2017. Relational Adulting
7. Relational Adulting
Friends, Love, and the Search for Connection
“Okay, bye.”
That’s all she said as she sprinted toward our front door, one hand texting and the other grabbing her purse.
There was no doorbell ring. Not even a honk from the driveway. Only a stealthy signal by her friend who was parked in her car at the curb outside of our house. Jen and I (Steve) looked at each other. Like two referees throwing a flag for an infraction in the game, we both said, “Whoa, wait!” For us, the moment felt off. Too fast, too disconnected.
It wasn’t that our daughter was doing anything wrong. But we felt that we were cut off from an important relational dimension in her life—meeting her friends. Our mantra has been that we seek to get to know the great friends our kids choose. When they come to pick up our kids, we work to invite them in, say hello, learn more about them, and allow them to get to know us. All of a sudden, one text message was short-circuiting this ritual!
Beyond the dynamics that technology brings, we believe there is something more foundational we experience every time our maturing kids walk in and out that front door. When they were young, we walked out that same door with them, setting up their playdates and shuttling them to the activities we thought were best for them. But with our learners, explorers, and focusers, it’s rare that we take them with us anymore. Now it’s time to grow with them as they grow into the friendships and relationships that may stick with them for the rest of their lives.
Adulting: Owning Their Future Trajectories
While often used in humorous ways on social media (just search #adulting if you don’t know what we’re talking about), Kara and I think there is a primal longing in young (and all) people to grow up, to be relationally connected, and to find their place in this world. We define adulting as a child’s growth in agency as they embrace opportunities to shape the world around them.
Key to this definition of adulting is the concept of agency. By “agency,” we mean our maturing kids’ growth in owning and clarifying their own interests, goals, and values. Since the process and path to both agency and adulthood are lengthening, adulting has turned into more of an ongoing struggle than a seamless progression.
In this chapter, we address how we grow with our kids as they pursue their relational adulting by navigating friendships, romantic interests, and social communities. In chapter 8, we will explore how we can encourage our kids’ vocational adulting through their service and career choices. For both chapters, we operate on the adulting assumptions that as our kids mature from learner to explorer to focuser, they will grow in their desire and capacity to take responsibility for themselves and make independent decisions that enhance their life aspirations.
Adulting Insights
Learners and Their Adulting Relationships
In our national interviews, mothers and fathers felt most disconnected from their kids when they found themselves competing for their attention. That competition intensifies in adolescence as our learners develop two social worlds—one with family and one with peers. As young people grow older and seek more adulting relationships, these two worlds overlap less. Perhaps the tension that we and our learners feel is the start of these overlapping worlds pulling apart. This phenomenon evokes new stressors, desires, and decisions for all family members.
RELATIONAL STRESSORS
According to a report issued by the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, teenage stress often stems from the accumulation of busy schedules, school pressures, family climate, and peer expectations surrounding friendship, conflict, dating, and social norms. Many of these stressors are directly or indirectly relational as our learners negotiate peer opportunities, peer acceptance, or peer tensions.
Growing with our kids in the midst of these stressors requires work on our part, as our kids’ relational spaces are different from when we were their ages. We interviewed a married couple from the Midwest who articulated a common parental sentiment: “Regarding relationship and relational choices, our kids are twenty steps ahead of us. We need to learn because we don’t always know what’s out there.”
While we likely have gone through a breakup, we probably haven’t broken up over a text message.
While we can relate to feeling left out as a teenager or young adult, we didn’t have to see pictures on social media of events we were not invited to.
While we may have felt desire or pressure to remove our clothing and experiment sexually, we didn’t deal with the possibility or even expectation of sending or receiving nude images as part of that relational dance.
While we were distracted when studying, we didn’t have the consistent pinging of text messages demanding our attention.
While we experienced the (almost) inevitable awkwardness of growing up and growing pains, as one of the parents we interviewed empathetically described, “We haven’t had our whole lives posted online, on display for the world to see.”
RELATIONAL DESIRES
Part of why relationships are stressful for our learners is because they care so much. Your 16-year-old’s hunger for relationships is qualitatively different from when they were 12. Developmental psychologist Jeffrey Arnett explains that one of the most distinctive differences between childhood friendships and adolescent friendships is that learners are more intentional in their pursuit of intimacy and more skilled in their attempts to understand others and share more of themselves.
