7 Tested Tips for Moms of Teens by Letitia Suk

Letitia Suk is a guest on the Monday Morning Blog today with some great advice for moms of teens and tweens from her book Need-to-Know Tips for Moms of Tweens and Teens. This is a delightful and practical guide for grandparents too. As I was reading, I thought about my thirteen-year old granddaughter who was coming with her friend to stay with us for a week. Our tendency is to fall back on our own parenting style with the next generation, but I knew I could learn a few tips, and I did. Leave a comment for a chance to enter the drawing to win this precious book!

My new book Everyday Brave: Living Courageously as a Woman of Faith is now available for preorder on Amazon. Mothering tweens and teens is a courageous and brave endeavor that I know we would all agree we couldn’t do without the help of God. Chapter 7 is “Brave Mothers.” 

7 Tested Tips for Moms of Teens

by Letitia Suk

7 Tested Tips for Moms of Teens

Parents and teens will clash, often! If you are a parent of a teen, you have been on both ends of the clash at some point in your life. Remember?

As much as it feels challenging to get through this roller coaster season of parenting, choose the long view. This current crisis will pass but your relationship with your teen lasts the rest of your life.

[Tweet “One of the primary tasks of parenting teens is to establish a bond of closeness that can be drawn on for the long journey ahead.”]

Your pediatrician might not have mentioned it, butone of the primary tasks of parenting teens is to establish a bond of closeness that can be drawn on for the long journey ahead.

Hard as it is to believe, most of the years spent with our child in our lifetime will be in an adult-adult relationship that will outlast these exciting, fun-filled, and often challenging years.

[Tweet “Most of the years spent with our child in our lifetime will be in an adult-adult relationship”]

Looking for help?

If you need some help today, 100 Need-to-Know Tips for Moms of Tweens & Teens is a grab and go guide to read along the way. Each short, stand-alone tip provides an immediate opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your teen for both now and for the decades ahead.

Here is a sample of some of the tips you can try right now. 

  1. Keep Texts Friendly.

Chances are your teen prefers texting to most other forms of communication. Choosing to use this tool in a friendly way is a great way to stay in touch. Tell them you love them and are praying for their test. Ask them if they need anything from Walmart or send fun tidbits of information. TM can also be used to ask questions like when will the car be back? Will you be home for dinner? Could you please pick up a gallon of milk?

Decide that you will only use this creative tool for positive thoughts or simple questions. This is not the vehicle to complain (the kitchen is a wreck), criticize (you never leave gas in the car), or accuse (you were out too late last night). Keep it upbeat and they’ll want to keep opening their inbox.

  1. Ditch the Dread.

“Wait till they’re teenagers!” was the foreboding warning that awaited me on almost every turn of the stroller. “Wait till they start mouthing off” or “Wait till they get to high school” or “Wait till they get their driver’s license” have been part of the mom to mom network from the playground to the boardroom. It was never clear what the wait was for, it didn’t have the same hopeful note as waiting to go on vacation.

[Tweet “Instead of expecting the worst, start the day with a hope and a prayer that your teen is going to be OK.”]

            Instead of expecting the worst, start the day with a hope and a prayer that your teen is going to be OK.

Talk back to your inner critic and tell her you’re doing just fine as a mom. Don’t let moments of doubt turn into dread-fests. Be the voice of the yay-sayer instead of the naysayer to other moms. Expect the best and wait for it to come!

  1. Wave the White Flag.

If you are the parent of a teen, you have engaged in some conflict. In fact, you might have instigated it or inflamed it. It is never too late to wave the white flag and start a round of peace talks in your family. Someone needs to step up and stop yelling, door   slamming, or silent treatment. Might as well be you!

Calling for peace is not glossing over incidents but acknowledging your part in the current conflict. “I was angry, and I insulted your character, I’m sorry.” “I was tired, and I yelled at you. That wasn’t fair.” Asking for forgiveness is also a huge step but necessary to move on.

[Tweet “Conflicts will come and go but the relationship is forever.”]

Conflicts will come and go but the relationship is forever.

What your teen sees from you in the way of how to do resolution will shape their future interactions as well.

