Episode 248: Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age: Melissa Kruger

Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef

You’re sitting across from your teenager at the kitchen table. Now that you finally have their undivided attention, you want to talk about an important issue they are facing. Unfortunately, things get tense quickly. Their eyes roll, you get frustrated, and soon they are looking for an escape from this conversation. You sit dumbfounded thinking, "How do I raise my teen to love Christ in a world that is doing everything possible to pull them away?"

In this episode of Candid Conversations, host Jonathan welcomes back Melissa Kruger, Vice President of Discipleship Programming at the Gospel Coalition. Melissa is also an accomplished author, having written multiple books, including “Growing Together,” “Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood,” and the popular children’s book “Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know.”

During this conversation, Jonathan and Melissa discuss her latest book, “Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age.” The book provides practical guidance and biblical insights for parents navigating the challenges of raising teenagers in today’s culture. Melissa shares her personal journey and the inspiration behind writing this important resource.

Listen to this Candid Conversation as Melissa Kruger sheds light on parenting teens with hope, faith, and wisdom. Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or youth leader, this episode offers valuable insights for nurturing the next generation.

To ask Jonathan a question or connect with the Candid community, visit https://LTW.org/Candid

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TRANSCRIPT:

This transcript recounts Candid Conversations with Jonathan Youssef Episode 248: Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age: Melissa Kruger.

[00:06] Jonathan: Well, today I have a repeat guest. It is Melissa Kruger. She is the vice president of discipleship programming at the Gospel Coalition. She is the author of multiple books, including Growing Together; Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood; and the popular children’s book, Wherever You Go, I Want You to Know, which we have gotten for our son, and then we’ve had his teachers write inscriptions each year, whoever his teacher is. And I think you have a special book that allows for that.

Her husband Mike, who has also been on the podcast, is the president of Reformed Theological Seminary. And they and their three children are in Charlotte, North Carolina. Melissa, thank you so much for coming back onto Candid Conversations.

[00:52] Melissa: Great! Thanks for having me back.

[00:54] Jonathan: Okay, you’ve got a new book out called Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age. Now, I imagine this book is flying off the shelves, and you’ve probably shattered sales records.

[01:12] Melissa: I don’t think so, right?

[01:14] Jonathan: It should. I think this is something the church hears a lot about and it’s always so helpful to have books that are written from a helpful, biblical perspective and giving people the foundations and the equipping and the reminders that we can often forget.

So tell us a little bit about the journey on Parenting With Hope. What got the start of the book?

[01:48] Melissa: I was approached by a publisher who had read my book, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, and they said, “We’d really like you to take some of these principles and apply it to parenting teens. And we want it trade book form, Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, is a Bible study for women, I wrote that one for a friend, for her baby shower. It wasn’t intended for publishing; I was writing it for her.

So this one really they came with the question and I was very unsure of myself. I’ve raised three teenagers, and so it was kind of that, ooh, and I was just out of the season. But what I realized when I did Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood, I couldn’t write that book now, I think, because I’m not in that moment. The teen years are very fresh to me. I saw tons. I still have one teenager, she’s 17. I have a 17-year-old, a 20-year-old, and a 23-year-old and so still it’s fresh to me.

But I also realized no one’s sixty who can write about what they did about cell phones because they didn’t exist. They can’t talk about what did they do with social media. They can’t talk about some of these sports and activities because it was totally different twenty years ago. And so I realized, okay, it’s probably a good thing to have someone fresh on the season.

And I also realized, the second thing, I was a high school math teacher in I always say my other life, and so I had taken a lot of teen development classes. And I realized this really did help me in the parenting of teens, like there’s a lot of common grace insights by people who have studied just what works and what doesn’t, and I’ve realized I had those things in my back pocket. And we do that a lot with young children, we read all the developmental milestones, we know what your 2-year-old should be doing, what your 3-year-old should be doing. When’s the last time you read a developmental milestone about your 9-year-old or your 10-year-old? And we stop being learners of what kids are able to do and what they should be doing and so I wanted to put some of that in the book as well.

[04:15] Jonathan: Okay, so I love how you break down the book. So it’s broken down into three parts. You give the basics, which you call “The Foundations of a Christian Home”; The Battle: Fighting for the Better Portion”; which we’ll get into that. And then “The Blessing: Cultivating a Home Where Teens Thrive.” Talks us through a little bit of the Part 1.

[04:44] Melissa: I might come off as, well, we all know this, right?

[04:48] Jonathan: Right. If you’re in the church, you should know and understand that. But—

[04:51] Melissa: Exactly. Exactly. And in a lot of ways this is being a Christian 101. But I remind parents of it because I think sometimes we get so bogged down with all the things we’re not doing as parents that I want to remind them the most important thing you do as a human is be in God’s Word, be in prayer, and be in the church. Doing that is going to already set you ahead of parents all around the world. I mean, that is such a gift to your child to be a parent who is regularly in-taking from the Bible.

Why? Because the Bible is not just another book on the shelf; it’s actually divine wisdom. We have the ability to tap into divine wisdom. And then secondly we have not just divine wisdom, we have divine help because we can call on God to do what we cannot do, we cannot save our child, we cannot change our child. We cannot make them do really much of anything, but God can work in ways that we can’t understand.

