Gary Chapman’s Lessons Learned Before the Teen Years

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Gary Chapman’s Lessons Learned Before the Teen Years

Guest:Gary Chapman

From the series:Lessons Learned Before the Teen Years (Day 1 of 3)

Air date:June 3, 2026

Gary (00:04):

Apologizing is essential to a healthy marriage, or a healthy parent-child relationship. And the reason it’s essential is none of us are perfect. All of us fail from time to time, and you don’t have to be perfect to be a good parent, but you do have to deal with your failures.

Ann (00:26):

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

Dave (00:33):

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

So we have our youngest, Cody, he called us, said, “Hey, I’m thinking about coming down.” And then we said, “Yeah, that’d be great.” “Well, I’ll be there tomorrow.” And he shows up with his two kids.

Ann (00:55):

I was so excited. I did not fall asleep till 3:00 AM. That’s how excited I was.

Dave (01:00):

I mean, you screamed. I was in the garage, and I thought something tragic happened. But the reason I bring up Cody is because—when he was how old?—you crawled in bed with him to do what you normally do as a mom.

Ann (01:11):

Well, this boy, as he was younger, he had a couple of love languages that were very distinct. One was “touch,” and the other one was “words of affirmation.” And so every night he would beg me, “Mom, get under the covers and just lay here and talk to me,” and kind of put my arm around him and hug him. And so I would do that. Some nights like, “Oh, I just want to go downstairs,” but I’d get underneath, and we’d talk and I’d tell him like, “Man, you’re great.” And we’d pray. And this one night, I think he was probably 12-ish, 13-ish, and we had talked and I just automatically lifted up the covers just to lay with him for a few seconds. And he said, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I was just going to lay down with you.” He said, “Mom, get out of here!” I walked out in the hallway and I said, “Goodnight; love you.”—

(02:02):

—walked down the hallway. I sat and I cried because he was our youngest and it made me so sad.

Dave (02:09):

You’re getting teary now.

Ann (02:10):

No, I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. But it made me sad that he was pulling away a little bit, which is normal.

Dave (02:16):

Yeah. In some ways that’s a “Welcome to the teen years” moment, which we’re going to talk about today. How do you navigate the teen years as a mom and a dad? And we’ve got Gary Chapman. Welcome to FamilyLife Today, Gary.

Gary (02:27):

Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Dave (02:29):

Yeah. And you’ve written—I mean, people know you from The Five Love Languages. I think it’s sold a few copies.

Gary (02:34):

It has sold a few copies.

Dave (02:37):

But recently you released a book that I wish we had 20 years ago when Cody was that young, Things I Wished I’d Known Before My Child Became a Teenager.

Ann (02:47):

And you’ve blessed and helped so many listeners, us, so many people around the world with this concept of the love languages but what prompted you to do Things I Wished I’d Known Before My Child Became a Teenager?

Gary (03:00):

Well, I wrote, first of all, it’s a three-book series. The first one I wrote is Things I Wish I Had Known Before We Got Married.

Dave:

Yeah.

Ann (03:06):

Yes.

Gary (03:09):

12 Things that I know now, had I known then, would have made my marriage much easier. And then it just seemed logical to write one, Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Had Children. And then after that I thought, “Well, oh man, the teenage years.” So this one’s on things I wish I’d known before we had teenagers.

Ann (03:26):

Those are always the books I pick up too. Like, “Oh, they learned something. Let’s hear what they learned.”

Dave (03:31):

Yeah. And a lot of parents, when we talk to them, are afraid of these years, the teenage years. Should they be?

Gary (03:37):

Yeah. Well, yeah, probably. I remember the mother who said, “What has happened to my son?” She said, “It’s like his brain has changed. He’s just totally different.” And I said, “Well, you got it right. His brain has changed.”

Ann (03:55):

For us, we loved it. It was fun, but it is also that scary feeling of, “Oh, I’m not sure who they are.” I’ve heard parents say to me, “Will they ever go back to the person that I used to know before they were teenagers?”

Dave (04:11):

Let’s talk about—you mentioned 12. I don’t know if we’ll get through all 12, but as you think about the first thing that came to your mind, when you think, “What I wish I would have known about raising teenagers?”

Gary (04:23):

Well, I wish I had been prepared for the change that does take place in a teenager’s brain. I knew nothing about that. But the reality is the brain is reorganizing; the brain is shifting around.

