It is a different season of life for our teenagers. Just to name a few, moving from some sense of a pandemic lockdown; the start of the school year seems full of promise and normalcy with kids reengaging social contexts, making new friends, and adapting to the new normal. However, what’s come up for so many of our kids is this dazed deer in the headlights, lack of motivation for life. Every question you ask them concerning life is answered with “I don’t know” and/or “I don’t care”. It’s almost like an onset of “Covid zombie”. Let me say, as a parent of teens, I get it. 

We Know Them.

This is actually part of our challenge with our kids. We know them all to well. We know them from where they have come. We raised them, cared for them, groomed and developed them. We know them for where they are in life right now. We have watched them mature, progress and in some cases digress. When it comes to knowing our kids, nobody knows them better than we do. This, my friends, I feel is our biggest problem. It is this familiarity that causes us as parents to stop asking the right questions; causing us to stop seeing our kids with fresh perspective. It is great that we know our kids, however, knowing our kids is only part of the solution in developing them into healthy productive adults. 

They Need Us to See Them.

What our teenagers need most from us is to see them rightly. Every time I present this as a viable coaching option, I get asked the question “what do you mean”? I understand, it’s new language and perspective. So let’s delineate a bit. Knowing our kids is about the big picture of their lives; where they have come from and where we hope they are headed. Seeing our kids rightly is more about what they need within each moment of their teen years. It is the smaller seed moments that are on the way to the big picture moments. It’s all the small moments that frustrate us as parents because those moments are the ones we use to judge if our teens are focused and headed in the right direction. These small moments are the moments they don’t need us to stake their future on. They actually need us to see their hearts in those moments, love them where they are and don’t make a world-wide fuss about a small space in time. Yes, I know these small spaces in time are many. Yet, still so small in comparison to the number of years our teens will live as healthy productive adults. 

So SEE THEM…learn to be emotionally present with them in each of these small moments. Have there hearts in mind more than their futures. Believe it or not, you have been sowing positive seeds into their future since they were babies. A few years of teen challenges won’t undue all of it…or any of it for that matter. Trust that what you have sown thus far is solid. Trust that you have given your best with what you have and know. And now, in their teens years…just be with them. Celebrate with them. Laugh with them. Grieve with them. Sit with them. Complain with them. Be bored with them. Go play with them. Live as much life as possible with them. These years have come, and will soon be gone. You will never have these years again. Don’t miss this season with your teen because you are so worried they’re going to squander their future.

In the next write up, I will talk about how you can help keep your teens dialed into their future. Until then…keep seeing, loving, and playing with your teens!

Be Inspired!