Weekly Update: January 7

Parents,

      I am excited to welcome you into a new year. As we get started, I want to take a step back to reflect. But before we do that, a reminder that engage kicks off again this Sunday night -- and in the month of January, we will take an intense look at baptism, communion and what grace means in '09. And...
      We are excited to welcome Melissa Strong -- to our church office, and to our youth ministry team. She will be supporting youth ministry in addition to other duties. Welcome, Melissa!

MIDDLE SCHOOL: Grapple
      Middle school Sunday school classes have started using Grapple this month. It is an exciting way for middle schoolers to "grapple" with their faith.
      Grapple includes an online component. Please download the Grapple intro and release form to read more. Release forms must be returned for your student to be given access to myGrapple. Return forms to Melissa or Aaron.

Question: When am I done parenting? Isn't most of it done by the time kids reach their teenage years?

Mark Oestreicher, President of Youth Specialties:
In one sense (and you all know this), you're never done being a parent. I called my dad this week (I'm in my 40s, by the way) to get his advice and prayer (or course, he does the same with me now). And parenting teenagers has, in reality, stretched well into a students 20s in most cases. Adolescence has extended on both ends of its age delineators.

But I have a couple theories I'd like to suggest you consider:

First, you should make this assumption--by the time your child is in HS, most of your parenting is done. That's not to say that you still don't have a very important role in her life--you do! But it's normally a bit late to "change course". Parenting an older teen (or young 20-something) is more about "staying the course". More about continuing to model what you've already set in place. [read more]

TEEN LINGO
99 = Text message short code for "Parent no longer watching."

A THOUGHT TO CONSIDER
"Sometimes we're so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up."
-James Dobson

Until next week...