Defining Moments

May 3, 2010 By Jgrimes 2 Comments

“Mom, I’m going to this,” my 16-year-old daughter, Malloree, announced as she slipped a pink invitation into my hand. She reached to hug the person who proudly presented it to her, one of the leaders of her small group at church. I barely had time to check out the date or even what type of event it was before we moved along with a crowd to exit the auditorium.

But it did not really matter, because through the years of raising three teenagers, I had learned to recognize this as a defining moment.

Defining moments matter. Defining moments confirm or change your course of action. Defining moments prove that what you are doing as a parent is working well, or perhaps just the opposite. Defining moments do not come easily, yet sometimes they arrive without warning. Defining moments are too important to overlook, so as a parent, you must learn to recognize them.

Defining moments are usually marked with one, simple statement uttered by your child.

“I want to try out for the school play.”

“My grades are dropping at school.”

“This group of neighborhood kids is giving me trouble.”

“I want to quit the basketball team.”

“Dad, I had a tiny accident, but I’m okay.”

“Mom, Paul asked me to go to the Prom!”

Defining moments should freeze you in your tracks; screeching the rest of life to a momentary halt so you can fully evaluate what your child just said. But more important, so you can determine what they are not saying. What unexpressed emotions lie behind those simple words?

In that one statement, your child is speaking volumes as to what is truly going in his or her life. You have to pause before you respond; pause long enough to find out when your son or daughter first starting feeling that way or noticed the problem. Pause long enough to find out what happened to cause the accident or what kind of trouble the neighborhood kids are causing. Grades may be dropping because school is boring and he needs a greater challenge, or simply because she cannot see the chalkboard.

Pause long enough to listen and prove to them that at that moment, nothing is more important than what they have to say.

Quitting the basketball team may not be the end of the world, if your son’s interest in other sports or activities has grown and they feel overcommitted or trapped by that one sport. Your daughter may be shyly announcing that she has her first boyfriend, and just is not sure how to tell you about it.

Defining moments should be treasured and respected, whether they are positive or negative.  Defining moments may provide just the comfort and reassurance you need as a parent to know that your child is progressing; overcoming challenges and making a difference.

That is exactly what Malloree’s unexpected statement told me on that Sunday morning. “I’m going to this” meant that she was feeling accepted in her new town, and was no longer holding herself back. An invitation to an overnight get together was a big step toward creating memories, and hopefully toward embracing this new chapter in her life.

One day, she too will recognize this as a defining moment. But until then, I am going to pause, reflect, and be thankful.






Filed Under: Fresh Coffee, Parenting Tips, Teens Tagged With: , ,

A Parent’s Prayer for Their Teen

April 2, 2010 By Jgrimes 4 Comments

Dear God, I need to talk to you for a minute about these kids you gave me. First of all, let me make this clear. I adore them. They amaze me, a million different times throughout each day. They are clearly your creation and not my own. And for this, I am thankful. I could have never come up with something this wonderful, even if you had asked me to write out what I had in mind on paper before they were born. But, I want you to know that I am scared. The world looks to me, as their parent, to teach them and protect them, raising them to be successful adults. I wonder why, then, must the world work against me on every step? As a little girl, my precious daughter – well, actually, she is Your precious daughter – happily skipped through her day, treasuring each moment and believing anything was possible. But somewhere along the way to being a teenager, she lost her joy.

Now, her days are filled with paralyzing self doubt and deceptive invitations to the path of acceptance. My adorable son, who once started each day by holding my face in his hands just to tell me he loved me, can no longer look me in the eye. He tries to hide behind walls built over time, convinced that I will never understand him. But I see through to his breaking heart, and mine breaks right along with his. It always has. Always will. These are your children. And they are perfect. How can I get them to see that? How can I protect them from the false expectations of their peers, who are all struggling to find their way just the same? How can I prove to them that they were designed to stand out, rather than to fit in? Sometimes, I watch them sleeping and this is my silent prayer for them: Hold them in your arms. Always.

Reveal yourself to them often, proving that they are never alone. Help them to be strong enough to make a difference; to change the lives of others rather than changing who they are to fit in. Make their paths straight before them, just as you promised to do, and then give them the strength to follow. The decisions they make today can alter the path of the rest of their lives. Please help them to better understand this, and protect them when the time arrives to make those choices. Show them that the rules we have in place are to protect them; not to prevent them from having fun, but rather to keep them from crossing lines into adulthood long before they are ready. Help them understand that once you cross those lines, there is no going back to being a kid. Help them never to doubt you, especially when teachers and others cause them to question their beliefs.

