Today I give you my teen and my tween. Bekah and Sam. They are currently 13 and 11. In the picture to the right they are 7and 5, pretending to drive away at Mickey’s toon town. Those were sweet days with my girls, days of homeschooling and baking, reading and playing on the driveway with chalk and skates. Back then, my life was simpler, little girls played with barbies and polly pockets, ate their dinner, read books and fell asleep peacefully. Well not every night, but I do long for the sweet simple world of raising little girls. These days it seems my world can be consumed with just raising my boys who are wild and crazy and have more energy than I have ever seen. I can get busy with Lego’s and action figures, video games and football practices, and I find myself struggling to spend time with the two growing middle school beauties in my life. Sometimes I am grumpy and exhausted by the time they even come through the door close to dinner time. But I am compelled to capture their hearts. No matter what it takes; no matter how I feel.
The Tween’s heart is still open and it is still easy to connect with her, you just have to set her in motion and she will tell you everything you want to know and then some and I am taking full advantage of this. I listen and listen, we laugh and joke and at the same time I am filing away important information and pouring into her values and morals and truths while we talk in the kitchen daily and nightly.
The Teen at 13 is a bit trickier. A busy life and hormones can keep us at bay for days, so I look for those moments. Those little windows of opportunity, when everyone else is asleep and we should be too, that is when I can capture the heart of my teen. With her head in my lap on the couch or back to back on the stairwell, we will ponder life’s tough questions together and share secrets. I will listen and give advice for a few minutes or sometime an hour and our hearts become intertwined as we say goodnight at the top of the stairs. But sometimes these moments are rare and feel few and far between. Like any relationship, a personal investment of time or a small caring gesture will let them know you are thinking about them during the week and can pave the way into their hearts more often. Here are a few things I do to purposely soften and open up the souls of my tall beauties and try to stay connected to their hearts.
- . Offer to drive them to school instead of take the bus for no reason at all
- Put something yummy, ( or funny!) into their backpacks
- Send them a text message on the morning bus.
- After an afternoon dentist appointment, play hooky!
- Take them along on a boring errand and make it fun.
- Watch a cheesy movie with them
- What do they love to do? Do that with them.
- What do you love to do? Invite them to do that with you.
- Lie on their beds’ and fold laundry and ponder life’s mysteries.
- Or ask about a boy!
- “Nonchalantly” ask who likes who and why!
- Ask what does it mean to be popular.
- Ask why do you think girls can be mean.
- Get into their life, on purpose.
Sure, I run the risk of these things backfiring on me or my girls might think I am a big nosey dork and order me to get off their bed. ( which rarely happens) But I am willing to take that risk because in the back of my mind I know I have sowed a seed that will eventually bear fruit… late at night… when I am tired, on the stairs, or in the kitchen, there I will capture their hearts and we will connect.
All too soon they will drive away “for reals” from my crazy toon town. My prayer as a mom is to have captured their hearts and cultivated a life long relationship with them so we will never truly be apart.
Ephesians15-16
[…] a previous blog post, I listed some of my ideas to soften hearts and open […]