Gary Chapman on Decoding Your Teen’s True Desires

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Gary Chapman’s Must-Read Advice for Teen Parents

Guest:Gary Chapman

From the series:Lessons Learned Before the Teen Years (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:June 5, 2026

Gary (00:04):

I think the most sobering question I ever asked myself, when my kids were teenagers, is “What if my children turn out to be like me in every area? What if they drive a car the way I drive a car? What if they handle anger the way I handle anger? What if they treat their spouse, eventually, the way I treat my spouse? What if they treat their teenagers the way I treat them?”

Ann (00:37):

Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave (00:43):

And I’m Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

So I’ll never forget the day that you told me, in the kitchen—this is 30 plus years ago—that I had an anger problem.

Ann (01:04):

I remember that day.

Dave (01:07):

That was a fun day. I mean, it was one of those moments where—

Ann (01:10):

—where you didn’t say, “Thanks, Hon, for sharing that. I think maybe I do.”

Dave (01:14):

No; I remember, when you said/literally, I remember your words were, “I don’t want to bring anything up to you again because you just blow up in anger.” In the moment, I didn’t receive it; but the good thing about it is it forced me to go, “Do I have an anger problem?” And the answer became, “Yes.”

Ann (01:31):

Well, you even went to God and asked that question.

Dave (01:33):

Yeah. And then I went to my guys that I did life with—and long story short—I started to investigate the root of my anger problem, and I discovered what it was because I didn’t want to be that guy.

Ann (01:45):

Yeah.

Dave (01:46):

I think, as a parent, we have the same journey we need to take with our kids to help them, whether they’re five years old or fifteen or eighteen, know how to manage their anger. And so we’ve got a guy in the studio today, Gary Chapman, back at FamilyLife Today. Gary, welcome back.

Gary (02:04):

Thank you. Good to be with you.

Dave (02:06):

You’re over there, smiling, at my anger problem.

Ann:

As a therapist.

Dave:

You’re laughing at my anger problem. That’s making me mad right now, Gary. But you’ve written about that in the love languages book, which so many people know you from, and then the book called Things I Wish I’d Known Before My Child Became a Teenager. We’ve already talked a little bit about this. And you shared that beautiful heart-wrenching story about a moment where you blow up in anger with your son Derek. But how do we wrestle with them to help them understand? I had to go on a journey, and I was 30-some years old to understand anger and some of the root. How do we navigate that with our teenage kids?

Gary (02:46):

Well, mismanaged anger destroys more relationships, probably, than anything else—between husband and wife or between parent and teenager—mismanaged anger. There’s nothing wrong with anger. Anger, I believe, is a gift of God. The Bible says God is angry every day with the wicked. We get angry because we’re moral creatures and when we encounter something that we believe to be wrong, we feel anger; and we should. But we have a lot of what I also call “distorted anger.” We get angry because we don’t get our way.

(03:18):

And this is most common in the family. If the family can say, “From time to time, all of us are going to get angry. So why don’t we just agree as a family, that if you get angry with me, you come and say, ‘Dad, I’m angry,’ or ‘Mom, I’m angry. Can we talk?’ And I’ll listen to you. And if I get angry with you, I’ll do the same thing.” What you’re doing is teaching them a skill that’s going to serve them well the rest of their lives, because we’re going to all get angry from time to time. Most families don’t talk about anger. They’ve never had a discussion on anger, but have a discussion on anger and let’s say, “Let’s learn how to handle anger in a positive way.” And if you do that with a teenager, you’re doing a great service for the teenager because you’re helping them understand the whole thing and learning how to do it.

(04:01):

And they’re going to need that when they get married.

Ann (04:03):

And how do we discover if there are underlying issues if that teen is continually exploding, and they’re constantly saying, “I’m so angry at you,” but they’re exploding when they’re saying it, because they’re so emotional. How do we deal with that?—or know, are they angry about this surface thing that they can’t go to the party or is there something deeper?

Gary (04:23):

I think it’s questions: parents ask questions of the teenagers, not when they’re angry, but after an anger episode; maybe the next day or the next afternoon. The parent says, “John or Mary, let’s talk a little bit about anger. Yesterday you told me that you were very angry with me because da, da, da, da, da. Explain it to me a little bit because I’m trying to learn why you’re angry and I want to know if I can do something different that will help you.” And asking questions of that teenager, when they start talking, keep asking questions, they’ll tell you eventually. In fact, I’ve said to a father, “Why don’t you ask your son: ‘Son, I’ve been thinking about how I could be a better father and I’d like to ask you to give me some ideas on how I could be a better father.’” Your teenager will tell you. They will tell you. And see, part of their anger is probably based on the fact that you’re not doing these things that they’re talking about.

