Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up With Your Teenager

Pastor-teacher Eugene Peterson turns his attention to parent-adolescent relations. His insights help promote an atmosphere of communication, growth, frankness, forgiveness, love, and harmony in the home. Peterson presents adolescence not as a problem to solve, not as a challenge to meet with techniques, but as a gift. He says that adolescence is not only a gift to the child for their transition into adulthood but also a gift to middle-aged parents to help parents grow into a deeper relationship with their children and with God. The 12 chapters untangle the dilemmas of comments that parents fear hearing: "I'll dress the way I want", "You never trust me", "You aren't going to tell me what to do", "If you'd love me, you'd let me", "I'm not going to church" and "You're nothing but a hypocrite." Peterson addresses cars and drugs, discipline and communication, faith and identity, spirituality and emotions. His sympathetic insights help the reader understand what is a strenuous process and also points positively towards how to promote communication and acceptance, trust and love, and how to embrace learning and growth rather than allowing misunderstandings and resentment to escalate. His advice is not so much about how to make teenagers obey and go to church, but how to find their own identity and make their own decisions about God.