(04:35):

And one of those things is they’re learning how to think logically. Now, notice I say learning—they’re not logical, but they’re learning to think logically, and that’s why they question things that you’ve taught them for years and it blows parents away. And I wish I had known that that’s normal. They’re processing things now. They’ve accepted it when they were children, whatever you taught them, they accept it. But now they’re thinking, “Is this really true?” And so normally we say they’re argumentative. That’s the way we see it, argumentative. But if we understood that they’re developing logical thought, we would cooperate with that rather than trying to say, “Well, you know better than that. Now don’t talk about that.” We stop the flow and we lose the influence. So we have to learn how to receive their questions and ask them, “Now that’s an interesting perspective. What made you think that?”

(05:27):

Engage them in conversation. Now we’re helping them develop logical thought rather than stopping the flow. I wish I’d known that. We’d have had less arguments.

Dave (05:38):

I mean, that’s wisdom. I mean, one of the things we wrote in our No Perfect Parents book was the teenage years are the “live in the question” years. And like you said, not always telling them, but asking and drawing them out. I remember—maybe you’re familiar with Shaunti Feldhahn, wrote a book called For Parents Only, and it was really research from teenagers and parents. One of the things she said was just what you said is like, when they’re small, you sort of give them the building blocks of what you believe and what life is about. And it’s like you’re building this castle with them and it’s like, “We believe in God, okay,” “Okay, we go to church,” “We are people of character.” They have all these blocks. She said when they hit teenage years, they’ll pick up each block and they’ll sort of look at it like, “I don’t know if I believe in God.” And most of the time we, as parents, just freak out like, “Oh my goodness!” You’re saying that’s normal and we should just draw that out?

Gary (06:29):

Absolutely; and lead them to things outside yourself because they know what you think. I mean, they’ve been listening to you all these years. And so if they’re questioning in spiritual things, for example, you say, “Well, that’s an interesting thought. And I know there are people who actually believe that so why don’t we study that a little bit? Why don’t we read some stuff? Why don’t we see?” and expose—if they’re thinking, “Well, why is Christianity the only religion? I mean, these other people are good people.” “Okay, well, let’s look at their beliefs. Let’s study their beliefs.” And so you just walk them through because they’ve got to make it their own. They’ve got to make Christianity their own. You can’t just give it to them.

Ann (07:08):

I think Dave really welcomed that when our kids were asking questions. I tended to freak out a little bit more like, “Oh no, what’s happening?” And what you’re saying is it’s really normal. And it’s probably a good thing for them to question because what it can do is open the door of conversation with parents. And so by asking the question, I love what you said. “Tell me more. Tell me, what are you thinking about with that?” And even Dave used to say, “That is a great question. I’ve dealt with that myself over the years.” So it does open the door to conversations.

Gary (07:39):

Absolutely, but I think so many parents, when they don’t realize that this is normal, what’s happening is normal, they do become defensive. They say, “Now, you know we’ve taught you that all these years. You know that’s wrong.” They, “just get that out of your mind.” And so then the kid stops talking to the parents. They go talk to somebody else.

Dave (07:57):

And that’s the last thing you want.

Gary:

Absolutely.

Dave:

Because they’re going to talk to somebody else and get input from—not another parent—but probably another peer.

Ann:

They’ll Google® it.

Dave:

Talk about this. If you’re saying that the brain is starting to think logically—I also read that they often will make poor decisions because of that—so they’re pulling away, they’re making bad decisions, as a parent, how do we navigate that? Because we’re watching it happen, but it’s sort of normal.

Gary (08:24):

Yeah. Well, it’s really hard, especially if they make poor decisions because we know we’re losing really far too many teenagers, by the time they get to be 18, because they’ve been pulled off in drugs, alcohol, or other behaviors that are destructive. And this is really, really painful for parents. There’s no question about that. And that’s why if we, on the early stages of that—if we sense that something’s going on there—we need to be on top of it and be talking to them about that and exposing them—like in the drug thing, exposing them to the reality. I mean, there’s tremendous material. All you have to do is go on and look at all the results of whatever drug it is. It’ll frighten a kid if they read it.

Ann (09:08):

But you actually did that with your son.

Gary (09:11):

Yeah. Right. And the other thing was with my son, I would go once a month on Saturday night to the juvenile detention center, and I’d play ping pong with the kids, and I’d just talk with them individually. I started taking my son, when he was a teenager, with me. We would play ping pong and then we’d talk to the kids and then riding home—and they would tell us their story, how they got there—and riding home, I’d say, “Derek, isn’t that sad, man? Those guys are your age, and they made poor decisions.” And that’s all; that’s more powerful than my preaching to him.

Ann (09:44):

Oh, that’s so good. If I could only stop there! I’d have gone on and on, but you just dropped a little nugget.

