson is also a popular author and speaker on topics ranging from childhood development and sexuality, teen issues, family dynamics including caring for elderly relatives, and church resources for families.

Chris Robey is the Program Director for Teen Life. Earlier in his career while working as a youth minister, Chris earned a Masters Degree in Family Life Education from Lubbock Christian University to better equip his work with teenagers and families. Chris’ career and educational opportunities have exposed him to teenagers from a variety of backgrounds. Follow him on Twitter!

Karlie Duke started working as Teen Life’s Communications Director after graduating from Abilene Christian University with a degree in Communications with a minor in Family Studies. Karlie has worked with teenagers for the past 5 years and is passionate about encouraging students to live better stories. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram!

Have a question?

If you have a question about something you heard or just want to give us some feedback, please leave us a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

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The Outsider/Insider Parent

Moving in the Right Direction