Teen brain is a real thing. Teen boy brain is a very real thing. I asked Hudson to write down five things he wished everyone understood about boys his age. Here is his unedited reply.
That most of the dumb things that I do aren’t on purpose.
Just because I was involved in the conflict doesn’t mean that I am the one who started it.
Be slow to anger.
Just because I did something wrong, don’t push me away.
Guys have feelings, too, so don’t ignore them.
By God’s design, dads are the ones who speak protection, provision, and identity over children. I want to stir up the anointing that each father has to speak protection and covering over their child. I implore you to rise up as the superhero that you are in your child’s life and cover them with the cape of your words.
Here are some creative ways to communicate covering to your child:
Break agreement with the lie that your wife is better at this stuff than you are. God has given you a powerful role to speak protection over your family, and they need to be reminded of that in this hour when so much is swirling around in the atmosphere. Go be their superhero!
P.S. This is for dads of children of all ages. Adult children need to hear words of protection and covering over their fathers too. Pick up the phone and leave them a voicemail or shoot them a message.
Did you have parents who cared more about discipline than connection? Who used discipline as a weapon of punishment instead of correction and connection? If so, I want to encourage you that your challenge will be to find the BALANCE between connection and discipline. So many times, parents have harsh experiences (and some emotions to process with it) and then go all the way to connection leaving the child undisciplined. The next generation has hurts because they struggle in life from the lack of discipline and then vow they will crack the whip with their child. God is looking for a generation to bring things back into His balance, not extremes. Childhood warrants discipline AND connection.
We wrapped up two glorious weeks in Colorado and were up early for our flight. There was so much joy and gratitude pouring out of each of us. That is until we were going through security. It was hectic and very chaotic. The crowd had a subtle push as everyone wanted to get through the security line without further delay. Hudson started getting agitated and was letting everyone around him know it. I would ask him to do something knowing there wasn’t much time to tinker around. He was obeying but with extreme exaggeration. It would have been almost comical if it wasn’t holding up the rest of the people. I became annoyed and upset with his attitude. I made a sharp comment about his attitude which only made things worse. On the train, I was able to take a breath and heard Jesus tell me that I needed to be a student of my son and to allow him to teach me what he needs in this new teen brain season. I apologized for my sharp words that focused more on his outward behavior than his heart. I told him what Jesus showed me because it is always important to me that my children know while I am their mother and to be respected, Jesus is their friend and cares about their hearts, too. I love it when Jesus shows me where I have misunderstood my child’s heart. He is their advocate and I want them to know it. While on the plane, he asked to sit by me which was his way of communicating he wanted to reconnect. I knew he wouldn’t value having a conversation in front of everyone so I wrote him a note. His reply caught me off guard. His frustration was not within himself, but rather stemming from my rushed and chaotic parenting. He is still a child at 14, while capable of much, still a child, and simply needed more time.
A friend sent this to me. Boy, is it relevant for today!
“Early on in parenting, I noticed how powerful it was to communicate my love toward my children with a glance. It happened one day when I was looking at my sweet toddler with such delight in my heart and eyes, and I could somehow literally see the impact move down his whole body. It was as if he swallowed my delight through his eyes like a delicious piece of chocolate cake that would fill his belly for days. Later I learned that there is brain science that explains the power of forming bonds and connections through eye contact. Our eyes and expressions do not lie like words can. Expressing sincere love and delight in someone through a glance carries incredible power. Specifically, when we make left-eye-to-left eye contact with someone, we are able to connect in a more powerful way because the left side of our bodies is connected to the right hemisphere of our brains, and the right brain is the relational side of our brain. Knowing this continued to fuel my intentionality to communicate my heart toward my children through my eyes, facial expressions, and voice tone. It has been a beautiful thing to watch the power an expression of love can have on a person – it can uplift, fill, satisfy, calm, and settle all in one moment. Just this year, I was driving my boys to school, and as I dropped them off, my youngest gave me the most amazing, long goodbye glance, expressing such joy in seeing my face before he took off. It filled my whole body with peace, satisfaction, and joy. The next day, I longed for that connection with each of my kiddos before they were off for the day. I made a point to look them each in the eyes as they got out of the car and told them, not only with my words but with my glance, how much I loved and enjoyed them. It was beautiful. I could tell that even my oldest son, who was slightly hesitant to look me in the eyes, was blessed by it. Ever since that day, I have made a point to connect in this way with my children before they leave for the day. It is such a small thing, yet it sets them up to start their day in a relational and secure place – knowing that they are seen and deeply valued – as they go out into the world.”
My daughter sat by herself for lunch, and I AM SO EXCITED!! When my daughter was in 8th grade, she endured cruel and unkind treatment from girls in her class. It’s so hard when you go after building your child up to be who God called them to be, and then a peer comes along and tears them down. The isolation paralyzed her. We kept fighting the lies, forgiving and encouraging her to get back out there. It has been a painful journey of her choosing to believe what God says about her; slowly but surely, she was getting more confident. I have seen glimmers of her showing her natural self with peers, and I am so thankful for the restoration process. Her new school is on lockdown in the afternoon, making it very hard to connect with others, especially during lunch. She came home the other day and announced, “I sat by myself at lunch every day this week.” I asked how it felt, and she beamed a smile and said, “It didn’t bother me at all.” You know you have come full circle when you can endure the very thing that caused you so much pain (isolation from peers) but can walk on the same path again (isolation) and do so from a place of confident victory. My mama’s heart is thanking Jesus for redeeming what was stolen and holding her hand in the process. Identity is the glue that holds them together during trials. We must know who we are!!
