It’s only natural for a parent to want a happy and healthy teenager. After all, what parent wouldn’t want to feel that their child’s emotional needs were being met? As harmless as this desire may be, there are times parents can feel pressure to forego their biblical principles to avoid disappointing their teenager.
![Why Avoiding Disappointment May Not Fulfill Your Teen’s Emotional Needs [One Minute Feature]](https://licensetoparent.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Girl-at-Sunset-2.jpg)
What if your teenager’s happiness shouldn’t be the end goal of parenting? Is it possible to better fulfill your teen’s needs by sticking to your principles, even if that results in disappointment for your child?
How Biblical Principles May Benefit Teenagers More Than Avoiding Their Disappointment
Too many Christian parents are willing to compromise—or even abandon—what should be their biblical parenting stances for fear of disappointing their kids. In other words, keeping their kids smiling for the moment too often takes priority over sticking to wise parenting principles. If our first priority in life really is to obey and emulate the wisdom of Christ, why then do we too often compromise by pandering to our kids’ childish ways?
When our role model, Jesus, told the rich young ruler what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, he went away sad; yet, Jesus simply let him go. Keeping him smiling for the moment wasn’t priority. His eternal welfare was. That, likewise, should be our position with our kids.
Photo by: Max Pixel
