On this episode of The Disciple-Making Podcast, we sit down with Melissa Kruger, author of “Parenting with Hope,” to explore the challenges and joys of raising teenagers in today’s world.
We discuss how to create meaningful family connections in a tech-saturated age, establish healthy boundaries while showing acceptance, and maintain availability without sacrificing personal boundaries. Through practical examples and heartfelt insights, we learn how to balance rules with grace, consequences with compassion, and discover why our relationship with God remains the foundation for effective parenting.
Whether you’re navigating the teenage years or preparing for them, this conversation offers encouraging perspectives on raising teens with biblical wisdom in a secular age.
Resources From This Podcast
Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ In a Secular Age, by Melissa Kruger
Walking With God In the Season of Motherhood, by Melissa Kruger
The Gospel Coalition
The New City Catechism
Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
David and Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell
Topics Covered In This Week’s Podcast
04:34 Why Parenting with Hope was written
07:10 Integrating the Word into the home
12:39 Parenting styles
17:12 Prayer in the household
19:51 The battle: fighting for the better portion
25:29 Calling our children to excellence without making it an idol
33:49 Choosing activities with wisdom
44:03 Advice on media for parents of teens
47:14 Acceptance and availability
52:58 Melissa’s last word
Episode Transcript
I’m Chap Bettis, and you’re listening to The Disciple-Making Parent, where we seek to equip parents and churches to pass the gospel to their children. Are you a parent of teenagers? How’s it going? Feeling overwhelmed? Struggling to stay afloat? Melissa Kruger is going to help you parent with hope. Hi, my name is Chap Bettis, and I’m the author of The Disciple-Making Parent.
You know, the teen years can be some very interesting times. There can be lots of fun. And there can be lots of challenges. I remember thinking at times that I’m just carving my way through a jungle. I don’t even know exactly where I’m going. At other times, I felt like the whole family, we were floating down a river with rapids, but maybe we were in the water.
I came across Melissa Kruger’s book, Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age, and I loved it. Not only because we were so likeminded, but because she states some of the same principles that I believe in. In her book, she talks about the foundations of a godly home, some idols that will tempt our teen and us, and finally, some positive attributes to aim for in your home.
Melissa is the Vice President of Discipleship Programming at The Gospel Coalition, and she’s the author of multiple books, including Growing Together, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, and the popular children’s book, Wherever I Go, I Want You to Know. Her husband, Mike, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary. They’re parents of three adult children and live in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Well, before we start though, I want to remind you of two resources that may be of interest to you. First, our newest book is entitled Launch: Biblical Help for Moving Your Teen or Young Adult into the Real World. It’s a short read and it’s the information I wish I had as I was raising teenagers and with the idea of launching them out into the world. You can find it on our website or on Amazon and the title is Launch: Biblical Help for Moving Your Teen or Young Adult into the Real World. And of course, the second resource we always highlight is that we give away the audiobook of The Disciple-Making Parent absolutely free. Just visit our website, sign up for our weekly newsletter, and we’ll give you the whole audiobook for free. We’re on a mission to equip parents and grandparents to raise their children to not only love the Lord And not only be disciples, but to be disciple-makers, taking the gospel to the world and standing as salt and light in our country.
But for now, let’s listen to my interview with Melissa Kruger on Parenting with Hope.
Chap: Well, it’s a joy to have Melissa Kruger on The Disciple-Making Parent podcast. Melissa is the vice president of Discipleship Programming at the Gospel Coalition. And she’s an author of multiple books, including Growing Together, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, and the popular children’s books, Wherever I Go, I Want You to Know. Her husband, Mike, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary, and they’re the parents of three adult children and live in Charlotte, North Carolina. So, Melissa, thank you for taking time to be on the podcast.
Melissa Kruger: Thanks for having me.
Chap: Well, I’ve been looking forward to this interview for quite a while. We’re going to discuss your book, Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age, which is also my heart. But you’re a prolific author. My wife right now is going through Growing Together with two young women in our church, and my son-in-law is a campus minister. He told me this morning, “I’ve just handed out one of your husband’s books.” So thank you for your writing and teaching ministry. That’s really been helpful for the kingdom.
Melissa: That’s encouraging to hear.
Chap: Well, one of the reasons I’m looking forward to this interview so much is because as I read Parenting with Hope, I found myself agreeing with it over and over. And we’re likeminded in many ways, but what I like is you use different words and in many cases, come at it a little differently. I think it’s helpful to hear the same ideas, the same things. Different words reach different people, sometimes strike us differently. And so we really are in a battle for our teen’s hearts in this age. So let me just start with the reason you wrote the book and the need that you saw.
Melissa: That’s always a good question, right? Because you never feel equipped to write books, especially books on parenting. So I will have to say I resisted this one. I had had a publisher reach out and they had read Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood and they were like, we really need this for the teen years. And I was just like, I do not want to do that. I don’t want to step into the space. And I took about a year to think about it. And over the course of that year, I just felt like actually this is probably something I should do.
