by Lauren Goodman | Mar 20, 2017 | Christian Counseling
Family is what creates a safe place for teens to grow into mature adults.
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Family doesn’t always seem like a top priority to teenagers. They certainly spend more time with their friends. They are more concerned with what friends are up to on social media than what their mom posts (unless mom posts something a teenager’s friends might see). It’s hard to go from having small kids who want nothing more than attention from a parent, to having older kids who want nothing less than attention from a parent.
Actually though, family is still the most important thing in a teenager’s life. I know this is true because I listen to teen’s talk about what is in their hearts for hours each week. For the most part teens want to talk about their family situation. They bring up other topics too, but this is often at the top of their list.
By keeping the family situation as stable as possible, you are creating safety for your teen. Your adolescent son or daughter wants to go out and explore the world. However, knowing there is a safety net makes this process much easier. It’s part of their developmental process. Within the next few years they will internalize the safety you’ve always provided. This enables your son or daughter to branch out as they leave the house. For now though, they really want to feel independent without actually being independent.
The need to feel independent often puts you in a bind as a parent. I usually encourage parents to allow their teens to do as much as the teenager can safely handle. One teen I worked with drank every chance he got. The result was that his parents had to keep him on a short leash because he couldn’t maturely deal with much freedom. Another teenager I worked with was self-motivated with her homework and didn’t go where she wasn’t supposed to go. Her parents didn’t even need to give her a curfew. In both of these cases though, family played a very important role.
With the boy who was drinking too much alcohol, the love and structure of his family is what got him back on track. With the girl who pretty much always made good choices, her family’s constant cheerleading meant everything to her.
Your child’s brothers and sisters will be lifelong relationships; their peers probably will not. This doesn’t mean you need to artificially create closeness between them, but it does mean sometimes you need to not allow friends along on family outings (this includes boyfriends and girlfriends). It’s okay for there to be a few hours a week that are only for your family. It might be met with complaints, but it’s part of that secure base every teen needs in life.
Family is frequently pushed to the back-burner by a teenager. As a parent you can’t allow this to happen. It’s your job to help your child balance family with their social life, academic pressures, athletics, and whatever other obligations your teenager has. Time with family will be their place of rest and refuge if you work to create a place of safety and love.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | Jan 10, 2017 | Christian Counseling
Teens with a faith often have very strong character development.
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I counsel adolescents. My clients range in age from 12 to 24. Over the past 8.5 years of doing this, I have noticed some things about this age range:
- They search for an identity.
- They have a hard time realizing anything is more important than the self. This doesn’t mean they are selfish, it just means they struggle to put great effort into causes beyond themselves.
- Peers seem to hold the most sway.
- Roots are put down in their character development that remain for the rest of their lives.
- You can tell A LOT about their ambition and dreams based on who surrounds them. Show me a 15 year old’s friends, and I will make a fairly reliable prediction of their future trajectory.
For the reasons listed above, having your adolescent involved in a faith community is of immense importance. So many of us want to say we’ll be open-minded and let our children choose their own path as adults. That is really nice in theory, but the reality of such a choice doesn’t pan out as well as we might hope. Our adolescents are greatly influenced by who is around them. Let’s address this point by point.
- They search for an identity: An identity given by other teenagers is likely to include things we don’t really hope for our kids. They might get into drugs, partying, sex, or on the opposite end they might think the college they attend is the end-all be-all. They might be like I was and think how fit and thin I looked was everything.
On the other hand, if God is creating your child’s identity, what could be better than that? God loves us, gives us purpose, requires us to think beyond ourselves, and causes us to look at the big picture. Adolescents who have a God-given self-identity seem to look past Friday night.
- They have a hard time realizing anything is more important than the self: When your teenager is consistently in youth group and small groups, they are reminded regularly that they are not the center of the world. Every single week they are asked to come up with ways they can care for others who are less fortunate. Faith communities are rarely self-focused.
- Peers seem to hold the most sway: Do you prefer your teenager’s primary influence be their friends who use drugs and have sex, or do you prefer they be church-type kids? I am not so naive to assume these two are mutually exclusive, but you do find more morally minded teens in faith-based functions than at parties.
