Mark Matlock - Wisdom On ... Getting Along with Parents

INVERT YOUTH SPECIALTIES

WISDOM ON...GETTING ALONG WITH PARENTS
Copyright 2008 by Mark Matlock

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition June 2009 ISBN: 0-310-86481-X

Youth Specialties resources, 300 S. Pierce St., El Cajon, CA 92020 are published by Zondervan, 5300 Patterson Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49530.

ISBN 978-0-310-27929-7

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Web site addresses listed in this book were current at the time of publication. Please contact Youth Specialties via e-mail (YS@YouthSpecialties. com) to report URLs that are no longer operational and replacement URLs if available.

Cover design by SharpSeven Design

08 09 10 11 12 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my grandparents, George and Nora Matlock and Ray and Ruth Albrecht. They were good friends before my parents fell in love, and they helped start the church I grew up in. Not only have they been essential in my spiritual growth and maturity, they made MY parents!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A big thanks to everyone who has helped make this series a reality: Chris Lyon, fellow friend and writer; Randy Southern, for excellent editing and feedback; Holly Sharp, for the cool covers; Roni Meek and Jay Howver at Youth Specialties; and the others I havent met who had to correct my spelling and punctuation. Thank you all. You make your parents proud.

CHAPTER 1
WISDOM ON PARENTS?
REALLY?

My dad and I had been working outside all Saturday morning. My father loves to prune trees and bushes, and on our three acres there were plenty of trees and bushes to clip.

On this particular Saturday morning, Id been recruited to help my dadwhether I liked it or not. My job was to deliver wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of clippings to the dumpster. The piles seemed endless to me. And my father had no intention of stopping. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled about spending my Saturday doing yard work.

When the dumpster was full, I assumed we were done for the day. So when my dad moved on to another tree, my blood started to boil.

Lets take a break for a moment, my father finally suggested. As we sat in the shade, my dad started giving me a hard time about my attitude. He knew I wasnt happy, but his feeble attempts to cheer me up only fueled my frustration. Then something bad happened.

My dad started mimicking my pouting face, and I decided Id had enough. In the heat of the moment, I did something Id never done beforeand have never done since. I punched my fatherright in the chest.

He was stunned. I was stunned. Hitting was unacceptable in my family. Where had my violent outburst come from? I didnt pause to wonder. Instead, I started running. And my dad started running after me.

My dad hadnt chased me since I was in elementary school, but I remembered that Id never been able to get away from him. He always caught me. But things had changed since then. Now I was 15 years old, and my dad was also much older. And I was on the track and field team at my high school.

I sprinted across our three acres to a corner of the property furthest from our house. I didnt look back because I was afraid that if I did, Id see my dads arm reaching out to grab me. But when I got to the fence at the back of the property, I had no choice. I was out of options. So I turned around to find that my dad wasnot even close to me.

He was about an acre away, hunched over, and huffing and puffing. I had outrun my father.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldnt help smiling. Id beaten my dad! All my life, hed won every competition wed ever had. Board games, tennis, basketballhe beat me at everything. Finally, though, the tables had turned. Id beaten him at something.

My dad stood up, smiled at me, and waved as I did a little victory dance. And that made me reconsider my situation. Why had my dad smiled at me? Why did he walk back to the house?

I sat down on a clump of grass and reviewed my circumstances. I had won; he had lost. But I was sitting alone in the field, and he was in the house! I knew at some point I was going to have to face him. I couldnt stay in the field all dayor could I?

My dad had smiled because he knew Id have to return home eventually. And then Id have to deal with the consequences of my actions. I learned the hard way that in a battle between parent and kid, theres rarely a clearcut winner. I hope I can offer you some chunks of wisdom to help you in your relationship with your parents.

As I travel around the country and speak to students in personas well as onlineI hear a lot of talk about parents. And the things I hear arent all that different from the things my friends and I said about our parents.

I love my parents, but

They just dont understand me.

They think Im still a kid.

They dont get what its like to be a kid these days.

I cant stand how they try to control everything I do.

Why dont they listen to what I say?

Why cant they understand that I just want to be left alone?

Why do they have to make such a big deal out of everything?

What if theyre wrong?

At some point most students will have to deal with tough times in their relationships with their parents. And when a serious conflict occurs, it can have a huge impact on your life. It can affect every other relationship you have. It can cause you to doubt yourself. It can make you question everything you thought you could take for granted. Like it or not, the way you deal with your parents will become a cornerstone of the rest of your life.

For all of its importance, though, Ive found that students arent very interested in hearing about how to get along with their parents. Theyd much rather hear Gods wisdom regarding sex and dating, or movies and music, or making money.

Why is there so little interest in an issue as important or vital as your firstand probably longest-lastingrelationship? For one thing, most students believe theyre doing just fine with their moms and dads, thankyouverymuch. Recent surveys reveal that teenagers and parents are pretty happy together, for the most part. Despite the fact that most students will go through a rough time with the rents, the majority say theyre in an okay place at any given moment. So why talk about fixing what seemingly isnt broken? For starters, being okay isnt always the same thing as living wisely in relation to our parentsbut well cover more on that later.

On the other side of the coin, many students who are currently on the outs with Mom and Dad dont want to hear me talk about Gods wisdom on the issue because theyre convinced they already know what Im going to say: Your parents are right. Youre wrong. So be quiet and do what they say. Actually, thats not what I saybut there will be more on that subject a little later as well.