4. Leave on a positive note.

When your teen leaves the house for an outing with friends, make a point to say have a good time, you look great, I love you.

[Tweet “The last few minutes of your interaction with your teen can set the tone for the rest of the evening.”]

The last few minutes of your interaction with your teen can set the tone for the rest of the evening.

If your teen leaves the house feeling good about you and about themselves, they will carry those positive feelings with them. Likewise, if they leave home angry, feeling misunderstood, or belittled, those feelings may shape their evening. If you really want to make a lasting impression, occasionally slip a little unasked-for cash!

  1. Avoid Micro-Managing Your Teen’s Faith.

It has been said that “God has no grandchildren” meaning we each have our own faith experience separate from our parents. In our spiritually aware culture, most teens are searching for something/someone to believe in. Your teen’s faith journey might parallel yours, lag behind, or leap ahead. Most likely, it will not be identical just as your faith experience is not the same as your parents.

[Tweet “Your role as a parent is to provide spiritual training for your children, but not to force their faith development.”]

            Your role as a parent is to provide spiritual training but not to force their faith development.

In these teen years, you can nurture your teen’s faith by your prayers, your example, your encouragement, and trust God to work out the big picture. Keep in mind, his timing is rarely the same as ours.

  1. Differentiate Between Rules and Policies.

Try less rules, more policies. A policy has flex to it, a rule is fixed. Use policies for the minors of life such as room cleaning, late phone calls, attendance at family events, established study times, etc. A policy can be changed by request, “I need to talk to Sara tonight, but she won’t be home till 10:30. Can I call her later?” You: “OK, thanks for asking.” Exception given, policy still in place.

Rules, however, cover the majors and are not flexible. No point in your teen asking if they can have a party when you’re out of town. Ditto, there won’t be an exception as to whether they can drink and drive or have a sleepover with their boyfriend/girlfriend. Policies can be created on the spot and revised often. Keep the actual rules very few and very clear.

Remember, rules without relationship can lead to rebellion. 

[Tweet “Remember, rules without relationship can lead to rebellion in children.”]

  1. Bless their Friends, Even the Ones You Don’t Like.

You won’t like all your teens’ friends. Usually announcing that you don’t like a friend quickly elevates this person into sainthood in your teen’s life. The secret is not to let your feelings be known unless your teen is in danger or serious risk from a “friend.”

Find something, anything to comment on positively about the friend. “I like the way ____    is passionate about causes, knows a lot about music, isn’t afraid to be different.” then you might say something casually like, “I am a little concerned about his/her ____(driving?, ditching school? lying? poor relationship with parents, etc.” (choose only one) then follow with, “What do you think about that? Listen and don’t comment. Very hard tactic to follow but so worth it. Wait it out and see if your impression was wrong or your teen recognizes it’s not a healthy relationship. It almost always happens.

Interested in reading more?

Ninety-two more tips are available in 100 Need-to-Know Tips for Moms of Tweens & Teens (Ellie Claire/Hachette, 2019.) Beautifully designed with inspirational quotes on motherhood interspersed throughout, this book makes an excellent gift for yourself or a friend.

Which of these tips did you need today? 

Have you used any of these tips successfully?

Please leave a comment here for a chance to win a free sign copy of 100 Need-to-Know Tips for Moms of Tweens and Teens.

About the Author:

7 tested Tips for Moms of Teens

Letitia Suk invites women to chase the intentional life. She is the author of 100 Tips for Moms of Tweens and Teens, Getaway with God: The Everywoman’s Guide to Personal Retreat & Rhythms of Renewal. Letitia’s Amazon page

She and her husband, Tom, live in the Chicago area and are parents of four grown children. Letitia’s Website

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Mother’s Day: Happy or Hurting

“I hate Mother’s Day!” said my dear friend who is longing for a baby. “You know that women struggling with infertility don’t go to church on Mother’s Day.” Kris agrees, “I was that mom-in-waiting for 16 years; I stayed away from baby showers, church, and friends who would get pregnant. I didn’t stop praying, but it WAS the worse pain.” Lisa concurs, “I am guilty of having skipped church a few years before we adopted my son.”

