FamilyLife Today®

Brad Griffin: We think one of the best Jesus-centered answers, when it relates to this question of what difference can I make, how will my life matter, or why am I here, is the idea of story and being caught up in God's story. My story doesn't live in a vacuum. Even our family story is not just about building a family legacy or doing specific things because you're part of this family.

Our story matters because we're caught up in the story of God and what God has done, what God is doing now, and what God will do. This is His story and we get to be part of it. We get to have our chapter in the book, but the book isn't fundamentally about us; it's about God.

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.

Dave Wilson: I think I know the answer to this question, but do you remember the first time you wondered why you are here or your purpose?

Ann Wilson: Yes. Isn't that funny that I remember? I was in the second grade and I was in bed. Because of sexual abuse in my past, I would ask deep questions like why is this happening? I would ask what's wrong with me and who am I? But the big question that I would ask is why am I here? I would ask that continually. Why am I on this earth? Is there a purpose to it?

I had a great family, but that abuse was outside the family and I just felt like something must be wrong with me. We didn't have much God in our family. We didn't talk about Him much, but I thought if there is a God, is there a purpose to my life? Those are big questions for a little eight-year-old girl.

Dave Wilson: I was shocked when you told me that. I don't remember thinking that until I was in college. It's funny because I was with her parents when they were 84. I asked her dad, "Dick, do you remember the first time you asked the question why am I here?" He said, "I've never actually thought that until this very moment." I was like, "What? You're 84!"

Her dad became like my dad because I didn't have one, and he's my kind of guy. I relate to that. He was 84 years old and had never really thought about it, and he meant it. So when Ann told me second grade, I thought this woman is deep.

Ann Wilson: Well, there was a lot of pain.

Dave Wilson: We're asking this question because we're talking about the three big questions teenagers ask. We have Brad Griffin back in the studio with us today. He's a parent who has studied teens and knows what these questions are. Brad, welcome back to FamilyLife Today. We've had a great conversation with you about the book you wrote with Kara Powell called *The 3 Big Questions That Change Every Teenager: Making the Most of Your Conversations and Connections*. This is important for all of us, but especially for us as parents.

Ann Wilson: If you have teenagers or pre-teenagers, get this book. You're going to be fascinated; we couldn't put it down. It's so helpful and encouraging to guide us in helping.

In chapter one, you say certain questions were by far the most common that emerged from the interview surveys. Every parent would be leaning in to hear what our teens are asking. They are asking how to manage anxiety and stress better. They have questions about technology and navigating racial pain. There are questions about gender identity, sexual orientation, sexuality, safety, drugs, alcohol, and vaping. These are all big questions, but then you and Kara took it down to the big three. Underneath these surface questions, they really come down to those core three.

Brad Griffin: Yes, the big question of identity: who am I? The big question of belonging: where do I fit? And the big question of purpose: what difference can I make?

Our mission at the Fuller Youth Institute is equipping parents and leaders to surround young people with support. We talk about helping young people change the world, and the way that happens is they have adults in their lives who are with them and on their team. We do that through research. Research is just a fancy way of saying we listen to people and tell stories about it. We really want to equip people to be better parents and better leaders.

With identity, the better answer is you are enough in Jesus. With belonging, the Jesus-centered answer is one of being "with." I belong with God and with God's people. We can provide the presence of God through other people so they know they're not alone.

Today, let's talk about purpose. It may be helpful first to talk about the ways that young people are talking about purpose themselves before we get to that Jesus-centered answer. What we heard through over 100 hours of in-depth interviews was a couple of dominant answers. One of them was around following a script. I've been given a lot of scripts about how I'm supposed to live, why my life matters, and what kind of purpose I have in the world.

Those scripts sometimes have a lot of God language around them for kids who grow up in the church. For example, there's actually pressure around finding God's will. I remember this one teenager named Carrie say, "I want to know what God's will is for my life, but I'm afraid I'm going to get it wrong. I'm afraid I'm going to go to college and study this thing and it's going to be the wrong thing, and then I'm going to have wasted this time and money."

It was almost this sense of there being such high expectations for me to know God's will and to get it right. If I get it wrong, I'm going to be disappointing the people around me and I'm going to be disappointing God.

Ann Wilson: The parents' intent is good, but the kids are feeling pressure from the parents who are maybe dreaming big for their children.

Brad Griffin: Absolutely. Sometimes the way we use God language, though we don't mean for it to come across as pressure, it does. Sometimes it's because we don't tell enough stories of failure and of our own journey of discovery. We don't tell enough stories of not figuring it all out ourselves right away. The way we narrate what it looks like to find God's plan for your life sometimes sounds like there's no room for mistakes or discovery. That's not actually what we mean at all.

Another narrative we heard was around helping. I feel like my life matters if I'm helping someone. Helping is a really good thing and there's all kinds of positive research correlations with helping. And there's a shadow side too. There was this sense of "I only matter if I can make somebody happy" or "I only matter if I do all these things that people expect me to do."

In some kids' cases, there are a lot of expectations around helping in the home, like taking care of siblings. With one young man we talked to, his dad is chronically ill and part of this kid's daily work as a teenager is taking care of his dad. There's a lot about that that's beautiful and mature and just what it means to be family, but there's a part of it too that makes it hard for him to see past being stuck in this family situation to what else his purpose might look like in life.

Ann Wilson: I'm thinking of kids whose parents have gone through a divorce and now they're in a blended family situation. They're really asking where they fit in, and maybe the families are very different in how they're answering those questions. Did you get any of that in the survey of kids trying to find that balance and identity in that situation?

Brad Griffin: Divorce, family separation, and blended families raise all kinds of questions around those three areas. Who am I here versus who am I there if you're juggling between two homes? Where do I fit and what does that look like?

