FamilyLife Today®

Brad Griffin: What kids need is not actually the parent who's always right. They need the parent who's willing to be humble and vulnerable enough to say, "I think I was wrong there."

Kara Powell: I think that's the heart of Christianity, that we are sinners saved by grace. What better way is there to infuse our home with what it means to be a follower of Jesus than to have us as adults, as parents, be quick to apologize for how we reacted, for our tone of voice, for our assumptions, whatever it might be, and asking our kids to forgive us?

Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

We've raised three teenagers, and you, Dave, especially...

Dave Wilson: I'm not saying we did it well, but we got through three boys who are now men, and we're grandparents now.

Ann Wilson: And you've ministered, we've ministered to probably hundreds of teens and others. What would you say is the number one question teens are asking?

Dave Wilson: I know where this is going. My first thought was relational, who am I going to marry, what's my relational life going to look like? But I know it's deeper than that because you're so much deeper than me, so you know the real answer.

Ann Wilson: I think I would have even asked, "Am I loved? What does that mean?" There's so many different things. But what we're talking about today, the number one question is...

Dave Wilson: I think it's really important what we're talking about today because we're parents. We're a family ministry that tries to help marriages and families and impact legacies for the kingdom of God. As parents, we need to know what our kids are asking.

We have two great people in the studio today to answer this question. They wrote a book about it called *The 3 Big Questions That Change Every Teenager*. Obviously, these two have studied this. We have Brad Griffin and Kara Powell with us today. Brad and Kara, welcome to FamilyLife Today.

Brad Griffin: Thanks for having us.

Kara Powell: It's wonderful to be here.

Dave Wilson: We really are talking not only to two experts because you guys have written about this, you're at the Fuller Youth Institute out in California, and this is your life's work. More importantly, I think, is your parents of teenagers.

Kara Powell: My kids are 21, 19, and 15. I have two college students and a tenth grader. Brad, what about you? How old are your kids?

Brad Griffin: 19, 16, 13. We say this is our golden year of parenting where they're all teenagers at once.

Dave Wilson: We feel like the teenage years for us, our kids are grown, married, and have kids now, were our favorite years.

Kara Powell: I agree. The older our kids have gotten, the more my husband and I have enjoyed conversations with them, doing fun things with them, experiencing life together. That would definitely be true for me. How about you, Brad?

Brad Griffin: Same. I just love a great conversation. While I enjoyed the conversations with my kids when they were little in a certain way, there's just a whole other level. I love when abstract thinking starts to kick in, and that for me is just a lot of fun.

Ann Wilson: I think we really start seeing our kids and discovering who they are, what they're passionate about. I think you guys probably relate to this, that's true of their friends, because I loved having their friends in the house.

As parents today, there's a lot of fear and anxiety because the world feels so tumultuous and uncertain. With your book, the subtitle is *Making the Most of Your Conversations and Connections*. I think as parents we long for that, but we're not sure how to make those connections.

Dave Wilson: Talk about this book. I know you did research with some teenagers and you developed these questions they're asking. Help us understand what those are.

Kara Powell: In some of our previous research, we've seen how important it is to empathize with young people, to not judge them but to journey with them. We wanted to help parents, caregivers, grandparents, leaders, mentors, and pastors know how to better empathize with young people.

In many ways, we were inspired by a fifteen-year-old who told a friend of ours, "I wish the church would stop giving me answers to questions I'm not asking." I wish my parents or my family would stop giving me answers to questions I'm not asking.

That really stimulated us to figure out what it is that young people are ultimately asking. Under their questions about technology and what they should do on Friday night, where they're going to go to college, what are the questions beneath those questions?

We worked with our team at the Fuller Youth Institute to look at interviews with over two thousand teenagers, including surveys and focus groups. Then we did deep-dive interviews with twenty-seven very diverse young people from all over the country to try to figure out what are those top questions.

Dave Wilson: As a pastor for thirty years, I feel like we did that. But let's talk about as a parent. We do the same thing. The question is, why do we do this? Are we afraid to go there? When I read that in your book, right away I leaned in. I thought, I did this. No, actually other churches did this, not mine. That's what I want to say, but we did this. As a parent, we tend to do the same thing. We're answering questions our kids aren't even asking. Why do we do this?

