The Meet Hope Podcast

80: Parenting Teens and Tweens and How to Not Do It Alone

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 On this episode,  Amanda Cavaliere and Jason Shinn from family ministry team share their firsthand experiences and insights from leading small group sessions for parents. They delve into the unique opportunities that come with raising older kids and how community and open dialogue make all the difference. Amanda and Jason offer practical advice on fostering real-world connections and enhancing critical thinking skills in this tech-driven era. By celebrating parenting milestones and providing a support system, they aim to empower parents on this journey. Don’t miss this chance to connect with a community that understands and supports your parenting journey!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Meet Hope Podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope.

Speaker 2:

Hi everyone and welcome to the Meet Hope podcast. Today, myself, Amanda Cavalieri and Jason Shin are here to speak with you. We are both members of the family ministry team here at Hope and we ran a small group this past fall fall of 2023, for parents of teens and tweens. Right, Jason, that's right, and we met on Sunday mornings at 9 am in the chapel, so at the same time as the 9 am worship and the 9 am middle school Sunday school class. But we were excited to meet with other parents of teens and tweens and this kind of came together, because I'm a parent of a teen and a tween and Jason is our youth leader and he is the expert on teens and tweens. You definitely are lots and lots of experience, decades of experience, Jason, you are old. So we started with a book called Congrats, You're Having a Teen, which was written by a CHOP pediatrician, talking about really brain development in our teens and tweens and how we as parents can help.

Speaker 3:

And then we Not just help, but this is an opportunity. Too often it's oh my gosh, I have a teen, what am I going to do? And it's depressing. And this book went the opposite direction. Like there's, there's tremendous opportunities with having a teen, and so we got a chance to get together with parents of teens and tweens and hopefully open some eyes about this is not the end of the world, that you don't have to live, you don't have to suffer through the next six to eight years, but instead you don't have to suffer through the next six to eight years, but instead there's an opportunity to really come alongside your student, your teenager, and just see them explode for the good.

Speaker 3:

And be excited and be excited, and so we had some amazing conversations. Just in fact, oftentimes we had to end because the middle schoolers were banging on the door but parents were like this is great, we want to keep doing this Cause. Originally it was set to be just a three or four week series and it we had such a good response is that we kept going.

Speaker 2:

We kept going and then we, in the spring of 2024, we launched a series on boundaries with teens and tweens, um, which also generated some great conversation. So we just wanted to share some of the things that we talked about with that small group, with those who couldn't be there, and launch into some of that conversation together.

Speaker 3:

And hopefully invite people to join us next year, of course, or next fall.

Speaker 2:

In the fall, yeah.

Speaker 3:

But let's start off with just kind of a Amanda, you are an expert in a way that you have two amazing students of your own.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Jason.

Speaker 3:

And can you tell me the difference between being a toddler or young elementary parent versus your experience now of being a parent of a teenager and a tween Right?

Speaker 2:

So, first of all, what's the same is that we're exhausted right when our kids are little, when they're toddlers, when they're young. We are physically tired because they are so energetic. And yet when our kids are teens, we are also exhausted because they're more emotionally challenging and they're up later or they're out later.

Speaker 3:

So you have to be the driver to all their out later?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm really learning. I'm really just a glorified chauffeur, honestly. So that's something. That's the same, but what's different?

Speaker 2:

As I remember when my kids were little and I would get together with other moms, first of all it was much easier. We'd have playdates, or I would come to mops and we would talk about what we were struggling with with our kids, whether it be sleep issues or potty training or tantrums, and we as parents would just share in those things together and tips and hey, this works and that didn't work, and try this and don't try that. And yet when our kids are older and when they're teens, we don't do that as much anymore. You know, we don't get together. First of all, we don't have playdates, right. We're dropping our kids off to hang out with their friends or dropping them off at youth group. We aren't socializing with the parents like we used to friends or dropping them off at youth group. We aren't socializing with the parents like we used to.

Speaker 2:

And you know, we also want to protect our kids' own personal space by not sharing their stuff, right. But the struggle with that is, as our kids get older, sometimes the problems become more challenging. And so now you know, we're looking at things and we're not sure what to do, but we're too uncomfortable or not in a safe enough space to talk about. Hey, I'm really having a hard time with my child and social media. My kid's asking me about pornography, my kid's asking about suicide, what you know, help me. We don't want to have those conversations necessarily, whether it's embarrassment or whether it's just not wanting to put our kids in a space where we feel like they're being talked about as they're older.

