Integrating Teenagers into the Family
Jay Kesler
The topic of integrating teenagers into the family raises some interesting questions. For example, which teenagers? If we assume a teenager who has been raised in an atmosphere of Christian grace, discipline, and love, then we might also assume that we are dealing with a young person who has a positive attitude about authority structures. If, on the other hand, we assume a teenager who is the product of an unhappy home or a nonreligious, non-Christian family, we would make some altogether different assumptions about his or her attitude toward self and others.
Since it is important to place observations and judgments in the proper context, I acknowledge that my specific frame of reference will be teenagers and their families as I generally perceive them in the evangelical culture. One should not suppose, however, that all evangelical teenagers come from a typical, so-called "Christian" home. Within this classification are a broad range of options and life-styles ranging from arbitrary, inflexible, militaristic dictatorships to intimidated, relativistic, sideless anarchies.
The term integration, as it is most popularly used today, directly
Page 54
applies to the matter of integrating teens into family life. A half-dozen preschool-age children of various racial backgrounds placed on a playground will "integrate" in an amazing way in a few minutes. It won't take long for those who don't know how to swing to learn from the swingers or for the sliders to teach the not-yet-sliders. In the same way, the family is God's idea and apart from learned negative attitudes on the part of adults and teens, it is natural for children and teens to be integrated into family life.
RESPECT OF PERSONS ABOVE INSTITUTIONS
We have just come through a period in America when many young people opted out of their own families to commit themselves to alternatives such as communes, street living, radical political movements, the occult, Eastern religions, drugs. Many felt that their homes either lacked some basic commitment to persons and community or were compromised by "the system" until even good people like their parents were unable to act as individuals. Some felt that their very lives could be a counter-culture statement. I doubt that any American family has escaped the effect of this statement.
Our response to counterculture and change is very much tied to whether or not teens are integrated into family life. Because they have all been more or less enculturated by these questions, we must get to the root causes and attempt to meet them there. These questions really have to do with the individual versus the system. In the larger sense, teens question whether parents view persons as ends in themselves. Teens today view people as creatures of God and important, not as means to an end of serving institutions, whether political, industrial, church, or military (some even view the family as institutional). Jacques Ellul has dealt with this problem prophetically and in depth in The Presence of the Kingdom.1
To the degree that youth sense that family dignifies personhood, and often selfishly their own personhood, they desire to be part of it. Young people will naturally gravitate toward a certain family climate. In the creation of this climate and in the consistent specific actions that validate this climate, healthy relationships will develop.
Page 55
AN OPEN ATTITUDE
Young people are constantly picking up new ideas and information. Much of it is the result of exposure to the world and its influences, good and bad, through media, the classroom, personal experiences, and opinions of friends. When they bring these ideas home and find them rejected "out of hand" with no compelling logic or attempt at understanding, they often decide to save the hassle and leave parents and family out of their personal life. A Chicago-based agency dealing with runaways (they would seem least integrated into family life) lists the most often given reason by youth for running away as "they quit listening to me." Young people today are taught to ask why. They expect there to be a reason. If none is given, they suspect parents of being arbitrary, ignorant, afraid, or less sophisticated. "That's the way it is, why try to share with them?"
It takes some faith to believe that the Christian message with its specific and implied moral code has a rationale. It often takes some effort to examine both Scripture and experience to find it, but when young people learn that parents are committed to dispassionate, unafraid, confident discussion in a spirit of openness and humility, with growing confidence they will share their experiences and ideas. My daughter, a voracious reader, recently brought home a book titled The Bastard. The cover proclaimed to me that it was a good novel, and, besides, it was part of some bicentennial effort. Somehow though I wasn't very comforted by these marketing and patriotic assurances. The title seemed a little stiff for a fifteen-year-old even though it is a good King James word. My immediate response was to look for reviews on the back cover. Finding none, I suggested that 750 pages is a lot of effort if the book is no good. She has, however, this year read: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Exodus, Battle Cry, Mila 18, Armageddon, Cry, the Beloved Country, A Tale of Two Cities, and some others I'm not aware of, as well as school assignments. Realizing there might be some specific material to which
Page 56
I would object and also realizing that she is exposed to life at the local high school and through TV, magazines, and selected movies (and the previews they throw in), I said, "Let's read this book together and talk about it."
This approach has initiated many discussions. Some are quite beyond me, but I would rather talk with her in light of our Christian commitment than drive her to secret places. To integrate reading and intellectual life into our family takes some effort. I think it's worth it. As Winston Churchill said of the United Nations, "Better jaw, jaw, jaw than war, war, war."
