{"id":2825,"date":"2012-10-24T20:06:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T01:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2013-01-24T21:21:08","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T02:21:08","slug":"gch-pots-parents-of-teens-starting-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2012\/10\/24\/gch-pots-parents-of-teens-starting-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"GCH: POTs (Parents of Teens) Starting the Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>The most important side of your kids\u2026.<\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"color: #800080;\"><em>The inside!<\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n<p>I don\u2019t know about your kids, but mine are experts at talking about nothing\u2026 a lot!!! And for years, I was pretty good at keeping things surface with them\u2026. partly because I was afraid to dig deeper, if you know what I mean. God really convicted me in this area and I\u2019m so glad he did!<\/p>\n<p>I have always been really good about knowing exactly what my kids want as gifts and what their favorite foods are\u2026. But what about the <i>really<\/i> important stuff? Do you know\u2026.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How their small group is going at church?<\/li>\n<li>If they have any Christian friends at school or in your neighborhood?<\/li>\n<li>What their hopes and dreams are?<\/li>\n<li>What they like most about themselves?<\/li>\n<li>What breaks their heart?<\/li>\n<li>What their Love Language is?<\/li>\n<li>Their biggest fears?<\/li>\n<li>If they see you and your spouse as Spiritual Leaders in your home?<\/li>\n<li>Who their favorite teachers are?<\/li>\n<li>The latest miracle God performed in their life?<\/li>\n<li>Who is their best friend?<\/li>\n<li>Their biggest challenges at school (not only academically)?<\/li>\n<li>How you can pray for them?<\/li>\n<li>Fill in the blank_____________________________?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>My kids had\/ have the extra challenge of being non-biological to me and had a whole other set of insecurities and hurts that many kids aren\u2019t challenged with\u2026 but that was also a subject that I had to tread light with talking to them about and getting them to open up about because I wanted to protect my heart too, right? Well, once I let that go and let them see they were safe to open up with me, healing was able to begin. Did some of what they told me hurt? YES!!!!! But it really wasn\u2019t about me. It is always so much more important that your kids feel safe talking to you about what is on their mind and heart than how YOU might feel about what they say!<\/p>\n<p><b style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">I would like to challenge you for the next few days to engage in meaningful conversation with your kids about God\u2019s unique plan for their lives, based on how God has uniquely created them to be.<\/b>\u00a0If you talk about nothing else \u201cdeep\u201d, \u00a0it\u2019s okay\u2026 this is a safe way to start and will get the dialog flowing! Remember\u2026. It\u2019s a DIAlog you\u2019re after\u2026 not a MONOlog!\u00a0\ud83d\ude42 \u00a0Think about it\u2026. other than the topic of salvation, I cannot think of any other more important conversation we can have with our teens than the one about personal surrender to God\u2019s will for their life! There is no hat we wear as \u201cparent\u201d that is more important than this\u2026 and THAT is why we are starting here with this blog!<\/p>\n<p>In the days and weeks to come, we are going on an awesome, life-journey together with our teens as we grow closer and deeper in our relationship with them. Please don\u2019t wait to do this! Begin to make a difference NOW and join us as we make this intentional stand to give our teens all we\u2019ve got!<\/p>\n<p>Dear Lord, thank you for stirring a hunger in each parent or youth leader reading this blog post to want to be more intentional about how they are relating to their teen! May You be glorified through each and every single conversation. As iron sharpens iron, give us each a boldness to share with each other our successes and opportunities we come across this week. Protect each household and give them Your mighty boldness with their kids! In Jesus\u2019 name we pray, Amen &lt;3<\/p>\n<p><i>Please leave me a comment on today\u2019s blog about how you plan on starting this conversation with your kids! We are all in this together\u2026 so let\u2019s work together to help each other along! <\/i><\/p>\n<p>Blessings to you and yours,<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Megan<\/strong> <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\":)\" src=\"http:\/\/s0.wp.com\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_smile.gif?m=1129645325g\" \/> <\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"mailto:megan@girlfriendscoffeehour.com\">megan@girlfriendscoffeehour.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/megan.smidt\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/megan.smidt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sign up for one of our Online Bible Study or Fellowship Groups for Women and Teen Girls here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/sign-up-for-girlfriends-coffee-hour-online-bible-studies\/\">http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/sign-up-for-girlfriends-coffee-hour-online-bible-studies\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most important side of your kids\u2026. The inside! I don\u2019t know about your kids, but mine are experts at talking about nothing\u2026 a lot!!! And for years, I was pretty good at keeping things surface with them\u2026. partly because I was afraid to dig deeper, if you know what I mean. God really convicted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[218,258,370,422,436,497,692,741,742,791,879,994,1011,1042,1043,1156],"class_list":["post-2825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parents-2","tag-christianity","tag-conversation","tag-family","tag-gifts","tag-god","tag-help","tag-mission","tag-parents","tag-parents-of-teenagers","tag-prayer","tag-relationships","tag-spiritual-gifts","tag-step-family","tag-teenagers","tag-teens-2","tag-youth","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-Jz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8230,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions\/8230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}