Gary (09:52):

Yeah. And sometimes I would clip a little thing out of the newspaper and say, “Derek, you might want to read this, son. This guy was your age. It’s really sad.” It was when a teenager who’d been driving under the influence and he killed somebody. I’d just say, “You might want to read this.” He’d read it. I didn’t say anything else. Just let him read it. Let him see.

Dave (10:12):

How were you able to just drop it and let it go?

Ann (10:16):

You’d do the same thing. Are men better at this than—

Dave (10:18):

I’m asking for my wife.

Ann (10:21):

No, really, you’re so good at that.

Dave (10:24):

I don’t know about that. I mean, as you look back on your years with your kids, as teenagers, were there any hiccups? I mean, did you feel like, “Man, one of the things I wrote about is because I blew it in this area”?

Gary (10:37):

Yeah, the whole area of anger; that was huge. I remember, I don’t know, he was probably 14, and he and I got into an argument. I was yelling at him. He was yelling at me, and I was saying hateful things, and he was saying hateful things. In the middle of all of it, he walked out the door and slammed the door. And when the door slammed, I woke up.

Dave (11:00):

Really?

Gary (11:01):

And I said, “Oh God, I thought I was further along than this, yelling at the son I love.”

(11:08):

And I wept. I just sat down on the couch and wept and just confessed to God how horrible it was. And my wife tried to console me. She came in and said, “Honey, I heard the whole thing. That’s not your fault. He started that. He’s got to learn how to respect you.” And finally she gave up because it’s kind of hard to console a sinner. And so when he finally came back in, I said, “Derek, could you come in here a minute, son?” And he sat down and I just apologized to him. I said, “A father should never talk to a son the way I talked to you.” And I said, “I said some horrible things and that’s not the way I feel about you. I love you and I hope you can forgive me.” And he said, “Dad, that was not your fault.

(11:54):

I started that. I shouldn’t talk to you that way. And when I was walking up the road, I asked God to forgive me, and I want to ask you to forgive me.” And we hugged and we cried. We hugged and we cried. And then I said, “Derek, why don’t we try to learn how to handle anger in a better way? What if we try this? The next time you get angry with me, you just say, ‘Dad, I’m angry. Can we talk?’ And I’ll sit down and listen to you. And the next time I feel angry, I’ll say to you, ‘Derek, I’m angry. Can we talk?’ And let’s learn to talk our way through anger rather than yelling at each other.” It was a huge turning point. I’ve sometimes said that was one of the saddest nights of my life in raising my teenage son and one of the happiest nights.

(12:39):

Sad because of my own failure. Happy because he just demonstrated to me, he knows how to apologize.

Ann (12:47):

That’s so powerful.

Gary (12:48):

Yeah.

Ann (12:49):

I’m thinking of the listener that just thought, “I yell at my children all the time, my teenagers. This is just a constant thing where they’re yelling and I’m yelling. How do I even get out of that cycle?”

Gary (13:03):

I think, first of all, you have to recognize that it’s not productive. You’re teaching them to do what you’re doing. And so as a parent, we need to apologize when we recognize that we have failed our teenager. And some parents have said to me, “Well, if I apologize, won’t they lose respect from me?” I said, “No, no. They gain respect. They already know what you did was wrong. But when you apologize to your teenager for anything that you know you’ve done wrong, you’re teaching them a skill they’re going to need forever because they’re going to fail too. They’re going to need to learn how to apologize. They’ll never have a good marriage if they don’t learn how to apologize.” So I think that’s the first step is just recognizing: “I’m teaching them something I don’t want to teach them. What I’m doing is wrong,” and just apologize to God first and then to this teenager.

Dave (13:53):

It’s pretty amazing, as we hear that story about Derek, that he’s 14. I think we underestimate. He acted, responded like a man, like a full-fledged adult. We often think, “Oh, they’re 12, 13, 14, they’re just a kid.” In some ways, maybe they are; other ways, they are fully a man or woman, right?

Gary (14:14):

Yeah. They’re thinking more—they’re moving toward adulthood.

Dave (14:17):

Yeah.

Gary (14:17):

And so they’re not thinking as a child now. They’re thinking more, as moving towards—I say moving toward, they’re not there yet, but they’re in process. But this is where the time that we have been with them, before that, in the childhood years are so important; because he had been in a Christian home. We would read the Scriptures in the morning and night, and pray with him, and all of that. So he’s fully aware of this apologizing thing and confessing our sins to God. But if you didn’t start when they were children, you have to start when they’re teenagers. That’s okay. Well, you are where you are, so let’s just start there and start learning what we need to be doing.

