A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Jim Walton is the Coordinator of Youth and Lay Ministries at St. Andrew’s Church, Parry Sound, Ontario.
Parenting Adolescents. Kevin Huggins. Navpress, Colorado Springs, Colorado. 1989. 258 pp.
Parenting Adolescents was one of those books I bought at the Christian bookstore and left on my bookshelf for a year or so. Then one day, in preparation for a meeting with parents of teens, I finally read the book. What I discovered was not another step-by-step manual on how to be an effective parent but solid, in-depth principles intended to help parents mature in godliness. The main point of Parenting Adolescents is this: “the key to becoming a more effective parent is to become a more godly person” (p. 15). Huggins’ approach to spirituality has substance, partly because of his own transparency regarding his own relationship to his teenage daughter and partly because of his wealth of experience in counselling parents of teens. His use of actual counselling experiences brings his teaching to life! Huggins helps the reader confront the heart issues that are essential for godliness, whether it be an awareness of emotions that we wish we were not there or an understanding of the real motives behind our actions in our relationship with our children.
Huggins devotes a great deal of time in his book in helping the parent decide whether their parenting style is automatic or reflective. Parents have adopted an automatic style of parenting when “they allow their way for relating to their kids to be determined by internal and external forces of which they have little or no awareness” (p. 95). The Automatic parent has adopted what Huggins calls a consumer model of parenting, where the parent is essentially using their relationships with their teens to meet their own needs. The Reflective parent, on the other hand, is always taking steps to see that they are responding to the heartfelt needs of their child by consciously ensuring that their own deepest needs are being satisfied through their relationship with Jesus Christ. Consequently, the reflective parent is able to devote their energy to helping their teen grow in godliness.
Huggins maintains that adolescence represents the parent’s “second chance” to influence the spiritual development of their teen because it is the time when teens must cast off old strategies that they have developed for relating to life and adopt new strategies of relating. Although this claim brings hope to parents, the actual amount of influence the parent will have in the life of their child will depend upon the model of parenting they have chosen to pursue.
There is also an eight-session video series for Parenting Adolescents. The video series is excellent and was well-received by a large diverse group of adults from our church. The parents’ evaluation of the study affirmed the observations already made concerning the book and also raised several issues of concern. First, both the book and video jargon are familiar to the author but foreign to the reader… very confusing at times. Second, most parents were alienated by some of the extreme situations role-played throughout the videos. More realistic scenarios, such as those referred to in the book, would have been useful. Finally, problems raised through the short vignettes were often left with no comment given for solutions. Leaders should give some thought as to how to handle some of these problems prior to each session.
I personally found Teen Trends and Learn to Discern to be very useful resources but Parenting Adolescents by far was the most personally challenging of the three.