Teenagers

Parenting teenagers presents many challenges, but these reads will help you overcome the struggles you may face in this season of motherhood so you can still enjoy the relationship with your child. #gritandgracelife

All the Feels from This First-Time Mom of a Teenager

All the Feels from This First-Time Mom of a Teenager

By / Motherhood

At the end of July, I will become the mom of a teenager. I am having a difficult time swallowing that thought: mom of a teenager. It was just yesterday that this sweet, shy two-year-old with spiral ringlets was playing with her Playskool Busy Ball Popper and reading Where Is Baby’s Belly Button? This girl who, at a very young age, fell in love with classic musicals like State Fair, The King and I, and The Sound of Music has now moved on to The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. How can she be 13? I swear I just gave birth to her. She was this tiny preemie (born four weeks early), but she was ready to take on our big, scary world. […]

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From-One-Mom-to-Another-How-to-Help-Your-Teen-Mature

From One Mom to Another: How to Help Your Teen Mature

By / Motherhood

Parenting teenagers can be very challenging and stressful on all levels of the matter. I have been in the teenage phase for the past four years, and though it’s not always tough, there have been times where it has left me feeling exhausted, depleted, and downright insufficient to be a mom. My teenagers, as well as all teenagers on this planet, will deal with hormones, mood swings, wanting independence, and being an adult. These desires are not wrong by any means; it’s part of life, and we can help them get where they need to be. They are trying to find themselves and figure out this phase of life, and it’s tough for them and for us moms. Now I’m far, far

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If Your Daughter Is Boy-Crazy, You Need to Read This

If Your Daughter Is Boy-Crazy, You Need to Read This

By / Motherhood

My daughters entered life as different creatures when it came to the opposite sex. To one, the attention of boys meant a lot. The other, well, not so much. I can’t say what created the difference; perhaps just their personalities because they came from the same gene pool. You may have one of those girls—maybe your daughter is boy-crazy, too! Since I was never one who was boy-crazy, I found it quite perplexing, feeling uncertain how to address this new frontier. My eldest daughter just liked the attention of boys. She wasn’t necessarily attached to them. In fact, we often said she discarded boys as one does a tissue in allergy season. I often felt sorry for those young men who showed

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How-to-Reach-Your-Preteen-When-They're-Pushing-You-Away

How to Reach Your Preteen When They’re Pushing You Away

By / Motherhood

No matter where you’re at on the journey of parenting your preteen, we can all agree that it is hard. From navigating a new school to dealing with attitudes that have left me perplexed, the preteen years have offered many unexpected twists and turns. However, now that my ten-year-old is almost through his fifth-grade year, I have realized that even though there have been many changes, some of the ways I parent him have stayed the same. I’m learning that our kids will test their boundaries, but there are ways to stay connected to them even when they seem so far away… 1. Ask your preteen where they sit. Ever since elementary school, I got into the habit of casually asking my son

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

When Is Your Teen out of Control and What Do You Do? With Dr. Zoe Shaw – 032

By / Podcast

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | MoreAre you afraid your teen may be out of control? Or, is their behavior typical teenage boundary-pushing? When do you know that enough is enough and things have to change? These questions often consume the mind of a mom with a pre-teen or teenager. To determine when to draw a line, Darlene and Julie brought back our trusted friend and Licensed Therapist, Dr. Zoe Shaw. This family therapist of 16 years discusses when you need to give your teen room to make mistakes to learn from them, or how to recognize that the time has come to step in and intervene. If you have a

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When Is Enough Enough For Your Competitive Athlete?

When Is Enough Enough For Your Competitive Athlete?

By / Motherhood

I am going to take a leap of faith and assume that every parent reading this wants the best for their children. Whether it’s in academia, music, sports, or other activities, we hope our children succeed, and we as parents will do whatever it takes to support them on their journey. Sometimes, that support involves a steep financial obligation or giving up family weekends to be at the ball fields. Other times, support is found in making difficult decisions involving our children’s physical and emotional well-being. My story involves the latter. It’s a story that centers around coaches of competitive youth sports. Now, for the most part, people who coach competitive sports are wonderful, encouraging folks. They understand the commitment the athletes (and

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Middle-School-Meltdown

I Survived the Middle School Meltdown, So Can You!

By / Motherhood

Who is this girl—the one standing a mere 5 feet from my face? She looks like my daughter, she’s dressed like my daughter, and the braces she wears I am quite sure I paid for… But this emotional and illogical mound of humanity blubbering incoherently, I don’t believe I have ever met. On this day, I am looking in the face of my 13-year-old daughter and I quickly realize we have entered a new phase of life—The Middle School Meltdown. I had heard of this malady. I had friends who called in frustration, tears, and incredulity looking for comfort. I thought they might be exaggerating; surely it couldn’t be that bad. I quickly discovered they were not exaggerating. It was the end

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This Grit and Grace Life Podcast

Sneaky Teen Texting Trends You Need to Know About – 006

By / Podcast

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More Teens have their own speak, using slang and lingo that can sometimes be difficult for adults to interpret. This week we are going to teach you a little bit about one of those languages, teen texting. Recently, I (Julie here) had my own encounter at a friend’s house who has 3 teen daughters. As I was talking with the 17-year-old about her Snapchat communications, she shared that she hates to leave people “unread”. She believes this means she saw their message but didn’t reply with one. I tried to explain what the meaning of “unread” in general terms implies, that she never saw it…but she kept replying that

