According to the Scriptures, there are only two options when confronted with sin: the first and more common human tendency is to justify the self and quench the conscience. The other is to repent, which means agreeing with God and being realigned with his truth. Your teenager stands at the crossroads of this choice every time he or she does wrong. Make no mistake: the teenage years are a battle. But they are not a battle with your adolescent; they are a battle for his or her heart.
First Peter 5:8 minces no words: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Jesus told us that the devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy (see John 10:10). He is a liar and the father of lies (see John 8:44), the accuser of God’s people (see Rev. 12:10). He doesn’t play fair, and your teenager is in his sights.
Instead of fighting with your teenager, fight the real battle, the battle beyond flesh and blood (see Eph. 6:10–18). Helping your adolescent understand that sin always destroys is part of the real war of the teenage years. Self-absorption makes teenagers particularly vulnerable to the “I can handle this” deception. Only God-consciousness, which leads to authentic self-awareness, enables a teen to see that the true problem is not what’s outside (i.e., everyone and everything else), but rather what’s inside his or her heart.
It’s always easier to see the speck in someone else’s eye than the log in our own (see Matt. 7:3–5). You may clearly see selfishness, materialism, rage, greed, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life in teenagers, but they will not see these things clearly. It’s absolutely essential that you spend time praying that God would reveal your teen’s own heart to him or her. So often we sabotage the Holy Spirit’s work in teenagers’ hearts by swooping in to declare “what’s wrong with” them. It takes tremendous discernment and patience to wait for God to move, to speak and act only in accordance with him, trusting that his plan is far better than any strategy we might conceive. Be a warrior for your teen on your knees.
As you fight this battle for your teenager’s heart, expect that your adolescent will struggle. You will too. You are both sinners in a broken world. You are fighting in a great war, and it’s tempting to fight everyone except the real enemy. Allow your teenager to see that you are engaging in an ongoing battle with sin and the author of sin. Identify with his or her struggle. There’s nothing your teenager has done or could do that you’re immune to; by the grace of God, you may not have made the same mistakes, but you are fully capable of them. If your teenage son knows that you are fighting for him, if your adolescent daughter knows that you are a soldier in the war against sin just like her, an unbreakable bond is forged. The gospel comes alive when you start with “I see why that appealed to you,” rather than “How could you?” or “Why would you?” and conclude with, “By God’s grace, there’s a better way” rather than “You’d better . . . or else.”
Most adolescents long to be caught up in something bigger than themselves. That’s why teens love being with friends, doing outlandish things. That’s why some of the most brilliant and successful entrepreneurs started dreaming as teenagers. Some teens literally do change the world with their energy, enthusiasm, and exuberance.
Too many adults settle for much lower goals: getting to the next vacation, the next raise, the next whatever. Comfort, control, and happiness are the aims of their daily lives. Teenagers rush onto the scene with all their sound and fury, and it’s easy to see their inability to self-reflect and their constant blame-shifting and responsibility-shirking as a protracted hassle, encroaching on parental well-being and family harmony. We must reject this thinking.
Give teens a bigger picture, a vision of glory greater than theirs. God’s purposes for their lives extend far beyond becoming a functioning adult, having a nice Christian family, or enjoying a good career. When your teen blames someone else or gives you a lame excuse, seize the opportunity. Take the extra time. Fight the real battle and reach beyond your personal happiness and ease for the greater good of God’s glory. We urge you, as the apostle Peter did, “Let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness” (1 Pet. 1:15 Message). A life energetic and blazing with holiness is impossible to resist, even for the most skeptical teenager.
Try It Today: Delay the Next Consequence
When your teenager was much younger, you likely heard the advice that in order to connect consequences with behavior, discipline needs to occur immediately. This is very good counsel for parents of small children, but adolescents are capable of tying past behavior to current consequences. For that reason, discipline doesn’t demand immediacy.
In fact, when you’re in a pressured, emotionally volatile situation (i.e., dealing with a rule-breaking teen), coming up with an on-the-spot consequence can be less than ideal. It’s often effective for parents who want to help their teenagers develop self-awareness to say, “I’m disappointed in this behavior. There will be consequences, but I want to think about what would be best. I would like for you to spend some time thinking about it too. I’ll come and find you at _______________ (indicate a time), and we can discuss what you were thinking and feeling and what you plan to do differently next time.” Giving a specific hour is helpful, because you can bet the proverbial farm that your teen won’t forget; he or she will be thinking about what happened for at least part of that time frame.
Our judicial system wisely works this way. Judges hear the facts surrounding a case at one time and issue a sentence at another. Engaging with your adolescent can be intense and impassioned. When you dole out discipline on the spot, you may get stuck with a poorly chosen consequence or find yourself repealing a decision later. Needless to say, both end badly.
Try delaying the next consequence. It gives everyone a chance to cool down and process. Remember, teenage self-awareness takes time to nurture and practice. Choosing the best time to respond—when the situation has stabilized and there’s been an opportunity for reflection—helps everyone. Delayed consequences are often more memorable and instructive than immediate ones, which can get lost in a storm of anger, defensiveness, or apathy (theirs or yours!). Delaying consequences engages your teen’s mind to transform his or her heart.