In my book, Dear God, Why Can’t I Have a Baby? A Companion Guide for Couples on the Infertility Journey, my own daughter wrote about her painful Mother’s Day experience:

Dear God,

It’s almost Mother’s Day and I don’t know if I can handle seeing all those happy moms at church and brunch. I’m trying to focus on my mom and not think about how I’m missing out on being a mommy on yet another Mother’s Day. This year is especially hard since we’ve been trying to be parents for so long and so hard, only to be repeatedly disappointed. At the store looking for a card for my mom, I see the cute cards at the end of the aisle “To Mommy”…oh God, I wish I were someone’s mommy! I look away and continue focusing at the task ahead, getting my mom and mothers-in-law their cards.

Today’s the day, it’s Mother’s Day. I don’t think I can bear it. It’s just begun and already I want this day over. I pull myself out of bed and get ready for church. I’m not looking forward to the sermon about children being a blessing and honoring mothers. God, help me focus on my mom.

We met my parents at church and I put on my happy face, when inside I was crying watching all the mothers with big smiles dressed in pretty spring dresses and children running all around. This was a day of celebration and I just wanted to go back to bed. The pastor started the message with asking all the mothers to stand up. Hundreds of women stood and everyone applauded. I couldn’t take it any longer and sat slouched over in my seat quietly crying. Toby put his arm around me and my mom held my hand, but nothing took away the pain. I barely heard the rest of the message.

After brunch, I came home, collapsed on my bed, and cried myself to sleep where I remained the rest of the day. God, please don’t make me go through another Mother’s Day with this hole in my heart. I want to stand up in church with all those other mothers beaming from ear to ear and have everyone applaud me. God, please let me stand up next year.

Mother’s Day is especially hard for mommies-in-waiting, but for most of these women, every day is hard. With 1 in 6 couples experiencing infertility, you are, or know, a woman experiencing this heartache. Often we don’t know what to say to them, so we say nothing, or maybe unintentionally say something that makes them feel worse. Kris, who I mentioned in the opening paragraph, says, “We cannot ignore them [women longing for a child]. I know how hard it was for people to talk to me. But I would have loved it if they did.”

In Dear God, Why Can’t I Have a Baby?, I offer tools to help you know the “Top Fifteen Things Not to Say or Do And To Say or Do to Someone Experiencing Infertility.” This list is also on the Infertility Support page on my website.

When I was writing the book, women often told me that the place they felt the loneliest was the church. That breaks my heart.  Jesus said he came for the sick, and that includes heartsick. The church should be a safe place for the hurting, not a place where they feel shunned or outcast.  How does your church comfort mommies-in-waiting on Mother’s Day and every day?

Mothers of Prodigals

Another group of women who will be hurting on Mother’s Day are the mothers of prodigals. They may not even know where there child is, or know all too well where they are and what they are doing that breaks a mother’s heart and the heart of God. These moms also need comforting, a hug, a reminder that this day is for them too and they are not forgotten or ignored.

I was that hurting mom and in Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter: Hope, Help & Encouragement for Hurting Parents, I tell the story of praying daily that my daughter would find her way back to God, and six years later, she did. This Mother’s Day weekend she and I will be sharing our story at a Mother/Daughter tea. I’ve had a vision of us doing this for many years and prayed expectantly that God would bring my dream to life, and He has.

And Kim who was that heartsick mommy-in-waiting on Mother’s Day is now blessed with a family, but when we speak to the women God brings to this Mother’s Day Tea, neither of us will ever forget what it felt like to be hurting on Mother’s Day. We will speak with caring and compassion a comforting message of hope in God’s plan and timing. We won’t ignore these women, we will love on them!

I hope that you will do the same for the mommies-in-waiting, the moms of prodigals, or the moms who have lost a daughter or a son who may need a shoulder to cry on . . . a prayer . . . an understanding hug. If you’ve been where they’re at, mentor them like only someone who has been in their shoes can. If you haven’t been in their shoes, just let them know you can’t possibly understand, but you’re there for them and God is too!

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”—1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NLT)

NOTE: Besides not knowing what to say, many of us don’t know what to give a mommy-in-waiting or a mom of a prodigal, and so we usually give them nothing. The books I have written for these women are full of hope and encouragement from the voices of other women who have walked the same journey, as well as from God’s Love Letter.  So for the month of May I’m running a sale on my website for Dear God, Why Can’t I Have a Baby? and Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter. Another helpful book might be Face-to-Face with Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah: Pleading with God. I will sign and personalize each book.

