Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode we're asking the question, can I choose my kids' friends? This is actually prompted by an interesting article I read in the Atlantic about how when your kid's best friend can become their biggest problem. And I think if you're raising teenagers or you have raised teenagers, uh, you have lived this experience. Two things are happening as kids grow up. One is our authority as parents is dwindling. They're just not around us enough. I mean, they spend most of their day at school, at ah, practice, at work, hanging out with friends. Gone are the days where we can just sit aid in time out when we don't like their attitude. Our authority is dwindling. It has to. They're growing up. But simultaneous to that, the influence of the kids they spend time with, the influence of their social circle is increasing. So that over time it might be true that the most shaping influence of a teenager are, uh, the other teenagers they spend time with. This can put parents in a tricky spot. When you don't like those other kids they spend time with, when you worry that their influence on your child isn't taking your kid in the right direction, what do you do? Do you respond with authority, kind of perpetuating the cycle of angry, authoritative, restrictive parent, rebellious, angry teenager, rinse and repeat. I know, I've been there. You probably have two. Or is there a different way forward, a different way to navigate this? Well, that begs the question for us as Christian parents of what would the Bible say? What does it have for us as we think about this issue? Well, I think a lot. Let me kind of sketch out a framework. Let's start with this. Uh, parents have to remember, I need to remember that I am a steward of my kids, not the owner. My kids come from God. Psalm 127 says that children are a heritage from the Lord, which means they're a gift from him. They belong to Him. My goal of parenting is not to read into my kids my own insecurity or my own impatience or my own anger. My goal isn't just to make sure there are no problems in front of me today. My goal is to produce adults who love the God who made them, adults who are following Jesus. And that is gonna change how I handle things. Because a lot of times as parents we're responding in the immediate. We're responding from our own emotional standpoint instead of Playing the long game of figuring out where it is that we're going. When we realize that we're stewards, not owners, I think it leads to an approach to parenting that values love over force. Now, I don't mean authority and discipline aren't part of the parenting toolbox. They are. God tells us in the Bible that he disciplines those that he loves. But here's what I mean. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Romans 2, 4, where Paul says that God's kindness leads us to repentance. He's not saying that God doesn't have authority and that God doesn't have discipline. What he's saying is that often what changes us is the gentle whisper of God through his Holy Spirit. It's the slow working of God's wisdom into our lives and in to our hearts. And that I think is a template for parenting teenagers. It's the conversation that matters. It's the dialogue that matters. It means talking to kids about why they hang out with the people they hang out with, what they think that's doing in their life, and where they think that's taking them. It's teaching kids to evaluate their own influences. That's what the writer of Proverbs is saying at Proverbs 13:20 when he says, a companion of fools suffers harm. You should be asking your teenager, who do you think your friends are? Do you want to be like them? Do you understand we tend to become like the people we hang out with? Let's fast forward a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now. Is this group of friends taking you where you want to go? Uh, you might not like the answers you get, but I'll tell you this, those answers will be the closest glimpse you're gonna get into the heart of your teenager. Parenting as kids grow up is about freedom with guidance. We simply cannot restrict our kids from making their own choices. After all, your in game is not a 40 year old adult living in your basement asking you what time they need to be home when they go out. That is not a parenting when. We need kids who can navigate freedom, but they need guidance to do it. I can't help but think of Genesis 2 here, when God makes Adam and Eve and he rests them in the garden and he gives them a ton of freedom. He tells them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, have dominion over it. But then he says, but this one tree, don't eat from it. We should draw lines, we should have boundaries. But those boundaries have to allow our kids the freedom to learn to navigate their own relationships and influences and hey, just breathe a little. Let me end with this. The writer of Proverbs in 22:6 says that we should train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it. Do you know what he's saying? Parenting is a long game. I know the problem in front of you right now feels big. I also know that a lot of times I'm just tired of it. I'm feeling impatient, I'm feeling emotional, and I respond out of that. I just want the problem to go away. But what the book of Proverbs is telling us is that the appropriate parental mindset is conversation by conversation, day by day, month by month, year by year. Slow down, breathe, talk to your teenager, and trust that the God who loves you both is taking you somewhere good. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. 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