Most adolescents choose friends who share their interests, use technology in similar ways, and are commensurate in their openness to risky activities. In fact, Arnett argues that “friend influence” is a more accurate phrase than “peer pressure.” Friends are emotionally and socially valued more than peers your learner may or may not know. When your learner comments that “everybody is doing it,” they are more likely referring to their own friends and not their entire school. Friend influence also proves to have both positive and negative effects on risk-taking. It is more likely that your child will gravitate toward those they perceive as similar to them than that they are succumbing to the influence of the “bad kids.”
I (Steve) remember a painful period for our daughter Elise when her group of friends started making choices that didn’t sit well with her. At the time, she was a 14-year-old ferociously loyal friend who felt stuck. We saw her friends distance themselves from her. We witnessed her pain and loneliness. And we knew we couldn’t fix the problem for her. She also didn’t want to bad-mouth her friends, so she told us only bits and pieces of what was going on. Eventually she opened up to us, and I vividly remember one night when I held her as her tears soaked my shirt, feeling helpless to take away her pain.
She and I decided to pray for new friends, which at the moment was not trite but a desperate crying out to God from us both. Elise needed friends and we were asking God to deliver. We still remember that night, and while her journey toward new friends wasn’t easy, she did find better high school friends, many of whom remain friends today. While scenarios like this do not always work out so positively for the Argue family, we’ve often referred back to that prayer and, in Elise’s eyes, God’s miracle.
RELATIONAL BUNKERS OF SAFETY AND ISOLATION
Chap Clark highlights that adolescents choose to spend so much time with their friends not only because they want to but also because they feel they have to. His ethnographic research on high school campuses identified adolescent “clusters,” meaning groups of four to ten adolescents who band tighter to protect themselves from the overwhelming pressures placed upon them, often by adults. These relational spaces preserve expectations, loyalties, and values in their friendships while also serving as a bunker from society’s pressures. These bunkers are located in what Clark calls “the world beneath,” meaning the safe, peer-only domains where adolescents seek support and advice from their friends along with protection from adult expectations.
While we celebrate the benefits of strong peer friendships, a social support structure void of adults leaves learners vulnerable to their friends’ inexperience and thin on the social capital that supportive adults can provide. There have been seasons when my (Steve’s) daughters have made choices on their own without involving my wife or me. While we have applauded these adulting moments, at times we have needed to step in because we could tell they were in over their heads. Often, when we asked them, “Why didn’t you ask us for help?” they would explain that they were trying to act responsibly. As we described in chapter 4, learners are trying to negotiate the path from dependence on to independence from to eventual interdependence with their parents. The art of Growing With parenting is encouraging our learners’ growing autonomy while nurturing new, interdependent ways of relating with them that remind them we are still accessible.
ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS: “HANGING OUT” MORE THAN “GOING OUT”
If your learner insists that “everyone’s dating,” the data doesn’t support that claim. Only 14 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds describe themselves as currently being in relationship with a boyfriend, girlfriend, or significant other they consider serious. An additional 16 percent of teens surveyed are not currently dating but have had some sort of romantic relationship (whether serious or otherwise) in the past, and 5 percent are currently in relationships but do not consider them serious. The remaining almost two-thirds of teens indicate that they have never been in a romantic relationship of any kind. High schoolers today are more likely to spend time together in informal, mixed-gender groups than formal one-on-one dating situations.
If learners are not really dating, what exactly are they doing together? Let’s not assume the best or the worst but ensure we check our assumptions while remembering that dating-ish relationships are new to them too. In order to support their relational adulting, help your learner think through and keep you informed about:
Where they’re going and what they’re doing. (What’s the plan? Details please!)
Who’s going. (Are they your regular friends? Any new friends?)
What they will do if . . . (How will you respond if someone brings alcohol, tries to kiss you, offers you drugs, asks you to text them a nude picture of yourself?)
What’s going on internally. (You seem more happy/sad/depressed/worried lately. What’s up?)
ONLINE RELATIONAL EXPERIENCES: MORE THAN VIRTUAL
We have already noted that most adolescents and emerging adults are digital natives living in a world where online access has always been part of their lives. Thus, the way young people approach technology is often quite different than for us older digital immigrants. As parents navigating the new world of technology, Kara and I think it is helpful for you to remember the following:
Learners make online friends. While making new friends online may seem foreign to parents, 57 percent of learners describe doing so. Boys (61 percent) are more likely to make friends online than girls (52 percent), largely because of multiplayer gaming.