And then the community of the church is just something that, I mean, I think we’re seeing with the epidemic of teen loneliness and anxiety and isolation, all these things. The church is this institution that, guess what, it answers that. It’s this welcoming place where you have 80-year-olds and you have 8-year-olds. And so I don’t think we can talk about parenting without talking about what's the foundation of our hope. It’s actually that God’s Word is true, and living in light of God’s Word is hopeful, and we’re not left alone on the journey. So that's the Battle. The battle really talks about our battles. And again, this is a book about being the parent of a teen. It’s not a book about how to make your teen perfect. If that book exists, that's the—

[06:54] Jonathan: If it does, you should burn it.

[06:56] Melissa: Yeah, that's the Holy Spirit’s job is to change us and make us different. And so the second part is the battle, I think we often think is sex, drugs, rock and roll or some other things we’re trying to prevent our teen from. I would say it’s actually good things robbing us of the best things. The battle is with our own idolatry. As parents, we are all coming into this game with hopes and dreams for our kids, and sometimes those dreams turn idolatrous. I focus on scholarship and achievement, on sports and activities, and then on social acceptance. I think those are the cultural idols we have in the West that are pressing upon us as parents, and we have to battle about all of those.

[07:38] Jonathan: And that's what I love about the book is that it’s not prescriptions, right? When people are struggling with their kids, what do they want? Just tell me what to do so that this will stop or so I can take this away, right? And I think the way that your book is written is that it’s not about if you do A, B will happen. Now, there’s a little bit of element of that because you just mentioned the foundations earlier, which is, well, you really need to be doing these practices, but you don’t necessarily think, oh, being in church and being in the Word and being in prayer, you don’t necessarily feel the direct correlation to your parenting, but it is there.

I have friends who have raised their kids the exact same way and one rebels and the other one is a blessing to their family. And then it’s like, what did we do wrong? Your husband was speaking yesterday about the paradox of God is sovereign over all things, and yet we’re still called to be good parents. And so there’s that. We don’t fully understand the mystery of that, but we know what we’re called to, and so we have to walk it out.

[09:14] Melissa: That's right. As a parent, I am called to fight my idolatry. I’m actually not called to control my child. And so often what you see if we go into control mode when we’re fearful, and the Bible says trust and obey. And I would say obey and trust. And so you follow God’s call and then you trust. You trust that you’re doing everything you can to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel in front of the Lord and in front of your kids, and then you have to trust.

And you will only have the ability to trust if you’re building on the foundation. So this is where it always goes back to that foundation. And I'm talking about how to be a human, honestly. I mean, if you want to know how to succeed in your place of work, oh, you need the Word, you need prayer, you need the church. If you want to know how to be single in the life of the church, you need the Word, you need prayer, you need the church. But I think I say it again and again because it’s Psalm 1. Yeah, I mean, “Blessed is the man who doesn’t like in … who doesn’t sit …” all that stuff. Oh, what does he do? “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on it he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by a stream. Whatever he does prospers.” This is wisdom for life. And so I definitely think we have to start there, and then we have to be battling our own idols.

And then the last section on the blessing is how do we create homes of acceptance, availability, and affection? Those words have to be in our world today. Acceptance does not mean an acceptance of sin, but it means an acceptance of who they are. And what I mean by that is we see a lot of curated children. And what I mean by that is parents trying to make the perfect child who plays the sport, who plays the instrument, who has an amazing GPA, who gets into the Ivy Leagues and all this stuff because that's a representation of me is what we’re really trying to do.

[11:12] Jonathan: Right. It’s a reflection, yeah.

[11:13] Melissa: So rather than saying, you know, my kid’s not that great at school, but I can teach hard work. Even if they’re not going to be a lawyer or a doctor, that's okay. And so that's what I mean by acceptance, accepting who the Lord is creating them to be and letting that glorify Him, whatever it might be.

[11:33] Jonathan: Yeah, there’s a lot of this element of caught versus taught, right? So especially as you think about the idolatry and what you prioritize in your life, your kids are by default looking at you, watching you. You’re one of the greatest sources of influence on them, and so they are going to model themselves after what mom and dad prioritize. And the funny thing is that when parents look down the track they say, “Why are they like this?” And it’s like, sometimes it’s a little bit of look in the mirror. You know, what were they catching, even if you were teaching in a different trajectory and direction.

Okay, so acceptance. What about availability?

[12:17] Melissa: Yeah. I talk about this. I say you want to be available but you want to understand your limitations. Look, I mean, parents cannot be at everything. And I actually believe it’s helpful for our kids to know that they are not the center of our universe. They do not have the gravitational weight to bear us, I like to say. Like the Earth cannot support the Sun revolving around it, it was never intended to, we are not created to revolve around our children. We are created to revolve around God, and we are helping them do the same.

And kids who grow up in a home where the parent is rooted and grounded in the Lord, that takes an amazing burden off of them. You’ve heard the phrase “You’re only as happy as your least happy child.” I think that is like poor least-happy child. No. My contentment and joy, where are they supposed to come from? They’re supposed to be rooted in the Lord. Why are we supposed to be content with what we have? Because He has said, “Never will I leave or forsake you.” That's where our contentment rests. And we have to be people fighting for that as parents, to free our kids up from our own maybe tendency to put our hopes and dreams in them.

[13:36] Jonathan: And then affection. A home of warmth.

[13:39] Melissa: I read an article somewhere recently. I can’t remember where it was; it was in the secular paper, and they said, really what you do as a parent doesn’t matter, but if you love them, that makes a difference. And I was kind of like, huh. That's really interesting because I do think there’s a lot to that. I think, you know, it’s a little bit empty because I think love—

[14:03] Jonathan: Well, one’s usually reflected in the other, right?

