Do We Want Our Teens to Just Make the Right Choice?

My mom and I had a good conversation last week–one of those “Oh, that’s how it went down on your side of things” talks. 

Groove back with me to around 1993. I’m growing out my formerly-birds-nest bangs. I have braces. Both are just as becoming as they sound. But though there at 13, I’ve been a Christian for eight years, I haven’t been baptized.

Some of the reasons I give my parents have a (certainly faint) ring of legitimacy: I want my grandparents to attend, who wouldn’t attend unless I was older. (Other private reasons, like giving a testimony in front of the whole church and being without makeup in front of cute boys, are less so.) 

But my parents aren’t really okay with my reasons–for legit reasons of their own, which I understood much better last week, in 2021. Somehow my Sunday school teacher also gets wind of my resistance. I remember an awkward meeting with him in the church library. 

These have exactly the effect one might expect on my otherwise obedient, teenaged self. I dig in my Birkenstocked heels. 

Later, I travel with my youth group on a short-term missions trip to a school for the deaf in Kingston, Jamaica. One night, in a quiet, humid conversation with one of the center’s instructors, the Jamaican asks me point blank, yet gently, “Why don’t you want to be baptized?”

That September, I am baptized–in a pond (less people and pressure), by a pastor I trust, my grandparents in attendance. And let’s be honest, probably some waterproof mascara.

It’s Not Just the Choice That Matters

Here’s the thing. I could have pleased my parents from the get-go, and that would have been honoring to God. Admittedly more honoring than my stubbornness or the reasons behind it. 

But in talking to my own now-13-year-old daughter last week, I realized there was still something not-entirely-bad about my reasoning.

Baptism is a sacred decision. And for once, this people-pleaser didn’t want others to make it for her. 

(Side note: In one of my wedding photos–the moment my brand-spankin’-new husband and I are walking down the aisle–I’m gazing down, away from the camera and the crowd. I remember knowing it would blight the photo. But there, in that moment, I wanted it to be all mine. Just my happiness.)

My teenagers are in the midst of their own sacred choices right now. Choices, at times, that make my heart feel like it was stuffed in a blender.

I’m realizing it’s not just the destination–the good choice–that’s important, but how they make it. How they journey to it. The development of the character to make those choices.

I’ve tried to be more about what’s going on in my kids’ hearts rather than behavior modification. But it’s coming to a new level as sometimes I must hold my breath–and at times, dial back some level of control I could be implementing–in order to give them space to make wise decisions from the inside out.

I’ve quoted Tedd Tripp on this before:

The genius of Phariseeism was that it reduced the law to a keepable standard of externals that any self-disciplined person could do. In their pride and self-righteousness, they rejected Christ….

A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable. Is it not the hypocrisy that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees?…Yet this is what we often do in childrearing. We demand changed behavior and never address the heart that drives the behavior.*

Helping a Teen to Make the Right Choice: Should I Hold Back?

Knowing what and when to hold back, and when to exercise influence and authority, create a need in me to constantly, hourly, look to the Holy Spirit. And his wisdom of my whole child.

I want to work with the pace of God in my kids’ lives, their particular point in their unique spiritual journey. As my husband points out, if a kid is struggling with depression or addiction, you don’t hassle them about wearing their jeans too low. 

Think of it like a personal trainer: Some people, when you push too hard, would rather sink back on the couch with remote and a bag of chips. Others will eat up your HIIT routine and ask for more.

But as a personal trainer? Don’t mix these people up.

Sometimes it’s wise to let my kids know I’m disappointed, or what would please me. On other days, I’m using my emotion to manipulate them–to put my finger on the scale in an unhealthy way.  

Often it’s wise to give my kids consequences. On other days, I need to have heartfelt, listening conversations about what’s going on inside them, rather than just laying down the law.  Maybe they need the conversation and some accountability. Some days they need all three.

In short, I don’t always know the reasons my kids need to walk through all the steps to wise decision-making. 

Maybe they need internal, personal conviction so they can withstand peer pressure down the road. Or like me, it could be they need to take ownership of their faith or responsibility for their choice, rather than them handing that leash to you. 

There’s a chance letting them make that sacred choice–with thoughtful guidance at the right time–could be more important than just make the right choice, full stop.

God’s not just about getting them to make the right choice. He’s shaping people who love him from the inside out. 

Helping Teens Wholeheartedly Make the Right Choice (Rather than Short-circuiting Them)

Henri Nouwen writes in Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith, “Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.” 

So the goal isn’t always for the problems to just stop, the questions to be answered.

Nouwen reminds me to look to the heart behind the questions, hesitations, and concerns behind making the right choice: “The first task of seeking guidance then is to touch…struggles, doubts, and insecurities—in short, to affirm your life as a quest.”

I wish my 13-year-old self had the maturity to evaluate the reasons I was resisting baptism.

If this is true, we can help our teens

• lean into their questions and sort through them.
• help them sense God’s themes in their lives. What recurring ways is he working–or working against? How are they seeing him respond to them?
• be “all there” when we’re talking with them
• draw them deeper into self-understanding and God-understanding with thoughtful questions (rather than just our answers).
• help them reframe the narrative they’re telling themselves.

Of course, of course we want our kids to make the right choice. But thoughtfully helping them navigate that path to make the right choice? 

That’s gold.

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