“My two sons have been ‘gamers’ since early high school. They are actually very good and have been ranked in some major gaming competitions. Gaming is not like when we grew up with Atari. I will never be able to challenge my sons or even keep up, so that creates a huge relational gap between their interests and my abilities! What I have done is try to take time to learn, engage, dialogue, and support the interests of my teenagers and emerging adults by showing interest in their passions. Though I don’t play the games with them, I have found ways to share articles that reference their favorite games and also offered to buy tickets to attend the world champion gaming finals together. It hasn’t been easy to learn about their games, and it’s even harder to grasp gaming lingo, but it’s been fun to try and worth it to gain that shared connection.” —Henry, a New York parent of one learner and one explorer
Learners experience online connection and support. Of those who are social media users, 83 percent report that they feel more connected with their friends’ lives and 70 percent feel more connected to their friends’ feelings.
Learners believe online activity can hurt relationships. A majority (88 percent) believe that people share too much online, and just over half have witnessed people posting events to which they were not invited. These experiences can leave our kids feeling more aware of their social world but also more uncomfortable and more left out.
Learners feel the pressure of online interaction. A significant minority feel pressure to post and to “like” others’ posts (40 percent). Some (21 percent) feel worse about their own lives when they see online posts of their friends.
Learners experience online conflicts and unfriending. Sixty-eight percent say they have experienced online “drama,” including everything from misunderstandings to bullying. Over half (58 percent) of learners say they have unfriended or unfollowed online friends, while almost that many (45 percent) have blocked an ex-friend. Blocking or unfriending is higher for girls (63 percent) than boys (53 percent).
Learners encounter pornography with detrimental effects. Those learners who consume pornography may develop unrealistic values and beliefs and start sexual experimentation earlier. In addition, pornography affects adolescents’ self-concept since both boys and girls often feel (rightly so) they cannot live up to the unrealistic images portrayed in this material. Adolescents who use pornography report decreased self-confidence, lower social integration, higher conduct problems, higher depressive symptoms, and decreased emotional bonding with parents.
So now you may be more anxious. Or slightly comforted (because you thought it was even worse). Perhaps you’re jotting down these statistics to quote over dinner tonight.
Instead of following these instincts, log this data to help you talk with your teenagers about their online activities and relationships when the time and mood are right. Which probably isn’t over tonight’s egg rolls.
Try to approach online relational interaction in the same way you would attempt to get to know your learner’s friendships—with interest and a desire to know the friends who are important to them. Explore reasons your learner wants to use their computer in their room by themselves and have their phone with them at dinner, and decide together if that’s appropriate and wise.
As we journey through our learners’ adulting, keep in mind that the key is not only what we talk about with them but also how often we talk about it. The vast majority of parents (up to 95 percent according to one study) seem adept at initial conversations with our adolescents about their media activity. The challenge is that only 36 percent of us are having these conversations frequently. More regular conversations about their (and our) online activity may be an easy and crucial Growing With step.
TALKING ABOUT SEX BEYOND THE “SEX TALK”
According to the most current data on younger teen relationships, most adolescents are not sexually active. Yet teenage sexual activity increases as adolescents get older. While a quarter of boys and girls disclose having sexual intercourse by their 16th birthday, two-thirds report that they have had sex by 18.
As with all peer relationships, parents play a critical role in helping learners navigate sexual activity and possibilities. A meta-analysis of over 30 years of data from 52 studies and over 25,000 adolescents confirms that talking with kids about sex in general, and kids’ sexual behaviors specifically, makes a difference.
Similar to the need for ongoing conversations regarding our learners’ online activity, we believe the “sex talk” isn’t a single talk but a series of conversations. When each of our learner kids was in fifth grade, Dave and I (Kara) gave them a book about sexual purity geared for teenagers. As parents, we read a few chapters at a time, underlining what we wanted to talk about with our learner. Our child would then read those few chapters, and the three of us would gather to discuss what had been underlined, as well as any other questions that emerged. In order to make talking with our teenagers about sex as normal as possible, we held those conversations in all different places and at various times. Sitting on their bed as we tucked them in. In the family room after watching our favorite cooking show together. In the kitchen as one of us finished cleaning up after dinner. In the minivan as we drove home from church. We wanted to send the message to each of our learners that there is no single place or time to talk about our sexual desires and choices. Any time and any place is fair game.