TRUST
A number of studies have been done on the general subject of "student performance based on teacher expectation." They are set up to determine whether a teacher's attitude toward his or her students affects their grades, conduct, and social adjustment. "The results indicate strongly that children from whom teachers expected great intellectual gain showed such gains."2 The results are astonishingly convincing that students tend to perform as they are expected. This is separate from the fact that the teachers try to treat all students the same. Facial expressions, a raised eyebrow, a sigh, a tone of voice, touch, all seem to convey some expectation. A child raised in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust will often feel, "What's the use?" As several have told me. "If that's the way they think, I am sure that's the way I'm going to be."
Teenagers need to be given chances to succeed or fail. A young person who is pampered, overprotected, or untrusted, even for good motives like Christian parental love, will disengage from the family stream to try his or her wings. Opportunities within the home structure with a few carefully built-in safety devices will help to meet both the child's need for independence and the family's responsibility for guidance and protection. If the first time a boy is away from home is college or the army, or if the first time a girl is alone with her friends is at a sorority party, it's too late.
The process of trust must start very early in life. Simple chores with accompanying words of praise or displeasure will build
Page 57
"trustworthiness." Without these opportunities, the whole cause-and-effect consequence is lost, and the benefit of God's natural law is unavailable to our children. Words like responsibility lose all meaning unless opportunities to be responsible are given. Teens want to be part of a climate where they are seen as capable and trustworthy. If they can't find it at home, they will find it elsewhere. My observation is that the greater tendency in Christian families is to be immobilized by fear rather than to have faith in God and their children. This produces a well-intentioned but nonetheless negative atmosphere. The antidote is for parents to trust their good judgment, the visibility of Christian teaching, the power of God, and their own children's good sense and character. Taking some risks will bring about great desire on the part of children to trust their parents and to perform to their expectation. There is more to be gained than lost by trust.
ACCEPTANCE OF INDIVIDUALITY
Estranged youth often say, "I'm just not what they expected," or "I can't be what he wants me to be." Even a casual look at today's teens will give a hint that many time-worn, accepted views of what a young man or woman should do or look like have changed. I had three illustrations of this on my way to work one morning. First I saw a young man about eighteen emerge from an excavation beside the road with a construction helmet and long blond curls hanging down below his shoulders. Then I saw a girl, perhaps twenty, with an orange vest holding a surveyor's rod as one member of a road survey team. Within a mile I saw a teenage girl in jeans with a backpack, hitchhiking.
These occurrences are commonplace today and hardly deserve notice. That's the point. The construction crew has integrated long hair into their group. Women are doing many jobs heretofore assigned to men. Girls hitchhiking get no more attention than girls smoking a generation ago. Some of these changes are positive, some are negative, all must be accommodated or dealt with.
Families must come to terms with teenage differences. All boys do not need to play some sport. All children do not need
Page 58
to go to college to be successful. Shoes are intrinsically of no greater value than sandals. All girls do not have to be married to be happy. Many of these are not differences between bad or good, desirable or undesirable, successful or unsuccessful, or even Christian or non-Christian. They are simply differences of choice or often style. If a family rejects these differences, refuses to show interest, puts acceptance or rejection as conditions, or morally weighs these differences, the teenager will often seek an environment that appears to him to examine things in greater depth. This is not to say we do not have preferences, that conventional attire, conduct, education, and vocations do not have merit; it is simply to say we must make room for these to be challenged.
When asked why they hang around certain people or places, almost invariably teens will say, "They respect me, they accept me for myself, I feel comfortable here." A family is a place where members should feel comfortable. Teens can sense rejection of themselves, their friends, their music, attire, ideas. Some people are unable to separate the person from his habits, ideas, clothing, and so on and thus unknowingly drive youth away or to silence or estrangement within the home. When these differences are not of substantive moral value, the degree to which we accept them often determines how much involvement the young person will have in the home and also how tolerant he or she will be of our differences.
DISCIPLINE
A great many parents seem to feel that discipline will drive a wedge between them and their children. Others seem to feel that discipline will stifle creativity or spontaneity. Some overdiscipline and create fearful perfectionists afraid to act for fear of failure. In such cases, the teenager often has an improper concept of authority structures. The underdisciplined teenager usually feels insecure and has contempt for adults and authority. The overdisciplined young person often wants to have a fling or, in words from another generation, "sow wild oats."
I would agree with those who feel that from birth to ten or eleven years rather well-formed boundaries must be established
Page 59
with appropriate rewards and punishments, including sensitively applied physical discipline. From about eleven or twelve to fourteen or fifteen, children are greatly influenced by example and leader-oriented activities. The Boy Scouts of America probably understand more about this age group than any other and have appropriately built around adult models. By the time youth reach fifteen or sixteen, physical behavior patterns are already established, and attitudes are set which are almost unchangeable. I would not include the great attitudinal changes which sometimes accompany conversion to Christ; however, patterns long established are stubborn to change.
