A Third Party
Email 1
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Subject Line: A Third Party, Part One
Hi there!
Have you noticed your child sometimes won’t open up to you but seems to share everything with another family member or even a teacher or Sunday school leader? Sometimes, for whatever reason, kids close up to parents. Our video this month talks about the importance of considering inviting a Third Party into your parenting relationship—someone who can come alongside your child as they move into their tween and teen years who will listen to them and invest in their life.
Mentors are not parents, and they are more than friends. According to Mimi Bullock in her article How to Mentor a Christian Child, mentors are “God-appointed guides that lead children” through different seasons in their life. Children face a different world than their parents with powerful influences—both good and bad. A mentor can help kids find their way through tough times, help them make sense of who they are in the world and be a sounding board. Sometimes parents just can’t fill those roles.
Try not to look at a mentor relationship as failure as a parent. The Bible actually encourages many different mentoring relationships in a person’s life! Proverbs 11:14 reads: “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” The more positive relationships a child has in his or her life, the better.
As always, we pray this Online Parenting Class is helpful for you, the parent. Inviting a third party into your child’s life may be one of your best parenting decisions! I am always here to listen and help where I can.
Press on in your parenting!
https://vimeo.com/parentministry/review/175386737/2cce6e04a7
Children’s Pastor
Email 2
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Subject Line: A Third Party, Part 2
We’ve been talking this month about considering a mentor relationship for your child. Finding a mentor, however, can be tricky! Seek out insight from leaders at church or trusted friends; they may be able to make suggestions of a Christian college student or young adult with a heart for kids who might jump at the opportunity to pour into a child’s life!
Here are just a couple of suggestions when looking for a mentor.
A mentor must be the same gender. This is a no-brainer. In today’s world, and especially when you are trying to find a young adult or adult person to pour into your child’s life, it’s paramount that you protect your child from any possibility of an inappropriate relationship. In addition to this, same gender mentors will better understand your child and what they might be going through. The Bible alludes to same-gender discipling relationships in 1 Timothy 5:1: “Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, with all purity.”
Mentors should be good listeners. Children need a safe person who will not necessarily try to fix problems but will simply listen. Your child does not need another person to parent them—they need someone who will come alongside them and help them process things out. Choose a mentor who is “quick to listen” and “slow to speak” (James 1:19).
A mentor must be committed. Make sure the person you are considering as a mentor will be deeply committed to the well-being of your child and can be trusted to be available when they say they are. Kids are acutely aware of adults who break promises, and you will want to find a mentor who will be there when they say they will be there.
A mentor should never break confidentiality. Most importantly, a mentor must be committed to confidentially. Breaking confidentiality breaks trust, and your child will pick up on this. Establish ground rules ahead of time, however, for issues that the mentor will need to disclose to you should they arise. If your child expresses anything to their mentor that might impact their safety—abuse, an inappropriate relationship, self-harm or suicidal thoughts, the mentor needs to communicate that to you.
A mentor should be fun! Above all, an ideal mentor will be someone your child will want to be with. Look for someone willing to help your child enjoy life—to play, laugh and be silly. A mentor’s goal should be to encourage the personal and spiritual growth of your child, but also to help them see life as exciting and full of possibilities.
Here on the journey with you!
Children’s Pastor
Video Script
A Third Party
Now I know it’s not perfect, but being the parent of a child a lot of times can be really fun. I mean, let’s be honest, as soon as they get out of those potty training years, and they can actually start to kind of take care of themselves a little bit more. Now, there’s a lot less physical labor because the baby years is physical labor. Let’s be honest, it’s also sleep deprivation. Right? When you got those small little babies. At some point they kind of transfer, and they’re able to take care of themselves, and they’re sleeping more. You’re able to kind of really enjoy them as they view the world, and you can see the world all over again through their eyes as they see things for the first time. Man, it’s awesome to be the parent of a child.
I want to talk to you, in this video, about what’s coming next. You need to think about what’s coming next because it’s significant, and that is the teenage years. I’ve had a lot of parents tell me that in the teenage years, whereas a baby there was physical labor, being a parent of a teenager there’s a lot of emotional labor. You stay up all night, but you’re staying up all night to make sure they come home for their curfew, or wondering where they are when they’re out. Being a parent of teenager, I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you, it’s no easy task. It’s definitely not impossible, and there are ways you can thrive during that experience.
I want to set you up for that success, and there’s something actually that you can do now that’s going to help your experience as a parent of teenager be way, way, way, easier and more powerful. Let me tell you how to do it. Well, what you do is you hire a third party. I’m not saying you pay a third party, but here’s how you can be strategic. Right now, in your child’s life, you can invite in an outside voice. A person that is going to speak into their lives with some kind of mentoring authority that will begin to build a relationship and will commit to going on a journey with your child along with you.
Why in the world would you do that? Why would you invite someone into their lives in that way? Well, because there’s going to come a time as a teenager when the teenager is going to be testing all of their limits and boundaries. They’re going to test your words. That means, at times, they’re going to tune out your words. That means they’re going to need someone else to listen to. If you’ve been strategic in the childhood years. and you’ve invited that third party into the family experience, and they have someone in their lives that they’ve been talking to for a while and they trust that’s saying very similar things as you’ve said, that means that third party during those teenage years can play a really significant role in the process.
I hope you can see that there’s some real strategic things you can do now to help you in your journey later as the parent of a teenager. One of those big ones is inviting in that third party. I hope you’ll take time to think through who could be that kind of person that I would trust enough to be that influential in my child’s life. The truth is, in the end, your child will be better for it.
Texts/Tweets
TIP: Choose a hashtag for your tweets and use it consistently. That will tell Twitter to store a list of your tweets on one place for later reference.
Tweet One: Mentors can help your child grow personally and spiritually. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Two: Mentors do not replace parents . . . They come alongside them. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Three: Trust is paramount in a mentoring relationship. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Four: A child will remember a mentoring relationship forever. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Five: Mentors are God-appointed guides for children. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Six: In an abundance of counselors there is safety. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Seven: The more positive relationships a child has in his or her life, the better. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Eight: Great mentors aren’t easy to find, but impossible to forget. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Nine: Look for help along the journey. #youdonthavetoparentalone
Tweet Ten: The best mentors see the best in a child and help to bring that out. #youdonthavetoparentalone