On the purpose front, parents can have very different versions of who they think you should be and different perspectives on your career path and how to lean into those things. It's a lot to navigate. We definitely heard from kids in those situations who felt pulled. Sometimes what it does is you have to hold a lot yourself as a teenager because you are making the decision about how to present and how to answer and how to navigate.

Sometimes kids end up seeing part of their purpose as caring for their parents. This is not only about divorce, but sometimes kids feel like their parents are emotionally dependent on them. They feel they have to make mom or dad happy.

Dave Wilson: God has been so faithful to use FamilyLife to help families flourish for 50 years. But the needs that we're seeing today remind us that the mission cannot slow down. We have to press forward with even greater intentionality. This moment matters and it calls for long-term, Gospel-centered commitment.

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I was in a blended family and I'm sitting here thinking I was so selfish. All I cared about when I was a teen was making me happy. I didn't think about making a difference. Ann was thinking about her purpose in life in second grade, but I didn't care. I wanted to play football, date a girl, get a scholarship, and make money. I was just thinking about today and who is going to love me today and how I can be successful.

Is the teen today different? They really do wrestle. We raised them and it's a different world. There are stressors and anxiety that they carry that I think is unique to their generation that makes them ask who am I, where do I fit, and am I right?

Brad Griffin: Adolescence very much is a phase that is self-centered. Developmentally, the focus turns inward. Every teenager in a lot of ways feels like they're on a stage, so of course they're going to be performance-focused or feel like everybody's staring at them. That's a really common experience in adolescence.

I also think we as a society put so much into entertainment, distraction, and numbing. We actually provide a lot of ways for teenagers to numb themselves from looking right at the big questions. For that kid who just wants to play video games all day or that kid who isn't really thinking about why they are here, some of that is because we've given them so many ways to be distracted from what matters.

Dave Wilson: In some ways, it is an escape. Even when I think about my experience, that was an escape for me. I came from a broken family with alcoholic parents and adultery. I didn't know where I fit. I felt lost and left, and I found my identity being an athlete and being popular. It was just an escape. I think as parents, we need to watch our kids and see those symptoms. Are they looking for something because we know they're asking this question by the way they're behaving?

Brad, the teens you interviewed, were they church kids?

Brad Griffin: They were all nominated by ministry leaders, so they were connected with churches. Some of them were more active than others, but yes, some of that narrative was there.

Ann Wilson: The reason I'm asking is because of all the things you're talking about that kids feel. I think I put that on our kids. I told them, "Hey, you need to be serving because that's what we do. We give our lives away for Jesus. You want to know who you are? Jesus has made you for a purpose."

I'm hearing all the things that I've said to them over the years and I think I put a ton of pressure on them. Now our adult sons have come back and said, "When you said all those great things about me, I felt like you were heaping pressure on my back to become that person. Deep down, I felt like I was a fraud because I had to live up to all these expectations." My heart was good, but I didn't realize I was putting a lot of pressure on them. Do you relate to that?

Brad Griffin: Absolutely. A lot of us don't want our kids to be entitled or selfish. We hear these narratives about young people and we're thinking, "Not my kid. My kids are going to know hard work, responsibility, and what it means to serve." And those are good things.

We can relieve the pressure by getting to that Jesus-centered answer for purpose. We think one of the best Jesus-centered answers when it relates to purpose is the idea of story and being caught up in God's story. My story doesn't live in a vacuum. Even our family story is not just about building a family legacy. Our story matters because we're caught up in the story of God and what God has done, what God is doing now, and what God will do. This is His story and we get to be part of it.

In some ways, that can relieve pressure. It's not like you need to know God's will so that you don't make a wrong decision about college or whatever. It's that God is with you. God's put you in a story and it's going to be a beautiful and complicated story. There are going to be painful parts of the story and amazing, joyful parts of the story.

As your parent, if I could, I would make sure that you never experience loss or pain or anything uncomfortable because I don't want you to go through it. And that's not how life works. That's not how you grow. This story, we don't know what it's going to turn out to be, but it's God's. And God's with you in it and you will never be alone.

That's one of the prayers I pray over my teenage kids every night, that they would each know that they're not alone, that God is with them. I think that's about identity, belonging, and purpose. Knowing that the presence of God goes with us when we sleep, when we wake, when we stumble through our day, and when we fall down embarrassingly in middle school in front of everybody. I want my kids to know in that moment that they're not alone.

Ann Wilson: And that can happen when they're toddlers or babies. I remember just talking to our grandson when he was two, saying, "Isn't it amazing that God hears you? He sees you all the time." And even with our six and seven-year-old grandkids, I wonder what He has for you. You're not painting the picture that this is what it is, but you're creating the question. I remember even telling our kids, "I see this in you," the gifts and their strengths and their passion. As they get older, you can ask them what they are passionate about right now.

Dave Wilson: I think it's good for us as parents to remember that God's got our kids. Even as we discussed over the last couple of days, identity, belonging, and purpose, I think we can get so fearful as parents. We see the anxiety and the stress that our teenagers are feeling and we forget there is a God that's got them. We're older now and have grandkids and adult sons, and we can look back and see that all the stress we felt was normal and part of being a mom or dad. But you look back now and go, "God was there. God had a purpose for them." They found it. At the end of the day, you can lay your head on the pillow at night and rest. There's a God that sees them, knows them, and loves them. Our mistakes and their mistakes are not going to stop God from being present and active in their lives.

Brad Griffin: I agree.

Dave Wilson: What a great conversation with Brad Griffin about teenagers. His book is written with Kara Powell and it is called *The 3 Big Questions That Change Every Teenager: Making the Most of Your Conversations and Connections*. You can get your copy today by clicking the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.

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.