If you’ve had “the talk” (or lots of such talks) with your kids, please don’t think that’s enough and you’re now done. If you haven’t had “the talk,” please don’t believe the lie that you’ve already missed the chance to talk with your adolescent about their sexual activity. Also, based on your racial or ethnic background, this topic of conversation might be approached more directly or indirectly. Whatever the context, it is unlikely that we can outsource addressing this topic to other adults or other institutions. During our national interviews, one mother of two older teenagers on the East Coast named a common parenting experience: “I found our church hesitant to address the topic of sexuality and sex before marriage. I think that so many kids just have no idea how to talk about this subject, and are just not being given the tools to have this conversation.”
Explorers and Their Adulting Relationships
EXPLORERS’ FRIENDSHIPS
One of the unique friendship dynamics facing explorers stepping away from high school is that, often for the first time, they have the opportunity and challenge of making new friends while simultaneously trying to preserve former friendships. Seeking new friends can prove difficult, as illustrated in one study of college freshmen ten weeks into their first semester away from home. These new explorers were still more invested in maintaining friendships from home and had delayed making friendships at school. In this world of online connections, your explorer may be more inclined to stay in touch with old friends than invest the energy (and risk) it takes to forge new community.
“So how do I encourage my kids in the midst of waiting for the right relationship? How do I encourage them when they confide, ‘I am all alone and I fear I will never find anybody’?” —Michael, a West Coast father of a learner and an explorer
While that may be your explorer kid’s tendency, it often doesn’t serve them well long term. Psychologist Meg Jay advises young people in their twenties to become disciplined in making new friends. She observed that emerging adults who stalled in their relational and vocational goals did not branch out, only maintained the same small group of friends, and missed out not only on new conversations but also new opportunities. Encouraging our explorers to relationally extend their friend groups seems to inspire new ideas and foster new possibilities.
Jerome, one of the dads we interviewed, shared how his son, Kenneth, went to college with one of his close friends from youth group. While they didn’t choose to be roommates, they ended up living on the same dorm floor. Instead of growing closer, Kenneth experienced this friendship growing apart as his friend leaned heavily into drinking and partying. Jerome was proud about Kenneth’s decision to build friendships differently, but it was hard to see him losing a significant high school relationship.
The effect of losing that friendship was so powerful that Kenneth chose to take the academic spring quarter off and transferred to another school the following fall. Jerome confessed how much expectation he had for his son to “finish college in four years” and how he feared that his son would acquire more debt or not finish college at all. Jerome realized that he had to walk with Kenneth rather than try to force his own dreams on his son. He also admitted that even the good friendship choices his son makes can still have painful outcomes that are agonizing to watch.
HOOKING UP, SWIPING UP, AND BREAKING UP
Three unique experiences surface in our explorers’ romantic relationships, the first of which is how common it is to “hook up.” This very ambiguous term can mean everything from making out to intercourse. Often related to alcohol use, it can happen with strangers or “friends with benefits.”
Some explorers express regret as they reflect on the emotional complications that come with sex. Having studied young adults’ sexuality, Smith and his research team conclude, “Not far beneath the surface appearance of happy, liberated emerging adult sexual adventure and pleasure lies a world of hurt, insecurity, confusion, inequality, shame, and regret.” This regret seems especially prevalent for young women who face the additional complication of being more physically vulnerable in sexual relationships.
The second unique experience for explorers’ romantic relationships is how they are fueled more by a click or a swipe than face-to-face contact. Online dating increases as young people get older. Reports suggest that one-fourth to one-third of explorers’ long-term relationships begin online. While traditional dating may be in decline, some argue that online dating serves as an important precursor, especially given that 66 percent of those who meet online go on a date together.
Third, since relational stakes are higher than in adolescent relationships, more explorers experience breakups as devastating. Women especially reveal more feelings of loss and emotional and physical distress. Men, on the other hand, seem to be less impacted by breakups and downplay being emotionally affected by sexual encounters. Many women admit that it may have been wiser to wait until they were older to become sexually active. The pain that permeates their breakups reflects the reality that those in their twenties often feel they need to hold off on marriage but still long for intimacy.
COMING OUT
Emerging adults’ growing self-discovery sometimes raises new questions about their sexual orientation. Given less peer pressure, fewer family expectations, and a cultural acceptance of same-sex attraction and orientation, more young people are coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ), and are doing so at younger ages. Of all Americans, 4.4 percent of women and 3.7 percent of men identify as LGBTQ, and 18- to 36-year-olds represent the largest proportion of that group. While there is some indication that the average age is dropping when individuals reveal same-sex tendencies (i.e., “come out”), at this point it seems to be hovering around an average age of 20. Also, while the percentage of LGBTQ is relatively small compared to the overall US population, studies report that 87 percent of Americans know someone who is gay, with 30 percent knowing someone who is transgender.
