A note from Janel:
This week, I’m welcoming guest authors Donna Kushner and Amy Schulte, a mother-daughter team who, in Amy’s childhood, served as missionaries in Palestine. Both currently work with refugees in professional and personal capacities. (I personally worked with Donna on a free resource to guide immigrant and refugee families into healing.)
In a couple of weeks, my youngest turns 13. Which means I will soon be parenting four teenagers. Which means my prayer life is thriving.
As some parents of tweens chatted with my husband and me last week, I recalled some of the best advice given to us for parenting teens: Keep them talking. Keep the relational bridge open.
It’s great advice for all of parenting, right? But at times with each of my kids, that’s required supreme effort.
Last week, I rubbed shoulders with an old friend:
Guilt.
A missionary friend told me once of a person she’d spoken with who, as a child in Africa, was slapped every time she asked a question.
I was moved by the person’s insight: “You don’t just stop asking questions,” they’d mused to my friend.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
My eleven-year-old put into words what likely more than one American has been thinking about the tragic and troubling events of January 6. “2021 was supposed to be better than 2020! We’re only six days in!”
And then there was my 16-year-old’s assessment. “If we were describing the U.S. in terms of health, I’d say we’re spiking a fever.”
Remember all those posts about awareness of your stressed self? The cumulative events leading to Wednesday’s storming of the U.S. capitol building–including 4 deaths and 50+ events–is yet another in a wearying, frustrating string of events we’re trying to explain to our kids while sorting them out ourselves.
Conversations about world events–and any events in our kids’ lives–are chances to impart a godward worldview. To show our kids God’s ways:
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Deuteronomy 6:7
We don’t need to shove events under the rug so our kids don’t get anxious or don’t grapple with reality. We can teach resilience and thoughtfulness, and bring Jesus all the way into our world.
Yes, be conscious of your individual kids and how they’ll interface with another disaster. But snowplowing the real world out of our home is rarely the way we want to go in raising world-changers.
Let’s talk about this together.
The conversation in my kitchen this morning actually turned to whether yesterday’s reactions are ever justified in the name of any convictions.
Whether you share the protesters’ convictions or not, I frequently have healthy conversations with my testosterone-charged teenaged sons–one of whom aspires to the military–about how we handle injustice.
And if/when the Bible ever justifies force or subversion under the new covenant.
The past few months have had my own family mulling over the lives of men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Peter (who cut off a servant’s ear in the name of Jesus) and commentaries on passages like
The short, very tenuous understanding we’re developing: Jesus commands resisting personal revenge and insults, but still advocates self-defense and the rescue of those in our care (see Psalm 72:12-14 and 82:3-4)–like those we rescue from trafficking (sometimes by force) and abusive situations.
People much smarter and theologically literate than I can give your family more thorough answers, like in this article from The Gospel Coalition.
But friends, my sons are not fighting Nazi Germany. We are not in Communist China, smuggling Bibles. This is not an autocracy or dictatorship.
If we’re going to declare this constitutional system as lacking legitimacy, we better understand that there will be something far, far worse to take its place.
Our kids must understand violence is simply not the way of the people of God with the exception of very few circumstances (i.e. someone’s breaking into your home and could kill your family).
Violence is condemned throughout Scripture: “[The Lord’s] soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence” (Psalm 11:15).
Ordered liberty, Mohler explains, was put to the test yesterday. At the end of the day, it proved resilient.
Let’s teach kids to trust not their own ability to wield power–or even to place their hope in government–but in the God who removes kings and sets up kings (Daniel 2:20-21), who is Lord over all.
And in that vein, rather than yet another year of hand-wringing–our hope has never been rooted in the United States government and its stability.
Our trust in the Prince of Peace, who as long as he sees fit, upholds peace in our country as he does anywhere peace is found (in Revelation 6, that peace is taken away).
Our hope is built on nothing less. When you and your kids are–like the rest of us–tempted by fear and worry, sink into truth. Write them on your marker boards, your forearms, your sticky notes and bathroom mirrors. Pray them before bed.
Last night, our dinner table discussion was pretty animated. I wasn’t fond of all the reactions, but my husband and I generally to try to create a family culture of less outright censorship, more discussion, y’know? January 6 happened. Let’s chat.
But at the end, I experience one of those Gosh, I’m glad I married you moments.
Because my husband just said, “Let’s just take some time to pray about this.”
And my kids dropped their forks, and we did.
If our nation is in metaphor spiking a fever, showing its own signs of infection–let us continue to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).
Because this post could get reeeeeeally long, please find my practical ideas in the article I wrote for FamilyLife.com, Raising Kids in Outrage Culture.
I’ll expand on these in my book releasing this fall, Permanent Markers: Creative Choices for Holy Moments with Your Kids. (I know, I know. Shameless plug.)
Like this post? Check out
Spiritual Life Skills for Kids: Courage (with Book List & Printables!)
Fear: 4 Ways It’s Robbing You &Your Kids Blind
The Breath We Breathe: On Fear–and Trust in the Middle of Danger
Reading Time: 2 minutes
My 16-year-old was recently awarded his driver’s permit–okay, yikes–and with it, was pre-registered to vote. We don’t fall down the line politically, which I’m generally okay with. (You may remember we’re a lot different: see When Your Child is Different from What You Expected.)
As my kids grow older…so do their opinions. Sometimes I’m unprepared for the ways my boys and I don’t see eye-to-eye.
But I’m actually more concerned about statistics I’m reading: A shocking 22% of evangelicals believe civility is unproductive in political conversations. Twenty-five percent consider their candidate’s insulting personal remarks toward an opponent to be justifiable.
(Friends, how did we get here?)
