Focus on the Family

Dr. Danny Huerta: When a teen is struggling with anxiety, the stress often brings sleepless nights and being pulled apart as parents. But many couples have walked this road and found deeper unity along the way. On Fearless Faith, I share common places where anxiety begins, while young adults like Caroline share how they've grown with faith, patience, and community support. You'll also hear practical ways to care for your teen while strengthening your marriage. Listen at navigatingteenanxiety.com.

John Fuller: This program is sponsored by Focus on the Family and is made possible by generous friends like you. Please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Tim Shoemaker: You want to make your home a really welcoming place for your kids to have their friends over, and then you get to see what they're like. And be the carpooling mom or dad where you're driving them places, and they're going to forget you're there. They have all these conversations going on. My wife was great with that, and she learned a lot.

John Fuller: That's Tim Shoemaker, and he and his son Mark join us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for being here. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: John, it is a great opportunity to find a way to communicate truth to your teens on some of those big conversations that you need to have. But today, we want to discuss how to get your frame of mind in a place to identify when that opportunity comes—not just on that "big talk." We always refer to it as the big talk. But all the other talks that need to be brought up about spiritual development and loving the Lord, and how to treat people, and all the sacred things that we want to communicate.

John Fuller: We have to be ready, as you said. We have two great guests to help us understand how to have those conversations. Tim Shoemaker is an author, speaker, and writing coach. He and his wife Cheryl have three adult sons, three daughters-in-law, and 12 grandchildren. One of his sons, Mark, joins us today. Mark is a campus pastor at the Bridge Community Church in Illinois. Together, this father-son duo has written a book called *What to Say and How to Say it to Your Teen: A Parent's Guide to 30 Tricky Conversations*. We'll encourage you to get a copy of that book.

Jim Daly: Tim and Mark, it's great to have you on Focus on the Family. I love these conversations because I think partly I'm eager to hear about it. I had that posture when my boys were younger. I wanted to know how other people are communicating with their children and what I can learn from it. So that's the spirit in which we're providing this discussion today. When you look at 30 tricky conversations, is the one I just described the number one conversation? Or what would you say is the number one or two conversation when you look at tricky conversations?

Tim Shoemaker: That's probably not even one that we'd make the book as far as some of the things we have to talk to them about. There are cultural issues, there are those spiritual issues, their spiritual life. We want to talk to them about the whole aspect of dating, especially if they're teens. What does it look like? Why do we date? When are you ready to date?

So many different things like that: their personal habits, their emotions, their anxiety. So many kids are wrestling with that. Some of these things our kids are going to hide from us, they're going to mask it, but they're thinking about it. We need to talk about it.

Jim Daly: Let me ask you this. We're getting into deep water already. If a parent listening or watching doesn't have that relationship with their teenager, what are one or two things they can do to turn that ship toward a relationship of trust for that young teen?

Tim Shoemaker: If they don't have it, I'd be honest about it. I wouldn't just gloss over it like that isn't a thing and all of a sudden try to be this great friend and I'm there and I'm listening. You can't be just the friend. I think I'd fess up. I'd have that conversation and say, "I feel like I haven't been there for these things, and I want to do better."

Maybe I would even ask that teen for some ideas. I would certainly want to talk to some other parents. In my case, I'd talk to my wife because she's going to have insight to say if I've been missing it. Then another quick thing is we have so many distractions. Maybe I've got a habit with my phone. I've got to put that away. Make time to build the relationship with your son or daughter.

Jim Daly: Let me ask you this. When a teen breaks that trust—the whole bond is built on trust. Hopefully, you as a parent are doing all the right things, but there may come a time when that teen breaks your trust as a parent. They borrowed the car, something happened, they didn't tell you about it. It can be all sorts of situations. Or they went to the party that you told them not to go to. What do we do as a parent in that situation to continue to build relationship, but also have the boundaries? Back to not being just a friend. What do you do, Tim?

Tim Shoemaker: It reminds me of a time I'd messed up. I was 17. Have you heard the story, Mark? I'd messed up. It was like the worst mess-up of my life to that point. I had thought I can get away with it. I'd underestimated the conviction of the Holy Spirit. So then I confess. I talk to my mom, and then of course there was going to be a talk with my dad.

The way my dad handled it was so good. I saw he was disappointed. He didn't yell. He didn't lose it. But I remember we sat around the kitchen table. My siblings were downstairs and he said, "I don't know if I should hit you or what, Tim." In my mind, I'm thinking, "Hit me, hit me. I would feel better," because I felt so guilty.

I'd seen I hurt him. I saw the disappointment. That to me was the worst thing—I'd disappointed my dad. It turned me. He may not have known it. My dad probably went to bed thinking he was a failure. Instead, he talked to me about not how bad I was, but "Tim, this isn't you. This isn't the you that I know you want to be. You made a bad choice."

