Loving Your Teen More Than Your Toddler. You know that crazy, all consuming love we feel for our newborn or toddler, it’s the best feeling on the planet. We just love to look at those sweet chubby cheeks and big glossy eyes. It’s an awesome feeling. I am always heartbroken to see parents not enjoying their teen/adult children and not continuing to feel this sense of adoration.

God’s design is that we look at our tiny tots and get a rush of pleasant emotion and find them adorable so that we want to protect them, guard them and provide for them. God knows if they looked like skinny baby robins it would be slightly more challenging to be so completely enamored with them. They are a lot of hard, tiring work. Somehow, we totally get through it because of their dadgum cuteness.

Unfortunately, as our kids grow and mature, parents honestly grow less enamored. This isn’t how it should be. Our love for our kids should deepen and expand, especially as the extensive physical labor of caring for them lessens and they have the ability to ease our work load. This is the magical time we get to see them for who they truly are. Their personality comes to life and we bond with them not only as parents but as mentors and even better, as friends.

But, what is happening? Why are most of the parent/teen relationships not maturing into this level of depth? Truth? Most parents stink at parenting and mentoring. It’s a lost skill. As our world became industrialized, our great grandparents didn’t truly parent our grandparents, our grandparents didn’t truly parent, our parents didn’t truly parent us and we are not truly parenting our kids.

Good news? This can change in one moment, in one single beat of your heart. How? Facing the truth, being honest with yourself that you do not know how to truly parent, being honest with your kids about it, and being honest to God about it. Then you humble yourself to yourself, to your kids and to your God. You ask for forgiveness from God and your kids. Get eye to eye with your teen, ask them to step out of the rage for a minute and just hear the words you are about you are about to say. Admit you are wrong, you have been wrong, you have failed them, sincerely apologize. Your child needs to hear this, and hear it often. Sure you may get eyes rolled at you. But honestly your child will see this moment of weakness, truly as a moment of great strength. Then from there, you just say, “I’m going to try to get this right, we need to approach this and learn from each other. What kind of parent do you truly want me to be? This is what I truly want to see from you as my child.”

Honesty, Humility and Truth don’t take away our strength, they make us STRONGER!

Scripture: Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility. (‭Proverbs‬ ‭18‬:‭12‬ KJV) And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (‭John‬ ‭8‬:‭32‬ NLT)

Live Clean, Live in Truth, Live Good, Love Good…Come alive by dying to yourself, and live more abundantly! This is the Good Stuff Here!