Speaker 3:

I think it's interesting that you feel that you kind of isolate and yet I think the students also isolate themselves in this age group. It's interesting that the parents are also reflecting the students or the students reflecting the parents. I don't know, it's the snake that eats its tail, and I think the other thing is there's so many resources for toddler and elementary school.

Speaker 2:

This is how you help them read.

Speaker 3:

This is how you potty train, but when it comes to being in the teenage tween years, the resources become slimmer. If you're at the bookstore, the shelf becomes a lot slimmer.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

And also the people that you trust, like I feel like a lot of the experts that I grew up with and then I saw are, you know, we're seeing some very different takes and how they were potentially unhealthy and so, yeah, so we are facing a lot of people, are saying that our students and our teens, our tweens, are in a crisis. Yeah and yeah.

Speaker 2:

So what? I would totally agree. And what? What are you seeing as a youth leader? Some of the top concerns for the kids in this age group right now.

Speaker 3:

One of the things I've seen in the last. I mean we experienced a pandemic, kids definitely. You know, in Michigan they were isolated for a year.

Speaker 3:

And I know it was longer here in New Jersey and so we saw the rise, the fast rise of social media, the fast rise of online school, the fast rise of isolation. So the isolation has been a big thing, which I really think that really kickstarted a mental health crisis, as kids were. Kids need to be around other people, they need to be connected and through no fault of their own, and we were all trying to figure everything out, we were all surviving that and there's no shade being thrown there, but there are some repercussions of that, and so I've seen mental health. I've seen the rise of anxiety in students. That's been a big thing, I feel my wife is a social worker and she is amazing and I look to her as a tremendous resource when it comes to helping our students just here at Hope, but also in general, and she's seen a rise in mental health and anxiety.

Speaker 3:

We see I mean the experts talk about social media, the unintended consequences of social media and how kids are comparing themselves to their friends and how they're not quite processing, how everybody's putting their best foot forward. No one's talking about their bad day, they're talking about everything, and your student is sitting in their room and they're just going? Why is my life terrible compared to person X? I'm reading this really interesting book called the Anxious Generation and he talks about the internet and he talks about how would you let your student just check a box and fly off to Mars? And in some ways that's kind of what we did with the internet. We just said, oh, this is a really cool thing, and we just didn't put any guardrails on it and we just let loose and we're now really seeing a generation that has grown up with the internet and that's been fascinating and we are seeing the repercussions of that.

Speaker 2:

And honestly, as a parent, I don't even know how to parent that right, because it's new. A lot of this is new to me too. I didn't grow up with the internet. I didn't grow up with my life on social media, so trying to help my kids navigate that is challenging.

Speaker 3:

There's a difference. We've been called, our generation has been called the digital pioneers, whereas our kids' generation has been called the digital natives. There was a story I was reading about a toddler who saw a butterfly in a window for the first time and the parent was looking at this toddler and the toddler was kind of pinching their fingers and all of a sudden the parent realized the toddler was trying to magnify the window because she grew up on social media and on technology, and so we're trying to figure out a little bit late to the party are there consequences to social media? In fact, I think you have some stats for us about technology and social media that you found.

Speaker 2:

It's so interesting. So, yeah, this most recent report I have from this year says that 95% of teens have access to a smartphone. Okay, it also says that 60% of teens hang out with their friends online, online on a daily basis, and then 88% say weekly they hang out online. Now, we know right, we know how important at this age peers are and they're so important to the development of our kids. And you know, as parents, we are the largest influence, most important influence. But our peers, our children's peers, play such an important role. But if they're and we know right so now we know that they spend more time online with their peers, we want them to be with their peers, but then they're feeling isolated. So how do we negotiate that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, one of the things we learn as we were growing up is social cues. We learn how to process in real time based on people's feature, like what their facial features how they react Body language. As opposed to I'm hanging out with my friend. I sent them a text two hours ago and I still haven't heard, which creates either anxiety or they don't like me anymore. Who are they?

Speaker 2:

hanging out with.

Speaker 3:

It's a whole drama, explosion, and so one of the things that we can do is we can facilitate and this is one of them we're talking about later but one of the things we can do is we can facilitate opportunities for our students to be together in person, whether it be. I mean, obviously I'm here to promote youth group.