(05:16):

So if you ask questions and open yourself up for them to tell you how you could be a better mom or better dad, you’ll likely discover what’s lying underneath the surface.

Ann (05:27):

I’m thinking about how our teenagers—I remember when I had a toddler, you know that two, three-year-old toddler—were in those years where they’re just, it feels like their emotions are all over the place and they’re having tantrums. And then you have a teenager, sometimes that can feel like the same thing going on. And we’re talking about your book about teenagers, but how do you manage that with a toddler who just feels out of control? There’s no—

Dave (05:52):

Like a meltdown.

Ann (05:53):

Yeah. It’s the meltdown tantrum.

Gary (05:55):

Well, for one thing, you don’t let it work. That is, they’re having a tantrum because you wouldn’t get them this cookie or whatever. Don’t break down and give them the cookie.

Ann (06:04):

So if they’re in the aisle checking out and they see the candy and they’re screaming because they want it—

Dave (06:09):

They fall on the floor.

Ann (06:10):

Yeah, and they fall on the floor and they’re in the cart screaming their head off, you’re saying, “Don’t give in.”

Gary (06:15):

Don’t give in. Don’t give them the cookie because then you’re teaching them how to get a cookie and they’ll do it every time. You don’t let it happen. And you say to them, “If you want to lay there and scream, you can, but you don’t get a cookie.” They’ll learn the screaming doesn’t work.

Ann (06:29):

Yeah.

Dave (06:30):

So if you ask your teenage son or daughter how I can be a better parent, and you don’t like what they say and you get angry, what is that saying?

Gary (06:40):

It’s saying you have an anger problem too. And see, that’s typically the deal. If you ask yourself, “Where did my son learn this?” chances are, if you look in the mirror, you may well see why they learned it.

Dave (06:54):

And I know when Ann said that to me, our kids were little at the time. I mean, toddlers—

Ann (06:59):

Real little.

Dave (06:59):

—probably the oldest might have been five or six. I knew if I don’t get a grip on this now, it will be a legacy. It’ll be something I pass on. And long story short is I realized—and when I used to preach on this, I would, literally, take an extension cord and wrap it around my waist and say, “You’ve got to go find what that’s plugged into.” You think it’s your spouse—”If I wasn’t married to you, I wouldn’t be—” It may be somewhat that, but it isn’t. There’s something you got to dig around and go find. And obviously, as I searched through my life, it’s like, “Oh, I’m still mad at my dad for walking out when I was seven with his girlfriend. Here I am in my 30s, I need to go on a journey to forgive him.” So I go on that journey. Again, thinking it’d take a week, because I’m a pastor and I know Ephesians 4:32: “Forgive as you’ve been forgiven.” It took four or five years before I actually got to the place where I gave up my right to punish him.

(07:55):

How important is that in teaching our teenagers to forgive, to let go? I mean, I went on that journey, but now, you’ve got a son or daughter, who’s 15, 16, and they’ve got forgiveness issues—maybe with you, maybe with other friends. How important is it to help them walk through a journey of forgiveness?

Gary (08:15):

Well, if they don’t learn to forgive, they will separate themselves from everybody they encounter; because if you get close to anybody, they will, sooner or later, say something/do something that’s going to hurt you. And so it puts an emotional barrier between the two of you, and it will not go away with the passing of time. If they apologize to you, then the biblical response is you forgive them, you remove the penalty, you remove the emotional barrier. Now, our relationship can go forward. If you don’t forgive them, the barrier stays there, and it will build into a wall after a period of time. If the person doesn’t apologize to you—I like to use the word “release”—you release them to God.

(08:57):

You say, “Lord, you know what they did to me, and You know how they treated me. I’ve gone to them, and I’ve explained it to them, and they don’t agree. They don’t apologize, so I’m going to put them in Your hands.” You’re releasing them to God and you’re putting them in good hands, because God loves them. If they ever confess to God, God will forgive them. If they don’t, then God judges them, the Bible says. So I think learning the practice of forgiveness is a skill that’s absolutely necessary in adult life, or in teenage life, to have good relationships. You will not have good relationships if you don’t forgive. And that means that we forgive our children, our teenagers. When our teenager does something that’s horrible and we confront them and they apologize, we forgive them and we move on down the road.

