“Same team.”
Every Thanksgiving our church hosts a game of pick-up football at Buckeye Woods. We call it the “Turkey Bowl,” and it’s a fun recreational game to which guys invite their buddies. There are no official jerseys, which means things can get confusing when several guys all go for the football.
“Same team.”
When a collision is about to happen between a player and teammate, it’s always a good idea to call it out. Sometimes adrenaline can take over common sense, causing people who should be working together to try to rip the ball out of each other’s hands. It’s easy to take it personally, too, as if the other person intended to frustrate the play you were about to make.
“Same team.”
What an intriguing metaphor for parenting or mentoring teens and tweens. At times it can feel as if our effort to score a goal with a young person is met by them wanting to rip the ball out of our hands. As in football, it’s easy to take this personally as if they purposefully intended to frustrate our efforts.
Perhaps they truly did, and we all know situations of kids rebelling for no other reason (it seems) than to rebel. It’s been my experience, though, that most of the time what feels like rebellion is actually their attempt to grab the ball themselves. They’re at an age when they feel as if they can handle more responsibility (whether they actually can or can’t).
After all, you’re not just raising a kid, you’re creating a future adult.
When we avoid disciplining tweens and teens, we blindly believe they’ll figure out life themselves. For example, if you assume “everyone’s doing it” and supply your adolescent with a box of condoms or birth control pills and a pat on the back, you haven’t truly given them the skill set to control his or her body in a way that honors the future. Maybe you’re afraid you’ll make your son or daughter mad, but that’s like us fumbling the ball on purpose and yelling at them for it.
Consider this principle: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it” (
What this truth teaches is the “same team” concept — that we may find our young people trying to strip the ball out of our hands, assuming we’re against them. To resist this, we proactively discipline in an integrated way:
• Claim the field: Football fields have lines — not to restrict play but to allow for it. Let your tween or teen understand what’s in bounds and out of bounds, inside and outside your household before something challenges those expectations. Share your belief system with confidence—use “Our family…” statements to know what you’re for and against.
• Huddle up: A huddle is when everyone figures out what they get to do in the next play, and kids need to know what decisions they have the freedom to make. Often parents make a big deal about behavior or choices that have no great moral significance such as hairstyle or hair color. There will be plenty of real issues and crucial confrontations that will require you to hang on to the ball, but in the meantime find ways to pass it off and let them feel a part of the game.
• Point out the goal: When you discipline, share the goal behind it (versus “because I said so”) so everyone understands what it means to score. Practice what you preach, too—you can’t bust a kid for lying then command him or her when the phone rings, “Tell them I’m not home.”
• Bench a player as needed: Kids need to know you love them enough to remove freedoms and privileges when they’re being irresponsible. Don’t be afraid to ground them from an extracurricular they wrap their identity in or a cell phone they “can’t live without.” The opposite is true, though—reward good behavior by adding more freedoms and privileges. That’s more important to them than anything else at this age.
“Same team” discipline is about lining up the current play with the big picture. Don’t hog the ball on things that don’t matter, but absolutely dive for it on things that do. In this way, you’ll communicate to a young person that he or she counts and you’re working together.
Of course, they may not see this until they get older, but you will (and that alone may save your sanity).
Until then, see you next week…if not around town.
Fully-Alive Living offers weekly insights to serve you in taking another step forward in matters of the heart, soul, mind, body and relationships. With more than 20 years of experience and advanced education in working with people of all ages, Tony Myles and his family live in Medina where he serves as the Lead Pastor of Connection Church.
Personal blog: DontCallMeVeronica.Blogspot.com
Leadership blog: TonyMyles.Blogspot.com