Speaker 3:

I'm here to promote Hope Youth, absolutely Big, big supporter of Hope Youth, and we've got a whole summer planned and our fall will kick off in September and we'll go back to weekly youth group and stuff like that. But during the summer it's, you know, getting together at pools going, going, going out, having a barbecue with a couple of families and being together, getting your kid out of their room, getting their kid out of the basement and away from.

Speaker 3:

Minecraft and all the video game systems and stuff like that and getting them out to do things they're not going to like it.

Speaker 2:

They will not.

Speaker 3:

No, but they will once they do it. It's interesting when we go on mission trip which we're going on mission trip in a few weeks we do a no phone policy, which is both terrifying for parents and for students, and once they get over the shakes after day two, the students really do calm and get into this thing and we have had students actually tell us it was so nice to be away from my phone.

Speaker 3:

Students actually tell us it was so nice to be away from my phone, it was so nice to be in the moment and not worry about this or that or not being roped into drama, and so that's one of the things that I've seen that we can do. But I mean going back to some of the issues that we've been seeing with students is another big question students are having right now in the midst of social media, in the midst of all the different algorithms that they get involved in, is identity and gender.

Speaker 3:

That's a conversation that they're having at school, that they're having amongst their friends via text message, via.

Speaker 3:

I think the other thing that, when it comes to technology, the students don't necessarily realize that we need to teach is critical thinking and when it comes to technology the students don't necessarily realize that we need to teach is critical thinking, and when it comes to technology, you can get sucked into a an algorithm of just hearing the same thing over and over, because that's what they want. You know, the media companies want you to be online as much as possible, so they're going to keep feeding you the things that you're interested in.

Speaker 2:

You know, a girl looks up, maybe a lip gloss, right, and now she's seeing all sorts of body image self social influencers all sorts of stuff right Just off of one little search.

Speaker 3:

And it's all to keep her online.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

And it's. It's a little nefarious on the on the uh point of the companies, but it's creating questions for kids. They're trying to figure this out, and so how can we, as parents, as youth leaders, as teachers, as volunteers, how can we come together and have conversations about this and how can we come together and be resources for each other? That was one of our biggest goals for this small group.

Speaker 3:

And the biggest question in all of these things whether it be mental health, whether it be gender identity, whether it be just identity in general or technology is where is God in all this? Students are asking that question. They're trying to figure out. Where does God? What does God mean to me in the midst of all of this?

Speaker 1:

In the midst of.

Speaker 3:

We are in a world of upheaval and students are just trying to keep their footing, and so getting them connected to God is a major way that students can keep their footing, and so another book that we use as a resource was a book that was done by Fuller Youth Institute. They are a graduate program out of California, but they wrote a book called Three Big Questions. Every Teen is Asking, and these three big questions are who am I, where do I fit and what's my purpose? These are the questions that students during their teenage years are trying to answer who am I, what's my identity, what's my group, where do I fit, what's my tribe and what's my purpose? What do I want to do right now? What do I want to do for college? What do I want to do for the rest of my life?

Speaker 3:

So how can we as families, how can we as the church, how can we as a school, how, how, how, all these places where students are, how can we come together and look to answer these questions for students? Again, this is one of the. These are some of the conversations we were having all throughout the fall and all throughout the last, you know, last couple of months here in the spring we were at with a small group it was it was I was so impressed with the families that were involved.

Speaker 3:

I was so impressed with the conversations that were had.

Speaker 2:

It was really cool. Yeah, and a space where parents can share some of their struggles and hear from one another.

Speaker 3:

In some ways, we were a support group for each other.

Speaker 2:

We were, we were yeah, but just knowing and I think a parent at any stage right just knowing that I'm not the only one that this is normal, right is so helpful, absolutely, it's so helpful because otherwise we get stuck in our minds thinking what am I doing wrong? I'm screwing up my kid? Why is nobody else's kid doing this or acting this way or saying these things? Right, and it isolates us. We talked about that even further. So just hearing somebody else say hey, me too, my kid does that too. I'm having a hard time with this too is so affirming that we aren't alone and that we can support one another right, because we parent better in community, whether our kids are three, 13, whatever.

Speaker 3:

So what you're saying is there's an invitation on the table for parents to come together. And we didn't have a ton of homework. We did say, hey, if you want to check out this book, but we didn't.