Brad Griffin: I think we want to lean into our own competence. You used the word "expert" earlier, which sometimes makes me a little uncomfortable. But I think we all want to be experts in a way. As parents, we want to lean into what we know.

There's so much about parenting that's so uncertain. There's so much that leaves us feeling from day to day like we're just flying by the seat of our pants. If we can feel like we know a few things, we kind of lean on that because it's more comfortable and stabilizing. I think we end up avoiding some of the things our kids really want to talk about.

Ann Wilson: It's interesting because you guys say every teenager is a walking bundle of questions. That's so good. I'm thinking as parents as well, and maybe even as youth leaders, we're always giving answers. How do we get to those questions, Kara?

Kara Powell: Kids' curiosity is part of the long list of what Brad and I love about young people. They are wondering new things. As Brad mentioned earlier, they're starting to think abstractly. They have more engagement with the broader world. Social media opens up all sorts of new frontiers for them to wrestle with and to try to understand.

The role of a parent is to journey alongside that young person and try to help them navigate the most pressing questions that are top of mind, but then these three deeper questions. Literally this morning, as I was processing an interaction I had with one of my kids who shall remain nameless, I realized this child is trying to answer this one question.

Instead of my feelings being hurt, which what my kid had done was hurting my feelings, I empathized with them and thought, my kid is trying to get an answer to that big question. It changed how I felt about them, it changed how I felt about myself, and it's going to allow me to journey with my kid more effectively. Keeping these three big questions in mind has been game-changing for me in understanding my own kids, young people in general, and often myself.

Dave Wilson: Every parent right now is asking, what are they? What are the three big? They've got their pen out, they've got their phone out, they're ready to take them down. Tell us what the three big are.

Brad Griffin: We believe the questions underneath the rest are "Who am I?", the question of identity; "Where do I fit?", the question of belonging; and "What difference can I make?", the big question of purpose.

Certainly there's a swirl of other questions there, but these kind of sit underneath the rest. For many of us, these are human questions we have as adults. For adults, they might be back-burner simmer questions that every now and then you turn up the heat when something happens. But for teenagers, these are front-burner, rolling boil questions every day for many of them.

Dave Wilson: When I hear that, I think back to our earlier thing, why don't we talk about this? I've got to be honest, as a pastor for thirty years of thousands of people, I would say almost most of our congregation doesn't know the answer to those three questions for themselves as a parent.

For me to go talk to my teenager, I'm not sure I know. Of course I'm not talking about me, I'm perfect. But the people in our congregation, I don't think a lot of us adults could articulately say, "I do know my purpose, I do know where I belong, I do know my identity." How important is it for a parent to be able to wrestle with those to be able to dialogue with our kids about it?

Kara Powell: We're all in process. Part of how Brad and I and the Fuller Youth Institute team are starting to think about discipleship is discipleship is the process of moving from our current answers to those identity, belonging, and purpose questions to more Jesus-centered answers to our identity, belonging, and purpose questions.

One of those Jesus-centered answers for the question of identity I pray for myself every day. It's one of my ten major prayers for myself because a lot of my struggles have to do with identity. I need to daily marinate in Jesus' best answer for me to that question of who am I, let alone that fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-two-year-old who's experiencing so many transitions.

The good news about teenagers and young adults is we as parents can talk about our journey with our kids. The interaction that happened yesterday that hurt my feelings that I was processing this morning with one of my own kids, the tension was this child is hungry for belonging and made a choice in how they spend time with friends that ended up hurting my feelings.

It's tempting for me to distance myself from that child or somehow cope myself. What I realized this morning is again, that child is after belonging and that's nudging my own identity insecurities because when they want to spend time with their friend, then that makes me feel like I'm not a good enough mom.

With this particular child, I think I'm going to debrief how I was feeling and how these identity, belonging, and purpose questions were in play for the two of us. That's part of the beauty of teenagers and young adults is we don't have to keep this a secret from them. We can talk about the ways that God continues to change and stretch our own identity, belonging, and purpose, just like God is doing the same with our kids.