19
I Can’t Take This!
During my senior year of high school, Mr. Erskin—one of my absolute favorite teachers—observed, “Jerusha, you don’t just burn the candle at both ends. You cut the candle in half and light all four ends on fire.” I took this as a compliment, never imagining that a life furiously ablaze might have consequences down the road.
At seventeen, I was taking six honors classes and preparing for a battery of advanced placement tests. If I passed them all, I’d enter college as a sophomore. It seemed reasonable to make sacrifices—like sleep—to get through the homework, exams, and academic hoops.
Of course, life would’ve been boring if school was everything, so I took a position in student government, joined the vocal ensemble and various clubs, performed in two drama productions, danced at a private studio twice a week, pursued my piano certificate of merit, and attended church.
If colleges wanted “well-rounded,” I was it. I might have joked, “I eat stress for breakfast,” but actually I ate nothing; I was too busy for that nonsense.
My academic and extracurricular load caused me to live beyond my limits—constantly. And though your teenager’s life may look nothing like mine did, research shows that in the twenty-some years since I graduated from high school, stress hasn’t decreased for teenagers. Indeed, every indication is that adolescent stress continues to increase exponentially.
With homework, sports, rehearsals, lessons, community or church activities, and the ever-present draw of hanging with friends, many teens are beyond harried. Adolescents who don’t participate in extracurricular activities face mounting pressures too. Staying digitally available 24-7 takes its toll on everyone. Dysfunctional family dynamics, economic pressures, and the barrage of
reports—often sensationalized—about world crises, natural disasters, and terrorism intensify stress for today’s adolescents. While many people associate teenagers with laziness and apathy, stress—along with the physical and emotional exhaustion that accompanies it—plagues more teens today. Teenage life in the twenty-first century is complex and confusing.
Complicating matters further is a significant physiological fact: the teenage brain is uniquely vulnerable to stress.1
Bio 101
According to neuroscientist Dr. Frances Jensen, “Teens simply don’t have the same tolerance for stress that we see in adults.”2 One major reason: THP, the hormone usually released by the body in response to stress, and which modulates anxiety in adults, actually has a reverse effect in adolescents. Where adults experience a calming sensation as the body produces and circulates THP, in teenage brains THP is often ineffective in inhibiting anxiety. Neurobiologically speaking, stress breeds more stress in the teenage brain.
As a result, teens are far more likely to suffer from stress-related complaints like headaches and stomachaches. Since the human body’s response to stress often includes the suppression of immune system functioning, tapped-out teens get sick more frequently. They’re also far more susceptible to stress-related behaviors like nail biting, hair pulling, eating disorders, and cutting. Stress—both the emotional experience of it and the body’s inability to process it—plays a major role in teenage illness. Research indicates that between 75 and 90 percent of all medical visits can be traced to the impact of stress on the body.3
No one lives with zero stress. Our bodies were designed to deal with moderate amounts of stress frequently and high amounts on occasion. With average amounts of stress, the brain releases adrenaline, enabling our bodies to react with alertness and focus. Moderate amounts of adrenaline can even sharpen your sensory experience and memory. The trouble is, most people live with far greater stress levels than the human body can sustain long term.
If the body is overwhelmed by stress, it responds by releasing large amounts of cortisol, a hormone that lingers in the bloodstream far longer than many other neurochemicals. Excessive cortisol has been connected with increased heart rate and blood pressure, impaired thinking, disrupted memory, and immune system dysfunction. Teenage brains, in particular, struggle to process cortisol; it takes a teenage body longer to bounce back once cortisol has flooded its circuits. This is especially true of adolescent girls, for whom new and higher levels of progesterone negatively impact the body’s ability to process cortisol.4
One of the pioneers in stress research, Dr. Hans Selye, coined the phrase adaptive energy to describe how the body deals with stress. According to Dr. Selye, adaptive energy is the reserve strength the body utilizes to get through stressful periods. Too many teenagers—and adults!—force their bodies to use reserves to get through daily life, when that adaptive energy should be preserved for crisis.
If a teenager lives at an emergency level all the time, physical and emotional consequences are inevitable. Remember, living a 911 life doesn’t have to look one particular way. A teen with very little going on in his or her schedule may be maxed out by internal stress that’s harder to see. Discernment is crucial.
Put simply, too much stress is detrimental to the body and brain. It also wreaks havoc on the mind and spirit.
Psych 101
Let’s consider some ways to help teenagers deal more appropriately with stress.
Go compassion crazy. Most parents underestimate the stress in their teenagers’ lives. Before researching for this book, we had no idea how stress specifically impacts teenage brains. Discovering the facts gave us greater compassion for our adolescents, and we pray it does for you too. If we verbally minimize or dismiss our teenagers’ stress, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll come to us when times get tough. Teens are constantly subjected to comparison and competition—at school, on the athletic field, in extracurricular activities or lessons, even within social circles. It’s stressful! Our chaotically busy culture also rips at the fabric of families. Busyness steals the time it takes to listen, the energy to care, and the power to love. A grace-filled home acts as an antidote to these toxic forces. Don’t dismiss your teen’s stress, even if it seems minimal to you; instead, go compassion crazy!