Some young people are more likely to come out to close friends before their parents for fear that their parents may reject them, ignore them, or perhaps even disown them (if not literally, perhaps emotionally). For other young people, coming to terms themselves with their own sexual identity is just as challenging. Justin Lee describes his own experience of admitting what he knew about himself to himself:
Even after realizing it was true, it was a long time before I could bring myself to breathe the word aloud.
I sat up late at night, after everyone else had gone to bed, trying to come to grips with what this word meant for my life. In my softest whisper, paranoid about being overhead by anyone, I tried to muster up enough courage to say to myself those two words: “I’m gay.”
“I’m . . .” A pause. A deep breath.
“I’m . . .”
But the “g” word would never come. It was dark and frightening. I knew it was true, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it, not even in a barely audible whisper alone in my room at night.
Once parents are told, they often must work through their own processing of their child’s disclosure. As we mentioned in chapter 2, we often have to adjust our vision for our child’s future. For many parents, this reframing process follows a cycle of grief and involves denial, anger at themselves or others, bargaining with God or their child, bouts of depression, and eventual acceptance of their child’s disclosure as a starting point for new conversations about their identity and their relationships.
SEXUAL ASSAULT
Studies from the US Department of Justice relay that women ages 18–24 experience higher rates of rape and sexual assault than other age groups. Also, female nonstudents were 1.2 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than their college student counterparts. Seven out of ten rapes are attempted by someone the victim knows. Ninety percent of rape victims are female and 10 percent are male. As our explorers enter new social situations, groups, and dating relationships, wise parents keep conversations open to help navigate our alarming climate and empower our kids to be part of the solution.
Focusers and Their Adulting Relationships
Relational commitments and behaviors blur as our growing kids enter their mid to late twenties and become increasingly autonomous. Our focuser sons and daughters are beginning to approach that psychologically powerful marker of age 30, which raises big adulting questions about their long-term relationships.
LIVING TOGETHER AND GETTING MARRIED
Most emerging adults admit that they would like to be married by age 30, and that often does happen. But before they tie the knot, many focusers end up with relational loose ends. Estimates are that 60–70 percent live together, with cohabitation often starting as early as 21 for women and 23 for men. Couples cohabit out of deep feelings for one another or a desire for an increased commitment, as well as for pragmatic reasons such as to save money or to raise a child.
Those who are “serial cohabitors” (meaning they experience several cohabiting relationships) exhibit higher risks of divorce, lower marital satisfaction, higher levels of domestic violence, and lower levels of communication with their partners. When it comes to “sliding versus deciding,” couples who make intentional decisions about their relationship status, rather than sliding into a live-in relationship, are more likely to flourish in their relationships and describe having happy marriages later.
DEBT AND GETTING MARRIED
As of 2012, the average young person left college (having graduated or not) with $25,000 of debt. In 2016 this number climbed to over $30,000—a rapid increase rate. This means that every former college student will pay around $300 per month over the next 10 years to eliminate their loans. Those financial burdens become anchors in our focusers’ adulting relationships. Twenty percent of emerging adults report delaying marriage because of college debt. Furthermore, marrying a focuser with debt places additional strain on young marriages.
As is obvious from the above insights about learners, explorers, and focusers, relational adulting is complex and young people need to know we understand that. Before we consider “Adulting Ideas,” perhaps this is a perfect moment to personally commit to:
Learning more about your child’s online gaming interests, habits, and friends.
Having an honest conversation with your child about their (and your) social media use.
Telling your child that you’re aware of how ambiguous dating is and that you just want them to know you’re here for them.
Confessing that sometimes the physical and online worlds that they are discovering make you feel anxious.
Being warmer to their significant other.
Praying for your child (and their friends).
Adulting Ideas
How Teacher Parents Can Encourage Learners’ Relational Adulting
GARAGE CONVERSATIONS
As our learners grew through their high school season, Jen and I (Steve) found ourselves meeting in a strange room in our house—the garage. Typically, one of our daughters would propose an outing with her friends, ask to have “everyone” over, or even a more outlandish request like, “We want to go snowshoeing in the forest about an hour away. I know it’s snowing, but can I take the car?” Jen and I have discovered that we have different thresholds for our daughters’ requests, and so we often need a pre-decision meeting for just the two of us—which usually ends up happening in the garage—to ensure we’re on the same page.