[14:05] Melissa: Yeah. Exactly. And you need truth to guide what love is, so there’s that. But I did once hear—this was on the Oprah Winfrey Show a million years ago when that show was still on—she was interviewing I believe it was Toni Morrisson. And Toni Morrisson said one thing she had learned when a child walks into the room, she said, light up when that child walks in the room. And she said what kids tend to get when you walk into the room is your critical gaze. They tend to get, huh, your shirt’s not tucked in. Hey, make sure you’re getting ready for this.

And this gets even worse in the teen years, because look, they’re cute when they’re walking in at two, so you might light up just because they’re so cute.

[14:50] Jonathan: It’s worn off, yeah.

[14:52] Melissa: Yeah, when they’re walking in pimply and smelly and dirty, and they haven’t showered in a week, you still need to light up when they walk. And I think there’s something about that that will translate for the rest of their lives. That they know “I am deeply loved.” Light up even when they’ve done something wrong. Our correction should not be coldness. Our correction can still be full of warmth.

And so we want to light up when these people walk in the room because they’re made in the image of God. They have been given to us for this time to raise, and so we want to shower them with affection. And there can be wrong views of affection like trying to buy them. There are wrong ways. But I’m just talking about genuine love and interest in a person; that's always going to be a great basis for a child to go into the world with.

[15:42] Jonathan: Okay, let’s talk a little bit about how the gospel shapes our approach in parenting. What are the biblical principles that should guide us as we’re raising children?

[15:58] Melissa: The first is that I’m the oldest sinner in the room usually, so I’m expecting my 12-year-old to have their whole act together at twelve. Wow, that's pretty ungracious of me, right, because here I am at fifty and I don’t have my act together. And so I think that one of the ways that parents can lead is to be the first to apologize. I always say my response is my responsibility. And so if I—let’s say a kid’s done something wrong, but I manage their wrongness by yelling and losing my temper and being impatient and unkind, I’ve got to own that. That's on me. I can still hold them to a standard while holding myself to a standard, and so we have to do that.

And so I say one way grace-based homes begin is by being the chief apologizer in your home. Own it. And you know what? The kids will learn. They will learn from that and they will be able to give good apologies in their life. And you will benefit from it. I’ve had all of my kids come to me and be like, “Hey, I’m sorry I acted that way about that.” They did it on their own accord. I think it just became the conversation of the household that was safe to do. It was going to be met with love; it wasn’t going to be met with the silent treatment, all of those things.

And so I think a home with grace is going to be a home with apologies. It’s going to be a home that accepts that failure is going to happen. I mean, the Lord’s Prayer presupposes, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” so there’s going to be sin. We’re living flesh on flesh in these homes. And so it presupposes that we’re going to need grace, but it also presupposes that there is a standard. So we do not lower standards. We keep the standards, but we offer correction when the standards has not been kept, and we offer love and grace in those moments as well.

[17:57] Jonathan: Well, and it’s a requirement of being a disciple of Jesus is being a forgiver. And yeah, why not start at home—not just forgiving, but asking for forgiveness. And I think you’re right, it sets the tone for the family. But I think we can get caught up in, well, I’m the parent and I’ve got to be the one in control and in charge and I’m just giving directives to the little ones. It’s hard, right? I mean, it’s hard to admit to a little child that you’ve wronged them. Because you just want to say, who are you? Who are you to hold me accountable? But it’s the Lord’s holding us accountable.

Let’s elaborate a little bit on principles of prescriptions. We’ve talked a little bit about that, but as that relates to parenting.

[18:52] Melissa: Yeah. I definitely think your principles in parenting can stay very much the same as kids go from two to twenty, meaning certain principles like, oh, my child is a sinner in need of grace. That's a principle. My child’s a sinner and needs correction. That's a principle. Now, how I go about the practice of that correction is going to change greatly when they’re two from when they’re twelve, and if we don’t make those changes, we’re going to find ourselves with very frustrated teenagers.

And so one example I like to say is when your 2-year-old makes a mistake, normally you need to offer correction right away, so if they do something wrong, they need it immediately because they’re not going to remember tomorrow what you’re talking about.

[19:36] Jonathan: That's right exactly.

[19:37] Melissa: They’re in a different little universe where every moment is a new moment. Whereas with your 12-year-old, when they come in hot, and you know we all see 12-year-olds come in hot, they’re slamming doors, they’re in a mood, their hormones are going whatever. Right then is probably actually not the best time to offer correction or even confront them with, hey, you were really rude to me.

I like to say if my friend came in and slammed the door my first question would not be like, “Hey, that's disrespectful to me.” My first question would be, “Hey, how are you doing? Is everything okay?” Or if my husband came in. Like I’d ask a question. And I think our teens need that from us. They need us to live with them in an understanding way, and often we’re real caught up in our pride and how we deserve to be talked to. And that's just very us-centered versus, “Hey, is everything okay?”

And maybe even to just say, later in the day, like 6:00 PM, 7:00 PM, when they’ve had some time to cool off, to go in and say, ‘Hey, you came in, you seemed upset today. Do you want to talk about it?” They may say yes, they may say no. And then later on, things will soften. They will soften to be able to say, “What would have been a good way to come in today?” That's a better time to have that conversation. And it may even be the next week. That's a better way to have that conversation than right away.