Check your own stress quotient. We interact with a lot of involved, loving parents. We also see a lot of stretched-thin, stressed-out, can’t-take-it-anymore moms and dads. Despite endless books, blogs, and best intentions to live “more balanced” lives, most adults have runaway schedules. Teenagers suffer from the fallout of our stress. If you’re running ragged, you won’t be able to help your teenager learn to deal with stress. You simply won’t have the time. The eminently wise Dr. Dallas Willard regularly counseled others to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from their lives.5 Busyness makes us less available for the true purposes of parenting: character building and soul nurturing. Living at breakneck speeds destroys communication and connectedness, already in short supply during the teen years. Living frantically costs too much, for everyone, so start ruthlessly eliminating busyness from your life.
Find your why. Today, living a full-throttle life is the norm. Chaos in our schedule creates chaos in our homes, though, so why do we stay on the culturally conditioned treadmill? Just because teenagers have the option to do lots of great things doesn’t mean they should. Why is your family doing what you do? Have you ever asked that? If you have a ready answer, is your why worth whatever it may cost you? It may, in fact, be worth it; we can’t evaluate that for you. Instead, we encourage you to calculate your why for every activity and do a second round of ruthless elimination. This second time around may look different.
Aim for 80 percent. In his book In Search of Balance, Dr. Richard Swenson describes this brilliantly. “If we are at 80 percent capacity,” Swenson writes, “there is some space between our load and our limits. If we are at 100 percent capacity . . . we have no wiggle room, no reserves, no buffer, no leeway. There is no margin left for error.”6 Life is a constant balancing act of limits and loads. When we decide—and it requires a conscious determination—to leave room in our lives, we can deal with the unexpected. Because we aren’t maxed out at 80 percent, we have the physical, emotional, and spiritual resources to face daily ups and downs. If we live at 100 percent capacity and something goes wrong, life’s dominoes topple and everything goes haywire. If you or your teen are maxed—or worse, overloaded at 120 percent—you have zero, possibly even a negative amount of energy and availability. For much of my life, I (Jerusha) would have considered it an outrageous waste to live at 80 percent. “Doesn’t God at least expect us to live at 100 percent? Doesn’t he want us to use our gifts and talents to the fullest?” I would have thought. Now I wonder, “What if God wants us, more than anything, to live available lives?” If you or your teen are currently at 100 percent capacity, you’re not available; instead, you’re terribly vulnerable.
Do a performance review. People typically associate performance reviews with being evaluated, but we’re encouraging you to review how much stock you put in your teen’s performance. To live with healthy amounts of stress, your adolescent needs to know that performance doesn’t define his or her worth. Unfortunately, many parents live the lie—often subconsciously—that people who contribute more or achieve at higher levels are more valuable. As we ruthlessly eliminate hurry in our lives, we must also brutally eradicate performance-based thinking. The stress many teens face is directly related to the expectations they sense (often from parents). Unattainable ideals create unbearable physical and emotional dissonance in a teenager’s life. Help your son or daughter develop an identity apart from achievement, and stress will decrease.
Faith 101
Humans don’t naturally lead balanced lives. We’re constantly stretching beyond our limits, testing the boundaries, and experiencing frustration and heartache when confronted with our inherent weaknesses. Most of us don’t like being so human: finite, vulnerable, and limi
ted.
God, in his infinite wisdom and grace, designed us with the capacity to do wonderful things. He also placed parameters on our lives. We have physical limits: no one has access to more than twenty-four hours in a day; we have varying degrees of health and strength; and despite what our modern culture hopes, we cannot extend our lives beyond what God ordains. That’s why Moses prayed, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). We especially appreciate the way various translations render this verse: “Teach us to realize the brevity of life” (NLT) and “teach us to consider our mortality, so that we might live wisely” (NET).
For teenagers, who see their “whole life” in front of them, it’s difficult to imagine how present choices will determine the course of their lives. But as adults, we know very well that decisions matter. Choosing to gain a heart of wisdom, to number our days, remembering that life on earth won’t last forever, is a decision that affects everything else.
At church, waiting in line to pick up kids from all manner of activities, even at the grocery store, parents talk endlessly about the need to slow down. Life is “crazy busy” and we just need “more balance,” they lament. It’s only when we embrace mortality—not merely that we don’t live forever, but also that we have limits—that we live wiser, more balanced lives.
Before we can even begin to pursue balance, however, we must address a deeper heart issue. Teenagers (and most stressed-out adults) don’t have as serious a balance problem as they do a center problem.7
One cannot maintain balance without a solid core, a fixed center. Like our solar system, with the sun providing a durable center around which the planets orbit, we must have a fixed point around which the various activities and experiences, joys and stresses of our lives orbit. Most people are out of balance because they either aren’t sure what the fixed point in their lives should be (so they try out various relationships, accomplishments, and activities) or they know what their center should be but don’t consciously order their lives around it. The latter applies to many Christians, both teenage and adult.
Your Teenager Is Not Crazy Page 20