I wanted to build it back. I didn't want to disappoint him again. His love came through, not anger, but also his disappointment. That was powerful.

Jim Daly: In the book, you use a scuba diving analogy about these tough conversations. How does that connect to this moment?

Tim Shoemaker: When you take a dive, you generally have a goal. Maybe you're over a reef and you want to see fish, you want to see a shark, maybe you want to see a wreck. There's always something you really want to do, and that can become the primary reason for your dive. But you've got to change that. Your primary goal on every dive has got to be to come back safely, you and your buddy.

Anything else is secondary. So when I'm down there and maybe my judgment isn't as good, I don't want my first goal to be to find that shark or to find that whatever because I might make a bad judgment. But if my first priority is to come back safely, me and my buddy, that changes. I might not see what I was hoping to see on this dive, but I'm going to come back safe. Primary goal hit.

Same thing with a conversation with our kids. Primary goal: you want to come back from this conversation—these tricky conversations—safe, you and your teen. You don't want to be burning bridges, you don't want to be taking shots at them, you don't want to bully them, you don't want to hurt the relationship. You want to build it.

Jim Daly: I love that analogy, actually. I'm not a diver, but I can grab the concept. Mark, in those moments when parents have to have that tough conversation about something—a behavioral issue, an incident, whatever it might be—you can't let it go, and shouldn't let it go, and need to use it as a teaching point. You have kids, too, all under 12. So you're right around the corner. You're speaking to us from that perspective, both as the son growing up under Tim and then the father who's about to enter the teen years. How do you think a parent needs to frame it for themselves as they go into those tough conversations? It's so easy to come out with conflict, and that then becomes the beginning of trouble in the relationship that could end in rebellion over three or four years. How would you coach a parent to prepare themselves for that?

Mark Shoemaker: I think some of it is the mindset going into it that this isn't about winning an argument or being smarter in that moment. It's kind of just come to my side and I'll show it by just proving that I'm right in that moment. I think going into it with the objective of coming back both of you together, but also, what do I want them to really get? Where do I want their heart to be at the end of this?

Knowing that this one talk doesn't have to be the full talk. I don't have to move them the entire way in this conversation exactly to where I am right now, but this is a process. So I think approaching with that mindset, making sure you're praying about it before you go into it, and giving yourself time to prep, I think is huge. Really thinking through it, praying through it, talking to other people. What are my goals? What do I want to achieve in this discussion? Where do I want their heart to be?

Jim Daly: That is good to do. It's hard to do because emotionally you're probably amped up because you're upset. But the better way—think of the Lord talking to people that were antagonistic to him. He is the Son of God, and they're accusing him of being of the devil and other things. Think of the patience he needed to deal with these people. You have no clue what you're talking about, but he never really expressed it that way. He would ask questions.

In that moment, a parent can sound like a bully, trying to win the argument but lose the battle overall. What are some common phrases or habits we shouldn't employ in that moment? Just teach us what the don'ts are, and then we'll go to the dos.

Tim Shoemaker: Anything that we would do that would exasperate them, pushing their buttons, hitting them with the "you always do this" or "you never do that." That's an easy one for us to do. I think a real don't that we have to be careful of is interrupting. It's already thinking we know their motives behind whatever it was that they did, and so we assign that motive to them and we've already got them figured out.

Only God knows the heart. You might make a guess, but that exasperates our kids if they think that the jury is already fixed or whatever. These are conversation killers, and that is a form of bullying. I don't know that this is mostly dads, but I think sarcasm is a really important one because I think we go there. It's almost like relief to us to put it in that context.

Jim Daly: What does that sound like? Sarcasm toward a teen in a moment of desperation.

Mark Shoemaker: It's like, "Here we go, okay, I knew you were going to say that." Some of it is sarcasm even I think of facial expressions too, where it's communicating you're not really listening and I'm like three steps ahead of you. So that's I think what the sarcasm is doing and then you're just shutting them down, really. You're really not going to be able to really learn where they're at and what they actually need to hear from you. It does feel good for us, but you're hijacking the conversation because now they think you're not really listening.

John Fuller: You're actually shutting them down and making them go silent because what's the use? I'm not going to have a safe conversation with Mom or Dad. Good point. Our guests today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly are Tim Shoemaker and Mark Shoemaker. This is a terrific resource. It's going to really guide you to do the preparation that they've talked about and then to know how to get into some of these really difficult discussions. The book is called *What to Say and How to Say it to Your Teen: A Parent's Guide to 30 Tricky Conversations*. Get a copy of that from us here at the ministry. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.

