273Conclusion

Conclusion

Growing With from Here On

If you’re like us, your antenna is perpetually searching for useful resources and strategic insights that will help you keep up and parent just a little bit better. Heaven knows we will take any advantage we can get!

But all the effort we pour into parenting leaves us emotionally drained, exposes our (sometimes) thin skin, and exasperates any relational raw nerves in our families.

We can empathize with your dreams and your fatigue. We hope this book encourages you to keep at the great parenting you are already doing. We trust it inspires you to see your growing kids through fresh perspectives that motivate you to risk trying new parenting approaches.

And we hope that this conversation not only changes your parenting but also changes you. In fact, it must.

Symptoms

If you take seriously what this book suggests, you will contract Growing With symptoms. You will likely know you are Growing With your kids when:

You develop an increasing awareness and urgency to address your own growth areas as much as your kids’. Growing With parenting calls you to be honest about your place in your family’s relational ecosystem and for you to consider where you may need to grow, change, forgive, let go, celebrate, or mourn. Increasingly, you are giving yourself permission to be human even when your presence in your growing kids’ lives reveals the best and worst of you. You refuse to hide your humanity, and you no longer let your true self become invisible when your parenting becomes hard or self-revealing.

You recognize that your parenting will raise as many questions as it offers answers. Growing With parents reject the notion that parenting is about “faking it until you make it.” Instead, we admit we have limitations. We cannot know everything, control every situation, or give sage-like answers to every question. Not only can we not deliver parenting perfection, but our kids do not want that from us anyway!

On the one hand, this brings relief as you rest in knowing you do not have to know or do it all. From another angle, you come to realize that what is being asked of you is even harder. What your growing kids want is for you to be curious, to be open, to struggle, to wait, to search, and to discover with them. You are becoming more comfortable with the answer “I don’t know,” realizing that the “answer” is in the process and in the relationship.

You anticipate parenting a different kid tomorrow than the one you are parenting today. Growing With parents admit that while we might benefit from past parenting wins or sting from parenting misses, each day starts with new possibility. We stay on our toes, knowing that our previous successful parenting methods may not work in the present. We have courage that yesterday’s fails do not disqualify us from being the best parents we can be today. Tomorrow your kid will be different and so will you. You are becoming more courageous as you refuse to hide behind yesterday’s parenting track records and trust God to help you be the parent your kids need now. You have the grit to try, and you refuse to believe the lies that you can’t.

Four Options to Move from Parenting Alone to Parenting Together

As you wrap up this book, you might be feeling rather overwhelmed by your parenting inadequacies. You may fear that your kid is the only one who gets stuck adulting, questions their faithing, or rejects your attempts to grow with them. We’ve emphasized that the new terrain our teens and young adults are trying to navigate is new territory for parents as well. Parents—all kinds of parents—can feel alone as they attempt to get their bearings and do their best.

Often, formal communities like churches or schools offer great venues to connect parents with their parenting peers. We encourage you to engage in these opportunities. In this sidebar, we offer a few additional approaches that can help you take your own steps from feeling isolated toward cultivating peer parenting groups and friendships.

Option #1: Stop competing and start connecting

Sometimes it is hard to connect with other parents because we spend too much of our energy comparing our kids with their kids and assessing each other’s parenting styles. Resist these impulses and find another parent or group of parents where you can admit that you’re all in this parenting life stage together. Commit to meeting and taking steps toward trusting each other with your ups and downs as parents. Start with what you have in common—your love for your kids and your desire to be the best parents you can. Let’s reject the parenting perfectionism that divides us and embrace ways to be there for each other.

Option #2: Make a start and end date

We find that many parents feel overbooked, are cautious about committing to “one more thing,” and are especially fearful that if they join a group they can never leave it. Instead of committing to a never-ending schedule of gatherings, we encourage parents to try meeting consistently four to six times over a defined period. Try meeting in a rhythm that works with your friends—once a week, twice a month, or once a month—with a clear understanding that this group will start and end. At the end of that period, some parents may find they really resonate with a few others from the group and they may want to keep meeting on their own. But even if not, you’ve built relational roots that can be nurtured in other ways.

Option #3: Connect over shared interests then commit to real conversations

I (Steve) admit that it is hard for me to join one more group. One summer, I met a dad whose daughter ran cross-country with my daughter. At one meet, we got to talking and realized that we both shared our daughters’ passion for endurance running. We started meeting a couple times a month to train together. When you do longer runs, you have plenty of time to talk—which led to deeper conversations about parenting our daughters. We shared different situations that were going on in their lives, tested our theories with each other, shared our joys and fears of being dads of daughters, and confessed our imperfections. You may not love running, but connect your interests with another parent who shares those interests and become parenting conversation partners.

Option #4: Be mutual friends and mentors

Find a friend with whom you can share your parenting journey. Make it a priority to chat by phone or over coffee. In addition, consider whether or not your friend can be an adult friend to your child who is available if your kid wants to talk with another adult (who should promise not to be an informant back to you). In fact, Jen and I (Steve) have tried to do this with another family and their kids, and our kids refer to the other parents as “their second parents.” Pretty cool.

Momentum

Perhaps this book has renewed or evoked something new in your parenting outlook. We encourage you to honor that thoughtful inspiration by not letting it remain dormant. To turn that inspiration into Growing With momentum, consider the following:

Go back through this book and review your underlining and notes. What struck you as most important or intriguing? Do you see any recurring themes? What might your own reactions be prompting you to name or address? Perhaps you want to journal your thoughts, talk with a spouse, or share with a close friend. Name what is stirring inside of you. Let it speak to you.

Connect with other Growing With parents. One of the most powerful steps to help you maintain momentum is to find a handful of other parents in your life stage. Together you can normalize your experiences, empathize with each other’s successes and challenges, and lean on one another for support and collective wisdom. Let these Growing With themes provide a springboard for your conversations.

Celebrate. You are smart and a good parent. (We parents need to remind each other!) We are convinced that there are insights and ideas in this book that you are already doing and even doing better. Take a moment and gratefully ponder these wins. Thank God for the good things you are already doing as a parent.

Hope

Whether you are pondering your parenting wins, planning your next steps, or gauging your Growing With symptoms, we are convinced that your best parenting is not motivated by fear or shame but springs from hope.

We believe God gave you your kids.

We believe you love your kids.

We believe you want to be the best parents you can be.

We want that for our parenting too.

May any inspiration sparked from the pages of this book spill over into our conversations and our families with hope, possibility, and growth.

Our prayer for Growing With parents:

Jesus, we thank you that in the midst of the ups and downs of parenting, we can place our hope in you. We are grateful for how you use parenting to prune us and shape us more and more into your image. Please help us abide in you so that we may bear great fruit in our families and in our world. Thank you that you love our kids even more than we do. Thank you that you want the very best for them and for us. Please help us rest in your powerful grace that continues to transform us all. Amen.

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