So I think we had immediate kind of discipline when they were young, and it’s really about applying wisdom to how and what we’re going to correct. Thankfully, we do not have someone following us around all day correcting every little thing we do. I think sometimes parents of teens think, I’ve got four years left. I’ve got to get this kid all sorted.

[21:20] Jonathan: To be ready for the world.

[21:21] Melissa: You don’t. If you saw my teen’s bedroom, you’d be like, “Wow, she’s a terrible parent. They are a complete and utter wreck.” And I just chose that was a battle I wasn’t going to fight. But certain things, I wanted them to be truthful with me, I wanted them to have character, I wanted us to be able to have conversations. And if that meant I had to deal with messy floors, I was going to deal with messy floors on there. And they are. They lived up to that low expectation.

[21:48] Jonathan: I’m sure they love hearing that. So you’ve introduced a topic that I wanted us to discuss, which is those stages of development and how do we parent differently when they’re children versus teens. At what age is there a transformation? So when your child is little, you’re really in kind of a protection mode in terms of what they consume media-wise or literature, whatever it is, right? We have a responsibility for protecting them and not just exposing them to all the horrible things out there.

But as they get older, you and I talked about this in the beginning, but parents can tend to lean into one or the other camp, which is keeping the hyper bubble wrap around their child and never letting them be exposed to anything, or essentially letting them go out to the wolves at twelve, thirteen, whatever, and they are kind of almost drowning in “I need help. I wish someone would have kind of held my hand a little bit here.” That's a nuanced question, I know, but if we could talk about it in some generalities—and you can even use your own children as an example. Help parents who are at the tween period in their kids’ lives. How do they navigate that helpfully?

[23:21] Melissa: Yeah, I think that transition is tough and it’s full of bumps and bruises. I called it in the book, I likened it to driving a stick-shift car. You have to be letting off the clutch the same time you're pressing the gas, but as you’re learning, we’re all going to stall and that's pretty normal. But I would just say as they’re heading into these years, teens still need our involvement, but they do not need our over-involvement. And so as a parent, I think we really have to step back and say, “Okay, I’m going to be involved. I’m going to make sure they’re not out drinking; they’re not out doing illegal activities that could actually harm them. But I am not going to check their homework online.”

Okay, see this was not even an option when I was a teacher—I don’t know why parents are doing this. So I always think back to when I was teaching the parents never saw the grades until the grades came out. We had a midterm grade thing. I have people in my life who are checking their kids’ grades constantly, and I’m like—

[24:36] Jonathan: I didn’t even know you could do that, actually. I’ve got little kids, so I’m, yeah, we’re not in that camp yet.

[24:41] Melissa: Well, come the teen years, they’re finding out their kid missed one homework assignment and then they’re all over them about it. I’m like, just let them bear that consequence. Let them bear the consequence of a zero.

[24:52] Jonathan: That's a little bit of the helicopter/lawnmower parent mentality, right?

[24:57] Melissa: That's right. And what happens is then that child never knows what it’s like to deal with failure, and they actually need what I call safe failure. Because guess what? We all fail at things. Like we all make mistakes, we all do dumb things along the way. You want to protect them from huge failure, like you’re going to go to jail for this. But even things that we know are particularly damaging for their souls. So we want to protect them as best we can and have good rules in our home; we don’t want rule-less homes; but the over-correction of being so over-involved.

If you have teenagers, they should be packing their own lunch. They should be getting themselves—I don’t wake any of my teens up, never have. They get themselves up, they knew to be at the family table for devotions at the time we always met. They could be responsible for them. And I never regret letting them be responsible for them. And so some of that is letting go of control and letting them, like again, like their room. Their rooms. Sometimes they did have to clean them.

[26:09] Jonathan: You’ve got to live in it. They’re the ones who have to live in it, right?

[26:11] Melissa: And they have to … And they really will own it if we let them. Another big thing was we started early with our kids having them do chores and clean up the kitchen every night. But what Mike and I had to do, we had to leave the room, because yes, they would argue. Yes, they would get mad at one another. Yes, they would say, “I don’t want to do it this way. Yes, it was excruciatingly slow and not well done. And I’d come in and I’d look at the counter and I thought, yeah, you’d feel the grit still on the counter, kids, and then do it again. Y’all get it right.

And then we’d walk out because I couldn’t handle the slowness at which they did it, but if I had not given them the space to do it and fail and not do it perfectly, they’d never learn. Where now they come home and they all know how to clean the kitchen. They know how to—and that's a gift when they go to college because they [overlapping voices] because my kids are like, “My roommates”—

[27:04] Jonathan: And their future spouses.

[27:06] Melissa: Yeah. “My roommates don’t know how to clean the kitchen.”

[27:09] Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let’s steer into some of the battle things that are taking place. We, without having to explain, we live in a secular culture. How can parents maintain hope and raise their teens to follow Christ in just the age and day in which we live where there’s the social pressures on sexuality and defining truth and those sorts of things. How do you kind of help navigate that water?

[27:53] Melissa: Yeah, I think the earlier you can begin, the better. And some of this starts by having conversations about faith with your kids as young as you can. Mike and I were big believers in the catechism. There are different versions. We use the children’s catechism. And every night at the family table we did it. What I love about a catechism is the kids talk; it’s not just the parents talking. So it’s about who made you? God. What else did God make? All things. Why did God make you and all things? For His glory.