Ann (09:42):

And we don’t hold it against them the next day, or pout or act—yeah.

Dave (09:47):

And so much of what we’re talking about really comes down to a spiritual foundation that we have, and we’re hoping we can impart or guide our kids to. This is a really big question for parents of teenagers. How do we guide them spiritually? How do we navigate, alongside them, their spiritual walk? Help parents with that.

Gary (10:06):

I think one of the most important things in communicating our relationship with God to our children is modeling what we say we believe. I think the most sobering question I ever asked myself, when my kids were teenagers, is, what if my children turn out to be like me in every area? What if they drive a car the way I drive a car?

Dave (10:31):

Oh boy, you didn’t have to go there, Gary. My wife, right now, is saying, “Oo-kay.”

Gary (10:38):

What if they handle anger the way I handle anger? What if they treat their spouse, eventually, the way I treat my spouse? What if they treat their teenagers the way I treat them? -–and just on down the line. It’s a sobering question, but if you honestly ask that question, you get an answer; and you will know where you need to change.

Dave (11:01):

I mean, I read that toward the back of your book. And Gary, I’m telling you, it was a sobering question. I was like, “Wow, what a great gut check.”

Gary (11:12):

Yeah.

Dave (11:12):

Because if you don’t like your answer, guess what? Change it, right?

Gary (11:15):

Absolutely. Because they’re going to be far more impressed and far more impacted by what they see in our lives than by what we tell them. We can teach them, whatever—all the biblical things—we can teach them, but if they don’t see it in our lives, they’re not likely to respond to it.

Ann (11:32):

We’ve said this before, but I feel like I did a pretty good job of laying the foundation, spiritually, for our kids when they’re little—

Dave (11:40):

You did a phenomenal job.

Ann (11:41):

—like reading the Bible, like bringing Jesus and God into the everyday part of life. And yet, I remember asking our young adult children like, “What do you guys remember of me teaching?” And I was so depressed, Gary, because there wasn’t a lot that they remembered of actual Bible teaching. But they did say, “Mom, the thing that we remember is you prayed all the time and you read your Bible.” And I thought, “Well, that’s a good thing because they see my dependence, my need for Jesus.”

(12:06):

And also, we talked about earlier, apologizing, asking forgiveness. They knew I did that a lot. And so I think as parents, that’s a really good thing to remember: what are we modeling? I remember sitting at the dinner table thinking, “Do I have anything to share with my kids of what God has taught me today?” And when there was a long gap, I thought, “I need to be in the Word. I need to be connecting with God more, so I have something to pour out to them.”

Dave (12:40):

We meet a ton of couples who say FamilyLife helped them when they needed it the most. And that’s what being a FamilyLife Partner is all about, helping others find that same encouragement and tools that you found right here.

Ann (12:53):

And we’d love for you to join us. So click the donate button at FamilyLifeToday.com and become a partner today.

Dave (13:04):

I know that my perspective might be wrong on why so many young people are walking away from church these days. Gary, I’d love to hear your thoughts. My thought is it isn’t so much about doctrine or theology. It can be a little bit. I think it’s more about modeling. They’re seeing the way we live, and they’re like, “I don’t buy it.”

Gary (13:27):

I think you’re right. For example, from my perspective, the central lifestyle theme of a Christian is serving others. Jesus said about Himself, “I did not come to be served. I came to serve and give my life a ransom for others.” So if the parent is modeling a servant’s attitude in all of life, the teenager sees that. They don’t forget that. And that’s why I would take our children with me on some of the service things—going to the food pantry. “Y’all like to go with me? We’re going over and pack food.” “Yeah, man,” they’d go. They remember that. They remember when I would take them, in the fall of the year in North Carolina—leaves are all over everywhere—and I’d get them in the car and say, “We’re going to go find somebody that’s older that hasn’t got their leaves raked.” And I’d knock on the door and say, “Hi, I’m Gary Chapman.

(14:24):

I live down the street here, and I’m trying to teach my children how to serve. We would like to rake your leaves if it would be all right.” And they would say, “Say what?” And I’d repeat my little story, and we never had anybody that wouldn’t let us wake their leaves, okay?

Ann (14:38):

I bet you didn’t.

