Who doesn’t know about the self absorbed behaviors of teens?

They eat and use the last of anything and everything, without telling
anybody. The bathroom becomes their own private domain. They spend money,
(that is, your money) as if money were the leaves from trees. I’m sure that teens
aren’t aware of their selfishness, they are just being themselves. We have to get
teens to be more than just themselves. This is a daunting feat, but not an
impossible feat.

Our high and lofty calling, is to teach teens to think about others, before
themselves; to be self sacrificing (that is, giving up something that they love for
somebody else); and to serve without scowling. If you’re like me, you’re probably
feeling overwhelmed already.

To help the unthankful become thankful, there are two highly effective
strategies. First, we model thankful behaviors. It’s critical that they see us thinking
about others before ourselves; they see us as self-sacrificing (giving up something
that we love for somebody else); and they see us serve without scowling. Our
behavior is the primary way that they learn.

Secondly, there are numerous organizations that are begging for
volunteers, who will work without getting some benefit to themselves. The
weather is getting more extreme and muscles and time is needed to help people
whose homes and belongings are wiped away be natural disasters, get on their
feet.

The benefits to your teen are innumerable. Your teen will develop
leadership skills, they will learn to give and not take. They will develop talents
that can’t be discovered sitting in front of the television.

Go ahead try it. You may be surprised by the empathetic, kind and self-
sacrificing spirit that is housed in your teen. Joy and submission will replace the

grouchy oppositional attitude. You may have fewer angry outbursts, and you may
find that your teen is more cooperative in the home.

The Thanksgiving/Christmas season is a perfect time to start the process.
Notice we start now, but to make a real dent in unthankful behavior, selflessness
must become a part of our character, so that it will become a part of their
character.

It’s almost that time of the year.

It’s the wonderful time of the year that we celebrate Thanksgiving, and the
Christmas season. The time of the year where we gather with family members eat
traditional meals and yes, we may even attend church services together. It’s a
time where all of the generations get together and family history and family
values, are shared and passed down to the next generation. While some of this
information is openly stated often the information is passed down unspoken.

Don’t underestimate the power of family traditions and family gatherings.

Sure you may have to tolerate Auntie Sophia’s not-so-good cornbread that
she insists on cooking every year (it has become a part of the family tradition).
You may not agree with Uncle Gerald’s tendency to drink. Most relatives are
savvy enough now not to smoke around children. You may be a vegetarian and
the rest of your family may eat whole animals at one sitting.

But never underestimate the power of family traditions.

Your teen will belong to a larger group. They won’t feel a need to give in to
peer pressure nor peer approval, if there is a large extended family standing
behind them. They will belong to a group of people who share with them more
than a meal. These people share common history, family recipes, family gossip,
and family trials. If the family shares the love of Jesus, this is even better.

This common thread of Christian love will flow through the entire family. It
permeates through our relationships, and it colors our values. It dictates how we
treat each other; provide hours of family discussion, and it governs how we solve
family problems. The love of Jesus is not the same as the love of denomination.
The love of denomination separates us from each other. Causes family arguments
and spurs debates. That ruins family togetherness.

Remember this is the season to love and share. The season to rejoin our
families, catch up on family values, and gossip, share good food, and maybe not
so good food, tolerate each other’s differences, and most importantly share the
love of Jesus. (We can get back to sharing our love of doctrines after the holidays.)

Never underestimate the power of family traditions, especially when the
family shares the love of Jesus as a common thread.

The wimpy parent on television whined on and on about how she has to give her child what he
wants because he cries when she says “no.” She had a defensive answer for every question asked. She
swore, she didn’t want to hurt him psychologically, so she felt obligated to give him whatever he
wanted. That’s the crux of the wimpy parent syndrome. The fear that children, and teens will become
mentally unbalanced if they are chastised, immobilizes wimpy parents.

Emotional scarring and low self-esteem threatens parents as if the syndromes were equal to the
bubonic plague. It’s almost impossible to say “no” to a child without somebody complaining that the
parent is too restrictive. If word gets out that our teens don’t have the latest electronic gadget, we may
as well hotline ourselves. We have lost our power.

Am I the only person who has noticed that the more teens are given the worst they get? Where
does it end?