I actually have always loved the teen years. I was a high school math teacher in my other life and even when I worked in at camps in the summers at college, I always worked with teenagers. That was what I always loved working with. And you wonder, maybe I like other people’s teenagers. I’m not sure I’ll like my own. But I actually really loved this season, this age of child. And the other thing I recognized, and this was a little bit true of Walking With God In the Season of Motherhood, right now, it would actually be hard for me to write a book for young moms because I’ve forgotten so much. If you ask me, “Oh, how do you get them to sleep through the night?” Oh, I don’t really remember. So I felt like it was actually good to write some of this down while I still remember it.
We talked earlier. I mean, my kids are 24, 21, and 18, so I’m just exiting this season of having, preteens and teens in my home. And so it’s still fresh on my brain, some of these things. But what I also found I was really helped by the things I had learned in my education classes in college about teen development. Those things actually really helped me live in an understanding way with my teenager. And so I wanted to try to put those things alongside biblical wisdom, in this book for parents of teens. And also maybe a little bit of hope that this can be a really wonderful season with your family.
Chap: Yeah, sometimes it feels crazy. I had a friend describe it as, with young kids it feels like you’re in a raft on the rapids and then in the teen years it feels like the raft is turned over and you’re floating and trying to stay together. But it makes a great story, having fun at the same time.
Well, I love that it shows that you’ve sat through a lot of sermons because there’s a lot of alliteration here. So you’ve got the basics, the foundation of a Christian home, the battle, and then the blessings: cultivating a home where teens thrive. I appreciate that. Let’s just talk about the basics here. You talk about the basics of word, prayer, and church. Talk a little bit about that. How did you integrate the Word in your family? Maybe you did describe a very specific situation with the teen years, but also thinking about the younger years, how do you integrate the word?
Melissa: Well, there are three things I consider foundational to the Christian home, and I think often they’re overlooked. We want the shiny answers, and I think the Lord has given us means of grace by which we know Him and we walk with Him, and that’s true for our children as well. And so those things can seem so basic, being in the Word, being in prayer, being in church, and people are like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but give me the real answer.” And I’m like, “Well, that actually is the real answer,” and not only for our teens, but for us as parents. I think too often, we maybe overly concern ourselves with getting our kids in the Word, and we’re actually not reading it ourselves. So Deuteronomy 6 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. These commandments that I give you are to be on your heart. Teach them to your children.” So I think we sometimes neglect the first work about loving. We need to be fueling our own affection for the Lord every day, and we need to be spending time in his Word, time in prayer for our kids, and time in church, not just for our kids, but for ourselves. And so I call those the foundational things.
And then what I think will happen is we will more naturally pass that along to our kids as we go about our way. So I think there’s two things that happen. We’re in the Word, the Word’s being imprinted on our hearts, and then we’re going to naturally imprint it. But definitely in the young years, we spent a lot of time having spaces in our home where we were getting the Word to them, whether it was memorizing verses together as a family, and that can be really fun. I mean, there are a lot of great songs out there. There are a lot of great ways to memorize. But then we also had family devotions every night. That changed once our kids went to elementary school, we started doing devotions in the morning.
And a lot of that in the young years was catechism, I’m really big on the catechism. There are a couple of versions out there. There’s a New City Catechism that TGC has put out, but there’s also one that we use in our tradition. And it’s just a question-answer format. That’s all a catechism is. I mean, it sounds so formal, but what I love about that is it actually allows the children to speak. I think so often in our instruction, we’re doing all the talking. But who made you? God. What else did God make? All things. Why did God make you and all things? For his glory. And the kids are participating. And we did that every night at dinner, and it was just a normal part of our family time together. And so I do think we have to be intentional, but it doesn’t actually take that much time.
I think sometimes people think, Oh, I don’t have time to do all that. Well, if you have time to eat dinner, then you have time to do this. It wasn’t that laborious at all for our family to do. It’s just making it a point and making it really an important part of your family that the word is regularly read in your home, not just on Sunday morning.
Chap: And you mentioned Deuteronomy 6 being on our hearts first, but then also, the rest of it talks about different times throughout our day when it’s just sort of there. So it’s not oppressive, but it is there. And you highlighted the research and just talking about the Word, how important that is. As opposed to, as a pastor, I want to teach, I want to lecture, I want to pontificate.
Melissa: Yeah, and I think in the young years, you’ve got to remember we’re dealing with concrete learners. If you’re dealing with young children, you’re really just saying the foundation, getting the Word in them. So the more they can memorize, their little brains are like sponges, and they’re actually able to memorize. So the more that’s hidden in their heart, I mean, that can come back when they’re 23. You’re building a foundation for them.
