Preparing to Parent TeensSample

Day Two: Your Story

I went to college in Chicago to get a good degree and make lots of money. I longed for an adventure. God gave it to me, just not as I planned. As I grew in my faith and yielded to Him in prayer, he wrecked me. Isaiah 58:10 tells us that “if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” This verse became my North Star. A story was birthed in Chicago and it lives on in our family.

The monuments of memory hold so much story. When it comes to preparing to parent teens, naming the life defining moments that have most significantly altered the way you think, play, work, and worship will help you understand the meta narrative you’re parenting under.

Why are you willing to spend more money than usual for this experience, but cringe when your tween wants to spend an equal amount elsewhere? Why are you upset about certain things your kids do or say? Why is your one unbearable feeling triggered so often?

Where was your story birthed?

As Curt Thompson writes in The Soul of Shame, “of all the variables that encourage the development of secure attachment in a child, the single most powerful one is the degree to which the child’s parent has made coherent sense of his or her own story."

Reflection: Have you made coherent sense of your story? Are you willing to navigate those waters to firmly ground your teen in your family storyline?