We struggle between enforcing rules, and giving in to leniency. The guilt is overwhelming. We
struggle to maintain power and some semblance of control in our homes. Meanwhile, society pushes us
towards leniency. Society tells us if we require too much, teens will become emotionally unbalanced.

The truth of the matter is, the more “choices” our children have, the more “choices” they want,
and the less capable they are at making “good choices.”

God forbid that we should require a child to learn from their mistakes. Horrors of horrors, that
a teen should feel uncomfortable in any way. Heaven help us that we give a chore that isn’t directly
related to them, such as washing towels and folding them. We know that we’d better not make teens
responsible for younger siblings; if this is done on a consistent enough basis teens could be labeled
a “parentified child.” How much damage do you think they will suffer from these experiences?

All of this protection is supposed to be good for our children. I don’t believe it’s good. In fact, it
appears to me that the exact opposite is happening. Our teens are becoming more impudent,
demanding, and immature as they get older. This over protective, over indulgence parenting style is
crippling America. It’s causing more problems than we could ever believe. If there is one thing that
contributes to serious problems it would be, the overly permissive, overly protective parenting style that
has taken over America.

So this week, set limits, give more chores. Step up. Don’t be afraid to have values and pass them
on to your teens. Expect something from teens, require more than you’ve ever required before. They
won’t like it, but they will grow from it.

Who said children suffer from peer pressure?

Children don’t nearly suffer as much as we do. It all begins with the infant. Our friend comes
over with their twelve year old child and makes seemingly stray comments on what her child was doing
when he was our child’s age. Of course our child isn’t doing any of the things mentioned. Although our
child is older.

It doesn’t stop with personal feats in childhood. This continues right into their teen years, and
often even into young adult years. Parents feel pressure to send their teens to schools that others are
sending their teens to; we feel pressure to give our teen things we know they don’t deserve. The list
goes on and on, and we too often succumb to the list that are put before us. Our peer pressure has a
fancy title, “Keeping up with the Joneses.”

Not one of us would admit to this poor behavior, but as soon as our friend leaves we find
ourselves wondering about the latest thing they bought, trying to encourage our teen to be like their
teen. Getting frustrated over our teen’s “inadequacies,” and we may experience a generalized
dissatisfaction about our own lives.

We model for our teens how to poorly handle peer pressure by succumbing to society’s
unbalanced expectations. Too often we don’t see our poor behavior, but we quickly call out our teens
on their poor management of peer pressure. Without realizing it we teach our teens that they are
supposed to have what other people have. We teach them that they are supposed to do what others do.

Of course this isn’t what we set out to teach our teens, but it happens. We have to extricate
ourselves out of this situation. Ignore the Joneses and all of their fantastic accomplishments. If we
accept ourselves as we are, it will be easier to accept our teens as they are.

It’s fall time, and change is on the way. We look forward to the changes. Beautiful leaves, crisp
air, a brighter than life sun and wonderful moderate temperatures. But that’s the beginning of fall. If we
look on down the road, we will see those same leaves, once beautiful and bright, are now brown and
scraggly. Tree limbs that were filled with color are now bare and barren. That crisp air turns out and out
cold. The brighter than life sun, more often than not is now gray.

So it seems with our children. As babies they are so wonderful. We encourage them to say those
first melodic words, to take those very first steps, and we adore their cute little ways. As time goes on
they make a change. No longer infants our teens make a big change. Those simple little words are now
sentences that are strung together to question and deny rules. Those steps that we celebrated are so
fast we can’t keep up with our teens anymore. Those cute little behaviors are now annoying, and we are
encouraging them to grow up and stop acting like a baby.

Like the fall and babyhood, this season called “teenage” will pass soon. So many changes will
take place in such a short time that it hardly seems worth the effort to get overly concerned.
Remember, “This too will pass.” This season will be over in due time. Don’t get sidetracked by every
little change. Change must occur, if our teens are going to make it to the season of “adulthood.”

Like the fall season, our teens will have moments of glory. There will be beautiful days with
glorious weather, but there will also be gloomy, gray wet days. But those days will pass too. The most
we can do is seek to have more of those beautiful days, and pray for the gray days to pass quickly.