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40 Years of Love!

“I’m sorry, but you’ll never have children.” Those were the doctor’s words to me at a post-op visit after surgery for a ruptured ovarian cyst. “Your ovaries look like those of a 90 year-old woman.” I was a twenty year-old, newly engaged college student. My life was over. Or so I thought.

After three years of marriage, I was thrilled to hear another doctor congratulate me: “You’re pregnant!” My mother called it a miracle, but I just wanted to be like any normal woman who could get pregnant and have a baby.

The last week of pregnancy, when my baby was a week overdue, everyone kept calling to see if I was “still home.” I enjoyed every moment of those 9 months and one week, and even steeled myself through a natural, long delivery, but nothing could prepare me for what it would feel like to hold my baby girl—instant, unconditional love.

I was a mom at last! But I had no concept of the life-changing responsibility I was undertaking or the importance of my being an exemplary role model for her. After all, she was just an infant and I would have so many years to work out all the details of mothering.

Where did those years go? This week, February 26, my baby girl, Kimberly Michele, turns 40 and she is a mother herself of three precious children. I remember the day I turned 40 and it doesn’t seem that long ago.

Kim and I didn’t have the life journey I anticipated upon first looking into her dark brown eyes. When she was only 2 years-old, her dad and I divorced, and I would spend the next seventeen years as a single mom juggling motherhood and a career. To the outside world, I did a great job as I moved up the career ladder of success; but as I moved further into the world and father away from the Jesus I asked into my heart at eleven, I role modeled the world’s ways to Kim.

Kim loved our life and all that I was able to provide her, even though she often cried that she missed me, as I headed off on another business trip. But we had time, right? She was still young and eighteen years is a long time…. I’ll make up to her the time we’ve been apart.

But in a blink of an eye, she was sixteen and dating. Then within moments, she was nineteen and declaring she was going off to college to live with her boyfriend, and she didn’t care what I had to say about it. I had recently rededicated my life to the Lord and was now trying to tell her this lifestyle was wrong, but she wasn’t buying it.

I mistakenly thought that when I changed my life and returned to God, she would follow right behind me. Wrong! That’s when the Lord assured me that, yes, I had let the first nineteen years of her life slip by without including Him in the parenting, but it wasn’t over yet. And so I began praying—daily, biblically, expectantly, persistently, sacrificially, unceasingly, and thankfully—as I describe in the first seven chapters of my book Praying for Your Prodigal Daughter.

I’d like to say that she instantly changed her ways, but it would be another six years of daily praying before she returned to me and to the Lord.

The Lord graciously restored the years the locust had eaten. I had the opportunity to do what I should have done from the day she was born: mentor her in how to be a godly woman. Today, I am so proud of the woman she has become. We’re now speaking together as “Two About His Work,” and she’s giving her testimony in a few weeks at her MOPS group.

Even through the difficult years, my love for Kim never faltered. She knew I didn’t condone her behavior, but neither did I condemn her. Our relationship has endured and grown stronger in spite of divorce, single parenthood, a traveling mom, both our prodigal years, my remarriage and blending a new family, my breast cancer, her infertility, and all the trials and joys of life.

I thought I would feel terribly old the day she turned 40; but instead, I feel blessed with the 40 years God has given me to love my precious daughter, and I’m grateful that the work He has done in my life will carry on through the work He is doing in her life. She’s my legacy, and I have given her the most valuable of inheritances: belief in Jesus Christ. 40 years is nothing in light of spending eternity together.

Mentoring Words to Moms:

  • Are you the woman today you want your daughter to become?  You’re the closest role model and mentor your daughter has.
  • It’s never too early to pray daily for your children. Pray for them before you have a problem.
  • Praying personalized Scripture—God’s Word back to Him—keeps you praying God’s will and not your own.
  • Enjoy every day of your children’s lives—they never get younger and neither to do you. Make each day count.

Janet-and-Kim

My daughter Kim and I speak together as Two About His Work.

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