Unconditional Love In Hard Conversations
'Parenting conversations' with our teens has become a time of bonding. We would even say we enjoy them – and so would our teens.
How did this happen? How did we arrive at this place?
We trace it back to a principle of parenting rooted in the ‘young years’.
Our young years.
Both Sarah's parents and my parents had a peculiar habit when they disciplined us or our siblings. After discipline they would hug us, hold us, and tell us the reason they disciplined us was because they loved and cared for us. Often they would pray with us.
Sarah and I began this same practice with our children when they were young – and those interactions evolved into the parenting conversations we currently have with our teens.
In the young years, this is how it typically went:
Sarah or I would try to craft a punishment to creatively fit the crime. Then, while holding them, the follow-up conversation: Explaining how our love of them requires us to prepare them to be good husbands, wives, parents – to be known and enjoy life as God’s People: redeemers and co-creators with God – not “destroyers”.
However, that conversation would often need to be deferred. In the moment, passions were too high for a rational conversation.
We would ‘book mark’ the conversation for a better time. The best time was often at bedtime – when love is ritually expressed in an undistracted, intimate setting. When they could then fall asleep thinking about what we had said and the affirmation they received.
Sometimes those conversations began with us, the parents, asking forgiveness for too strong of a reaction in that moment. We would then explain why we had such a strong reaction – how passionate we are for their good. We would always end by making note of our love for who they really are – in God’s eyes – regardless of their poor choices.
As children get older those conversations, rather than discipline, take front stage. Our words correct the action first – then affirm them by contrasting the wrong action with who we know God made them to be. At its core, it is an act of forgiving: holding out to them who they truly are, again and again, so they can more easily take it up again.
As our children grow older we try to be more pro-active than reactive. Sarah and I are watching for signs of internal struggle: quietness, withdrawal, irritability. These are signs they aren’t believing they are unconditionally loved. Or perhaps they are believing a poor choice, or the unkind word of a peer, is truer than who God made them to be – and they are feeling it. Living with shame or contempt.
We try to note those trends and look for a time to ask: What is going on? Why are you frustrated, closing yourself off?
These questions will get a dismissive answer if we ask them on the fly or in public. They need to be asked in a private setting and without time constraints – usually nested in a casual conversation. These questions require a welcoming, relational space.
When we are at our best Sarah and I will prepare yummy food and beverage – inviting them to stay up late to visit. With our body language, our preparation, and gifts of food, we are still speaking to the little child in them: We love you – truly and deeply love you. And this time and conversation are an embodiment of that love. We want to help you see and experience all the delight and blessing God has for you in life!
Maybe it really is the pistachios and hot chocolate they love. But from what they tell us, and the long hugs we get at the end of those times together, our teens like those parenting conversations – even the tough, confrontational ones. Because the backdrop is unconditional love.
We believe this is how our Father disciplines us. We are simply trying to imitate Him.
The LORD disciplines the one He loves,
just as a father, the son he delights in.
– Proverbs 3:12