How can they ever find their true value if they believe they were an accident or grew from the ground or from monkeys of some sort? Their very existence proves that You are real, so please comfort them and give them your answers long before they need them. I pray these same things for their future spouses and children. Protect their future and create it in a way that brings them all closer together and to you in the end. And God, please keep whispering these things to them until they are ready for me to tell them face to face. Because Lord, I adore my teens, and am so thankful you chose me to be their parent. Give me what I need to do the job you asked of me, and hold me when I’m scared. I never want to let either of you down. In Jesus Name, Amen


Filed Under: Fresh Coffee, Teens Tagged With: ,

Self-Esteem and Your Teen

March 12, 2010 By Jgrimes 2 Comments

I have yet to figure out exactly when it happens. There is an unidentified moment that a child goes from enjoying life and exploring the world to becoming overtly aware of what others think. It does not happen gradually. It is more of a before and after type of transition; like crossing an imaginary line into a new dimension, with no way to go back. Some seem to handle it gracefully. Some embrace it and use it to their advantage. Some seem as if they have been preparing for this moment their entire lives, while others seem totally caught off guard by it.

Long before the well identified awkward stages of braces, clumsiness, voice changes and growth spurts are the younger moments when no one cared about stick up hair  and unmatched clothing. But there comes a time when a child becomes aware, unfortunately. As a child begins his or her school years, it seems that they become more self-conscious with age, primarily regarding their appearance, but the effects go much deeper that that. Their peers provide the acceptance that becomes the deciding factor on almost every choice they make. Believing in Santa stops once a child has been laughed at for it. Reading is curbed when the athletic kids make fun of someone who is curled up with a book at recess. A favorite cartoon character shirt is tossed aside when it is referred to as “babyish.” Though not all peer interaction is negative, it is important for parents to recognize the role it plays as their children grow into teens. Perhaps even more important is to understand that all teens experience low self-esteem – even those that mask it by wearing too much make up or by bullying others.

The worst athletes want to be like the best athletes. The best athletes are rarely satisfied with their performance, and always hope to do better. The Homecoming Queen never feels beautiful or thin enough, and the Chess  Team Captain wishes he could avoid his gym class. No one, at the end of their day of high school, comes out of it saying “I sure feel better about myself today.” It just does not happen. If you were to question everyone across the country at their ten year high school reunion, regardless of the size of the school or whether it was public or private, everyone would say they felt invisible at some point. They would admit to never completely feeling accepted, even those who graced almost every page of the high school yearbook. So what is a parent to do? How can we help our teens with this truth? Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Prepare them for it. Point out how low self esteem causes characters on television shows to sometimes make the wrong choice. Notice this in movies as well. Remind them how the heroes always learn to stand on their own two feet. Discuss how even adults struggle with self-esteem issues, but the happiest people are the ones who learn to move past it.
  2. Surround them with grownups who are supportive, consistent, and never fickle. Their world changes day by day. Help them plug into something deeper than the whims of their current peer group.
  3. Help them get their mind off themselves. Low self-esteem is magnified when that is all they have to focus on. Get them in a youth group at church and a service oriented group. Seeing others less fortunate changes their perspective, and working with a group of people is just as beneficial.
  4. Point them toward their future. By keeping the bigger picture in mind, they can recognize that these kids will not be moving with them to the next chapter of their lives, and that most likely only a handful of them will remain friends. College and life choices are individual choices and cannot be managed by their peers. The sooner they realize that, the better.
  5. Challenge them to watch out for someone needing attention. Make a point each day to look for a new kid or invite someone to sit at their lunch table. It will help them to get past themselves if they are a part of the solution.
  6. Understand that they may not feel comfortable discussing these issues with you, because they know what you will say. You will tell them they are wonderful and that you love them. They expect to hear that from you, so it no longer carries much weight. They may withdraw when they are down on themselves, but that is when they need you more than ever.
  7. Pray for your kids. They need it, and so do we, as parents. The more they pull away from us, the more we need God to help them to make sense of their world and point them in the right direction.
Filed Under: Fresh Coffee, Teens