Speaker 2:

We didn't we didn't make anybody read.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we did the reading and summarizing for people and then we just got the conversation rolling and parents just had an opportunity to be together in a room to breathe.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes we had snacks sometimes we had snacks to laugh at each other, because we're all in the same boat together and we're not surprised when someone shares a story. Very people were like what really? Instead, everyone just kind of rolled their eyes and probably saw a little bit either themselves or their kids in this situation. So, but we also. One of the things we want to do today is we wanted to give a couple of resources, yes, and so why don't you extend? When is our, do you know, the first meeting we're going to?

Speaker 2:

have. Yeah, it's the third Sunday in October.

Speaker 3:

So we're going to start back up in October for our small group.

Speaker 2:

Why not September, Amanda? Why not September? Because all of us that work with children are in chaos in September. That's right Myself, yourself, and parents too. So we want to get our feet on the ground with the new school year started and then we're going to gather, starting back up in October for our third Sundays at 9am for our small group. So every third Sunday, every third Sunday On the month Yep For parents of teens and tweens.

Speaker 3:

I can't believe that you want to let parents get a rhythm before we add something else. That just seems a ludicrous idea. You must be a parent.

Speaker 2:

I must be a parent and run a preschool?

Speaker 3:

I don't know. Yeah, we mentioned two books the Anxious Generation. We mentioned Three Big Questions that Change Every Teenager. We actually mentioned a third book Congrats, you're Having a Teen.

Speaker 2:

We both really like Congrats, You're Having a Teen. Yes, that was a great book.

Speaker 3:

Another resource that I came across and people have given to me is axisorg A-X-I-Sorg, which is they have a weekly email, but they came out with a parent's summer guide that you can download for 2024. And it's 27 pages, but it just kind of divides into different things, whether it be social media, mental health smartphones technology.

Speaker 3:

And so each page is maybe a couple of paragraphs and then it has a link. If you want to go further, like, oh, if your kid's struggling with anxiety, it has a link. And then some things I've seen. We kind of talked about one of the things we've got to do is we've got to get our kids out of isolation, whether it be dragging them out of their dark basements.

Speaker 2:

And summer really is the best time to do that, because it's nice out and the days are longer and warmer right. Much easier to do in the summer than the middle of the winter, that's true. What do you got going on this summer?

Speaker 3:

Oh, we got too much going on. According to you. I have too much going on and not enough vacation time. But I mean we have pool parties going, we have obviously the mission trip, we've got some just casual get togethers, you know, during drama camp.

Speaker 2:

We'll have a hangout here at the church where we're just playing some board games, just being together.

Speaker 3:

I'm so grateful for that as a parent. Yeah, it's going to be great, we're looking forward to it. And then the last one is one that I use is the Fuller Youth Institute. You can just Google Fuller Youth Institute and they have a blog where you can search and there's tons of articles and blog posts about anything you can think of. They have posts about it and they are just tremendous, whether it be articles by professors, articles by youth workers, and they come from a Christian perspective, which is great, as we're trying to not only answer those three big questions who am I, where do I fit and what's my purpose but also where's God in all of this? And so that's just so. We wanted to get together and talk about just the amazing time that we had with these parents. It was so encouraging, it was so uplifting and it was so. We had a lot of fun, we laughed really hard and we would love to see this, this experiment that we did last year three or four week experiment.

Speaker 3:

We piloted it and then they wouldn't stop and so, uh, just a once a month thing, and so we are so, so grateful for the families that came. We're so grateful for the families that will come. Um, but we just thought it was a really cool opportunity to have this conversation and open up the conversation about parenting teens and tweens and just the opportunity we have and just the moment we can celebrate and just being together, and so we want to thank you for listening to the Meet Hope podcast.

Speaker 2:

It's been fun.

Speaker 3:

It has been fun, and come find us and we'll tell you more about our small group.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we know that raising teens and tweens is not easy and not for the faint of heart, and so we just want to encourage you that if you are listening to this, you are doing a good job. You are doing a good job, and we also invite you to share this with other parents of teens and tweens, because they need to hear that too. So thank you for listening to Jason, and I share with you, and we welcome you to find us anytime and we can chat more.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for being a part of the Hope Community as we continue our conversations about faith and hope. If you don't already, please join us for worship on Sundays or on demand. You can learn more at meethopeorg or find us on socials at meethopechurch.