Jim Daly: Let's hit some of the positive sides. I like the first one you talk about: pray. In the heat of the moment, even thinking of something that happened three days ago, as you begin to think of that interaction with your child, with your teen, your energy can come up. So the idea of praying ahead of time might not be the first thing you think about, but it probably is the first thing you should do. Beyond pray, then what's another of the to-dos?

Tim Shoemaker: Another one is, and I think Mark mentioned it, get reinforcements. See if you can get somebody else to pray for you. You only need one, but get a prayer warrior and say, "I'm going to have a tricky conversation. Would you be praying for my heart and for their heart in this conversation?"

Then think about your atmosphere. Where are you going to have this conversation and when? Because you pick the wrong place and time to do it, and your conversation just got a lot harder.

Jim Daly: And so much of that is the opposite of what we just talked about: put your phone away, resist the urge to interrupt. It's the opposite of what we just said. And that's important.

Mark Shoemaker: I love the atmosphere one. How many times that's helped me in our conversations. When you talked to me about sex, I still remember we were driving to Wisconsin. You will always remember this conversation. It was so helpful that we were driving because I could just look out the window the whole time. I was all of a sudden very interested in the countryside. "Look at that tree, look at that."

But it helped so much. We talk about that in the book and try to offer different suggestions. Sometimes it's a restaurant, and I think that that communicates something. There's value that is shown to a teenager to bring them out and to have a conversation there. Maybe it's a walk and you're shoulder to shoulder and you're having that conversation there.

Jim Daly: You know, one of the core things—and we've done a couple of shows with Heather Holleman, if you haven't heard those, I'd get the app and go listen to them—she talks about effective communication, how to listen, how to ask questions that actually draw people's hearts out, which again is another Jesus trait. For a parent to do that with the teen, speak to the importance of understanding how to engage and listen without being three steps ahead. Don't go there. Just listen. How important is that, and how do you do that? Because I've already got the answer, Mark.

Mark Shoemaker: I think it's being a student of your kids. As well as you know them on so many different things. A lot of our conversations start with a good question to try to get them to talk about it. It feels a little bit like a softer entrance ramp, too, into the conversation. We're not just coming in hot with what we want to say on it, but we want to hear where they're at.

As they're talking about it, I'm not just thinking about my objective and where I'm going to take them, but thinking really of the best route to get there based on what they're saying, based on what they're struggling with, based on what their fears are, or maybe their understanding or lack of understanding of the Bible in that situation as they're talking about it. So we're listening for all those things to think about how best to answer.

Jim Daly: That's really good. So I need some help for a friend, we'll say, who feels like during those teen years there was a loss of respect. I needed to be—I'm sorry, my friend needed to be respected. Give me a script for reintroducing the respect that I would like to see in the conversations that we have that doesn't happen. I get the eye rolls, the shutdown, the put-down.

Tim Shoemaker: If you can go back and try to figure out when you started losing the respect, I think that would be an important thing. Sometimes they won't tell you. But if they see that you know it, you realize it, and say, "Somewhere along the line, I lost something. I want to earn it back. If you can help me, what is Dad missing? What have I missed here? How can we build this back?"

But I'd also ask somebody else. If you can ask your wife, if you can ask somebody else who might have some insight. Maybe you're going to go to the youth pastor; they might have opened up and they've said some things and now at least you can know where to begin.

Jim Daly: It's so true. Respect is earned. Mark, I'd love to hear from you in terms of how does a father earn that respect rather than just expect it to be given because "I'm your dad, do so because I told you to do so" kind of thing? There is a responsibility on our part as being the fathers to earn that respect from our kids. Now, people are right now going, "What? That should just be given." But I don't think so. If you're mistreating your child, are you saying they should respect that? No way.

Mark Shoemaker: For me, I think it was a few things, but it's seeing his daily habits—who he was, his character in and out—being real and authentic in all those moments of life. I think some of it, especially as I'm getting into teenagers, I'm seeing he's teaching me and taking time to teach me how to be a man, which means he's passing that off to me. That helps me respect him more because now it's not a fight for me to prove myself to you.

When I turned 18, he made a big deal about it leading up into it. It was this rite of passage night and invited a bunch of men into the room. It helps me respect him when he's encouraging me on my road to be a man and he's talking like that to me. But he's got to be living it himself. He lived in a way and continues to that I strive to want to be.

As a student pastor, I saw parents and students wrestle with this a lot. What was so sad is I would be hearing from the students that they wanted to respect their parents. It's like built into their heart to want to. That was at the center of what was so difficult for them. So while maybe the parents and me initially—all I'm hearing is the anger at all these things that the dad was doing that was unfair or whatever—as harsh of a critic as they might have been of their parent, at the core of that was just a disappointment of who they wanted them to be. I did see many times parents earn that back, dads earn that back because they noticed it and they saw and they started new habits. I do think they're forgiving in that way.

