The Key To Cultivating a Great Relationship With Your Teen [New Podcast]

Season 1

July 26, 2022

This week's podcast episode features special guest Tedd Tripp - speaker, pastor, and author of several Christian parenting books including Shepherding a Child's Heart. You can listen to the episode here, where Tedd talks with Ty Fischer about how parents can better connect with their teenage (or even tween) children.

“The finest art of communication is not learning how to express your thoughts. It is learning how to draw out the thoughts of another.” - Ted Tripp, Shepherding a Child's Heart

The crux of the final stage of education at Veritas (and in classical Christian education in general), the Rhetoric stage, is meant to produce young adults who are exceptional communicators.

In order to accomplish this in our students' lives, we work to create an atmosphere where these teens can freely practice listening and responding to one another and to their teachers with meaningful, rich conversation. We want them to dig deeper, to uncover the heart behind ideas, and to learn to respect and connect with others of varying viewpoints and walks of life.

As parents, we all want to experience that delightful communication - or, perhaps more specifically, communion - with our kids. And as our kids get older and more independent, sometimes we find that precious relationship becoming more tenuous. Often to our great dismay, we find that we are no longer able to draw out the thoughts of our enigmatic children.

Maybe you're a parent of a teen or tween who's beginning to feel that slip toward a more strained, if not apathetic relationship with your child. Perhaps you have younger children, but you're looking ahead to the teen years and wanting to get a heads up on how to stave off some of those common struggles you've heard that plague the teenage parenting years. Or, you're someone who mentors teens - a youth pastor, teacher, volunteer - with a desire to better connect with them.

Authority Gives Way To Influence

"As a parent of a teenager, I want to cultivate a relationship that gives me influence with this teenager, because I recognize that he or she is growing; they're on the cusp of being adults," says author and speaker Tedd Tripp.

Wherever you are in your parenting journey, you want to finish this race well while you have your kids in your home and under your care. To know that they are not only equipped for the world outside the walls of your home, but that they also will always love returning within those walls for refreshing and encouraging times of wisdom, joy, and love.

If your hope for your older children is that they not only respect your instruction, but seek out your wisdom and offer up the thoughts of their own hearts as they grow into young adulthood, you'll have much to gain in listening to our latest Cultivate podcast episode with guest Tedd Tripp. The author of the popular book Shepherding a Child's Heart and founder of Shepherding the Heart Ministries, Tedd is a sought-after speaker on Christian parenting.

"What I can accomplish just by being an authority in my child's life is decreasing every single day because he's spending more and more time away from me. He's imagining himself already independent of me," says Tedd about parenting teenagers.

"But what I can accomplish as a person of influence grows, because the more I cultivate a relationship, then the more I have influence for my child, I think that is such an important thing for us to pursue as parents."

One of the core values of Veritas is Supporting Families, and this podcast is just one way that we do that. Our goal is to come alongside parents in training up their children to be loving, serving, thinking people - young adults who are prepared to step out in the calling God has for them, and who are joyful and thriving in their relationships. We know the conversations in this episode will encourage you in building a loving, respectful, God-honoring relationship with your children as they grow!