Parenting Teens
(a.k.a. Riding the Mechanical Bull) 

By Debra Bell

The roiling waters of the teen years catch many parents by surprise. It did me. Fortunately, our heavenly Father promises to give us the wisdom we need to shoot these rapids with skill and faith. But first we need to understand what is fueling the uproar—as if you don’t remember.

Your teen is going through tremendous psychological and biological changes, and this is unnerving for both of you. These changes are often unpredictable and beyond the teen’s control. My son Mike says he hated junior high because of his emotional swings. He never knew if he would wake up happy or angry. His emotions controlled him, and he had no idea how to explain this or manage them. Of course, he wasn’t admitting this to us at the time because he wasn’t mature enough to objectively analyze his situation. Instead we were on the receiving end of angry outbursts totally out of proportion to the situation or protracted seasons of silence emanating from behind a closed door. Our daughters, when they were teens, crumbled into tears at the drop of a hat. Now, with some distance, I wonder why I wasn’t more sympathetic. The reason is that I was rooted in fear, so I acted out of fear instead of faith, thereby exacerbating the emotional upheaval ...
 
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