I would say when you get into the middle school and teen years, that’s when you get to have really interesting discussions. What does this mean? What does this say? Why do you think this is in there? How does this actually impact you as you’re worried about that test tomorrow? So there, there are times I think we’re going to have more conversations almost the older they get. But I think in the young years, it’s really important to get those foundational principles in their heart.
Chap: Yeah, that’s helpful. I mean, I’ve said it this way: Every parent needs to be a teacher and a counselor. A teacher in the young years, lecturer, putting that information in, but then counsel. But then it’s hard to shift gears to become the counselor later on.
In that chapter, surprisingly- and I want you to emphasize this- you talked about parenting styles. And I have that in my material. I think it’s so important in this day and age. So I wonder if you wouldn’t mind just describing those and then maybe speak to the younger mother who’s influenced by the permissive style.
Melissa Yeah. So there’s a quadrant, and there are four different styles. I’m going to give them a little bit different names because I think it’s easier to differentiate. Authoritarian is what is often used. I use domineering because I think it differentiates it better and we understand more what that is. So a domineering parent. The second category is called authoritative, but I think authoritative and authoritarian are so close that they get mixed up a lot. I call that a shepherding parent. And then we have permissive and we have negligent. So most people listening to this podcast are not in the negligent quadrant. They care. Permissive, here’s what I would say. Both permissive and domineering tend to be based in fear. They parent out of fear. The domineering parent fears losing control. The permissive parent fears losing their children’s affection in some sense, or maybe they won’t like me, or maybe I’ll damage them in some way if I have any rules.
Whereas that shepherding parent says, No, I’m called to lead this child. I’m called to give structure and boundaries to this child, but I’m going to do so in such a way that’s always looking out for the good of the child. I would say domineering parenting is often looking out for the good of the parent. You do it because I say it, it’s kind of that you do it because I want you to do this. Rather than I would say a shepherd parent is looking at What does God ask of my child? So God doesn’t really ask my child to play football or soccer. A domineering parent’s going to say “You play football because I’m telling you to play football” or whatever it might be. They’re going to dominate, and the child’s going to do what the parent wants because they’re representing the parent. The child is the representative. Versus a shepherding parent sees this child as actually their goal is to glorify God. Not to glorify the parent.
So that’s a different question. And when we get to permissive, which I think there’s a lot of right now, I think we always swing between a permissive and a domineering type model of parenting. And I just would say this, I saw this in my years of teaching. One of my students came up to me and they said, “You know, I know that teacher doesn’t actually care about us.” And I said, “Well, tell me why you think that.” And he said, “Well, she never really actually teaches us anything. She lets us do whatever we want in her classroom. And I know she didn’t care about us because if she actually cared about us, she’d teach us something.” And the reality is, permissiveness isn’t actually a way of loving your child. You’ve lived more of life. You actually understand truths that your child doesn’t know, and they need you to be that shepherd parent. They need your guidance. They need your boundaries. They need you to do that in a loving and warm way, but allowing them free rein is actually not loving them very well.
They need to be directed into what is good for their soul. So what we’re doing when we direct them to the truth of Scripture is actually saying, “Hey, this is the path of life. Live in it. This is how it goes well for you. In the Bible, God gave us this path to show us how to live, not to keep us from life, but to actually show us how to live in a way that is going to go well for us.” And that doesn’t mean we get everything we want when I say that. It’s just how we were created to live. It’s not good when we steal, it’s not good when we gossip, it’s not good when we lie. Those things aren’t going to go well for you in the end. And as a parent, we’ve lived life long enough to be able to pass that on down to our children. So I would just always say permissive is really fear-based parenting.
Chap: Oh, that’s very interesting. That’s very helpful- wanting our kids to like us, being afraid of being rejected, and we have lived more of life. So children are held up in scripture as examples of faith, but also examples of ignorance. And so that’s very helpful.
While we’re still in that section, just talk a little bit about prayer. You mentioned that before. Prayer is for us as well. You talked about praying for yourself, spontaneous and scheduled times. I wonder if you just expand on that for just in our conversation now.
Melissa: This was one of the hugest ways we did actually family devotions in the morning. It always included prayer time. We had five different prayer cards, one for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and everybody had one day where we prayed for them. We had five in our family, so that worked out well. You can figure it out based on your numbers. And then, we also had some other categories. The Scripture tells us to pray for your leaders. So every day of the week, we also prayed for either a pastor or for a principal or for the president. The Scriptures tell us pray for open doors for our missionaries. So we also every day prayed for a missionary on our list. And then we also had a time where we prayed for those who might be sick or suffering in a certain way. So it allowed our kids- Yes, we’re going to pray for our family, but we’re also going to pray for this world.
