Teens and Twenties - AFBF/Dadcast

Aiming for Biblical Families (AFBF). This is week 8's teaching of an 8-week series taught by my dad. We will only release 7 of the 8 episodes. 

When our children were young, I remember hearing something over and over. “
Enjoy them while they’re young, because you are going to regret the teen years.” I mostly heard this from church people. And even though I had not yet experienced the teen years, I decided that this view was unacceptable. Consequently, I have enjoyed every stage that my children have gone through. And now they are old enough to be my friends. I challenge you to do the same with your children.

I know that in our present culture teens and older children are rebelling against
their parents at an alarming rate. This is a real problem. And our culture seems to encourage them to buck against every kind of authority. The culture of my grandparents and great-grandparents encouraged biblical values even though many were not authentic Christians. This is no longer the case; we live in a post-Christian society. But no matter what the culture says, our standard is the same: we are to raise up biblical and morally responsible families.

 

Teenage Rebellion

Since the 1970s parents have become more and more child-centered. A
consequence of this is that parents have redefined teenage rebellion as a “phase.” It is not a phase, it is rebellion, no matter what age you are. You can’t show me a verse that defends teenage rebellion as a phase. This also negates the argument that teenage rebellion is due to hormonal change. It’s true that hormones are changing for a teenager; but, teenage rebellion is actually exposing problems that occurred in the younger years and haven’t been properly addressed yet. Now it’s going to be harder. If your child learned healthy boundaries when he was younger and was characterized by obedience, then he can handle less boundaries as he gets older. You don’t have to hover over him, or constantly prod him to do what is right. And he will enjoy the fact that you trust him to do what is right. Children should enjoy more and more freedom as they age because they are characterized by being trustworthy. If your teen is continually rebelling, you will have to come up with ways to enforce boundaries (remember, spanking is unacceptable at this point). But you also want them to know that if they begin to handle these boundaries, in a mature manner, they will gain more freedom. Their attitude is actually the key to their own freedom. Help them to see that they actually have the power to change their situation. Let them know this. Let them know you want to see them excel in gaining more freedom. That you are actually for them, not against them. Keep in mind what I said a couple of weeks back: younger children rebel against authority, teens often are rebelling against a broken relationship. Find out with your teen where that brokenness has occurred. Work it out together, this will resolve relational conflict. Now that we are talking about teens, I want to give you another tool.

 

The Appeal Process

There are different places in the Bible, where you see the appeal process being
used. Daniel chapter 1 is one of those places. Daniel and his friends (who were war refugees as young teens) knew that they should not compromise their faith by eating food dedicated to idols. But they were commanded by their Babylonian authorities to eat food from the king's table. So Daniel appealed to his immediate advisor to test them for 10 days. They would only eat vegetables so as not violate their dietary laws. The result was that Daniel and his friends excelled in their health. After this test, their supervisor allowed them to eat vegetables and not break their dietary laws. Daniel honored God, he also honored his authorities by appealing to them for permission to eat according to his conscience.

Here is an example: your son is in the middle of playing a video game with his
friends online. You come and tell him that supper is waiting on the table and to come immediately. If he disobeys he is violating Ephesians 6:1 (children, obey your parents). If you force him to quit the game, you have frustrated him because you haven’t given him time to finish a task that was important to him. Now you are violating Ephesians 6:4 (fathers, do not exasperate your children).

In this case, your son can ask, “ May I appeal?” You would respond, “Yes.”
And he would say, “I only have five minutes left of this game with all of my friends, would you be OK if I finished it and then came to supper immediately?” This gives you
information you may not have been aware of. And if it seems like a reasonable request, you should agree to it. Notice how the appeal process is the bridge between Ephesians 6:1 and 6:4.

Note how the appeal process was activated. The teen initiated the conversation
by providing new information to the parent. The parent needs to listen to the information and came up with an answer. The answer may be yes, no, or maybe. If it is no, or maybe, you need to give a good reason why.

This process prevents parents from becoming arbitrary or legalistic. It allows
the teen to give information without being rebellious. And it helps teens to transition into self-government throughout the coaching phase of parenting.

As I said, earlier, our culture has become very child-centered. Interestingly, both permissive and authoritarian models produce teenagers who reject their parents. Permissive parents avoid conflict. This is why they bow to their children’s demands. As a self-centered child reaches the late teens and early 20's, the tension is often too much for parents. The parents typically detach or distance themselves from the relationship. And since the child has been trained to avoid resolution, they will probably act in a similar manner. This is the model they grew up under.

An authoritarian parent can force young children to bend to their will. But as a
child gets older, it becomes harder for an authoritarian parent to force them to comply to every wish. The children begin to see the hypocrisy of a parent who demands every rule to be obeyed, while the parent can break any of their own rules. Teens hate hypocrisy and teens hate enslavement. They will reject the parent/child relationship and leave the home as soon as possible. They may even retaliate physically, if they have to, before they leave. It's never too late to try and correct your mistakes. If you have parented in either extreme, authoritarian or permissive, the first step is to realize it. Next, ask your children for forgiveness. Let them know you are working on your parenting skills and you will need their patience in this new adventure. I think you will be surprised at how willing most children are to give you a second chance, If the relationship is so broken that they reject you, do what is right anyway. You may see healing years later. If not, you are still accountable for your actions regardless of their response.

 

Build Your Family Identity

So here’s what I want you to do: build a biblical family identity. Deuteronomy
11:19 tells us to speak about God’s word continuously. Read the word to your children.

