Blog tour with Rebecca Powell

Hey Ladies,

Last year I had the opportunity to meet a woman named Rebecca Powell. She came to lead a conference for middle school age girls in our county and I did a story on that event for our newspaper. I’ve kept in touch with Rebecca since then and have really come to respect and admire her. She has a heart for God and for a passion for reaching middle schoolers and helping parents relate to them.
If you read the magazine ParentLife, you may have read her monthly column, “A Mom’s Life.” She has also been published many other places and has written books and Bible studies. Her newest book, Season of Change: Parenting Your Middle Schooler with Passion and Purpose, is designed to help parents navigate the turbulent middle school years.  
I’m only starting to glimpse the craziness that goes along with those years as my oldest is now 10 and will be in middle school next year, but as I’ve talked with Rebecca, I’ve realized I better get ready now!
I’m really pleased to be a part of Rebecca’s blog tour to promote her new book. You can learn more about her and order her book at her website, www.rebeccapowell.com. In addition to being a writer, speaker and mom, Rebecca is also a minister’s wife. I asked her a few questions about the unique challenges faced by those in the ministry when parenting a middle schooler. Here is what she had to say…
PAM: How can I encourage my middle schooler to stay connected to Christ and
involved in church activities when he is being pulled in so many other
directions? (Let's just start with a hard one!)
 
RIP (Rebecca Ingram Powell): Be sure you are focused on helping your child establish his own daily
quiet time. This is an age when we as parents need to back off and let our
child begin to assume some responsibility for his own faith. Bible studies
(I have some for this age at my website www.rebeccapowell.com) that he can do on
his own are critical for this age. You provide the time and the space and
the encouragement to “Go have your quiet time” (My daughter calls it her
“God time.”), and then you back off. Check in once a week to see what he’s
learning, and ask what God is teaching. You can also encourage your child by
being diligent with your own God time and talking openly about what the Lord
is teaching you.
 
PAM: My middle schooler wants to let his hair grow long (or for a girl, get a
funky haircut) and I'm worried about what the congregation will think. What
do I do?
 
RIP: Wow, Pam! I can see both sides of this question. Not only can I speak
from my experience as a Preacher’s Kid (PK), but now, with a husband in
ministry (Rich serves bi-vocationally as the minister of missions at our
church), I know firsthand what it’s like to worry about what the
congregation will think! And I believe that’s where we go wrong!
 As Christian parents, we need to place our first concern with what God
thinks. We need to go to Him with every parenting question. In this
particular example, I think the bottom line must be your relationship with
your children. I know lots of PKs who, when they were growing up, felt that
the church came first. If the church comes first, then our priorities are
out of order. God comes first—absolutely-- but God and the church are not one
and the same! For those in pastoral positions, the church represents 1) the
fellowship of believers, and 2) our life’s work. It is not God.
 For our middle schoolers, who spend so much of their time concerned about
what everybody else thinks, we parents need to be the ones that show them a
better way of living! When we value how our life and character appear before
God, we are showing our children a pure heart.
 The other thing I would point out is that as a parent, after God, I care
what my kids think. And I’m not talking about my parental actions being
dictated by whether or not my children like me. The truth is, they are not
always going to like what I do! However, I do care what they think and what
they truly KNOW about me. I love them unconditionally. If I have a child who
wants to grow his hair because he wants to prove he is a rebel and hang out
with a defiant crowd, then this request has become a heart issue. I need to
find out what is going on in my child’s heart. On the other hand, if I have
an artistic child who wants to experiment with fashion and do something
crazy with her hair, well, hair grows back! But tell a middler that you
don’t want her doing something because of what the church members will
think, and it will take a long time for that relationship to grow back.
 
PAM: Say a family has just accepted a call to another church far from their current location.
Their middle schooler is very upset about leaving her friends and starting a
new school. How can the family help her make that transition?
 
RIP: This is exactly what happened to me! I share in  Season of Change about how my family moved across the state right before my sixth grade year. If you find that your family is in this position, your middler needs to know the how’s
and the why’s of what went into the decision you made. If your family has
been called (and if God calls Daddy, He calls everybody), then let your
child in on those details. How did God confirm it? How do you know this is
what you are supposed to do? Middle schoolers are old enough for you to
share how God led you to make the decision you are making, and it is
important for them to understand that you, the parent, “know that you know
that you know” that this is what God wants. Then you need to continually
bathe everything in prayer, and ask God to do the things for your child that
you can’t, such as leading her to friends, getting her in the right classes,
and helping her to trust Him. What you don’t ever want to do is minimize the
trauma of a move or its real effect on your child emotionally and
socially-- which can even play out in stress-related physical issues.
 
PAM: My middle schooler says some of his friends treat him differently or don't
include him in certain things because he is the preacher's kid. How can I
help him deal with this?
RIP: Whatever you do, don’t dismiss it. It’s true. When I was around 15
years old, I asked the boy who lived across the street from me why no one
ever asked me out. He looked at me as though I was a complete idiot. “Your
dad’s a preacher,” he said, with a DUH! look on his face. Uhmmm, so that
meant I had the plague?
 For some kids, they simply feel left out. It isn’t so much that they want to
be included in the activities they are being left out of, it’s just that
they long to be invited. For some, however, this is an open invitation to
“proving” something. It nudges a defiance within them that wants to “show
everybody” that they are just as daring, just as reckless, and just as cool
as whatever group they want to be part of. Now we’re back to a heart issue.
Find out what’s really going on.
 
Practically speaking, be sure your home is open. Your house needs to be the
fun house-- no matte r how big or small it is. Your kid’s friends need to see
that you and especially your husband are real people and they need to see
that in a home environment. Teach your child to be an “includer.”
Plus, the Christian life is full of opportunities for daring, risky, cool
things! A life of adventure in Christ is what we should be showing our kids,
especially as they get to the middle school years. One of the main elements
of HYPERLINK "http://www.rebeccapowell.com/season.html" Season of Change
is challenging parents to focus on their child’s gifts and then get them
“out there” doing it. Keep them busy doing things they love, and the
same-ol’-same-ol’ teen scene won’t be quite as appealing.
 
PAM: My husband is always busy with church things and sometimes the kids feel
like he doesn't have much time for them. How can I encourage him to become
more involved and connected?
 
RIP: I think that we need to spend a lot of time praying for our husbands.
Pray for them to keep their priorities straight. And pray for them to pray!
Pastors have so much on their plates, and it takes a great deal of
discipline for them to cling to their daily quiet time. But it’s essential.
They have to. However, as wives, we can also step up to the plate on their
behalf, and we should-- diligently.
 Clear off a few nights a week and let him know that it is family night and
you are not going to budge on it. No cell phone, no interruptions! Encourage
him to “date” his kids; this is a concept explained fully in HYPERLINK
"http://www.rebeccapowell.com/season.html" Season of Change . Remind him
that your family sets an example for all the church families. Remind him
that these children running around your house are rapidly disappearing and
being replaced by teenagers. And before you know it, those teens will be out
of the house, too. Some things can wait, but parenting isn’t one of them.
If these insights helped you out, you really need to check out Rebecca’s book. And if you have any thoughts, comments or questions, post them here. Whether your child is an infant, toddler or preteen, he or she will go through these middle school years eventually and I know I need all the help I can get to be ready for that time!

 

 1 Comments posted by: Pam Cassady on September 16th, 2008