Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, Revised and Expanded provides an optimistic and faithful guide to parenting during some of the most challenging time periods of a child’s life. Paul David Tripp discusses the fear, cynicism and hopelessness that many parents feel during these times. Even faithful and intentional parents can feel as if the teenage years are just something that you push through and hope to survive. Tripp encourages parents to see these precious years as an age of opportunity to guide, equip, challenge and strengthen our children as they transition into adulthood. This book is targets the heart of your teen with targeted goals and practical application on raising teenagers in this complex world.
“We often talk about our teenagers as if they were nothing more than collections of raging, rebel hormones encased in developing skin. We see our goal as somehow holding these hormones back so that we can survive until our teens are teens no longer… Yes, we believe that God’s Word is powerful and effective—except if some poor soul is trying to apply it to a child between the years of thirteen and nineteen! We now even have a category of children called preteen.”
In this revised and expanded addition, Tripp updates the content from the 1997 version. Society has changed much since the first revision but parenting still remains vital to a teenagers development. Many of the core truths of the book are similarly found in Tripp’s book, Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family. This book focuses on the teenage years and helping your teenager navigate these years faithfully. Many parenting books seem to neglect these years and focus on hot-button issues such as spanking. Rather than focusing on the method of correction, attention needs to be given to the heart and the motivation behind the behavior.
My wife and I have imperfectly applied many of the principles and goals that Tripp advocates for in this book. While our teenagers are far from perfect, we have two amazing children that love God and who we have a close relationship with. Tripp reminds us that our goal is not to keep our children dependent on us, but to be “independent, mature people who, with reliance on God and proper connectedness to the Christian community, are able to stand on their own two feet.” Your teen need you to help navigate through the trials and difficulties so that they may be mature, not lacking anything. It is not too late for you and your teen.
“The teen years are often cataclysmic years of conflict, struggle, and grief. They are years of new temptations, of trial and testing. Yet these very struggles, conflicts, trials, and tests are what produce such wonderful parental opportunities.”
All parents of teens or children preparing to be teen should get this book. It is thoughtful and immensely helpful. More than parenting techniques or coping mechanisms, this book presents a Gospel-centered approach to discipling your teen while growing and sanctifying your own hearts. It will certainly grow you closer to your teen and closer to God.
“If our hearts are controlled by something other than God, we will not view the golden parenting opportunities of the teen years as opportunities at all. Instead they will be a constant stream of irritating hassles brought on by an incredibly self-centered person who is neither adult nor child and who has the uncanny ability to make even the most unimportant moments of our lives chaotic.”
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Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, Revised and Expanded By Paul David Tripp |
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The opinions I express are my own and I was not required to write a positive review.