Jim Daly: It's so critical. This idea between behavior engagement versus heart development. It seems so subtle, but it's so important because if we're just on the behavioral modification—do this, don't do that—we don't get the heart. They don't understand the whys, and it is so critical to explain the whys, the heart attitude, and to develop that. Because if you can catch that at the front of the fount, then the behavior will come. The scripture says that, out of the heart flows your words and your life attitude. So the goal here for us as parents with teens is to teach the heart and then the behavior should come as opposed to just concentrating on behavior.

Mark Shoemaker: That's all of it. That's one of the reasons why we recommend having follow-up conversations afterwards. It might feel like a relief when you get through the conversation, but it's not just for the sake of having the conversation. It's the heart and you want to see that. So a great way to take the temperature of the heart is to come back to it later. A week later, check in with a really good question: "How's that going? How's that new habit you wanted to do?" Because we really do want to see the heart changing.

Jim Daly: Getting to know the friends of your sons and daughters. Jean and I—and I give Jean a lot of credit—she's great when the boys' friends would come over. She'd give them a big hug and say, "It's so good to have you at the house, and we think the world of your mom and dad." All positive. I think that just helps set an environment. Even with some of that, having conversations with those friends that maybe those friends aren't even having with their parents. You've got to tread gently in that area, but it's nice to have that relationship.

Tim Shoemaker: I love what you said about Jean and the kids being there. You want to make your home a really welcoming place for your kids to have their friends over, and then you get to see what they're like. Be the carpooling mom or dad where you're driving them places, and they're going to forget you're there. They have all these conversations going on. My wife was great with that, and she learned a lot.

Jim Daly: Perhaps the most important question for that parent: "Oh, I did bully. I remember bullying. I remember using sarcasm. I used it as an escape. I didn't know what to do." What do they do to reset that with their 15-year-old today? Tonight around the dinner table, what do we do differently?

Mark: I would start with the apology there and to be able to acknowledge it. That does go a long way. Obviously backed up by how you live. I'd be careful not to make grand promises of "I'm never going to do that again" because then you're just going to add to it when you do mess up again. But I think that humility has a way of tearing down some of the walls of resentment that have built up over time. That apology goes a long way.

Tim Shoemaker: Then I'm going to make sure I remember. So I'm going to write notes, and they're going to be cryptic. I know what they mean, nobody else does. I've got one on my desk right now to remind me of something I want to work on. So I'm going to have those reminders.

If I'm coming into the house or the kids are coming in, it's a time to remember, "Okay, God, help me have the heart. I'm surrendering to you. Holy Spirit, work in me to be the man that I need to be for them because this is way beyond me. This is about their heart and about their future and about their relationship with God." All of that is on the line because if we break those communication things with them, they'll talk to somebody, but just not us.

Jim Daly: This has been great, Tim and Mark. What a wonderful discussion and a great book, *What to Say and How to Say it to Your Teen: A Parent's Guide to 30 Tricky Conversations*. We barely scratched the surface. Focus on the Family is here. We're here to help you and your family to thrive in Christ. That's our goal, that's our mission every day.

We want to equip you, Mom and Dad, as you're raising the future generation. We offer a library of trusted resources, articles, programs like this one, videos, and more. You can find that really in something we're calling "Age and Stage." When you have children zero to 18, come to the website, find Age and Stage, put in your children's birthdate, and we'll send you every week information on how to parent that three-year-old, that 15-year-old, all the way up to 18. It is great content for you.

We also have Tim and Mark's wonderful book. It's a very practical field manual that helps you tackle the toughest conversations with your teens using grace, biblical wisdom, and communication that builds trust instead of pushing them away with legalism. Every parent would say yes to that. When you make a gift of any amount, hopefully a monthly pledge, we'll send you a copy of the book as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry.

Let me give you the payback on what the ministry is doing. We got this note from Carly. She said, "The insight I've gained from listening to your show helped me guide one of my teenage students through a very tense and difficult family situation with Christ-honoring and respectful advice." She went on to say, "I'm incredibly grateful for what I've learned, and I'm looking forward to applying it someday with my own kids."

That is really great to hear. I want to thank both of you for participating with us as authors just to provide that kind of content to the listeners and the viewers. Thank you for that. And as a teacher, Carly is taking what she's learned from Focus on the Family to influence the next generation and having an impact for Christ. That kind of ministry is because of friends like you.

John Fuller: Make that monthly donation or one-time gift when you call 800-A-FAMILY. That's 800-232-6459. Or online, you can donate and request this great book and sign up for the Age and Stage e-newsletter at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller, inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.