Dave (14:57):

Before we continue, let me just say this to the listener. At FamilyLife, we really believe strong families can change the world. And when you become a FamilyLife Partner, you help make that happen.

Ann (15:07):

And I don’t know if you realize this, but your monthly gift helps us equip marriages and families with biblical tools that they can count on.

Dave (15:16):

Now that’s a pretty good deal. And we also want to send you exclusive updates, behind the scenes access and an invitation to our private partner community, which is pretty cool. So join us and let’s reach families and marriages together.

Ann (15:28):

And you can go to FamilyLifeToday.com and click the donate button to join today.

Dave (15:38):

Well, some of our listeners have little kids.

Gary (15:40):

Yeah.

Dave (15:40):

I’d love you to talk a little bit about, okay, if you’ve got a five-year-old, six-year-old, what are the kind of things they can be doing to prep for these teen years coming ahead?

Gary (15:49):

Yeah. What we did—my wife is not a morning person, but she fixed—

Dave (15:54):

Hey, I can relate to that.

Ann (15:55):

I’m not either.

Gary (15:57):

She fixed a hot breakfast every morning.

Ann (16:00):

I did that too.

Gary (16:01):

Yeah. That’s like Mother Theresa. I mean, it’s on that level.

Ann (16:05):

I don’t know about that, but when you have hungry boys too—

Dave (16:07):

Hers were amazing.

Gary (16:09):

Yeah.

Dave (16:10):

So she did that because she wanted to be—

Gary (16:12):

She committed herself to do it. She thought that was a motherly thing to do, and she did it for all those years. Now, as soon as the kids went off to college, that was over.

Ann:

Me too.

Dave (16:19):

She doesn’t get up and cook you a hot meal every day?

Ann (16:23):

I’m right with her.

Gary (16:24):

But what we would do at breakfast, I would read just a brief passage of Scripture. We’d just discuss it a little bit, while we were eating breakfast, the kids and I—nothing heavy duty, but just awareness that our lives can be based on the Bible.

Ann (16:37):

How old were they when you started, do you think?

Gary (16:39):

They were old enough to sit at the table and talk. Probably, I don’t know, five or six years old.

(16:45):

And then every night we would have a little devotional time, which when they were basically younger, we’d read a Bible story to them out of a Bible story book. And then we didn’t pray as a group. They would go to bed, and my wife or I, one would go to the bed beside of them and get on our knees and we would pray. And as they got older, they started praying and my daughter says, “That’s where I learned to pray.” So we’d pray every night. Those were the two things that we did consistently through those childhood years. And of course, we took them to church because I think we recognized that if they can be exposed to other Christians out there in their classes at church, that’s just adding to the impact on their lives.

Ann (17:24):

I was thinking if Derek had come home, and you had apologized, I was impressed that you didn’t say anything like, “Well, how about you? Is it your turn?” and “What you did was wrong.” But what if he hadn’t apologized, what would your move have been then?

Gary (17:39):

I think I would have probably just dropped it there.

Ann (17:41):

Yeah.

Gary (17:41):

I think, after I say hoping you can forgive me and hoped that he would forgive me without preaching a sermon to him because our model is powerful. When he heard me apologizing to him, he would walk away and think about it. If he didn’t confess it there, he’d walk away and think about it, and he may come back later and apologize. But if he didn’t, he still got that model of apologizing.

Ann (18:06):

That’s good.

Dave (18:08):

Yeah. I think you wrote about it. There’s power in an apology.

(18:13):

I mean, just that move by anyone. I mean, Ann and I did a little thing about how to rekindle love in your marriage. And as we’re sitting down—”How do you stoke the fire of romance back in your marriage?”—the first thing we thought of was that, which you would probably think, wait, wait, wait. When you go to your spouse or your child and say, “I’m wrong, I’m sorry, here’s what I’m wrong and sorry about,” something happens in the soul of that person. It doesn’t always come out the way we hoped—because maybe it doesn’t—but something softens, doesn’t it?

Ann (18:45):

Well, it’s even the Proverb: “A gentle answer turns away wrath.”

Gary (18:47):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think when we apologize to someone, they’re hearing us deal with our failures. And in fact, I sometimes say, “Apologizing is essential to a healthy marriage, or healthy parent-child relationship.” And the reason it’s essential is none of us are perfect. All of us fail from time to time. And you don’t have to be perfect to be a good parent, but you do have to deal with your failures. And when we apologize to our children, and request forgiveness—we don’t demand forgiveness because forgiveness is a choice, but we request forgiveness of them—we’re teaching them how to apologize and they will eventually forgive us, likely, if we’re apologizing; and we’re teaching them how to forgive. So it’s a huge thing that every individual needs to learn is how to deal effectively with our failures; because we’re all going to fail, and apologizing is a huge part of it.