And in a world where we know kids are more anxious than ever, they’re more lonely than ever, there’s something about prayer. It not only connects us to God, it connects us to one another and it teaches them, Yeah, the world is out of control. You’re seeing this horrible thing happen in Afghanistan and we’re actually going to pray about it together as a family. It teaches them what you do with your anxiety. It is a fearful world. It’s actually not wrong. When Joshua and the spies saw the promised land, they were like grasshoppers compared to these giants. What did they do? They trusted in the Lord. And so I think prayer is a real way we teach our children, This is how you trust in the Lord. You bring to Him your concerns. And it really helps them understand how to deal with a world that is very scary and very out of control. We can’t control it, but we can ask the Lord to help in our own personal lives and in the lives of those around us.
Chap: Thanks. That’s a very practical application of Philippians 4. Just not to be anxious, but to bring everything. I love how you’re doing that. You’re just saying, we did this one thing, so this is not overwhelming. I can do this and it just becomes a habit and it’s just day after day after day.
I don’t want to skip the chapter on the church because both of us are church people. We need the church. She’s the bride of Christ. But I do want to skip ahead to talk about this: you spent significant time in the next section where you talk about the battle, which is fighting for the better portion. That title’s really interesting. It’s not always that the battle’s always not between the good and the bad, it’s the better and the best. And you specifically bring up Tim Keller and his four source idols of power, approval, comfort, and control, and the fears that go along with it. I wonder if you would elaborate on that. For people who’ve not read Tim Keller, it might be helpful to describe what’s going on in their hearts and in their emotions.
Melissa: When we talk about idols and when Tim was talking about idolatry, it was not little physical things that we’re bowing down to, but really whatever we’re trusting in in this world. So all of us have different places we really put our trust, and we really lean on and rely on and think, “Hey, this is going to solve the issues in my life.” So it’s the reason that these chapters really came to be. There’s a verse in 2 Kings that was a very sobering verse. It says, “While these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving their idols, and their children and their grandchildren did the same after them.” And it really hit me that we can talk all day long about the dangers of culture out there. Because it’s really nice to talk about something that’s out there, that’s not about me.
But what was really impacting the children of the Israelites was that their parents. We’re saying that they were worshiping the Lord, but they were actually serving their idols and that’s passed on generationally. And so perhaps my child’s biggest problem is not the way culture is informing their life but the way my own idolatry is pressing in on their life. And my idols whatever they -whether it’s comfort or approval or power control- that is something I am called as a parent to fight. I want to fight that and it’s going to spring up to the surface in all different ways, whether it’s a love of money, it’s a love of work. So we work incessantly to get power or whatever it might be. It’s going to spring up in our lives all in different ways.
But if you take money, which is pretty ubiquitous. Everyone probably can trust in money in some way. I think that’s really impacting our teens right now when it comes to scholarship and achievement. So, there’s this whole notion, I need to raise a well-rounded child so that they get into a good college. Why do I care that they get into a good college? So that they can get a good job and kind of live the American dream. And under that is, My child will be safest if they have a good paycheck. And so when I look at what’s happening, what’s really keeping kids from church, what’s really keeping them from the better portion, it’s not sex, drugs, and rock and roll, so to speak. It’s Oh, I have soccer practice. Oh, we have a tournament this weekend. Oh, we have violin that day. I can’t get to church. What’s keeping our kids out of church is in this over-pressure to be well-rounded and to get to all these activities so that you can get into a good college.
And so it’s kind of a hidden danger out there, I think, and we’ve got to really assess why are we so busy and why can my kid not get to church? It’s choices we’re making. Or why can we not have a family dinner? It’s choices we’re making as a society right now. And it’s just putting a ton of pressure on our kids, but I think at the heart of it is idolatry. And again, we want good things for our kids. We’ve just defined what the good thing is in a wrong way.
Chap: That’s very helpful because what you’ve done is really just taken this from the behavioral level down to the heart level. So we’ve got our hearts. I had one guy say to me, just an offhanded remark. He said, I think most kids who are being pushed in sports, most it’s because of their father’s failed high school career. So in other words, it’s not because the child’s wants it. He’s being pushed toward it. It’s because I get approval. I’m living my life through them. So that’s really helpful.
And then also I think, as our teens become more mature, they’re starting to be aware of these things as well. Kust why am I doing this? I’m doing this so that people will like me, or approval, or I’m in control.
So let’s talk about, you really elaborated on that in three chapters, and one of them is this idea of success. We just mentioned that, but you’ve got the equation there, which is intelligence or education leads to money and money leads to happiness. I appreciate you’re very balanced there. So there’s the blessings of wealth, wisdom, and work, and there’s the dangers. How did you call your children? So this is very practical. How did you call your teens to excellence without making this an idol? I remember finding that very, very difficult trying to figure out what are they capable of? What is laziness? Man, what is me? My children will fill in the blank. Any thoughts on that?