Okay, you’ve already set their framework in such a better place than most kids walking into elementary school just because they know they’re made in the image of God and that they’re made to glorify Him. So these things can start early. I think having those conversations along the way, and just, again, this is what we valued in our homes. We have to start valuing them young because if you start coming to your kid with, “Hey, God’s Word is important” at age fifteen by you haven’t modeled that by the way you live your life or by how you’ve been in it yourself, it’s going to be hard to convince them that they should follow this ancient book.

So I would say the best way to combat culture is to have the culture that Scripture encourages us to in the home. And to really know that what's happening in your home is actually what has the greatest impact on your kids, not the world, not their teachers, not their friends. Actually the studies show over and over again parental—what we do, which is kind of terrifying, we all should own it—what we do in the home is the biggest impact on how they are going to view certain things. It does not mean they will all come to faith. You can do everything right. We know it’s the Spirit only that awakens people’s hearts. But that—

[29:48] Jonathan: Which takes a little bit of the pressure off in that category.

[29:52] Melissa: Yes, exactly. But there are things we’re teaching them like hard work and doing a job, knowing how to do a chore. Those are things that even non-Christians know how to work hard, and even non-Christians can live in certain outwardly moral ways that we can be trying to shape and mold our kids into, in prayer that the Spirit would make their hearts alive in a lot of ways.

So I think we can be really fearful of culture. I think there’s a lot to be concerned about. But what I will say is that when the Spirit opens our eyes, they can see, wow, culture is really empty. So my kids, I think they grew up in Christian school, but they’ve both been at large secular colleges and they just haven’t been attracted to some of the worldly things because I think they know that, hey, the fellowship, the friendship of true believers is way better than this false, oh, I have to be drunk and do all these things for you to be my friend. Yeah, I don’t think it’s been as enticing because they’ve actually experienced good fellowship with believers throughout their lives and they’ve seen the benefit of that. So I always try to say fight the bad by giving them the better.

[31:09] Jonathan: Yeah, I love that. Okay, two more areas I want us to just quickly dive into. One is navigating technology and social media, which again is one of the battles. And the other one is dealing with doubts. And so let’s talk about, I mean, technology is everywhere. Social media abounds. How do we navigate this? Maybe some practical tips, setting boundaries, that sort of thing. How did you and Mike do it?

[31:41] Melissa: Yeah. I mean, the first boundary is yourself. If you’re glued to your phone, okay, your kid’s going to be glued to their phone. So that's the first one. Let’s just go ahead and say it. And I will say this: I think it’s a lot harder for you raising kids now. When I had young kids, I didn’t have a smartphone. I mean, can you imagine the difference? I could not, at a restaurant, just take my little cell phone and say, “Here, watch whatever show’s popular.”

[32:07] Jonathan: Yeah, keep ‘em busy.

[32:08] Melissa: Yeah. And so I’m so thankful. We had to deal with those awful restaurant moments when they’re losing their minds and having a fit.

[32:20] Jonathan: That's why we don’t go to restaurants.

[32:22] Melissa: Or just not go. Sometimes it’s like fast food because that's where you can easily…

[32:28] Jonathan: In and out.

[32:29] Melissa: And so I think to be aware that what you’re doing with your phone and devices in the young years is greatly going to impact the older years. And then the other thing I would just say, as the statistics have come in—And the hopeful thing I have for your age, I think by the time your age, those kids get to high school, I think there will be new rules in high schools. It’s hard right now. I view the cell phone and social media like smoking. The high school that I went to had inner courtyards, and you were allowed to go out and smoke during the middle of the day. Not when I was there. By the time I was there, inner courtyard, there as no smoking. I mean, think about it you know, airplanes, you used to be able to smoke on them, right?

[33:11] Jonathan: I’ve been on one of those planes, actually, when I was a kid.

[33:13] Melissa: Exactly. And now they’ve realized, oh, these aren’t innocent—

[33:19] Jonathan: It affects everyone in the plane, whether you want it or not, and the curtain’s not going to keep it back.

[33:24] Melissa: Exactly. And they would no more let a bunch of kids be sitting in the inner courtyard of a high school smoking now. Well, I believe, I really do believe what the studies are showing us, how bad it is for kids and their mental health. I believe one day cell phones are not going to be allowed in school—hopefully by the time your kids get there. I think they will not be allowed in middle and high school, so it might help parents.

But today, parents have to navigate those waters without help from culture, and it’s really hard. And so what I would say for every hour your kids spend on their cell phone or device, they will be less happy, and you have to reckon with that. The studies are in. Every further hour they spend on a device, they will be that much less happy. They will be more lonely, they will be more depressed, they will be more anxious. And so we’ve got to deal with that reality as we parent, and the most loving thing we can do is to help our kids not be glued to their phones all the time.

[34:21] Jonathan: Yeah, I would imagine it fosters more of that comparative, yeah, right. My friend’s picture’s on whatever social media platform and I’m comparing myself at a constant rate, versus when I was a kid or teenager, it was like just what you could see in front of you.

[34:40] Melissa: Right. You didn’t know that you were actually left out of the party until a week or two later. Now instantly you’re sitting home on a Friday night and you see the party that you weren’t invited to.

[34:54] Jonathan: I can only imagine navigating that. Okay, doubt. That's … This is a period in kids’ life where doubt is more prevalent, more frequent. How should parents be dealing with questions—and I heard Mike give a great answer to some of this yesterday. But how do we address the question without dismission it, but also not wanting to just give the answer straightaway is kind of what Mike was saying yesterday.