Gary (14:38):

And the kids would rake the leaves and then they’d jump in the leaves. The teenagers—they were young teenagers when we were doing this—jumping in the leaves and all that. And then we’d drive home and I’s say, “How do you guys feel about having helped some people?” “Oh Dad, that was so fun.” So they see you serving others in whatever ways you’re equipped to serve others, and that makes a tremendous impact on them. And after all, if they know God, if they’ve come to the place where they’ve put their faith in Christ, there’s no greater satisfaction than serving other people.

I was walking across the campus of the University of Virginia. I was going to be speaking in Campbell Auditorium. A side door into that auditorium—etched in stone, above the door, were these words—”You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” And I thought, “Man, what if every university had that as a theme?”

(15:35):

But that’s what Jesus demonstrated Himself!

Dave (15:39):

I was going to say, those are the words of Christ.

Gary (15:41):

Absolutely. So that’s why I say our model is so important in teaching them the central motif of the Christian life is we’re here to serve other people. And both of them now, as adults, that’s what they do. I mean, she’s a medical doctor. She delivers high-risk babies and she identifies with these mothers who are struggling. And my son works with kids on the street—he has for years—and people that nobody else would have time for.

Ann (16:07):

Which would make sense because your whole life has been dedicated to serving people. You started out serving troubled teens, and you said you even took your son with you to do that. What’s your love language?

Gary (16:19):

Words of affirmation.

Ann (16:21):

Okay.

Dave (16:22):

You’re amazing, Gary. Awesome having you on here. There’s nobody better.

Gary (16:26):

And my wife is acts of service, so I’ve got to get home to take the trash out.

Ann (16:31):

But I think, by you modeling—every time we’ve been with you, you’ve shared stories about people that you’ve reached: troubled kids that needed help, that needed a parent, and you were there. And so you’ve modeled that all along the way for your kids and now their lives have been dedicated to serving others.

Gary:

Yeah.

Ann:

That’s really well done.

Dave (16:49):

I remember, again, it was our youngest, spring break, his senior year in high school, and instead of going on some crazy party deal with all these kids, we said, “Hey, let’s do a trip and you can take a buddy.” So Cody took Matt, and we went—I don’t know, where did we go?

Ann (17:04):

We went on a cruise.

Dave (17:04):

Yeah, we went on a cruise. And anyway, we ended up in Florida, probably before the cruise or after. All I remember is in this rental car, we’re driving to the airport or something, and somehow, I made a wrong turn, and we ended up in this little cul-de-sac. There was a woman in a car, stuck in sand. She couldn’t get her car out of sand. Now I’m from Michigan. I’ve never seen this. I’m like, “Snow, I can rock your car out of snow. I’ve done it many times.” But sand, right? And so we drove right by her, and I stopped and I said, “Hey, I think she’s stuck. Let’s go back and help.” And they’re like, “What? What do you mean help?” I’m like, “I don’t know what their situation is, but it looks like she’s in a snowdrift, and she can’t get out.”

(17:44):

And so we pile out of the car, and both of them are like, “We’re going to go help some strange lady.” I’m like, “We’re going to try.” And we go back there—and of course they’re both high school football players and they ended up pushing this lady out—and it was just like getting out of snowdrift. We get her out of snowdrift

Ann (17:59):

And these two guys are big football players.

Dave (18:01):

They’re muscle bound. They’re going to play college football. We get back in the car, and I’m not kidding—I don’t know what you think, Ann—of the entire spring break trip, including this incredible cruise, that’s the memory that I have and they had. When we all got back in the car, we were like cheering. It was just this—endorphins. We were excited like, “Wow, we actually helped some stranger lady out of just a simple sand thing.” But like you said, it’s that act of serving others brought something to our soul. So you’re saying, as a parent, when we model that, and get our kids involved in that, it’s going to do the same thing for them?

Gary (18:41):

Absolutely; absolutely. Certainly, reading the Scriptures to them as they’re growing up, and having them in a youth group at church—all that’s very, very positive; they’re hearing all the things at church and other things—but our model in serving and other things, our model of the way we live our lives is going to have the greatest impact on our teenagers. And those are the things they’re going to look back, and they’re going to remember.

Ann (19:04):

Well, what that does, too, is it takes their eyes off of themselves, which as teenagers, it’s easy to be looking at themselves a lot. And that takes us into that mental health or emotional health area where parents are talking about this so much—because their kids are depressed, they’re dealing with anxiety—they’re not sure how to help. And you talk about this in your book, too, of even how the love languages can impact that.

