Shepherding a Child's Heart

(Barré) #1

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Chapter 18
Teenagers: Training Objectives
Hello, Dad?”
(^) I recognized the voice on the other end of the line, of course. It
was my son, who had stopped by my study earlier to borrow the car to
go to the mall.
(^) “Hi, what’s up?” I queried, trying to sound casual and confident to
him.
(^) “I locked the keys in the car,” was his nervous reply.
(^) “That’s okay. I have another key in my wallet. I’ll come over—”
Here, I was interrupted.
(^) “Dad, uh, uh, before I locked the keys in the car, I had an accident.
Uh, just a little one ... not too bad ... I don’t think it was my fault ...
Oh, Dad, I’m all right.”
(^) One thing you learn about teen drivers is that accidents are always
“just little ones” and they are never at fault!
(^) Many folks live in fear of the days when their children will be
teens. It’s not just the accidents—we’ve all learned by now that cars
are dispensable. Parents live in fear of having teenagers because they
fear the alienation which these years seem to bring. They fear having
the kind of relationships that they have witnessed between parents and
children. We have all heard the little proverb, “Little kids, little
problems; big kids, big problems.”
Signs of the Times
(^) The benchmarks for this period of life are the onset of puberty and

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