Teenagers. You gotta love them. Bursting with energy, wild with idealism, and filled to overflowing with hormones. And yet there is nothing like a teenager to baffle and bewilder a mother. It seems that just about the time you get some effective parenting techniques down, that sweet-faced ten-year-old turns into a gangly teenager, creating a whole new set of issues. Their questions are endless, matching the frequency (but not the delight) of a curious, insistent two-year-old. They want to know why they have to do homework, why they have to do chores, and why you are wearing such nerdy clothes. It’s a confusing time for a mother. In the flash of an eye, the little darlings seemingly morph into little devils, causing the most saintly of mothers to confess, “My teenager is driving me crazy!”

The extreme moodiness, indifferent attitudes, and bizarre behaviors of a teenager can create what feels like shipwreck for the parent/child relationship. The emotional upset can practically hurl a mother overboard as the stormy seas of adolescence replace the calm, controlled waters of childhood. This shift in season creates challenges a mother never imagined. Whether it’s teenage rebellion or just hormonal absentmindedness, the seas are stirred, and a mother suddenly realizes she must learn a new skill set to safely reach the other side.

A mother knows that in order to effectively influence, she must not antagonize her teenager. She grasps the reality that the last years at home are extremely crucial. And most importantly, she understands that a positive and loving presence is essential to helping her adolescent avert the dangerous waters of teen culture. So she presses past the exhaustion, the thanklessness, and the confusion, knowing these are critical years in a very chaotic time for her child.

It is up to her to be the most loving, patient, and wise mother she can be, no matter what the cost. And she knows she must not bail out, no matter how confusing the relationship becomes.

Parenting Your Teen and Loving It honestly faces the challenges of mothering the modern teenager. It addresses the need to proactively parent while attempting to have a positive relationship at the same time. The book provides explanations about the physical and emotional development of teenagers while giving biblical guidelines for healthy interaction and leadership. But most important, the book seeks to improve the way a mother actually feels toward her teenagers --- enabling her to love and appreciate them with real affection --- which will give her the relationship she truly desires.

Section One
A Purposeful Mom
full of determination

Chapter 1
Missing in Action
That Teen Is No Longer Your Baby

My teenager, Emily, is at her friend Margo’s house tonight. I have called her cell several times to check in on them because I am a little concerned. Emily told me about her plan for the evening, but it seems to keep changing. And the longer she is gone, the more my imagination is running away with me. You see, Emily and Margo decided to dye their hair . . . blue. Well, Emily is going for blue. Margo decided on pink because it matches her skin tone better.

This all came up late last week, and I have to say it was a conversation I never expected to have with Emily.

“Mom, is it OK with you if I go over to Margo’s next weekend?” she asked innocently enough.

“Well, sure, Emily. That’s great,” I answered, smiling.

Long ago I decided Margo is the perfect friend for Emily. She’s a serious student, has great morals, is cheerful, polite, and comes from a fabulous family. Why wouldn’t I want Emily to spend time at Margo’s next weekend? I could think of no reason whatsoever. That is until Emily blurted out the next few words.

“OK --- great! See, Margo and I decided we are going to dye our hair this weekend. We’re going to streak it blue and pink. You’re OK with that, right, Mom? It’s not like it will stay that way forever, because, you know, it will grow out someday. We’re going to have so much fun. You know?”

“Um . . . what?!” I was startled by her suggestion. This is the very same Emily that denied an offer by her mother some months previous for professional highlights. Er, blonde highlights, that is. Why, she was actually offended that I had asked. “No, Mom! I will never highlight my hair! Everyone does that and it looks so fake!” So to say it took me off guard when she told me about her plans with Margo is somewhat of an understatement. I had no idea she would be remotely interested in blue, pink, or what eventually became purple hair. None whatsoever.

“All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets, and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.”
--- Anna Quindlen, Loud and Clear 

When Mom Needs a Makeover

The thing I need to constantly remember is that Emily is no longer a little girl; she’s a teenager. And though I might still have her permanently pictured in my mind at four years old --- long curly locks with an impish, infectious grin --- she is no longer that tiny thing. She is eighteen, a year from attending college, and quite the independent thinker. She’s really a fabulous person. I genuinely admire who she is and who she’s becoming --- magenta streaks and all. But it takes a lot of perspective to continually view her as the nearly grown-up and not the little girl. It is very easy for me to allow myself to act and react like the mother I was to her when she was four and even fourteen, not who she is today at eighteen.