Ann Wilson: Kara, walk us through that. You're going to have that conversation, you'll share what you were feeling, how that maybe even triggered you with your own insecurity. But then what will you be asking her to get into some of those questions you think are at the root of what happened?

Kara Powell: I'm trying to be gender neutral so as to not reveal which of my kids it was, so their gender will remain anonymous if that's okay. My husband and I have found it very helpful if there's something we feel we need to say to one of our kids, like I probably will say to this child, "I'm sorry for how I reacted. You know I sometimes struggle with identity and feeling like I'm not a good enough mom. So when you made the choice that you made, that just made me feel insecure as a mom. I'm sorry for how I temporarily pulled away from you. Will you forgive me?"

That's going to be my first question to my child. But then in talking more about how I'm looking for identity and this child is searching for belonging, something that Dave and I have found is really helpful if we need to share something with our kids is then to ask them, "What do you disagree with in what I've just said?"

Give them a chance to critique us and share what they think we're misunderstanding or not aware of. Then ask, "What do you agree with? Where do you think I'm maybe right in what I'm saying?" First, I'm going to ask for forgiveness, and then I'm going to give them a chance to share what they think I'm missing in my understanding of them or our interaction, and then give them a chance to share what they agree with. My kids, if they have the chance to critique me first, they're often way quicker and stronger in their agreement with where we do overlap and what we can stick hands on.

Dave Wilson: What you just said, Kara, I think blows away a lot of myths that a lot of parents don't understand. Number one, you admit vulnerability and mistakes, like "I'm not perfect and I struggle even in my own identity," and then you ask your kids to critique you. Brad, do you do the same thing? Because a lot of parents never do that, and yet our teenagers long for that.

Brad Griffin: Isn't that counterintuitive? Humility takes a certain kind of humility that as parents, we want to be right because we're supposed to be right because we're the parents. But in those teen years, what kids need is not actually the parent who's always right. They need the parent who's willing to be humble and vulnerable enough to say, "I think I was wrong there," or "What I did there, that's not the parent I want to be for you and that's not the kind of interaction I want to have."

Kara Powell: I think that's the heart of Christianity, that we are sinners saved by grace. What better way is there to infuse our home with what it means to be a follower of Jesus than to have us as adults, as parents, be quick to apologize for how we reacted, for our tone of voice, for our assumptions, whatever it might be, and asking our kids to forgive us?

That just sets the tenor for who God wants us to be in all relationships, people who are quick to apologize, ask for forgiveness, repent in front of each other. Brad and I have found that it's never too early to start apologizing to our kids. Parents, grandparents, caregivers of preschoolers, elementary age, we encourage you to ask your kids to forgive you, to talk about mistakes.

In fact, one of our dinner questions when our kids were in elementary school and middle school was, "What mistake did you make today?" because we wanted our family to be a place where we could talk about mistakes. Sometimes our kids would point out the mistakes that I had made during the course of the day. It's like they were keeping their own list, and that's just fine. I want us to be able to talk about how we blow it, whether it's a small thing like not filling the soap dispenser properly, which I have a perennial problem with, or whether it's something more major like how I reacted to my child last night.

Dave Wilson: With our kids or with really anybody, if we're hoping they'll come to us with their questions, they've got to have a sense of trust that we're honest enough and vulnerable enough to receive their questions. What Kara modeled and Brad what you're talking about is when we admit mistakes, apologize, that opens up a connection. They're struggling, they've admitted it, they've apologized, there's humility there. I'm not going to go to somebody else with my question, although there's nothing wrong with that. I want to come to mom or dad. Is that true?

Brad Griffin: You said the word "connection" and I think that's right at the heart of it. Connection requires vulnerability. Vulnerability is how we build trust. I'm hearing a question in my mind coming from parents right now who are listening. That question is about, but wait, what about authority, what about my leadership of my kids? I need to parent, not just be their friend.

