Growing With Teenagers
I've been asked about parenting teenagers, by some people who have teens or are anticipating that their children will soon grow to be teens. This collection of observations is a snapshot of what I've been learning thus far (with my 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 8 year olds). I expect to have more and less to say down the track, but also know that immediacy counts for something. As such, this is no expert “how to”, but some thinking-aloud about dynamics and features. As usual, I am working through the ways we can help or hinder our young people. The big point I hope to make is that having teenagers forces us to mature as mothers, in ways that are masked when our children are all younger. This process of maturing as a mum can be the hardest stage of (our own!) growing up we’ve faced yet. It is yet another theatre for God to prove the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ.
This episode is a forerunner to anything I might say in the future about youth ministry.
Charlotte Mason Ourselves
Cindy Rollins Mere Motherhood
God Will Not Do What We Imagine
Interview with ADE podcast on Homeschooling Teenagers
From Philemon vv. 8-16
“Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus— I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”
