A Billion Conversations

Years ago when I came up with the tagline "healthy conversations, healthy teens"

I was naive...so naive.

You see, at the time I didn't yet have a teen. While I had worked with teens for over ten years and knew a lot about them, there were some things that I didn't yet know. Things that I couldn't know until I actually parented a teen.

The thing that I was most naive about was the number of conversations that it would take. In my naivety I thought it would take way fewer conversations to guide my teen than it actually does. The reality is that it will take a billion conversations. Okay, I may be exaggerating a little bit, but not by much.

And this is all while parenting a teen who is an awesome young man with a great heart. I can't imagine how many more conversations it would take if he wasn't this way.

The problem is me thinking that my son only needs to discuss things a few times for him to process what's going on in his life. And for him to absorb some of the wisdom I am imparting to him. I need to get over the feeling that I am overbearing and bothersome when I do this. Because when I don't keep talking about these things I am leaving him on an island, while he is trying to grow up in this turbulent world.

So what about you?

Do you need to have more healthy conversations with your teen? The conversations don't need to be long. They don't need to be lectures. They don't need to happen in a certain place.

They just need to happen over and over.

Because "healthy conversations, healthy teens" only can happen when we have a billion conversations.

Mike Van Drie

Pastor of Redemption City Fellowship