17Part 1 Growing With Parenting
Part 1
Growing With
Parenting
Growing With parenting: a mutual journey of intentional growth for both ourselves and our children that trusts God to transform us all.
As parents and caring adults, we often feel the gap between us and our kids widening as they become teenagers and young adults. Maybe it’s just that they’re growing up. But we fear the gap is also a symptom that we’re growing apart.
Growing With is an attempt to close this family gap.
Growing With requires new lenses so we can see more clearly the world our teens and twentysomethings encounter. In chapter 1, we explore the new cultural, relational, and sociological landscapes that today’s young people navigate. Building on this new understanding of our kids, in chapter 2 we propose three new paradigms for parenting that take into account what’s worked before but provide your family with a better map to move forward.
Once we are equipped with a new understanding of our kids’ world and new parenting paradigms, chapters 3–9 will then offer you a menu of practical ideas to grow with your child both now and in the future.
A prayer as you begin your Growing With journey:
Jesus, our kids are growing up and we are growing older. These truths weigh heavily on us, some days more than others. There are moments when it feels like we’re growing together and other times when we fear we’re growing apart. By your grace, please grant us faith to trust you with our kids as well as courage to grow with them through our parenting. Spark in us a more expansive vision for this journey—a vision not only about who they might become, but also about who we might become.