That’s really the tricky part of parenting people, isn’t it? Managing the constant growth. And I don’t mean that it’s difficult for me to manage Emily’s constant physical growth. That happens without me doing anything at all. She grows at lightning speed, changing like the weather. What I mean is that it’s hard for me to manage my growth as a mother on her behalf. I’m the one with growing pains, and frankly, I’m the one in need of a makeover. Because the truth is, as Emily transforms before my eyes, my mothering must transform also. I can no longer expect to use the same bag of tricks that I used when she was a toddler or a ten-year-old. I must continually seek help from God about how to effectively parent this person in front of me. The person she is today --- not the person she was yesterday or even the person she will someday become, but the person standing in front of me today. It can seem an intense task.

As a matter of fact, when you consider all the change a teen is going through --- physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually --- keeping pace with an appropriate parental curriculum can be downright stressful. And when you add to that the fact that parents themselves are grappling with demanding jobs, a spousal relationship, and aging parents, the added teen agenda can flood a parent with feelings of inadequacy altogether. It’s not just that parents don’t know how in the world to deal with this new teenage persona, they are finding it increasingly difficult to find the time and energy to deal with it all. The last thing a mother wants is to feel like she has to re-create her parenting style to manage the emerging teenager in her house, but... that is exactly what is needed.

“Scientists have studied the behavior and emotions of parents as well as their adolescent children, and found that when children reach puberty, parents experience tremendous changes in themselves. What’s more, they shift their attitudes toward their children. It isn’t just the kids who are distressed. Parents are too.”
--- Virginia Rutter, Whose Hell Is It? Why the Turbulent Teens Are So Tough on Families

What’s at Risk? 

The problem with ignoring the necessity of a mom makeover is that there are things at risk --- great risk. If a mom decides that she simply can’t change or conform to what the preteen/teen really needs, she risks antagonizing and isolating the kid, creating a disconnect in the relationship. When we as mothers fail the parenting challenge that stares us in the face, we place the relationship we have nurtured for some ten-plus years in a dangerous place. It’s dangerous because we desire a close relationship with our growing children and we threaten to disrupt it when we’re inflexible. But it’s also dangerous because teenagers desperately need appropriate mothering during the angst of adolescence.

When we don’t grow in our parenting style, keeping pace with the speed and needs of the changing adolescent, we quickly become parenting dinosaurs. Outdated --- unable to keep up. And though a teenager might slam the door in your face, leaving you wishing for a tame ten-year-old, she will be deeply grateful for a forward-thinking mom who helps her navigate the decisions ahead. She doesn’t need to find a mother unfit for the challenge because of a staunch disbelief that her baby is growing up. Instead, she needs to find a mom who understands and celebrates the unique changes ahead. A mom who is exceptionally insightful where teens are concerned --- and that would be you!

The Perfect Download

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a universal parenting curriculum? Kind of a one size fits all. What if God gave a single parenting download package that fit every child at every stage of life no matter what? Oh, life would be sweet. My mothering confidence would soar. I would make decisions instantaneously, resolved that I always did everything just perfectly. And I could justify that when things were amiss, it was certainly no fault of mine! But that just hasn’t been my experience --- because there isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime download. Instead, I find I need a constant download of new information. I regularly deal with parenting inadequacy in the monumental task of raising my teenagers. I often wonder about the decisions I make, and like any mother, I shoulder my share of the mother lode of good old-fashioned guilt. It seems that just about the time I think things are zooming along --- with a healthy, happy teenager --- a situation arises that sends me directly to my knees, in need of another parenting download appropriate to the situation.

But you know what... that’s just where I should be. In a position of continually asking God for help in raising these precious teenagers he has given me. It’s the desperation of needing God in my life that wakens my spiritual perspective. When I feel tired and confused and I wonder what kind of mother I really am, I get very needy before God. I am needy of his grace and guidance. And I am painfully aware that I need God’s help constantly for me to be the person my teenagers need.

But do you know how God responds to a tired, confused, sometimes overwhelmed mother of teenagers? With grace. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, God promises, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” Isn’t that amazing? Realizing that God takes my weakness and uses it as a vehicle for his power is an overwhelming relief.

If I want to get the perfect parenting download, I come to God just as I am. I lay down my frustrations and my fears, and I seek God’s power through my weakness.

The truth is, God has equipped us for every season and role in life. He holds the keys to successfully parenting the teenager set before us. And it is with his help that we can have the confident assurance as mothers that we are moving in the right direction. It is with his help we can genuinely love our teenagers (magenta locks and all) with an irresistible, unconditional love. He will provide the direction for becoming all we need to be for the sake of the teen/mother relationship and for the sake of raising a productive, God-loving young person. We have access to what we as mothers need most: more, more, more of God and his wisdom and grace. So if you need perspective for the ever-changing role of mothering a teenager, then jump right in. And begin the process of learning about how to become the mother you always dreamed of --- without going crazy in the process.

Excerpted from Parenting Your Teen and Loving It © Copyright 2012 by Susie Davis. Reprinted with permission by Revell Books. All rights reserved.