Melissa: Yeah, and I need to say clearly on this: I had three kids who were really hard workers. They just were. I don’t know why. Was that because of the young years? And I can also say this: Mike and I were not pressureful parents. Now, they had different degrees of how far that would take them. I have one kid who just loves every single subject. I can’t even tell you. He loves building rockets. He’s in aerospace engineering right now. He also comes home and he’s like, “Mom, have you read the Raven by Poe? It’s amazing.” Kids have natural things and some kids just like school more than others.
I have one kid whose school is actually really hard. She battles with dyslexia. So it’s hard, but she was always hardworking. So that was that heart issue you’re asking about. And even when grades weren’t easy for some, they were all hardworking. Now, I can say as an educator, I was always very against overemphasizing grades. So I don’t know if they got that message young, and so it was never a pressure point in our home. I would tell my kids over and over, grades are simply a reflection of what you knew at one moment in time. I think in our society today, we have let grades define people.
I didn’t put it in the book, but I found my grandfather’s report card. And this is from Memphis schools in the ‘40s. And what’s fascinating about it is how this one little corner was the grades. And so much of it was character. And so I think in the young years, one thing that’s really important to stress is character. Hey, you worked really hard at this. I’m so glad you got that B. You did such a great job working really hard. Hey, it’s okay that you didn’t do so well on that. We’re going to study a little more. But if math’s not your subject, that’s okay. You know, us being really okay that every kid doesn’t have to be gifted in every way and helping them find those successes, I think is really important.
But there is a difference. It’s real, I would say what’s difficult is when you see laziness or you see a kid who’s not getting their homework in. And what I do always say to moms of boys, please be patient. I was a high school teacher, so I had a view of a bunch of different kids, and what I’ll say is, when I was teaching, I was like, How did any men ever become CEOs or presidents? Because they cannot- at 14, they are not winning. They are not winning. They cannot get their homework done. They’ll know how to do the math problem, but they just couldn’t get their homework done. And so this is where I say teen development, they really are developing. And if you had a child who’s a year old and they weren’t yet walking, what you wouldn’t say is, I’m going to work really hard with them every day and we’re going to get them walking by 13 months. You would just say, Okay, developmentally, some kids walk at nine months, some kids walk at 15 months. The ability to use your executive function is a development of the brain. Some kids really aren’t there at 14. They just aren’t. We have to accept it. It’s not always a discipline issue. Sometimes it’s a development issue.
So we can have expectations. We can keep saying, You need to turn in your homework. But some kids are going to need more help with that than others. And I think accepting that and realizing they are still developing. They look like adults. And sometimes they will get it right, but it is genuinely harder for them to get it right at 14 than it will be at 19. And so being patient with them with some of those things that could mask as laziness, but actually might be, it’s actually harder for a 14 year old boy than a 14 year old girl to remember to turn in his homework. It’s just biologically, there are differences with them. They really will wake up one day and they will get it done.
So I just say that to be patient with some of those things. What I get nervous about with when it comes to academics in the teen years is don’t lose the relationship over a grade. Sometimes our kids start to think the only thing we care about is that they do well in school. And just keeping the main thing the main thing. I actually want to talk to you about spiritual conversations. I want to talk to you about how you’re doing with the Lord. That’s going to impact your work ethic, but keep the main thing the main thing and let grades be grades, but they really will come along on that.
Chap: I’m sitting here reacting as a dad thinking that’s good for the mom to say. I remember hearing some guys say once, I think it was addressing college kids, he’s like, Those of you got A’s are going to be working for those of us who got C’s. So there is not a direct correlation between academics. But I had a few of those who might have struggled with laziness and one who struggled, because of a brain tumor, with executive function. And in some cases I had to adjust my expectations.
I think as a dad, my wife was much more sympathetic and in tune. But what’s underneath that is, just saying, No, there’s not a direct connection between A’s and success in life. I think that’s really helpful. We need to hear that.
Melissa: Actually, and if you read some interesting books like Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, he’ll talk about how often CEOs have dyslexia and they’ve learned. This is where I always just want to say, God made your child, God’s got them. And so I think we want all of our kids to fit in a box sometimes. Or maybe it’s David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell, because he talks about the story of David and Goliath. David had one skill. Goliath won on every other thing. But David’s one skill of using a slingshot allowed him to beat Goliath. And I found it really hopeful. I read it when my kids were young and we were just getting a diagnosis about my daughter. And it really helped me to be like, Oh. This is how her brain works. Yes, it’s harder for her. It’s harder for her to learn to read. I had to do the research and understand some of those things. But it just means they see the world a little bit differently and the Lord’s going use that in his providence and that’s okay. And so some of the bumps in the road our kids have, I think what we can really entrust those to the Lord and say he’s got a plan for this. Part of their story in his providence. We’re going to parent very differently. Whereas when we think we’ve got to manage their issues to get them somewhere. . . it’s just very different when we entrust these things to the Lord.