- Roots are put down in their character development that remain for the rest of their lives: When teens self-direct their free time, they tend to sneak, lie and push the limits. It’s not because they are trying to be evil, but because they don’t want their parents curtailing their fun. These habits plant seeds that remain long past adolescence. When teenagers are involved in upstanding activities, they are proud to tell you the truth. They are encouraged to be honest and humble. These qualities continue long into adulthood.
- You can tell A LOT about their ambitions and dreams based on who surrounds them: Adolescents drift one direction or another. If their teenage friends are all smoking pot and will attend junior college, your teenager probably aims about that high as well. If all their friends are thinking of how to serve the community, and how to go to university, your teenager is aiming there too. A lot of the high aiming kids are also involved in their faith community.
Even though you don’t feel like it, taking the time to involve the family in church, synagogue, etc. is well worthwhile. You will create lasting habits of discipline, humility, morality, and selflessness. These qualities stave off self-imposed troubles in life that stem from greed, lust, immediate gratification, entitlement and a me-first mentality. Parents, plant a seed; get your family into your faith in God.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | Nov 10, 2016 | Christian Counseling
It’s easy to overindulge our teens.
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In Orange County, CA there is a lot of wealth. Many parents have the ability to provide their teenagers with things they as parents struggled to obtain. It is very common for me to counsel teens in my office and hear them talk about what kind of car they want for their 16th birthday. It is also normal for me to hear about how unfair it is that they don’t have the latest version of the iPhone. While some have jobs, very few seem to be required to pay for any of their own extras.
I think I understand where this type of thinking originates. It is easy to see how you could have gotten ahead more quickly if your parents had been able to give you an easy start. It is tempting to buy into the discussions about status that are constantly around you. You will really start to notice it when your teenager applies to college. Most of their friends apply to any private school or out of state school of their choosing. If they are accepted, then their parents will do whatever it takes to pay for it.
You have to ask yourself though, how much is too much? There is a very, very fine line between giving your children a head start, and creating entitlement. An entitled attitude actually leads to being farther behind in the long run because these kids don’t know how to work. Most of the time the consequences of entitlement don’t rear their ugly head until your child is an adult. By then it can be extremely difficult to change.
Don’t be afraid to tell your kids no. It is very beneficial for them to learn how to really contemplate whether what they want is worth working towards. When I was fifteen I showed some promise in a sport called field hockey. I told my parents I really thought I ought to have group private lessons like the other girls on my team. They told me I was welcome to do so…if I paid for it. When you’re making $5 per hour babysitting, suddenly $500 for 10 lessons doesn’t sound so good. Instead I took orange cones down to the park with another girl on the team and we practiced drills for a couple hours on Saturdays. There was a work-around to my situation; I improved at field hockey just as much as the girls who did the lessons. I also learned that things cost money, and that money costs time (a much more valuable lesson than becoming a better field hockey player). In my case it would have cost me 100 hours of babysitting, which was something I simply wasn’t willing to do. I’m sure it was hard for my parents to say no, but now I am so thankful they did (By the way, I didn’t stick with field hockey all that long anyhow).
The moral of this blog is that you have to be careful not to overindulge your kids. Overindulgence seems to be the thing to do around here, so you’re going to be weird if you say no. However, raising kids who have been given the opportunity to have the dignity of earning their own extras is better for them in the long run because they become self-sufficient, proud of themselves, and have reasonable expectations in life.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | Nov 7, 2016 | Christian Counseling
Teens who are concerned with others have more friends.
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When asked what the greatest commandment for conduct was, Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength.” Then he said, “Another is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Loving your neighbor as yourself was a revolutionary concept at the time. It really outlined the care, concern and thought we are to give to all people. It said that you are important no matter what you look like or how much stuff you have. Given that Jesus lived in a culture of intense racism and classism, this was a shocking statement.
While racism and classism aren’t as overt today, they still exist. If you walk onto a middle school or high school campus you will see it to some extent. Class isn’t necessarily determined by monetary wealth, but by activity. Cheerleaders are in the highest class, and it filters down from there. A lot of students have friends of other races, but you still see people segregating. My clients regularly tell me there is a “Mexican group” on campus, and an “Asian group,” etc.
Teaching your teenagers to rise above this is one of your most important jobs as a parent.
