Talking with Teens

"What are our youth ministries passing on to our youth?" If we want to pass along the Christian faith, then parents must be reflections of that faith and spend time with youth. Youth leaders are saying, Let’s step back a little, and make use of what God has given us to help pass along the faith. Let’s put parents and the congregational family to work with our youth." (Pamela Smith McCall)

Lately, I have been trying to think of ways to better incorporate parents into the lives of their youth. Although youth are often just as busy as their parents I feel it is the adults role to make sure and spend time with their children, especially their teens.

Although teenagers will never admit it, they long for attention from the adults in their lives. They want to feel acknowledged and important. Most teens want to know their opinions are valued and be given recognition in their daily lives. Although parents might not always agree with their teenagers choices or understand some of the things they do, the teenagers feel the say way about you (parents). By entering into healthy conversations together about what is important in each of your lives, you might be able to find some common ground. Yes, times have changed and teenagers lives are different then they use to be when their parents were younger, however you are both people living in the same world and that allows for a lot of similarities.

You might ask: what do we talk about? Or, my teenager would never sit and have a conversation with me? ... but I think you would be surprised.
Start simple. Something a family friend once told me she did with her family each day was simply asking her kids where they saw God today. Something to do that is even easier then that and something my own dad use to ask me each day was, "did you learn anything today?" Although the answer to the question might often be, "not really, or ya but I can't remember," and you might feel blown off ... you are opening a door for conversation and letting you teens know you care about what is going on in their lives. Although they might not share with you something deep each day, the day will come when they might say, "you know today in one of my classes at school we were talking about health care, and I just really don't understand what its all about. What do you think about it?" Or they might say, "today at band practice we learned how to play your favorite song and I really hope you will come to the game Friday night and hear it." Teens might even begin to enjoy you asking the question, like I did, and they might even begin to notice when you forget to ask your daily question.

Of course, you can pick any question that works best for you and your teenagers and it might not work instantaneously or at all. This is just something simple I know has worked for others and could work for you. So, I challenge you to engage into conversations with your teens. Try and come up with a question that you could ask your teenager each day even trying it out just for a month and see how it goes. Then report back. In the meantime, I would love for resources and ideas on how to help parents be more involved in the lives of their teens.

Erin