[35:37] Melissa: That's right. I think so often we hear a question and we jump to fear. Fear leads to control. So rather, the kid says something like, “Yeah, I’m not sure I believe that.” And then we hyper jump on that and give them a three-point outline of why they should believe what we believe. That is not a conversation and that is not what your teen needs. What I would say when they say, “Yeah, I’m not sure. It’s seems really … That view of whatever seems really mean,” “Okay, tell me why you think that. Tell me where you hear that. What do your friends think about it?”

Be curious about them. You already know actually what you think about whatever the thing is, but what they need to hear from you is that you actually are willing to listen as they’re trying to sort it out. And it’s going to make sense. Kids have really small perspectives on things. I did. When I was that age, I had all sorts of bad ideas about things. They’re working through it, so work through it with them but don’t … I just don’t think it’s very helpful to lecture them at that point. I think it’s good … We want to have a conversation is what I keep saying.

A conversation will allow more availability to give your opinion when you are curious about what they are thinking rather than just jumping in. And the reality is, again, me lecturing them is probably not going to prove my point. But as we have conversations, I’m going to start to understand where they’re struggling, what they’re struggling with, and we can keep having that conversation and it makes them a lot more receptive.

[37:26] Jonathan: Yeah. I found that helpful. Mike was saying yesterday his tendency was to just give the answer straightaway. He’s got the PhD and all of the qualifications and credentials, but kids don’t really care. It’s like, “All right, Dad, just chill.” And I get your point. And I think he said this yesterday, which is about let them kind of sit in the doubt for a little bit. Rather than just giving the quick, immediate response, let them wrestle with it, because this is probably the early formations of them moving out of the family faith and into a personal faith. And I think you’ve hit it on the head there with opening the dialog so it can be an ongoing conversation so that when they do go off to university or whatever it is and they are presented with ideas and philosophies, they can say, “I’ve already talked about that.” And I realize here all the fallacies or issues that come up with that, I think that's really helpful. But you’re right, I think we do, we tend to go to fear and we start thinking down the track what could happen if I don’t resolve this immediately.

[38:43] Melissa: And to realize that conversation continues. It doesn’t—

[38:45] Jonathan: Yeah, right.

[38:46] Melissa: All of our kids have called us. They normally call Mike, and they’ll Facetime. I mean, Emma has been on the Facetime with like ten of her friends, and they’re like, “We have a Bible question for you, Dad.” And I think because it felt like a conversation they actually continued the conversation.

And I’ll also say this. It’s okay to not know. Because I get it. Like, look, it’s really convenient when you have a husband who is a New Testament scholar and can answer some of these questions.

[39:14] Jonathan: We all just need Mike’s phone number.

[39:15] Melissa: Exactly. But I will say this. There are plenty of times he’s like, “Yeah, that's a really confusing passage. I’m not sure what that means.” I mean, they are wildly unimpressed with his knowledge base sometimes, and so it’s always nicely humbling.

But he’s very comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” And I think we all should be comfortable saying, “I don’t know,” and saying, “Hey, let’s find out together.” Look, there are pastors out there who are waiting for calls like this. They have to deal with really hard issues sometimes, but they went to school to answer your biblical questions, and so a lot of times pastors are really eager to say, “Oh, I can help you with that.”

[39:52] Jonathan: I get those from time to time, and sometimes there are the ones where, especially from little ones, and I think, how do I take what I know and put it in a way that you’ll understand it. That takes some work.

[40:07] Melissa: That's the best theological classroom you can ever be in right there.

[40:10] Jonathan: Exactly. So we’ve asked some parents of teens to submit some questions that they’re wrestling with, so we’ll do a little lightning round of questions here.

[41:06] Jonathan: This ties us back to what we mentioned earlier. This is kind of a newer thing. I mean, it’s always been around, but it’s more prevalent probably post-COVID, post-invention of the iPhone where kids are isolated. They are less relational than you and I would have been because that was all we had was relational collateral, personal interaction. Now kids can interact digitally and immediately and so there’s probably a heightened level of self-consciousness, and that includes just appearance through social media and that sort of thing.

So now going into a new setting with real people and real interactions must be a challenge. So what is some advice for the parent who’s struggling with a teenager who’s going through that?

[42:08] Melissa: The first thing I always say is it’s good to offer sympathy to them, “Hey, this is hard. I can remember what it was like to go into the lunch room and it be super awkward. Like who am I going to sit with?” We all have that. I still have that feeling sometimes. I’m in situations many times where I’m the only woman in a scenario, and I’m like, hmm, which table of all men … am I going to sit at? And it feels awkward.

And so sometimes just them knowing that you feel it too is helpful. But I think it’s also helpful to equip them and to say, hey, when you’re in a situation like that, other people are probably feeling nervous too, and so it’s good to go in with three questions so that you have them on your mind when you’re walking into an awkward situation. It can be a question like, hey—let’s picture the school lunchtime—what's your next class after this? That anybody can answer. It’s pretty easily, yeah, whatever.

Second one, you know, hey, where do you live? Or something like that, maybe something I’m thinking as I’m thinking in a business context, where are you from? But just some easily accessible questions that kids can answer. It could be, Are you going to the game this weekend? Whatever it might be so they feel equipped to actually reach out to someone else with a question and that can help conversation start.