Gary (19:26):

Yeah. If the teenager feels loved, first of all, and I think that’s one of the most fundamental emotional needs that a child has is to feel loved. And if we understand their love language and we give heavy doses of that love language, and we sprinkle in the other four because we want the child to learn there’s more than one way to love. And that child feels loved. And then they have the demonstration in front of them, every day, of how to live the Christian life—what this looks like. It’s a life of serving other people. And we bring them into those service things, so they get to experience what you were just talking about earlier: helping other people. Because part of the thing with teenagers is they’re trying to find meaning to life. “Why am I here? What’s this all about?” Well, it’s all about serving other people from the Christian perspective.

(20:14):

So if we can help them do that, they feel good about themselves after they’ve done it. When they pushed the lady out of the sand, they’re feeling good about themselves and they realize, “Oh man, this is wonderful.” So then they start looking for places where they can serve. So yeah, we’re teaching them by our model to follow Jesus. And we’re acknowledging that the reason we are doing these things is because we’re followers of Jesus. We’ve given our lives to Him and we’re His representatives in the world and we’re here to make the world a better place. If they get that image and that picture, they’re far more likely to follow through with what they’ve been taught.

Dave (20:48):

Now did you ever have to go into your son or daughter’s bedroom at night, after you blew it as a bad model, and say, “I’m sorry”?

Gary (20:59):

Yeah, I don’t remember going into their bedroom and doing that, but I do remember telling them “I’m sorry” on several occasions. But I tried to do it pretty quickly after I’d done it.

Dave (21:11):

So don’t wait till bedtime do it.

Gary (21:13):

Don’t wait till bedtime. If you realize you’ve done wrong, maybe walk around the block if you need to, to cool off; but then come back and say, “I want to apologize to you.”

Ann (21:21):

I think Dave brought that up, because I would apologize to my kids right away.

Dave (21:25):

I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking of me.

Ann (21:28):

No, but then, what happens, as a parent, I think—I don’t know if men do this, but I do this as a mom—I blew it, I apologized, I asked for their forgiveness. But then, I go to bed and I just can’t get over it. I hear that self-condemnation of “What kind of mom would do that?” So then I would go back into the room, apologize again. One of our sons wrote about it in the book because I said, “I just couldn’t get out of that rut of feeling like I’m a terrible mom. What kind of parent would do this?” And that son said, “I don’t know why my mom kept coming back in. She apologized. I forgave her right away.” But I couldn’t get over the guilt. How would you encourage parents with that?

Gary (22:10):

It’s a matter of forgiving ourselves. I was speaking in a prison one night—local prison—and they invited the wives to come in with the men, and I did a marriage thing. And in the Q&A, this father said—he was the prisoner—he said, “Dr. Chapman, I’ve asked God to forgive me, and I know He has, and my wife here has forgiven me and my sons have forgiven me, but what I want to know is how do I forgive myself for all the pain that I caused other people?” And I’d never heard that question before, and I think God just gave me this. Here was my answer. I said, “Okay, stand in front of a mirror and talk to yourself and just say ‘Self, you blew it. You blew it big time, and you hurt a lot of people self. But a holy God has forgiven you because of Jesus and what he did on the cross for you.’”

(23:04):

And parents sometimes say to me, when their child has done something really, really bad and they’re in prison, or they’ve gotten somebody pregnant, or whatever and they say—here’s what they say in my office—”Dr. Chapman, what did we do wrong?”

(23:16):

And I say to them, “God Himself had two children named Adam and Eve, and they blew it. And they had a perfect Father.” So don’t take all the blame for the decisions your adult children make because they can make poor decisions with good parents. Now, if you know some things where you’ve failed them, fine, you go apologize to them, but don’t just automatically take all the blame on yourself for the poor decisions that your adult children make.

Ann (23:54):

What’d you think of today?

Dave (23:55):

Gary is always the best. I love it when Gary comes into the studio and man, today we get to talk about teenagers. It was great stuff. Again, his book is Things I Wish I’d Known Before My Child Became a Teenager.

Ann (24:10):

And I know that you’ll probably want to get this book and maybe tell some other people about it. And all you have to do is get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave (24:21):

If you need parenting help, we would love to help you. We have a site just for you, FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp. We put some of our best parenting resources there for you to help you. Please go there, get the help we offer. It’s FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp.

Ann (24:45):

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