One of the greatest gifts God gives his children is free will, but I sometimes wonder if he’d consider temporarily taking that gift away from his teens.
Or…if he won’t suspend their free will…maybe he’d consider giving moms a temporary super power: the ability to jump into the skin of teens just long enough to rearrange their thinking a bit. Oh, the pain and suffering we could save our families {and perhaps the world} if moms could clean up cluttered teen brains as easily as their messy bedrooms.
But it doesn’t look like God’s planning to do either one, and so we moms are left with mere human methods when trying to inspire our teens to choose well.
And some of those methods actually work. Like using story.
I discovered the magical power of story when my daughter was a junior in high school. It was pretty early in the year when I reached my limit…my drama limit, that is. Nearly every morning my sweet, once-full-of-life, baby girl would look at me and say something like, “Bye, mom. I’m off to hell.”
And nearly every afternoon she’d come in looking even more miserable as she recounted the friend, and boy, and miscellaneous other teen drama from her day. She hated school, and her depression was contributing to her declining ability to make good decisions.
My husband and I knew something needed to change. We knew this had to be her last year in high school because another year of the same wasn’t going to be pretty. We also knew exactly what we wanted her to do instead—we wanted her to go on the mission field for a while. We wanted her to go experience God and the adventure of living for Him. We just knew it would change her life.
But we didn’t know how to make her want it. What teenage girl, no matter how miserable, wants to miss her senior year of high school? Senior prom? Senior pictures?
So we prayed. I begged God to help me inspire her to want a change. Neither my husband nor I wanted to mandate it. And God answered my prayer with a great idea. A story idea.
After school one day I sat my daughter down at the kitchen table and told her a story. It went a bit like this:
Once upon a time there was a beautiful, full-of-life, blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby girl. She grew up happy, loving music and frogs and everything water. She had good friends, loved family time, and talked about her dreams of the future with hope. The girl grew in her talents and got wonderful grades in school. She was smart—as smart as a girl could be. But much of this changed by the time she was in high school. And by the time she was in eleventh grade, she was miserable. She dreaded school. Her friendships were a mess, and she was making really poor choices. She could hardly get up in the mornings, for her joy was fading. When it was time for her senior year to begin, she loaded up her new backpack, shrugged her shoulders, wiped away a tear, and went back from another year of the same drama…the same frustrations…and even worse decisions. The end.
And then I told her another story—one that started off exactly as the first, but took a turn in the middle:
…She dreaded school. Her friendships were a mess, and she was making really poor choices. She could hardly get up in the mornings, for her joy was fading. And that is when she made a brave decision. The beautiful young girl decided to double up on a few classes so that she could graduate from high school at the end of her junior year. She decided to sign up for a six-month mission program so she could travel to the other side of the world. She traveled, met new friends, helped love on the least and the lost. And it changed her life. She walked with God. She felt purpose. She felt alive.
And after story two I asked my daughter this: “You are the girl. Which story do you pick for your life?”
And without even a slight hesitation she said, “Mom, I want story two.”
Within a couple of weeks she had changed her class schedule around so that she could graduate early. She was enrolled in a mission school for the following fall. She had a plan. She made a great decision.
And I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe how easy it had been. Could story be that powerful? I believe so.
[Tweet “No one wants to be the protagonist in a boring or depressing story. We want to live an epic life. Our teens want to live an epic life. #teens #familystory”]
I don’t know anyone who wants to be the protagonist in a boring or depressing story. We all long to be the champion…the underdog who comes out ahead…the princess who gets the prince. We want to live an epic life. Our teens want to live an epic life.
And I believe they want it even more when they imagine their story.
Dear friend…do you have a teen who’s making poor choices? I know exactly how you feel. I encourage you to try this story idea. And…your story isn’t over either. Could you use some inspiration? How do you want your story to end?
Check out our entire series on family story >> How To Write Your Family Story
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