[43:27] Jonathan: This one’s sort of on a similar vein but on a different level. “How do our teens manage the social rejection when you are following Christ?”

[43:44] Melissa: Yeah. I think it is really helpful to put before our kids that we are stranger and aliens in this world. And you know my kids go to a … they were blessed to go to a Christian school, so they did not have to feel it at the level certain kids are going to have. But they did still get teased. All, especially, for being, oh, you’re the professor’s daughter. When she’s in Bible class, even the teacher looks to her. “Well, would your dad agree with this?”

[44:14] Jonathan: Oh dear. I had a little bit of that, too, with my father being a pastor. What would your dad say?

[44:18] Melissa: It’s the awkward … you have to be the super-spiritual one in every instance. And we just talk some about feeling a little bit like you don’t belong is actually a good sign. And that means we’re not home yet.

[44:36] Jonathan: Great reminder.

[44:37] Melissa: Yeah. When we talk about home is heaven, it makes sense.

[44:43] Jonathan: Oof. “How do you parent a child that doesn’t realize their friends are unhealthy for them?” These might all have a little bit of a sigh.

[44:54] Melissa: It’s tough. I’m a big believer in question-asking rather than telling. So hey, it seems like John did this and this and this. Do you think a good friend would be like in this scenario? What would you want him to do in that scenario? And then sometimes they can start to uncover, hey, this isn’t the best type of person. But it always good to maybe pause and ask why are they turning to this kind of friendship? And I mean, yeah, again, praying that the Spirit would waken their hearts to see the destructiveness. Always be praying. In every one of these scenarios, let me just say—

[45:37] Jonathan: It starts with prayer.

[45:38] Melissa: It starts with prayer.

[45:39] Jonathan: I’m with you. This is good, and this question actually comes into one of your chapters in your book. “How do you prevent sports from becoming an idol, especially in regards to travel?”

[45:58] MELISSA: Yeah, it’s tough. I would manage it very carefully and just remember as good as your kid is, they probably will not play in college, and even more likely are they to create a career out of this. But you do want them to create a career and a life out of being a church member. So guard your church time. It doesn’t mean you never miss. We’ve all missed church for various reasons, whether it’s travel or just vacation. You couldn’t get to church for some reason.

You could say if you’re traveling it’s a great opportunity to take your kid to other churches. My kids really benefited from seeing other church traditions when we traveled. So it was great for them. One Sunday we went to a Baptist church, and they had grown up Presbyterian, so they only saw babies get baptized. It was Easter. It was spring break, so we were traveling, and they had this full-immersion baptism. Well, my kids were on the edge of their seats, and they were like, “what is happening here?” So for them it was great. It was a great conversation to say, “Oh, this is how they do it.” Those are great conversations to have.

[47:05] Jonathan: “Courtship dance. How to handle it now.” There’s not a lot of Scripture on dating. How do you all navigate that with your kids?

[47:59] Melissa: We have had very little experience in this, not because we have had rules, not because of any other reason than our kids have just not dated. I think the benefit of maybe going to a small school is they’re like, we’ve known these people since we were five. I’m not going to date them. My daughter is getting ready to get married, and she is marrying a guy she knew all through college. They met at Chapel Hill and were friends for three years and their senior year starting dating. I will fully admit, it was as easy as it could have been, and he is delightful and we’re so glad they’re getting married.

So what I would say with my lack of experience is I do believe that rather than have rules it’s better to have conversations in this area. And so when your kid comes home to you at fifteen and says, “I really like this kid,” one, be glad they’re willing to talk to you about it. Secondly, say, “What do you like about them? Tell me what’s great about them.” Be curious rather than controlling. If I could impress anything, be curious about your kid rather than control them.

And so I would just say it’s good to have standards. When you’re talking about sexuality standards, you need to have those conversations whether they’re dating or not. So that should be happening well before they’re dating. way before the teen years. So I’m just assuming that in these conversations those have happened beforehand.

But then I think modeling good friendships. If your kids are developing good friendships, it’s a big precursor to developing a good and strong marriage and good and strong dating. But I think the main thing you want to do is keep the conversation open. Hold your tongue and listen.

[49:45] Jonathan: Keeping a distraction-free family. Sort of like no cell phones at the table kind of thing?

[49:57] Melissa: Yeah. You know it’s just funny. We didn’t have some of those rules, I guess. It was just understood that that's what we were doing. And I would say a big thing I would probably highlight is if you’re going to watch a movie, all watch the same movie. And so, yeah, that means you’re going to watch a lot of movies you don’t really want to watch as a parent, but I’d rather have all five of us in the den together watching a movie that maybe everyone had to compromise on, than all of us in separate rooms, watching what we want to watch.

[50:32] Jonathan: And I know Mike’s favorite movies are horror films, right?

[50:35] Melissa: No, he has to watch those alone. He’s not allowed to watch those with us.

[50:39] Jonathan: I was going to say. Here’s a good one. “How do you balance contentment and complacency and still encourage hard work?”

[50:50] Melissa: I think contentment goes right alongside with hard work. But complacency is a little different. So I think you know your child. Some children are going to need to be told, hey, you need to slow down. Some kids are going to need to be told, you need to speed up. And that's okay. But you’re going to have to know your individual child to know if they’re not living up to who God has made them to be or if they’re trying to prove something to the world. You’re going to have to know that better as a parent, so it’s probably going to be different for every kid.

[51:27] Jonathan: This is similar to different types of child, but “How do you parent the high-achieving, focused child, how to best support their talents?” And then we’ll do the other side of that.