Do daily devotions with them. As they become teens, teach them how to read the word for themselves. Encourage them be involved at church. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be at your church. As my children got older, I let them go to different churches, as long as they were plugged in somewhere. Teach them to take ownership of their own faith. They have to know that they have made the choice to follow God, they don’t follow Him just because you are a Christian. Also tell them what your purpose in the kingdom is and how you came to know about it. Tell them how you see God moving in their life, what God seems to be calling them to for the future. Let them know He will fill in the details as time
goes on.

Parents must provide a biblical family identity for their children. Sometimes the
kids would say to me, “Such and such a family does it this way.” And I would say, “That’s OK, but you are a Nimtz, and this is how we do things.” This informs your children that the culture doesn’t define them. God, and you as the parent, define the family. Obviously, you need to be grounded in Scripture in order to form a biblical family identity.

I would also often tell the kids that if I had a chance to pick from all the children
of the world, I would choose them. This is not to devalue other children, but my kids knew that they were more important to me than anyone else. They knew that they were unique. They knew that they belonged to me, and that our family had purpose in the Kingdom of God. Again, you don’t have to devalue other families to do this; but, they do need to know that God has specific plans for the family they have been placed into.

If a family identity is weak, the child will find their identity in their peers. Do
you trust your children’s peer group to mold their future? In the past, about three or four generations ago, parents could lean on the culture to help provide a biblical structure for their children. Our society back then wasn’t necessarily truly Christian, but it had tenets of Christianity woven into it. We no longer have that luxury. But look at it this way, the shallow veneer of a false American Christianity has been removed from our culture. So now is the time for you to raise up an authentically biblical family.

 

Appendix: being vulnerable.

Week 1: the curtain story.

We bought our first house in 1994. Timon was around two and Hadassah was a
newborn. I was in our front room standing on a ladder, trying to install some new curtains. These curtains draped down to the floor, and down at the bottom of the ladder was my little toddler. He was yanking on the curtains while I was trying to install them. I was getting frustrated with all the things I had to do as well as probably things he had been getting into. None of his actions were actually rebellious. He was just curious. But I had had enough. I scolded him and yelled so loud that it scared him. His face flooded with fear and he ran away. At this moment I realized I was going to become a parent like my previous generations. And I cried out to God and said to myself, “This can’t happen.” It wasn’t long after this when the opportunity of taking a parenting class was presented. This class trained me to turn away from punishing out of anger or frustration and move to the model of biblical training. This was a lifesaver. It broke generations of parental ignorance. And I want to hold the same opportunity out to you.

Week 2: law vs principal.

When Allayah was in high school, she went to a garage sale. She got some items from the garage sale and they were in a red basket. The folks at the garage sale told her just to keep the basket for free, no problem. She actually liked the basket better than the items in it. When she got home, we discovered that the basket was from a CVS drugstore. I told her that we needed to return the basket because it was CVS property and it didn’t belong to us. Even though she didn’t steal it from the store, even though someone else may have stolen it, it still belonged to CVS. So we took it back and placed it in the store. Now the law is “Do not steal.” Technically, she didn’t steal. But by taking the basket back, we corrected a wrong that someone else had done. We satisfied the principal of restoring stolen property to its rightful owner. Nobody noticed that she had done what was right. She was not thanked by the store for doing good. However, God was honored by doing the right thing. That is the best reward.

Week 3

As the children got older, we became more busy and stopped practicing couch time.

My wife and I do talk about what we need to cover throughout the week; however, we don’t sit down on the couch at a certain time of day like we used to. So, maybe we need to come up with
an alternative.

Week 4

I have suggested this to many people and I want to share this with you. Write a love letter to your child and every couple of years add a paragraph to it. I started doing this when my children were young because I wanted them to know how much they meant to me. I wanted them to know what God was doing in their life in case something happened to me. They needed to know from their Dad what I valued in each child, and what God was aiming them towards. I can’t tell you how much this means to your your children. Do it!

Week 5

The whole concept of using Mr. and Mrs. was foreign to me. I didn’t like it when I heard it. But I decided to do a little experiment. So I asked children to call me Mr. N. There were one or two sets of parents that didn’t like my suggestion, and they told their kids to call me by my first name. Since I was not their authority, I didn’t make it an issue. But what I noticed is that the children that called me Mr. N. had more respect for me. There was a healthy distance between me and them. I was an adult, I was not just another child in their peer group. Those that called me by my first name treated me with the same respect they gave their friend group. Imagine a 10 year old thinking that we were on the same level. And since their parents didn’t respect my wishes, I didn’t take it personally, but I did notice the difference between each set of children. I also purposely had as little interaction with those children as possible.

Week 6

I have observed parents who have moved towards each extreme. Those who are authoritarian now have children that don’t want anything to do with Christianity or the church.

They have even cut off ties with their parents. And yet their parents were very committed to church and to their faith. On the other hand, I have observed some parents who were very permissive. Their children have become very self-centered. In fact, one family has restraining orders against their own child. So, the law has had to step in because they failed to parent well in the early years. By the way, I was admonished by both groups of parents. One group said I was too strict, the other said I was too lenient.

Week 7

Sometimes you make a mistake in correcting your children. I have had to ask
forgiveness from my children. Sometimes I was too quick to punish when I didn’t know the whole story. Sometimes I let things go that should have been dealt with immediately. Don’t be afraid to ask for forgiveness, children are very forgiving early on. But, if they have had years of disappointment from you, it will be harder to amend the relationship. They may not be willing to forgive you. But don't give up on doing what is right.