Our hope was that our garage-based decisions to approve or reject their requests emerged from our desire to grow our relationship with them and to prepare them for their own friendships. Decisions made out of fatigue, control, or pitting the “yes” parent against the “no” parent only made our family relationships confusing.
Our kids need clarity from us to help them navigate their often-unclear friendships. So whether it’s your actual garage, another room in your home, or a phone call when you are traveling, look for a place where you can talk privately with your spouse, family member, or a friend to get needed input and perspective.
TELL ME I NEED TO COME HOME
Often our learners find themselves in new situations they don’t feel prepared to handle. They may walk into a party where kids are drinking alcohol or be surrounded by peers who don’t treat each other well. Sometimes our kids get asked to events they aren’t sure about. In the Argue family, we learned that these scenarios are too tricky to figure out in the moment; we have to plan ahead.
Our girls devised a simple code to help them get out of tough situations. We would agree ahead of time that if they called and asked if they could go to a particular event or stay longer at a party, we would tell them no. We had a code (typically a word or phrase) for when they would (pretend to) protest our decision, but we would remain firm. Our plan gave our daughters a gracious “out” when they were in a tough spot, felt peer pressure, or were just plain tired. If they determined that they really wanted to stay, they would call us from a more private location and we would revise our plan.
As parents, we often help our learners by being the ones they can “blame” to get out of tough spots. When they come home, we then have the opportunity to debrief the situation and perhaps help them be more prepared next time.
NO ONE’S LEFT OUT
As our learner kids get older, they often have closer friends and their friend groups can feel more exclusive. While that’s developmentally normal, given the self-centeredness of teenagers, their groups can easily morph into cliques that become hurtful and destructive. One family we know held to a simple mantra when their sons planned gatherings or outings: “No one’s left out.” The parents encouraged their boys to err on the side of inviting rather than excluding, which made their friend groups more accepting, fluid, and fun. Once, one of the popular kids in one of their son’s grades confided that he wished he could be in the son’s friend group because it was more fun and less stressful. Their son told him that he was welcome, but sadly this friend was unable to break free from the peer pressure of his more exclusive group.
KID SPACE AND FULL FRIDGE
As our kids entered high school, we (the Argue family) wanted to elevate our commitment for our home to be a safe and welcoming place for all. We saved money and renovated a room in the house dedicated for them to hang out in, complete with comfy old furniture and a refrigerator perpetually stocked with simple (and inexpensive) snacks and drinks.
We learned from our kids (and from their friends’ parents) that most of their friends didn’t seem to enjoy having friends over. They were worried that their friends might feel bored. Hosting friends is a life skill, so we encouraged our girls to invite friends over any time. They knew there was always space and that we’d provide food. We also found that we needed to give them some ideas about what they might do with friends and how to be a good host. Some of our learners’ best memories stem from when they’ve had friends over to watch movies, hold sleepovers, or get ready for prom.
For those of us in smaller homes without a room that can be renovated as a hospitable space for our learners, we can achieve the same effect by vacating from the kitchen or living room so that our learners can have a place for their friends. As parents, we do not need to be financially well-off to host this space. We just have to be flexible.
YOU LIKE YOUR FRIENDS—WE WANT TO LIKE THEM TOO
Many parents have told us they have a goal of getting to know their kids’ friends. As their learner kids solidified their friend groups, parents tried to ask their kids about their friends. Not only did those conversations help parents learn about their kids’ social life, they also helped kids articulate what they appreciate most about their friendships. So consider asking questions like:
SETTING A SPECIFIC AGE FOR DATING . . . OR NOT
Jen and I (Steve) told our daughters that they couldn’t date until they were 16. We reasoned that in high school, upperclassmen may be interested in dating our daughters, and we were not too keen on them dating or being driven around town by teenage boys. We thought our daughters would push back on this rule, but we actually found they used it to their advantage. If they wanted to gently let down interested boys, they could evoke the “terrible” rule that their parents inflicted upon them. Our parameter also encouraged them to go out in groups and slow down romantic coupling, which can get complicated and stressful.
Dave and I (Kara) have a different philosophy. We haven’t given a specific minimum age for our learner kids’ dating. (If we did, my protective husband would be inclined to choose age 32, and I’ve told him that is unrealistic.) While some of our kids’ major milestones have happened at the same age (for instance, both girls got their ears pierced at age 10, and all three of our kids could stay up until 9:00 p.m. beginning at age 11), there is no universal Powell family age for dating. It’s not dependent upon a birthday but rather their emotional and relational maturity, as well as who they want to date.