Chap: That’s helpful. We home-schooled and my wife did a great job just figuring out how are they made? And so they’re not all made the same, and that was I think something I had to learn as a dad to say Oh, I’ve got an audio learner. When I go to a movie I can’t remember any of the dialogue, but he can recall it perfectly and start laughing about the lines. And so our kids are different. It’s figuring out where’s the sin in that and then where’s the unique way they God made them.
Well, let’s transition. You talk about busyness in sports and activities. And on the one hand, those are positive experiences, but we can overcommit. And I think as parents, we look around and that fear kicks in because my friends are doing dance and they’re doing a musical instrument and they’re doing this and they’re doing that. You ask, will this activity interfere with church, family dinners, and sleep? And then there was a section and I’m like, Oh, now I know we’re like minded. It’s called the benefits of boredom. Talk a little bit about how your family thought about activities. I don’t know that we need to talk about all the positives because I think we know them. But how did you cut back or have self-control? And then what was clearly in your mind that boredom is okay?
Melissa: Yeah. My husband and I were just talking about this the other night because our kids have so many hobbies that they actually love. I was talking to a group of parents and one of the parents came up to me and she was like “How did you know what your kids loved?” And in my head I was like, Well, it’s what they did when they were bored. That’s how you know what they love. What do they do? And I realized so few parents have any boredom with their kids that they don’t know what their kids actually love doing. And so one thing we had- if you have young kids, this was my big transition from naptime to I, Mama, still needed some downtime during the day. So naptime went to room time.
So all of my kids, every single day of their childhood while they were home with me had room time. And when they got into a school age, this transitioned to every Sunday after church, we all had room time. And they just still laugh. Here’s the newsflash: no one else knows what’s happening in anybody’s home in the young years except you. So my kids didn’t know that was weird. They thought every family had room time, so that’s all they knew as their normal. And even after church, that’s all they knew as their normal. And they will all tell me, every single one of them, We learned how to be alone and do things that were interesting.
So for one daughter, she’s a nurse now, but she loved doing artwork during that time, and she really got good. I mean, she could paint things, she would do things like that during that time. My son built everything during that time. He would make all of these big projects in his room. And then my other daughter actually taught herself guitar and keyboard and now writes her own music. They would not have had space for that if we filled every moment, and that even means with people. Sometimes we’re just so social in America that we just don’t have space to be together as a family. And I really think providing space and making sure you have space in your life.
Honestly, if we would just take the Sabbath seriously and say, Hey, Sunday’s our day of rest. We’re going to actually take some time to take a break from the normal running around all day, not just church, but just take a break, I think it would benefit everybody. But our kids are worn out, they’re exhausted, and they don’t have space for creativity because we fill them to the brim. And so I think one easy way to put this on well is just to think about how you’re using Sundays. Could you just cut all activities on Sundays? And just say, We’re going to take this as a family day of rest. We’re going to take every Sunday. Maybe you don’t have a devotion any other day of the week, but every Sunday evening, let’s have a family meal together and let’s pray together and let’s have devotion. It’s amazing what that one day of the week would maybe do and allow your family time to say yes to if we said no to other things. But I do think it takes commitment. I think it’s really hard because you’ve got a lot of coaches promising college scholarships and all of these things, but I really think we just have to battle against that. And the reality is the amount of money people spend on sports would be a scholarship by the time they got to college.
Chap: I say the exact same thing. That’s crazy.
Melissa: And I was a kid who actually could have played sports. And maybe it was my own personal experience. I had offers to play soccer in college by the end of my high school, and I had played in select leagues. And at the time, it was a much more dialed down thing. And I was a senior. I was done. I didn’t want to play in college. I had played enough. I was tired. I didn’t want to go to college and have to do sports all the time. And so I think my own experience in that was like, You don’t even know how that seven-year-old’s going to feel at 18. So why are you going to spend your life with a seven-year-old on a soccer field every weekend? Because by the time they’re 12, they might be done with soccer. So we’ve got to be the shepherds. We’ve got to lead the way and not let our kids lead the way on those things.
Chap: Oh man, there’s just so much good in what you said. Just even on that last thing, thinking about the life lessons that they’re learning. Because then you can push them that, Oh, this overlaps with the being successful and the money and all that, as opposed to why are we actually doing this? Well, I think you know the guy who’s going pro in high school, but everybody else is not going pro and so you’re out there for character lessons. All these all the lessons you can’t learn in the classroom.
Our kids did speech and debate, and they learned a lot of good skills. But there were some parents who were like, this is taking them to the promised land. My kids did well, we had row of trophies, and those trophies are all in the basement now. But you know, they learned some skills along the way. We develop family relationships, they develop friends, good memories. But also back to boredom and the confidence. My wife and I did room time too, so I know exactly what you’re talking about. And just having that confidence.
I heard two things. I heard “structured boredom” and I heard “tools.” So in other words, in their room, they have a guitar or they have something else. You’ve got plenty of stuff you can do to bring that about. I just think that’s a way we can push back against the culture and to say, No, I don’t have to entertain you. You don’t always have to have an iPad in front of you. It’s good for you to look around and go, ‘I’m bored. What am I going to do?’ So that’s helpful.
