I really have a heart for teens. Many people just dump them into this category of undesirables, a group of people judged as lost causes. Many people say: "Well we just need to wait....until they grow out of it", as if they are waiting for a virus to pass. I disagree.
I love the teen years. I feel that teens are amazing people that have a lot to offer to the world. Teens are humans full of love, full of hope, and with a passion for life. Often misunderstood, often frustrated by the rejection of adults these beautiful humans suffer in silence, and feel alone. Teens, those beautiful humans that have so much passion for life, long to love and to be loved, long for understanding and respect, and long for an opportunity to give to the world around them the best they have to offer.
I have met many parents that are so afraid of the teen years, that they become overbearing and clamp down on all fronts. These parents let fear set into their hearts, and accept the lie that : Teen agers are horrible human beings to be controlled at any cost. And they buy into the fallacy that the only solution, is to treat their teens as the enemy.
These parents stop listening to their kids and drown their children with unreasonable rules. Privacy means nothing to them. They who want respect from the world, offer none to those people they should love most; their own children. I know parents who read the private conversations over text on their children's phones, conversations that do not belong to them. Without permission or any respect, they snoop, spy, and they listen in. How is it, I wonder, that these parents expect a good honest relationship with their teen, when they themselves are incapable of offering basic respect and trust?
If you are a teen and you have parents who act this way, please do not despair. The first thing I would do is pray and ask God to step in. Ask God to move your parents's hearts and give grace to the situation. Then I would try to have a serious and honest conversation with one or both parents. Appeal to their love and explain how you feel.
If all else fails, be patient, offer it up. And perhaps most important vow to be different when you yourself are a parent. Fear can not trump love. remember what the Bible says:
" Perfet love casts away all fear"
If your parents are making you suffer you can learn from the situation, so that when it is your turn to be a parent, you are the kind of parent God would like you to be. A parent full of love and trust and not rule by fear.
If you are a parent, I invite you to pray. Pray that God will deepen your relationship with your child, so that you can get to know them better. Pray that God will show you a better way, other than becoming your children's spy, your children's own personal tyrant. We do not like governments that trample over our rights, but we ourselves trample constantly over our children's rights.
That is not love, that can not be.
Practice at home what you preach, and have your home be the way you want the world to be like.
Lets lead our home with trust and love, not fear!