That's absolutely true. I want to say our vulnerability and humility does not necessarily undermine authority. It actually can undergird our authority in a way that, as the relationship changes in the teenage years in particular, it boosts our ability to speak into our kids' lives. It boosts our believability.

You may have positional authority with your kids, and you can hold that positional authority. But to have relational authority in the teenage years, it requires us to have connection. That connection is only going to be as deep as our ability to be real, be honest, be vulnerable, and appropriately vulnerable at age-appropriate times.

What we tell a seventeen-year-old can be different than what we say to our seven-year-old. We shouldn't be vulnerable in certain ways to a seven-year-old. But our kids who are almost adults, they're ready to hear the real stuff. The more we hold from them, the less they're really able to see us as true friends in their life which, as they move into adulthood, that is more of the role we move from being full-on authority to being the parent who is guide, the parent who is companion, who is friend, who wants to be mentor. I want to be a mentor of my young adult kids, but I've got to earn the right to be that mentor because I don't have the positional authority anymore because they're making adult decisions.

Ann Wilson: I was thinking as I listened to Kara, that's so genius that she's saying, "You guys, that just triggered me in terms of my own identity and some of the stuff from the past." Just that comment right there, and because it wasn't about her, she's just saying this is why I reacted that way and I'm apologizing.

I'm thinking of all the kids that are struggling with those questions of belonging and identity. I think that what that would do, because there's so much anxiety going on right now, I think that would just ease them thinking, "Mom and dad aren't perfect. They're still kind of struggling with some of those questions," and it allows me now to open up, as you're saying Brad, to have that connection with my parent because they've displayed their own vulnerability.

Dave Wilson: You want them to come to you. Not that you don't want them to go to somebody else, but I want to create a culture in my home and a relationship with my teenage son or daughter that they want to. I love doing this when they were teenagers, laying on the bed at night. You think that ends at seven or eight, right? It's different, but still being able to lay on the bed or lay on the floor while they're laying in their bed as a teenager going to bed at night and being able to talk about these big questions of identity and belonging and purpose. Again, you don't always frame them that way, but as you're listening, you realize they're asking the same questions I'm asking. There's a sense that I do have some wisdom, I've lived longer, so there's the respect for that. But at the same time, I struggle and so when I share both, the authoritative and the wisdom but also I'm a fellow traveler with you and I still ask those same questions but I know where to go for the answers, that opens them up.

Brad Griffin: Part of what we're doing there is we're creating relational safety. This big question of belonging, where we need to belong first is in our family. Of course, we lay the pathway for that in the early years, we lay all the groundwork. But in the teenage years, in some ways that foundation's really important, but it also gets hacked at and it's a little more unstable. In some cases, we kind of have to rebuild that foundation of trust and safety.

Safety is essential for belonging. In fact, when we talked to teenagers in those interviews, we heard over and over, "I feel like I belong when I'm safe, when I'm safe to be myself." There were young people who talked about really feeling safe to be themselves in their families, and there were those who said home is not a place that I feel safe. Home's not a place I feel like I can really be myself. I think that's a tragedy for a kid.

Dave Wilson: I'm thinking of a dad action step for today. What if tonight you laid on the floor in your son or daughter's bedroom? I'm guessing they're a teenager, and you just listened. You may have a strained relationship, you're going, "I can't do this." Just start there. Just say, "Hey, what happened today in your life?" They may not be able to talk about it, but if you started there, I bet you if you listen, you're going to hear one of these three questions rise to the surface. I would say don't tell them anything, don't preach at them tonight, just listen and let God start to rebuild a relationship with them.

Ann Wilson: Well, that was a great conversation with Brad Griffin and Kara Powell. They're experts. I just love this topic too, don't you?

Dave Wilson: Yeah, and I'm telling you, you want to get their book. It's called *3 Big Questions That Change Every Teenager: Making the Most of Your Conversations and Connections*. Every parent wants to make the most. You got to get this book. Just go to familylifetoday.com, click on the link there in the show notes, and we get to talk about this again tomorrow.

Guest (Male): FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Crew ministry, celebrating 50 years of God's faithfulness as marriages grow stronger and families flourish in Him.