One thing that very recently crossed my mind after reading the excellent book, Blue Like Jazz, by D. Miller, is what happens when you reverse the love your neighbor statement. Love yourself as your neighbor. I know this isn’t exactly what Jesus was getting at, but it is something very important for all of us to think about. We are often self-focused and self-centered in our thoughts and concerns. We are also self-deprecating and self-critical in our evaluations. In other words, we’d NEVER, EVER talk to our neighbor the way we talk to ourselves.
If your teenager is struggling to make and keep friends, then she has to successfully change her outlook on things. Firstly, she has to love their peers as she loves herself. Secondly, she has to love herself as she loves her peers. She has to spend a lot more time noticing and thinking about the concerns of others. She has to reach out in kindness to all the different groups of people on campus. She has to be very aware not to treat those of a “lower social class” any differently than the popular kids.
Your teen also has to work very, very hard on being kinder to himself. One question I often ask my adolescent clients is whether they’d talk to a friend the way they’d talk to themselves. Perhaps one of them has told me he thinks he really needs to lose weight, and looks awful in all his clothes. I ask what he’d say to a friend and he can easily say something affirming and kind. I then point out that if he can say those same kind words to himself, other people will like being around him more.
So, if your teen wants to make and keep more friends, your teenager needs to love others as himself, and love himself as he loves others. I know this all sounds very pie in the sky, but start to plant these seeds. Your teenager will need it for years. Even you need to work on this. We all do (me included)!
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
by Lauren Goodman | Jul 5, 2016 | Christian Counseling
Following the guidance of your faith can conflict with culture.
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Teens, if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance your parents asked you to read this and thought it applied to your situation. I hope it does!
Dating in a culture of “hooking up,” is really frustrating for many, many teenagers. I have client after client that complains about this. They say they aren’t interested in making out with someone before going on a date. They don’t want to be drunk to find out if they like someone or not. They don’t think it’s okay that everyone has a “thing,” or is “talking” but never really commits.
The Bible doesn’t really talk a lot about dating in a direct way. It does talk about marriage, divorce, adultery and respect. There are examples of lust gone wrong (think David and Bathsheba), jealousy (Leah and Rachel with Jacob), dating with the intention of commitment (Solomon and the girl), and the benefit of doing everything with parental consent out in the open (Isaac and Rebekah).
One thing that is clear to me is that God doesn’t intend for you to date in secret. If you feel you have to hide it from your parents, or you’d be ashamed to talk about it in front of people in your faith community, something is wrong. This means you’ve gone father than you should, or the person doesn’t believe what you believe, or you’re one person with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and another in front of people in your church family.
Even if you aren’t Christian, this still holds. Now it is true that some of you have crazy parents 🙂 Some of you have parents who are unreasonable beyond what a teenager thinks is unreasonable. Even your parents’ friends have suggested they lighten up. Dating in the open in front of these types of parents will result in your being punished even if you are dating a saint. Others of you have parents who just let you do anything. If you were to tell them about your dating forays, they would be completely permissible no matter what. While that is convenient, it doesn’t protect your emotionally developing heart. It also doesn’t protect you from the physical consequences that can come with sex. Neither type of parenting is doing you much good when it comes to you dating.
For Christians who want to remain close to Jesus as they date, I’ve found there are a few things that can really help:
- Date someone who loves Jesus more than you do. It helps you grow and mature in your faith. You will both seek out opportunities to be together while serving the community. You will go to church services together. It makes it fun!
- Decide ahead of time why you’re dating, and make that clear. If you both know you’re going separate ways at the end of senior year, then don’t let yourselves become serious. You don’t plan to get married, so keep it light and fun. That way in the future if you do meet again, you actually are leaving open the possibility that you might date to marry each other.
- Keep it public; date in the open. The more you do where others can see you, the less irresistible temptation you face.
- Be friends with everyone, but be selective about dating. As followers of Christ we’re called to show love and respect to all people, no matter what they believe or how they live their life; Jesus was this way. However, when it comes to connecting yourself on an intimate level with someone, you must be very wary. You need to make sure they are strong in the same faith as you. Otherwise, no matter how good your intentions might be, you will find yourself less and less interested in Christ as you become more interested in your significant other. Hint: Your boyfriend or girlfriend should not be in competition for your heart with Jesus.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