“Each of our sons started dating at different ages—the youngest in tenth grade and the two older in college. My wife had a great idea and volunteered to have a ‘talk’ with each of our boys. This was more than the ‘sex talk.’ It was important for her to help them understand how to treat women respectfully with grace, honor, and as image bearers of God. My sons have been impacted by their mom’s reminders to treat women as peers and equals. I’ve seen our sons enjoy healthy friendship with girls and our conversations about their romantic interests seem more natural.” —Justin, a Pennsylvania parent of one learner and two explorers
Nathan had his first girlfriend at age 15. She was from church, I had been her small group leader in middle school, and I’ve been friends with her parents longer than Dave and I have been married. So we felt fine with the two of them hanging out at an ice rink for two hours. We likely would have felt differently if we hadn’t known her.
Steve and I offer our different philosophies on high school dating not to start a debate (that wouldn’t really be fair, because obviously I’m right). Rather, we offer our two different parental approaches to our kids’ adulting relationships—both of which were guided by the same desires to balance protection with independence—as illustrative of how every family needs to figure out what works for them. We know young people in general, and we know the young people who are our offspring specifically, but we don’t know your young people. So please make the decisions that make the most sense for your family.
How Guide Parents Can Encourage Explorers’ Relational Adulting
Because our explorer kids have moved out or branched out, parents recognize that our contact with their relational adulting tends to be more episodic than continual. But every moment we connect with our kids, whether in person or through technology, gives guide parents opportunities to grow with our kids.
ALWAYS ROOM AT THE TABLE (AND ON THE COUCH)
In the explorer stage, my (Steve’s) kids’ holidays, breaks, and vacations do not always line up with our work schedules or their siblings’ breaks. For instance, Thanksgiving is often a hard time for explorer kids to make it home due to expensive flights and a short vacation. So we have appreciated it when other parents have taken in our college-aged kids and given them a home away from home. We also have discovered that Thanksgiving works better for our explorers if we view it as an “open invitation” holiday. If our girls come home, they can bring whomever they want. Sometimes I long for the holidays like they used to be—just the five of us. But I have found that these open gatherings are great chances to meet our kids’ friends. Somehow our girls still have managed to give a little extra attention to their parents too!
While Jen and I have full lives and we’re not waiting around for our kids and their friends to pop over, we’ve learned to welcome these moments with our kids and their friends and turn them into memories. Parents who want to serve as guides for their explorers can ask questions like:
TOO HARSH (OR “I WOULDN’T EVEN LET JESUS DATE YOU”)
Getting to know our girls’ significant others has been a learning curve for me (Steve). The shift from our kids being learners to explorers not only raises the relational stakes for them but affects parents as well. We face weightier questions about our kids’ romantic interests, and I find myself holding stronger opinions as the stakes seem higher.
Last summer, one of my daughters started dating a new boyfriend. He was in town, and she invited him to stay at our place in order to get to know us. The day before he came, while my daughter and I were sitting outside, I asked her how I was doing with meeting her boyfriends. She walked right through the conversational door I had opened and shared that she felt like I had been harsh and cold toward another young man she had dated the previous year.
Her critique was both surprising and painful. But what I appreciated was her honest feedback. Perhaps my anxiety about her dating was perceived by her as coldness. I told her that no boy will measure up to my expectations and that I would probably have issues even if Jesus dated her—which is my problem, not hers. Ever since, she has reminded me of how ridiculous that sounded, and she keeps encouraging me to give her boyfriends a chance.
After the last boyfriend visited, I asked her how I did. Her feedback was important to me and for my own parenting.
Model a Growing With posture with your adulting explorers by:
MENTORS, NOT ENEMIES
While our daughters have called me out for being too cold or intimidating with their boyfriends, there have been a few instances when the relationship has developed to the point where it’s time for me to talk to a boyfriend one-on-one.
This is no laughing matter. For me. For my daughters. And certainly not for their boyfriends.