Melissa: And introducing them to the world, it’s an amazing world. It’s not boring. I mean, that’s the thing I think I love watching in my kids. I just see this “Oh, WOW.” I have a son who loves to garden with me and he’s interested in things. One day he asked me, “Where do grits come from?” And I was like, “Well, corn, I think,” I didn’t even know. So he grows his own corn. He decided to plant his own corn in the back yard. He grew it and he made his own grits from scratch. He was like, “I want to try this out.” And I will say this, especially when it comes to boys, we may need to let them take some more risk than we’re comfortable with. One of the big things when he was 13, we did let him get a miter saw, which terrified me. I had these images of him cutting off his fingers. But I realized when I look back, that got him outside, it got him in a workshop, rather than being on a video game. A video game feels safer, but I would say it’s much more dangerous than tools. And so I think sometimes allowing them to climb trees, to be outdoors, to not be watching them every moment.
For some parents, is, feels irresponsible. And I would say, that’s a worthy risk. I think part of why we give them screens is we don’t want them outside. We’re scared someone’s going to snatch them or whatever. Take precautions, all of those things. Don’t take unnecessary risk. I think our kids should play outside and climb trees and live in the world God created and they’re going to get interested in things.
Chap: That’s where the rubber meets the road. Do I believe in the sovereignty of God? Jonathan Haidt’s talking about that now: we’ve gone from a play-based to a phone-based childhood and overprotecting them in the real world and underprotecting them in the virtual world, so that’s exactly right.
Well, you have a beautiful sentence about media. You say, “We talk about being tired of pursuing the perfect picture rather than taking pictures that capture pursuit of life.” I just love that sentence. I thought Man, that that’s the essence of the problem of the Instagram world is I’m not actually enjoying life. I mean, I do it at my age so I can remember Oh, yeah, I was here. But it’s that I’m enjoying life and yeah I take some videos and maybe I’ll put some up, as opposed to No, actually the whole this whole thing is about taking the perfect picture.
I know from talking to you before that you came into it as social media and Instagram was coming about. Do you have any suggestions for parents of teens, looking back now?
Melissa: Yeah, I and I think more families are bonding together over some of these things. You’re going to go to more kids’ hangouts where the parents say, Hey, put all the phones in the basket. There are good things happening. I think schools are getting more conservative. My daughter’s school is actually more conservative now than it was with my oldest, meaning they’re not allowed to have cell phones during the day anymore. No texting is allowed. I feel like more of that is happening. But what I will say as a parent who sometimes feels very guilty of this, they are following our example. And so if we are nose deep in our screen all day, we can’t really get that on them for turning to their screen if that’s how we soothe ourselves, entertain ourselves.
So some small things I would say if you’re a parent of young kids or teenagers, read your real Bible at home.
Chap: Amen.
Melissa: The physicality of them seeing that matters. I know you can be on your phone reading your Bible, and that’s great. I’m always like, get it in any way you can. But them seeing what you’re doing matters. I still get. Time magazine. I still get a news magazine. I’m like the only ancient person who does but I think it kind of matters. They see I’m reading the news. I still look at my news on my phone- I mean, now everyone kind of gets their news on their phone. But the more we can let go of tech- Choosing to put it down when they walk in the room and show them that they’re more important than our phone. That’s going to matter.
So I always want to say to parents, give them something better than them needing to be on their phone. I think we’re not talking to our teens anymore. We’re not creating a community in our family life. So they go looking for it elsewhere, and it might be representative of, we’ve got some work to do in the home. How can we play some family games? How can I be focused on them? How can we change the culture of our home? Why do they want to go to it so much? Are we shutting down conversation because we’re lecturing them all the time? I don’t want to hang out with someone who’s lecturing me all the time either.
So we’ve got to do some heart work to ask and maybe even ask them, “Hey, you seem like you don’t want to hang out with me. Can you tell me why?” And they might tell us some really hard truths that we might need to listen to. And so how can we create a home life where they want to relate to their siblings, and they want to relate to us. And that’s worth fighting for, but it’s hard work to do that.
Chap: That’s good. Creating family identity and unity is hard work, so. Well, I want to honor your time. I’m going to mention three things in the last three chapters because I want to honor your time and let you comment on anything you talk about. Or anything you want to.
One is a chapter on acceptance. You talk about the garage story, backing into the garage and how your dad accepted you. But what I thought was really interesting in that chapter is then you also talk about rules are an outworking of grace and grace offers consequences. And I don’t think young parents see the idea of acceptance and consequences going together. Grace is overlooking consequences.