P.S. She has many friends. In those situations, she is new and needs to be vulnerable, which has caused her to shut down.
1 Peter 4:8 tells us, “Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins.” I also took that to mean that we should love those who are in sin because of the transformation that love can bring. But in parenting, I am seeing another dimension of God’s Word, which has messed me up on more than one occasion. Like many of you, I am walking out my own redemption story, and God is still doing a deep work in me. I don’t always do the things I desire to do with my children. I still have triggers, get upset and make messes. When I go back and make things right with my kids, I am blown away over and over and over again by how they respond. They are filled with so much grace and compassion for me that it makes no sense when you look at some of the messes I have made over the years. I had a season where I became concerned about their “Oh, it’s okay, Mom” responses and worried that maybe they were, to be honest, fearing me with their real heart. God showed me that because I go after love, connection, seeing them, giving them a voice, and communicating their importance regularly when I blow it, the love in their bank account covers it, and it is a bummer of a moment, but not a wound.
Parents, going after connection in times of peace stores up and covers you in those moments when you are walking out your own journey. This is obviously not a message about permission to make messes, but in reality, we all make them. This is a message that what you deposit into their hearts creates a currency that covers when you make a withdrawal.
I cannot encourage you strongly enough to get a copy of our HEART SPLINTERS book so that you can continue to work through your own journey. Order yours here! Heart Splinters BOOK – Let the Children Fly
My friend Amber shared: “Holy Spirit gave me insight into my three kids and showed me that sometimes there’s a disconnect with my oldest because I am judging her. He showed me how her new school overwhelms her, how she feels like I’m not listening to her, and that one of her love languages is acts of service, so the ‘bossiness’ and constantly asking for this or that is her way of connecting.”
A mom currently taking our Kingdom parenting online class shares this powerful revelation: “I believe I had a revelation the other day. You touched on it in today’s lesson when you said, ‘If you find that you are having a hard time getting your child interested in releasing the Kingdom, don’t turn it into a legalistic battle of wills. Instead, focus on your relationship with them.’ I need to work on our relationship. I’ve been focused on being their teacher, disciplinarian, trainer, and encourager, but not the mom who loves and plays well.”
I love the concept of purity rings, where parents purchase a ring and give it to their daughter over a meaningful weekend, inviting her to guard her purity. I think all parents should take their child’s sexual purity seriously. However, I began to see over the years that the purity ring concept was actually setting the child up for greater failure. When a teen fails to resist temptation, they build a wall with their parents because it isn’t just about their choice but about profoundly disappointing their parents, who had created such high expectations. Purity shouldn’t be a pass/fail but rather a lifestyle of good choices. I think it is wise to keep the bar high (really high) when it comes to teaching, equipping, and empowering our children with their sexual health; however, we live in a culture that is so flamboyantly sexualized. When we teach purity, we also need to be taught HOW to take our mistakes, failure, and sin and bring it to God. Fear, shame, and pride keep us in our sin, while confession, humility, and honesty bring restoration. Moral failure is a top reason why teens fall away from God. They feel like they have committed a fatal sin and are now separated from God. While it is true sexual immorality does have profound ramifications that affect our mind, body, and spirit, it is only God who can heal and restore what was lost. We aren’t expecting our teens to crash the car once they get their license, but it is wise to give them instructions on what to do in case of an accident so that they are empowered should they find themselves in that mess.
I once asked a girl in her young 20s what contributed to her choice to remain pure despite continuous pressure. She told me how her parents laid the foundation by teaching her the power of sex, attraction, and moral health and then presented it in a way that empowered her that her daily choices were guarding herself FOR something and not just AGAINST something. One is empowering, and the other one is merely obeying a command through resistance. Ex. For the person dieting, they will be much more successful if they make a choice not to eat the cake BECAUSE they have their eyes fixed on a higher goal of denying themselves now SO THAT they can fit into their jeans down the road. The JOY of the future is what helped them to say NO to the cake today. They wanted their jeans more than the cake. Another person diets simply by denying themselves in a self-condemning, shameful way of managing resistance, which only stirs up the desire for cake even more. It is rooted in willpower, “I can’t,” and rules. This isn’t a recipe for success, longevity, or real transformation. I was inspired to keep the concept of the purity ring for my girls but to do it FOR their future husbands. I took them out, and we talked about purity (not sex ed, but the purity of their mind, body, dress, heart, emotions, and relationships), and then we each picked out a tie for their future husbands. They are placed where they can see them daily and are reminded that he is a living human being on earth today. They pray for him, think about him, and some are even keeping a journal about him (wondering, dreaming, and praying for him). This establishes that they are guarding their purity FOR HIM. My daughter came home one day, expressing an interest in a boy at school. I asked, “Is that the boy you have been praying for?” and instantly, she realized, “NO!”
If you have followed Let the Children Fly for long, you know that I am a big promoter of knowing and filling your child’s love tank. How many adults walk around with unmet needs waiting for someone to fill them? It is a lonely and isolating experience. The sad thing is few people can read your mind to know what you need. I have been very diligent in not only teaching my children about their love language but how to discern when they are feeling low, isolated, or disconnected and how to get their needs met in a HEALTHY, proactive way. Typically when their tanks are low, there is an increase of bickering, conflict, bad moods, agitation, and strife. While I went after character training, I also helped them to be PROACTIVE with their needs so that it doesn’t get to that point. Hudson came to me one morning and said, “Hey Mom, I set up a game of cards for us.” Truth be told, the timing wasn’t great, as I had a lot to do, but I had eyes to see that my son could have cared less about cards and was really saying, “Hey Mom, my love tank is low, and I want you to fill it before I go to school.” Yep! I can make time for you, son.