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5 Tips for Managing the Teen in Your Life

5 Tips for Managing the Teen in Your Life

By / Motherhood

It’s somewhere between middle school and high school that parents become dumb as a rock. That little face that used to look at us adoringly, believing every word we said, often develops deaf ears, rolling eyes, and sighs that last 14 minutes. We used to be so smart, but suddenly that is a thing of the past. At least, according to these growing hormonal humans. What’s a parent to do? 1. Realize that independence is a good thing. You don’t want a 30-year-old living at home. These are the years they need to begin standing on their own. 2. Don’t just make rules; create conversations. Boundaries are important, but understanding their challenges and adapting the rules when necessary is vital. 3. Give

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Graduation Day How Will My Kids Survive Without Me

Graduation Day: How Will My Kids Survive Without Me?

By / Motherhood

It seems like only yesterday that I was the tear-streaked mom sitting in the bleachers watching two daughters graduate from high school. Two best friends, two sidekicks, two sisters leaving the nest at the same time. Two beautiful young women going their separate ways…and leaving their mother behind. I was definitely not ready! Yes, I had two more daughters, also teenagers, still running in and out the door, sometimes sneaking out the window before getting caught in action (severe consequences, like missing the prom and being grounded for a month). I have learned much raising five daughters who are all—much like their dad and me—quite social and free spirited. Would they survive? Could they survive the real world? We would not be

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Parenting Truth: It May Get Worse Before It Gets Better

Parenting Truth: It May Get Worse Before It Gets Better

By / Faith

I think like a human. Like an earth-bound, time-constrained, self-absorbed human. And I parented like that most of the time, too. Humanity bears the imago dei, which means we reflect the loveliness of our Creator, so this was not always a problem, this human thinking. But I always knew there was more to life than my human brain could grasp, and I didn’t want to miss it. One day a long time ago, Bill stepped out of his little sunroom-turned-office and told me, “The Lord spoke to me today about Matt.” Bill is never flippant about this kind of thing, so I was immediately all ears, and, besides, in that season of parenting, I needed transcendence. Badly. “He told me He would

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Do You Need to Forgive Your Teenage Self?

Do You Need to Forgive Your Teenage Self?

By / Life & Culture

Have you ever found it easier to feel bad or sad for someone else’s situation than your own? When we are in a tough spot, we tend to justify, make excuses for people who’ve wronged us, or try to make our problem sound “not so bad.” And yet, if someone else told us about the same, terrible thing going on in their life, we would have sincere empathy and tell them how awful it is and that it should have never happened, etc. For me, I think it was just hard to accept and acknowledge the reality of some difficult things that happened in my life in an honest way. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could do this and mean it.

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4 Don'ts of Great Parenting For Moms

4 Don’ts of Great Parenting For Moms

By / Motherhood

What not to do for your child: 1. Don’t fight all their battles. They won’t learn to fight for themselves. 2. Don’t fix all their mistakes. Consequences are one of life’s best teachers. 3. Don’t give them everything they want. What they want may not be what they need. 4. Don’t keep them from all hurt. They will never learn how to heal. Remember, while you’re protecting your child you must also learn to prepare them. The goal is not to only protect them from harm, but to prepare them for life. — For more articles with encouragement in parenting, start here: How to Be a #Girlmom Teaching Your Daughter How to Stand Out from the Crowd Parenting Adult Children—The Great Shift of Motherhood Raising

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Lessons From Kids About Failure

4 Lessons on Failure I Learned from My Kids

By / Motherhood, Best Of

I’ve learned that failure can be a time-release sort of blessing. We bide our time through the pang of it until it does what we know it can eventually do if we let God use it: transform everything. When my husband Bill lost his job, it hurt a lot. It felt like a failure. This came at the end of the last recession, after quite a few good friends lost their high-level, high-paying jobs and had to live on their savings. Bill’s job was neither high-level nor high-paying (which means we had next to nothing saved), but it was what he loved, and thus it was a blow. Today we both affirm that his job loss was the best thing that could

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Lessons-From-the-Middle-School

Lessons From the Middle School

By / Life & Culture

Every day I’m surrounded by 300 middle school students. My office is nestled in the seventh grade hallway, wedged within the girls’ locker bay. It smells of vanilla and baby powder. Further down the hall sits the boys’ lockers, and this hallway does not smell like vanilla and baby powder. It has a strange odor that I’ve yet to name, even though I have two teenage boys myself. When we think of middle schoolers, we often think of all the wisdom we would like to impart during these formative years. And there is a lot! However, I’m realizing that my days with teenagers probably teach me as much as I am teaching the kids. Here are a few things that I am

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Teen Suicide

Teen Suicide

By / Faith

Lately I’ve been thinking about a difficult subject…teen suicide. There are simply too many of them. Even one is too many. Too many kids who believe they have no hope, life is worthless, they are worthless. None of that is true. But how do we as adults convince them of that? I think part of the answer might lie in teaching teenagers to grieve and giving proper respect to the tough moments in their lives. I know we have the perspective of many more years of life, but for them, this moment is all they have. The problem is they dwell on these moments until they are consumed, and then they convince themselves nothing else matters. Just the thing… THE. ONE. THING.

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