REND COLLECTIVE-BUILD YOUR KINGDOM HERE
In September my oldest child was 6, fast forward a month and now our oldest foster child is now 15. That's right, 6 to teenager in just a couple days. After the shock passed, I started seeking advice on parenting a teen. Your responses from Facebook, Twitter and Email have been helpful and humorous:
1. Pray harder!? Don't always assume they are up to something bad.- Shannon
2. We raised five teenage daughters! PRAY HARDER!!!- Larry
3. Listen! Keep open communication. Don't be quick to react to what they say. Literally bite your lip if you need to!- Debbie
4. Be a safe place to come to. My mom was always someone I could go to even if I was in trouble because she always told and showed us that she would be there and love us no matter what we did.- Calli
5. Run J.D... Run like the wind!!!- Shannon
6. Speaking from hind site with many mistakes, remember you are a parent and not a friend. Pray hard, Love her enough to disciple when needed and praise her often.- Tammy
7. Clear boundaries with rewards for doing right and consequences for poor decisions. Prayer, patience, be the parent not the pal..... set a godly example 24/7 and she will see your real commitment to Christ. Teens believe what the y see far more than what they hear....-Mark
8. Remember you were once a teen! and with God all things are possible.- Lorna
9. Making sure you know who she is with at all times is important. My youngest is 16 and I make a point of discussing her day with her when I get home from work, that way I get to know more about her peers. ;))- Sally
10. Remember this, you can't love on them TOO much. They may not act like they are enjoying it, but believe me they are.-Kelly
11. Love, patience, prayer & Jesus Christ! Not necessarily in that order!- Kelly
12. I have an awesome relationship with my parents...now. I'm 21 but i still agree that if respect would have been there a long time ago things would've been a lot better- Melissa
13. Once she is settled....Don't be her friend, 15 year old girls desperately need dads! She'll have plenty of friends, she'll only have you for a DAD and that means sticking to your guns when need be and not always being the "good guy".- Lori
Thanks again for all the advice. I'll let you know how this new teenage experience goes.
J.D.
I saw you ask this on FB and
Wed 10/19/11 by Melissa M. (not verified)I saw you ask this on FB and as the mother of a 16 year old boy I really had nothing. Nothing.
It's like when I became a new parent and all of these folks came out of the woodwork and told me what I could expect and often times while some were right, many were wrong. No one experience is the same as another.
Here are the three things that I have had to learn (my rules so written from my perspective):
1) Always give him a safe place to share how they feel and seek to understand how they got there.
2) His life experience is not a replacement for what I missed out on. I can inform him on how I felt about missing prom or sports but ultimately, his choices are his.
3) At the end of the day, he just wants to be loved. For as much as I have talked to him about his behavior, his grades or the fact that I have had to remind him to clean his room for the 1,000th time I need to tell him (and show him) that I love him even more!
Good luck... always ask for help... and know that you have a ton of folks praying for this new journey in your life!
read a passage from the
Thu 10/20/11 by bobbie (not verified)read a passage from the bible every day, even if its a song you sing while they are busy believe me there soul hears it just say it out loud, remember gods word never comes back void and songs are prayer. iam doing this teen thing for the second time around and im learning from my mistakes from the first time
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