[51:37] MELISSA: Yeah. I think with the high-achieving, focused child, it’s really good to make sure they’re not putting their worth and value in their performance. And so you’re going to have to just work with them on that and walk through that with them and encourage them that they are beloved not because of what they do but because of who they are in that. Because they’re going to fail one day, and then how you deal with their failure and mistakes is really important because those kids aren’t going to be used to it, and they really need it. They need to feel what it feels like to fail sometimes. And they’re going to be really uncomfortable in that moment. And so walking through that with them graciously is really important.

[52:20] Jonathan: Flip side, I suppose, is “How do you parent the low-achieving, unfocused child?”

[52:27] Melissa: Yeah, I mean, that's a really hard one, I have to admit.

[52:30] Jonathan: Yeah, because it’s different.

[52:31] Melissa: It’s totally different, especially if it’s a child like “I know this child can do things.” One, if it is a boy, let me just say they really will get it together eventually. A lot of boys, their frontal lobe—great book called The Teenage Brain. You should read it. It’s written by a neuroscientist who had two boys. It’s great. I mean, their brains really are taking long to develop. I taught high school, and let me tell you, the boys were not winning in high school. They forgot their stuff, the reason they had B’s rather than A’s was not because they were not smart enough, it’s because they did not turn in their homework.

They really will, by their junior and senior year, developmentally get it together. It’s the girls are just developing earlier. Some of the front-lobe stuff is connecting earlier. It’s biological. So yes, have expectations, but just know that with your son you might have to remind him five times, “Hey, did you pack your lunch today? Did you pack your lunch?” Don’t pack it for him, but you might have to remind him more on those things.

[53:35] Jonathan: “When they experience rejection or seek acceptance from the wrong sources, how do we navigate that?” And I think that’s one of your … that's one of your chapters.

[53:47] Melissa: Yeah, I think that different again this one is just going to have to be prayer. Because it shares a little bit about where their heart is leaning. I mean, you can see this in some kids. Some kids just always want to be on the edge, and you can see it. I think this is where you pray and you do trust that the Lord will somehow use this season in their life.

But also I think to ask questions like, “Hey, why do you want to do that? What's going on? Why is that attractive?” And it’s difficult if you’re not that type of personality to even understand. Like I don’t want to get burned, so I stay way, far away from a fire, right? But some people are just drawn to the fire and they want to get close up to it. So sometimes it’s good to just ask, “Hey, why do you want this? What's going on?” Again, I think with each kid it’s going to be a little bit different, so it’s important to ask what's going on with their hearts and to keep probing and keep praying.

[54:50] Jonathan: Yeah. All right, I’ll make this the last one. “What is the Kruger’s’ take on how much we are requiring church attendance, devotions, spiritual practices versus giving teens the freedom of choice?”

[55:03] Melissa: That's interesting. So you’re saying how much we require it versus how much we just let them make that choice.

[55:12] Jonathan: In terms of family devotion. Churchgoing I guess is part of the question.

[55:22] Melissa: That's a good question. That makes sense. So I’m totally fine with “you’re going to go to church on Sunday” just because I don’t make school a choice. If you can go to school all day, you can go to church, so that's just fine with me. If they don’t believe, I’m like, “That's fine, you don’t have to believe, but you’re going to go to church because we go to church, just like you’re going to go to school,” and I’m okay with that.

When I comes to family devotions, that was again just something we had always done, so it was never a new thing. It would be like my kids saying, “Oh, all of a sudden I don’t want to brush my teeth.” “Huh, really? You’ve brushed your teeth since you were two. You want to stop now.”

Some of these habits, when you can start them young, they just don’t know any different. My big hint to young parents is they only know the home you make normal for them. And so they don’t know that no other family’s having family devotions. When it comes to personal Bible reading, that was something I did not force at all. We gave our kids Bibles, they saw our habits and our practice, and I watched as each of my kids became interested in the Bible on their own.

We did not say, “Hey, you need to read it every day.” When you’re putting them in church and you’re having devotions, you’re showing them what you value and at some value they’ve got to start picking up on those personal habits. That felt much more like the very relational, intimate walking with the Lord, and I wasn’t going to try and force that on them. So there are spaces, I think, where you say, “Hey, this is what we do as a family,” like go to church or have prayer time before breakfast. That's just our family rhythm, and yes, you need to participate. But when it came to their own faith and their own growth, by the teen years I think that's starting to be put in their hands.

[57:04] Jonathan: All right, before we go, encouragement for parents who are feeling overwhelmed, discouraged—which is probably every parent.

[57:13] Melissa: Yeah. Exactly. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this is where I’m always like go back to the basics. Read the Bible. Be encouraged. God is with you and He is parenting you while you’re parenting your teen. Be in prayer, ask for His help, and be around the people in the church. And so again, that makes life a lot more simple, right? Read your Bible, it will change you, it will change how you parent. Prayer will give you hope that God can change your child. And the church will give you the community you need. And then say no to a lot of other things, but simplify your life so that those things can be a priority.

[57:56] Jonathan: Well, the book is Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in the Secular Age. Melissa Kruger, it’s always so fun, and you’ve knocked out the lightning-round questions and I just want to say thank you so much for taking the time to be on Candid Conversations.

[58:14] Melissa: Thanks for having me. It was fun.

[58:16] Jonathan: Absolutely. Pleasure.