Adolescence is the period when the underlying core of conscience laid down in the early years is most needed. This is a time of necessary rebellion — when superimposed values seem fake and artificial. The individual self becomes all-important . . . It [the search] involves experimenting with new ideas, new ways of behavior, and different ways of dressing, and the trying out of new goals and ambitions; but always as the limiter of action there remains the basic core of conscience provided by childhood training from the parents, which prevents completely self-defeating or self-destructive behavior. This core of conscience does need some reinforcing, however, during adolescence. Parents and schools still must show by their rules and restrictions that they will not tolerate infractions of certain basic principles such as those relating to sex, alcohol and crime. They cannot totally abdicate their role as a potential source of pain and punishment, but in general this role must be reserved for major issues.3
Discipline for teenagers must take a more adult approach but must be present for a teen really to feel loved and to feel secure. An arbitrary statement about what time to be home, for instance, may accomplish the opposite goal from integrating a young person into family life. A discussion of each activity with reasonable times established related to the event, distance, companions, and day of the week will serve as a better guideline and will be appreciated. Young people often need help to say no to their friends. Sometimes leaning on a decision made by parents can be a great relief to an uncomfortable teenager. Understanding, love, and fairness accompanied by affirmation build strong
Page 60
ties. Young people need acceptance of themselves, if not their conduct. They need forgiveness that understands that the embarrassment of failure is usually strong enough without an "I told you so" thrown in for good measure. Young people are getting ready for adulthood. How are adults disciplined? Primarily by cause and effect. This is a scriptural idea — "whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap." This reality does not cause us to love God less but more. So it is with youth. Love prompts far more than the law demands. Loving discipline will result in youth's willing integration into family life.
THE FAMILY, THE TEENAGER, AND THE LOCAL CHURCH
In today's culture, many youth do not experience on a daily basis the values and benefits of the expanded family. Uncles and aunts, grandmas and grandpas, and cousins live in other parts of the country. They are often strangers. For this reason the local church, made up of brothers and sisters in Christ, can provide with our permission and involvement the aunts and uncles, the substitute grandparents, and the supportive influences often present in a former generation. This "expanded family" can perform vital functions of support for the "nuclear family" alone in a crowded metropolitan sprawl. Caring adults, peers, models, conflict, love, and disappointment are all available in the local church and are a great help in integrating teens into family life. Often a substitute uncle or aunt can interpret our relationship with our teens. These substitute parents can often "stand in the gap." For instance, what eighteen-year-old boy desperately in love can believe that his parents' reluctance is born of real love and concern? More often he feels, "They just don't understand." A caring brother nearer the boy's age in the local congregation may be able to present the same case in a less subjective manner.
Healthy climatic characteristics cause teenagers to be interested in the family and develop willing and loving ties. The following specific suggestions are ideas to build upon in creating a home in which young people feel affirmed, loved, and trusted.
1. Involve teens in financial affairs of the family. Perhaps let them handle the family checkbook for six months.
2. Bring up for discussion every decision which involves the
Page 61
family, and talk about how it hits the whole group, for example, change of home and disruption of school and friends.
3. Institute a family night and let various members decide what would be a good time.
4. Take individual children out alone with mom or dad for special attention on a regular basis.
5. Never miss an opportunity to affirm or commend a child for a job well done.
6. Compliment good manners, thoughtful actions, and "good" dress whenever they occur.
7. Use dinners and rides in the car for opportunities to express opinions. Start questions with "What do you think about . . .?" or "How do you feel about . . . ?" more often than "Where were you . . ." or "How much did you . . .?" or "When did you . . . ?"
8. Sanctify holidays and make them special family times when all those present and those absent are loved, missed, and contacted. A phone call at Easter to a teen at Daytona will be appreciated as much as a call on Mother's Day from a teen at college.
9. Give certain assignments with no supervision and expect that they will be carried out on time and well done.
10. Pray much in private for your teenagers, ask forgiveness in public, and remember what it was actually like when you wanted to run away from home. Remember the family is God's idea, and it is not likely he would ask us to do the impossible.
NOTES
1. Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom (New York: Seabury Press, 1967).
2. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore F. Jacobson, "Teacher Expectations for the Disadvantaged," Scientific American (April 1968), p. 48.
3. Graham B. Blaine, Jr., Youth and the Hazards of Affluence (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 63.
_________
Jay Kesler is president of Youth for Christ International. He is the author of two books, Let's Succeed with Our Teenagers, and I Never Promised You a Disneyland.
Chapter Five || Table of Contents