So you can comment on that, or then you have the chapter on being available, and you do the same thing again, which is you talk about, there’s margin, there’s time to teach, to empathize, to listen, and then you turn it around, and you say, and it’s okay to have boundaries, that we’re pushing them towards independence. Availability doesn’t mean 24/7 availability. Any, you want to comment on either one of those or both? I just thought those were so excellent because it is acceptance, but there’s consequence. It is availability. But there’s limitations on that because you’re a married person, you have work, you have a job, et cetera.
Melissa: Yeah, basically I gave no easy answers is what you’re saying, which is true. And it is actually true. I mean, the thing is all of it, right? We’ve just got to be in prayer. We want someone to say, Yeah, be available 24/7, because that’s an easy answer. And as I think we both know in parenting, there are not easy answers. It’s an onward trajectory with the Lord.
So on that one about grace with our kids, you can’t actually give grace if you have no rules. God’s grace comes to us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What we receive is grace, but it’s because we couldn’t do it on our own. And so I think we have to have standards in our home. So it’s not letting down the standards, but how I interact with my child who has failed in some way. Am I doing it as a fellow sinner in need of grace, or am I doing it as someone whose law has been transgressed, and I am here to give you retribution? These are two totally different perspectives. And I think we should be full of compassion, because as a 50-year-old, I’ve walked with the Lord since I was 14, 36 years, and I still am a beggar for mercy and for grace in my own life.
And if I can’t be compassionate on my 14-year-old, there’s something wrong with my heart. I’m like the unmerciful servant who’s demanding perfection from my child when I can’t give it myself. And so it’s more our heart attitude as we deal with their failures in our home, even like their lack of respect. They’re throwing things, slamming the doors. We can meet that with compassion. I’m not saying acceptance of behavior that’s wrong, but we can still be compassionate and understanding and then we can say Hey, how should you have come in the door today? Tell me what that should have looked like when they’re a little bit cooler. We can ask some of those questions. And what I would say is normally in those moments kids know what they did wrong. They’re willing to apologize. But they don’t when we come in hot. They come in hot and we come in hot and it just leads to a bad argument, and I think we need to have the maturity as the older one in the room.
And sometimes I think we say, I can’t deal with your room being messy today because my life is so stressful. Well, guess what, Mom? We’ve got to deal with that stuff. We’ve got to be able to deal with it. And so I would just say, we’ve got to put our own self aside sometimes and really try to shape and shepherd this child. And that takes self-sacrificial love. It doesn’t take removal of the standard. It takes sacrificing our own desires sometimes to be patient and kind. I’m to display the fruit of God’s Spirit regardless of how my child interacts with me. And that’s being a Christian parent.
Chap: That’s so good. Just holding these ideas, I don’t know if you want to say intentions or ideas, but just this idea that, Yes my mom, my dad, accept me and there are rules and there are consequences. And my mom and dad are available, but no, they go out on dates. You said you had to go back to work, and that therefore, at a certain time, they’re taking more consequences, and that’s good. We’re not doing everything for them.
Melissa: That’s right.
Chap: So I’m going to pull out one line from your last paragraph, and then give you the final word, but I think this needs to be shouted from the rooftop: “Scripture clarifies what is loving,” which I just think, man, that’s a battle that we’re in. Jesus said, “Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline.” So there are times love does rebuke, there are times it does discipline. So that whole final chapter on affection, just, I want my kids to know that I’m loving, but having said that, I’m biblically loving.
Well, let me just give you the last word here. What would you say if you were speaking to a group of moms with teenagers? And then what would you say to a group of moms that are young moms starting out there for four or five, six, sevens? Maybe the same or things you would emphasize differently?
Melissa: I think to both, I would say the most important relationship in your life is your relationship with the Lord, and it’s not your relationship with your children or your husband. Those are important relationships, but you have to be fostering your time in the Word and in prayer if you want to be able to lead them well. And that is going to transform us. I don’t know how it happens, but I know it does happen somehow. You will never regret spending 30 minutes to an hour with the Lord every day. And I want to say to young moms, it actually is possible. It doesn’t feel possible, but it really is possible. Whether it’s during children’s nap times or while you’re holding a screaming baby and you put verses in your ears. We have more access to getting God’s Word in our minds than ever. But we have to prioritize it and I just would say whether you’re the mom of a two-year-old or a 20-year-old, that’s going to change who you are as a person and so that will change how you parent.
And Psalm 1 tells us that blessed is the man who meditates on the law day and night. He’s like a tree planted by a stream. Whatever he does prospers. And I can say, there’s nothing I want more to prosper than my parenting. And that starts with my vertical relationship with the Lord, and that’s going to impact my horizontal relationship with my children and my husband.
Chap: Thanks. That’s good. Yeah. It doesn’t matter whether your kids are 2 or 12 or 18.
Well, the book is Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age. And man, it is gospel-focused and encouraging and filled with hope. So it’s been a joy to talk with you, Melissa. So thanks for taking time to be on the podcast.
Melissa: Thanks so much for having me.
