PAdo-08
PARENTING ADOLESCENTS
Session 8
MAKING SENSE OF AN ADOLESCENT’S BEHAVIOR
BIG IDEA
HANDLE WITH CARE!
Rate yourself as a parent:
SOME BASIC SKILLS WE CAN USE
Prov 18:1-2 – What are some of your goals for your children?
How much of these can you really control?
Your goal in every situation determines whether you are "ministering" or "consuming". If your goal is to get your needs met, then you are consuming. If your goal is to serve the highest good of the other person – deepening his relationship with Christ – you are ministering.
"Parental change of mind" or "repentance" is changing or setting goals as parents from "self-dependence" to "God dependence".
Illustration on Goal Setting:
Video: The father sitting in the living room. Daughter comes out wearing something provocative. Father asks, "Where do you think you are going? Why are you dressed like a…" He stops in mid-sentence and the daughter retorts, "Like a whore, say it! Why am I dressed like a whore?"
Meanwhile the mother tries to appease both father and daughter in the midst of the argument.
Father says, "You are not going out of this house dressed. like that. Go back to your room!" Daughter says, "Oh yeah? Just watch," and walks out the door.
What goal was the dad pursing? His goal was to keep his daughter from going
out looking the way she did. What was the mom’s goal? Her goal was to keep peace at all costs. What about the daughter’s goal? To go out looking that way.
More deeply, the father’s goal might be to keep his daughter sexually pure so that he doesn’t end up looking bad as a parent when she gets into trouble, etc. Daughter’s ultimate goal might be to get a relationship of faithful love from someone at this dance, a relationship she doesn’t experience with her parents.
Why is it important for a parent to understand that conflict is really about blocked goals, not about clothes, or hair or curfews or responsibility?
Trying to keep the daughter from looking promiscuous is the wrong goal. The right goal is to lead her toward Christ by finding out what her goal is and help her evaluate whether it is good or not. Making her conform her behavior won’t get at the foolish, sinful goals in her heart.
We must guard against the temptation to address only outward behavior. it is critical to go deeper – to assist our teen evaluate why he is acting the way he is.
How do we do this?
Prov 18:4 – Our teens will reveal their strategies to find life through the
way they speak.
How well do you listen to your teen?
These are all so important signals given us by our adolescents. Effective Christian parenting requires that we accurately listen to what our kids are telling us, and we must do it in a non-defensive way!
What are our usual responses to the wisecrack remarks of kids?
What is the correct response? REFLECT!
What is it about these words that make me feel uncomfortable? What is he really trying to tell me? What does my son need at this moment? How can I build him up?
Prov 18:13 – What does the Bible tell us to do
Listen before speaking! (Prov 13:15)
Asking our adolescents the right question is a skill crucial to unlocking what really lies in their hearts. Ask "open-ended" questions. Open-ended questions encourage a teen to talk freely about her concerns rather than clipped, dead –end replies.
Examples:
Close-ended – Are you made at me?
Open-ended – Tell me how you are feeling about me?
Close-ended – I don’t understand why you can’t?
Aren’t you being selfish?
Open-ended – I don’t understand your "no". Can you explain to me
what’s behind it?
It is critical to resolve the issues by communicating.
c. Tracing the behavior to "unmet desires and foolish plans"
Prov 10:3 – What does God promise to those who seek the
fulfillment of their desires?
He will fill up that hunger or thirst with himself.
The outward behavior can distract us from the inner goal.
God is concerned about the heart – not merely outward behavior.
Debating about behavior simply produces a "power struggle" but real understanding and cooperation can occur when we sit down to evaluate goals.
Our teen-ager’s underlying goals may turn out to be reasonable, but there may be wiser, more godly ways of achieving them. Now we’re all on the same side, working for the same goals instead of opposing ones.
As parents we need to realize that it is during adolescent that they desperately need our guidance and correction towards a biblically charted course of action.
Prov 15:2 – The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable.
The way we communicate God’s truths to our
adolescents is vital.
Prov 18:2 1- death and life are in the power of the tongue.
We are to envelop the skill of ministering to our children in a manner that will assure them of our understanding and unconditional acceptance. Our teens will only make sense of their behavior from God’s perspective.
John 7:37-38 – The Word of God reveals to us who alone can
satisfy and fulfill man’s deepest longings.
We point our children to the only One who can truly
meet their deepest needs – the Lord Jesus Christ.