Ann (19:42):

I think what we do with teenagers is we feel like we’re failing. I know that as my friends and I have gotten together before, we had committed to one another, like, “We’re nagging our teenagers constantly,” and realizing that, and I think it was pushing our kids away, like, who wants to be around someone that’s constantly criticizing? And so when we do that, it’s harming the relationship, but that apology, as you’re saying—

Dave (20:09):

Well, tell him what you guys did. They made a pact not to what? Nag your teenager for a week.

Ann (20:13):

Not to nag our teenagers for one week. I mentioned this recently on an episode. It was one of the hardest things because we realized the conversation that generally is happening with our teenagers is the mom is critiquing their kids for all the things they’re doing wrong.

Dave (20:31):

Not just moms.

Ann (20:32):

Well, dad’s probably, but it was with us as moms specifically, but we can get in this rut of constantly seeing the negative: “Clean up the dishes,” or “Put your stuff away,” and “Get your homework done and get to bed.” That kind of wears on people. It would wear on me if Dave did that to me constantly.

Gary (20:50):

Absolutely. And what happens, those children who get constant criticism, they go into adulthood and they don’t have the ability to give affirming words because they’ve never heard them.

Ann (21:02):

Wow.

Gary (21:02):

So what will they do? They will criticize their kids.

Dave (21:04):

So Gary, what do we do if we see our kids—14, 15 years old—and they’re just making bad decisions. They’re not listening to mom and dad. We don’t want to criticize them. What do we do?

Gary (21:16):

Every time we have a rule or a guideline that we have for teenagers, which we should. There should be boundaries with teenagers because they need to have boundaries. But whenever we decide that this is going to be a rule or something we’re going to do or not do, let there be consequences and tell them what the consequences are going to be before you do it. For example, you say—let’s say they’re 16 and they’re going to be driving now—”So there have to be some guidelines here and responsibilities. So one of the things, if you’re going to drive the car,”—either our car or if we help them get a car, whatever—“you’re going to wash the car every week on Saturday; before noon, you wash the car,” if you’re in a setting where you can do that. And “If you ever break the law, if you get caught for speeding, you will lose the car for a week,” or you set it.

(22:06):

So now the kid knows and you know what the consequences will be if they break the rule. And so all you have to do, you don’t have to get mad. You just have to say, “Well, son, you know what happens? You have to lose the car for a week.” “Oh, dad, but this week—” “I know, son, I know. But you know when we break the rule, there are consequences,” and so you stick with it. You don’t break down when they cry. They say, “But all my friends are going to be over there.” “Well, I’ll drive you over there.”

Ann (22:33):

I like how you remain cool during the whole thing.

Gary (22:35):

Yeah, that’s a big thing. And if you have already told them what the consequences are, you’re more likely to stay cool, you see, because otherwise we operate on our emotions at the time. If we feel strongly, then we come down hard on them, or then we kind of let it go this time, and the kid doesn’t know whether they’re going to get consequences or no consequences. But if we all know what’s going to happen before they break the rule, then all we have to do is just enforce the rule.

Ann (23:02):

I remember being a young parent hearing that and putting that into action. And I remember thinking, “This is amazing,” because they already knew the rule. They broke the rule and then I could empathize with them. “Oh, I’m so sorry. That probably makes you so mad or frustrated, but you knew the rule.” So it’s almost like we’ve already set this in place.

Dave (23:21):

It might have been a little more intense than that in the kitchen, but—

Ann (23:24):

Maybe, but the times that I applied it, it was like, “Oh, this works.”

Gary (23:29):

It’s easier for the parent and for the teenager.

Ann (23:31):

But you have to be intentional to put those in place before.

Gary (23:34):

Absolutely. And the mom and dad need to agree on them also.

Ann (23:37):

Exactly.

Gary (23:38):

Otherwise, dad’s going to let it slide, mom’s going to come down on them, but we both agree on it and now it doesn’t matter who’s at home and who’s administering—mom or dad—because everybody knows what’s going to happen.

Ann (23:53):

I always love having Gary Chapman, and I think we’ve heard everything from him, and there’s always something else.

Dave (23:58):

There is a wealth of wisdom and understanding and knowledge in this guy. And I mean, he’s a little older than us and he is just still motoring at full speed.

Ann (24:11):

Yeah, and again, his book is called Things I Wish I’d Known Before My Child Became a Teenager. And you can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Dave (24:23):

Let me just say this: if you need parenting help, 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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