It’s one thing to steer clear of Twitter or Facebook for a few months as your feed blows up with political polarization and vehement, loaded, or snarky political statements.
It’s another thing when the political polarization lands in your living room, or on that phone call with your dad.
So recently for FamilyLife.com, I wrote “A House Divided: Navigating Political Polarization“–namely, with family.
It’s can be alienating to find your own mom, your own aunt, your own sister could so enthusiastically endorse a candidate representing so personally painful. Or when a child so casually sets aside a deal-breaking ethical issue.
Grab some ideas to help you navigate. My prayer is that it brings a little more peace to your home in a tough season.
When Anger’s Hot: Raising Self-Controlled Kids in Outrage Culture
Election 2016: How can I talk with my kids about all this?
When Your Teen Yells at You: 8 Win-win Ideas
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So my husband is a classic introvert, which may (rightly) make you wonder what it’s like being married to a person like yours truly.
He’s also a friendly introvert. His entire occupation is dedicated to taking care of people, and sometimes his entire day is full of meetings. With, y’know, people who talk.
That is to say, sometimes he arrives home with The Look on his face.
The Look is a very kind one, mind you. It’s just a little strained around the edges, bulging with other people’s words he’s been kindly receiving all day.
I, on the other hand, work at home all day. So I’m delighted to see him! My best friend to process with! Yippee!
Uh-huh.
So together, he and I have learned a lot about this funny dance when one of you likes to externally process more than the other. We’ve actually got a good rhythm–but it’s not one we just woke up with one day.
I’m writing over at FamilyLife.com today about 7 Ideas to Get Your Husband to Talk to You.
Want to hop over and check it out?
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Around his birthday last year, I mentioned to my husband the number of people who’d wished him a warm HBD on Facebook. My daughter, listening, asked if he’d received a lot of cards. “I used to get a lot. But people don’t do that much anymore,” he shrugged.
We’ve all got more than enough to do–and plenty of “shoulds”, right? I’m truly not wanting to add more. But I’ve found writing notes actually makes me…happier.
It makes sense. Harvard Health reports,
Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, tested the impact of various positive psychology interventions on 411 people…
When their week’s assignment was to write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness, participants immediately exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. This impact was greater than that from any other intervention, with benefits lasting for a month. (emphasis added)
One of my mom’s legacies, I’m convinced, is the prolific nature with which she sends greeting cards–to my family, included. She left a thank you note for my daughter after staying in her room over the holidays. She sent a note when our dog died. She occasionally slips in one to let me know she’s praying for me, or that she’s proud of me.
It’s easier than you’d think.
My hope is to get a few more postcards in the mail to my nieces and nephews this year.
So in keeping with scientific evidence–a study once found that when people ate popcorn while watching a movie, they actually reported higher levels of enjoyment of the movie. (Big surprise: Food makes us like things more.) Food is a spectacular wheel-greaser for relationships.
We know the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). There are tons of references to hospitality as hallmarks of what following Jesus looks like.
Maybe it’s because we’re the ones welcomed in with open arms, just as we are.
But there’s ballet. A late night at work. Soccer practice. Homework. Church stuff. It’s hard to find time to just…be together.
Usually when we speak of hosting people, we’re counseled by those who would have us prepare the perfect cheese tray or build a sparkling centerpiece with coordinated dishware. Which in my mind…can miss the point of hospitality a little. It’s great to honor people with a “prepared place”! But it’s so easy for me to shift into Impress Your Friends mode.
I contrast this with our family’s visits to our African friend Monica, who lived in a lower-income area of Kampala. She and her daughters lived in a single room separated by a sheet partition. She served likely our simplest meal with friends ever–and yet was among the most honoring of the times we’ve shared dinner with someone. You’ve gotta read her story. (And here are more easy ideas on helping kids grow in real hospitality–not the “here’s how to make your family look fantastic” kind.)
Ideas:
Because relationships are too important to be overshadowed by showmanship.
In my first post-college position as a project manager, my boss gave me wise advice: Always get the closest degree of interpersonal communication you can.
That meant that while it might have saved time zipping over an email to a colleague or even making a phone call rather than schlepping across the office–we honor someone’s humanity with every incremental degree to which we show up in person.
Call rather than text. Phone rather than email. And whenever you can, get face-to-face.
You already know a significant portion (some estimate 70%) is nonverbal. Imagine how much can be misunderstood by subtracting 70%! Even if you’re a gifted communicator, words are never the same as seeing someone before your eyes. You’re communicating the emotion and value that only physical presence can afford. And that’s no matter how many emojis you’ve got at your disposal.
God sent himself into our mess, in the flesh (John 1:14).
So:
Healthline reports that social media “depression, anxiety, poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem, inattention, and hyperactivity” in teens. Furthermore, says a new study,
“What we found overall is that if you use less social media, you are actually less depressed and less lonely, meaning that the decreased social media use is what causes that qualitative shift in your well-being,” said Jordyn Young, a co-author of the paper and a senior at the University of Pennsylvania.
Americans are more isolated, and young people in particular are more lonely--finding more quantitative but less qualitative interactions in social media. We statistically have less confidantes than ever.
What stands between you and more real, fulfilling relationships?
And what could be waiting on the other side?
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Missed the previous posts and the ideas behind this series? Catch ’em here.
He was barely in the front door, cheeks flushed from the bike ride home. He smelled like the cold and that faintest puff of little-boy sweat. “Mom! Guess what! We’re getting a new kid and his name is Toby and the teacher wants me to show him around and tell him all about the school!” He drew a breath, those Chiclet-sized adult teeth still, charmingly, just a bit too big for his eight-year-old mouth.
I grinned. Just a month ago, he’d been the new kid. Now my little guy was thrilled to be the one ushering in a new friend.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
5. Gratitude.
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