Because we are committed to our daughters, we have expectations about how they should be treated. So when we perceive a boyfriend isn’t measuring up, I have taken initiative to talk with him. I admit that I have often approached these meetings ready to let the boys have it. But after talking with them, I’ve recognized that they’re trying to navigate their own adulting journeys. Some come from great families and supportive parents, and others stem from more toxic and disruptive family contexts. In either extreme and everything in between, I have learned that a young man needs an older man in his life who challenges him but also believes in him. I can either threaten him into behaving differently, or I can tell him that I believe he can aspire to be a young man who puts my daughter’s best interests ahead of his own. In those moments, they need me to be a mentor, not an enemy. As you seek to guide your explorer child and those who become particularly close to them, ask yourself:
COMING OUT, STEPPING CLOSER
For those parents wanting to grow with our LGBTQ kids and friends, we offer a few starting points:
Tell them you love them. What your kid needs desperately is love. Many parents withhold love when their child comes out because they are afraid their child may mistake empathy for approval. Withdrawing your love will certainly drive a wedge between you, and possibly between them and God as well.
Show them you’ll walk with them. No matter our understanding of our and others’ sexual identities, we are perpetually considering what our sexuality means for our lives. Perhaps more than any other age group, explorers need others to be sounding boards—reflecting their ideas and helping them refine their identities. Be courageous and walk with them, even if it is new territory for you. Remember that all of us are in-process, and at our core we are defined as being made in the image of God. It’s often valuable to involve trained professionals (such as psychologists, pastors, and counselors) to help us and our family more fully experience the intimacy we seek with both God and each other as we navigate the complexities of kids coming out.
Check your assumptions. Through my (Steve’s) work as a pastor serving brothers and sisters in our community who feel same-sex attraction, I have found that many parents and adults have strong opinions on LGBTQ persons and how they ought to live their lives. I have also discovered that few have solid reasoning for their positions. In a representative survey conducted in our previous church, most of our faith community wanted to be welcoming of all while also admitting that they really were not clear on Scriptural teachings about faith and sexuality.
I have also talked with many parents who feel stuck because they felt so sure of their position until their child came out. Whether we are parents of gay kids or parents of straight kids with gay friends, let’s reject calling sexuality an “issue” and recognize that all young people need adults to be with them in what is often a lonely and hurtful adulting journey. Let’s consider what it means for us to engage others thoughtfully, compassionately, and generously. Anything less brings pain and division, which are antithetical to the core message of the gospel.
How Resourcer Parents Can Encourage Focusers’ Relational Adulting
By their focuser stage, our kids have begun to solidify their relational tendencies and decisions. They are likely making life decisions about marriage and parenthood. As resourcer parents, we must again adjust to their new relationships and be families that grow with them.
GETTING MARRIED
I (Steve) talk with many graduate students at Fuller Seminary who find love and decide they want to get married. Frequently, I’ll hear them say that they’d like to skip the wedding and just elope. Often these sentiments surface because the wedding planning has become too complicated or expensive, or because parents (and sometimes grandparents and extended relatives) are becoming too stressed-out. We have many friends who have offered their engaged children money to elope because it’s cheaper than a full-fledged wedding!
Every family has different wedding expectations, but as ministers who officiate weddings, both Kara and I remind the engaged couple to prepare for the marriage more than the wedding. We hope you’re nodding along, because the same principle holds true for us as parents. Let’s resist putting so much energy into the wedding ceremony that we lose sight of what is more important—our hope that our kids are walking into marriage as healthy people, a healthy couple, and in many cultures, a healthy joining of two families.
Let us also be healthy parents (and in-laws). A recently married focuser confessed to us that one of the more stressful parts of getting married was instantly having more family. Her spouse’s family is great, but she is figuring out how to create a family bond with people who are still strangers (and whose names, especially when it comes to aunts and uncles, she can’t always remember). As resourcer parents, be sensitive to your focuser’s marriage and look for ways to grow your new relationship with them as a couple by:
LIVING TOGETHER
While many of us may oppose cohabitation based on our understanding of Scripture, the reality is that many of our focuser kids will nonetheless end up living with a partner before marriage. Similar to our Growing With response to our focusers’ other decisions, let’s not default back to our past teacher or guide roles but instead evolve into a resourcer role. If their goal is to eventually move toward a committed marriage relationship, then let’s do our best to help them with that journey.
Doorbells may or may not ring. Boyfriends and girlfriends may be something we pray for or something we dread. We might long for our adulting kids to have more friends, or maybe we wish they had fewer. In the midst of this variety of family situations, our teenagers and emerging adults will come in and out of that front door by themselves, with friends, and with romantic others. Every time that door swings open, we have the opportunity either to welcome them home or to bless them as they venture out.