Odds and Ends Parenting Teenagers Dealing With Your Kids as Adults How to Be a Good Grandparent Learning to Work Well Together With Your Spouse in Raising Your Kids Going Through a Series of Fictitious Examples

Raising Teens - Review As we parent teens, we can’t help but be reminded of that well known illustration that the Apostle Paul uses in 1Corinthians 13 where he says: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. (1Cor 13:11) During the teen years our kids are transitioning from being children and becoming full fledged men and women. As parents, it is our privilege and responsibility to guide them through that process.

Raising Teens - Review Thus far, I gave given a lot of advice as to how to parent your teens. The most important piece of advice, which I gave first, is to teach your teens to fear the Lord (Proverbs 1:7). I went on to give advice in other areas that I hope will prove to be helpful and beneficial to you and your teens. We talked about things like: Giving your teens more and more responsibility. Not being so quick to do things for them. Helping them to accept more and more adult responsibilities. Having deep and frequent conversations with your teens; carefully listening to them, helping them think through issues and helping them to own their professed Christian faith in every area of life.

Teens Driving! Perhaps one of the most exciting (and scariest) things a teen will do is learn to drive. Ted Trip tells the following story: “Hello, Dad?” I recognized the voice on the other end of the line, of course. It was my son, who stopped by my study earlier to borrow the car to go to the mall. “Hi, what’s up?” I queried, trying to sound casual and confident to him. “I locked the keys in the car,” was his nervous reply. “That’s okay. I have another key in my wallet. I’ll come over –” Here, I was interrupted. “Dad, uh, uh, before I locked the keys in the car, I had an accident. Uh, just a little one… not too bad… I don’t think it was my fault… Oh, Dad, I’m alright.” One thing you learn about teen drivers is that accidents are always “just little ones” and they are never at fault!

Teens Driving! There may be some exceptions, but for the most part, the question is not if a teen is going to have a car accident, but when. Most (though not all!) of their accidents will not end up causing major injuries or loss of life, though, most likely, there will at least be some financial loss involved. You will no doubt want to keep them in your prayers, but what else can you do? Assuming you or your spouse has the right temperament to do it, consider teaching them to drive yourself (rather than just assuming they learned everything they need to know in “drivers ed” class).

Teens Driving! As best I can tell, when the time comes for their teen to drive, the majority of parents simply allow them to drive the family car. If you choose to do this, I can’t fault you for doing so, but you may want to consider taking the approach I took with my teens. Before I would even consider allowing them to get behind the wheel of a car they had to: Purchase their own car with their own money Have a job where they made enough money to pay for all ongoing car expenses: insurance, gas, maintenance, etc.

Questions Concerning Teens Driving What kind of fear and/or excitement do you experience as you think about the idea of your child getting behind the wheel of a car? What do you think about the idea of personally teaching your teen to drive? What do you think about the idea of making teens pay for their own car and pay for all of the associated expenses?