Raising Resilient Teens: Kristen Hatton

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Raising Resilient Teens

Guest: Kristen Hatton
From the series: Parenting Ahead (Day 1 of 2)
Air date: February 17, 2025

Kristen: Parents are the number-one shepherding influence of our children. Of course, church, and Christian schools, or Christian camps—those are all good; and church especially, we want them in church—and yet, I think so often parents delegate their spiritual teaching of their children to the church/to these leaders.

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

Ann: And I’m Ann Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave: Do you think most parents of younger kids are afraid of the coming teen years?

Ann: Yes. Yes and yes. I think they’re petrified, especially in a culture today, where there’s so much social media; there’s so much change going on digitally. I think that creates this fear and anxiety—and even the stats of depression and anxiety—I think they’re scared to death. Do you think they are?

Dave: Oh, yeah; that’s why I asked you. And I think we got an expert that’s going to—she’s already shaking her head—

Kristen: —“Yes, absolutely.”

Dave: Kristen Hatton is sitting across the studio at FamilyLife Today. So why are you shaking your head? I mean, we’re going to talk about you—you’ve written and thought about this for a long time—and you’ve already gone through the teen years with your kids, right?
Kristen: That’s right.

Dave: But why do you shake your head, and say, “Oh, yeah; this is a fear for parents”?

Kristen: I see them in my counseling office every week; they’re terrified. I feel like it’s only increasing. In fact, I see a difference between the time my oldest, who’s now 26, and my youngest is 21—I saw a difference in that age [span]—and now I see a significant difference in the young moms I work with in counseling or in church.

Ann: —meaning more of a difference in their fear?

Kristen: Yes, it’s just so heightened. I think, in part, there’s so much information coming at us all the time—and the standard of what we think we have to measure up to—and we just feel terrified: “How are we going to do it?” “How are we going to teach our kids everything they need to know?” “How are we going to keep them safe?” And a lot of it has to do with our own—we want to control—and we know that we can’t control.

Ann: Yes! It’s terrifying!

Kristen: It’s terrifying.

Ann: And it’s so interesting, Kristen. We have seven grandkids—if I’m with the grandkids for the day—on my phone, I’ll start getting all these little Instagram posts on how to parent. I’m thinking, “I was just there for a day; I’m overwhelmed.” Some of it’s good; some of it’s like, “Is that right?” I can’t imagine what these young moms are experiencing.

You kind of started this by writing a blog,—

Kristen: I did.

Ann: —back in the day.

Kristen: That’s right. At that time, I had one in college; one in high school; and one in middle school. I was seeing parents on [one] end, just throwing up their hands and saying, “Teens will be teens”; and they were just kind of giving up. They were just becoming very permissive.

And then, on the other end, I was seeing, with my youngest, a lot of his friends were first-born—parents just entering the teen years, and they were terrified—and I just thought, “Well, neither of these ends of the spectrum are the way to live. What does it look like to live and trust God with our kids—and to view it as an opportunity of shepherding their hearts, and knowing that we are going to encounter trials and hard things—and yet, how do we move into that space and trust that God is working good?”

Dave: Alright; you got to tell us: “What does it look like?”—

Ann: Well, wait;—

Dave: —to live that way?

Ann: —she writes this blog, and you had a lot of feedback.

Kristen: I did on the blog post; I did. I kind of tucked it away: “I want to do something more with this,” which is what led to Parenting Ahead, but years later. I’m so glad in the timing of it; because by the time I wrote it, I was an empty nester. I had gained a lot more experience in the teen years, so I felt like I could speak to it a little bit better.

Dave: I loved the title, Parenting Ahead. You’re talking: “Let’s do it now before they’re teenagers”;—

Kristen: Yes.

Dave: —it’s: Preparing Now for the Teen Years.

You mentioned you sit with parents?—now, are they often before the teen years? Or is it like they come in when they’re frantic in the teen years?

Kristen: Both; I see a lot of moms of all aged kids. And so some—yes, have teenagers; college students—and they are terrified. And I see the moms of littles who are just trying to figure out sleep schedules, and being a new mom, and having their parents as grandparents and in-laws. The topics are never-ending with what they have to be afraid of.

Ann: So how are you helping? When you wrote the book, you’re probably thinking: “These are the things I’m seeing the most,” and “These are the topics that need to be addressed.”

Kristen: Yes; I’m really convinced that parenting starts with the heart of the parent. I want parents to stop and evaluate: “What is going on in your own heart?” “What is leading you?”—whether it’s fear or trying to control—“What is it that we are believing or not believing?” We need to start with our own hearts so that we can best shepherd our children.

Ann: How we do that? What’s that look like?—dealing with our own hearts.

Kristen: It looks like: “What are our motives?” “What are our desires?” “Why did I lose my patience?”—and evaluating. So often, we are just so reactive; and we are so busy. We never slow down to really take the time to think about: “What drove me to do that?” or “Why do I care so much about ‘X,’ ‘Y,’ ‘Z’?”

Ann: Give us an example of that.

Kristen: “Why did I get so upset that my child didn’t make whatever she tried out for”? Of course, we can feel disappointed—that is a valid emotion—but when, all of a sudden, then we go trying to control things; or we are just crushed: “Is it because that’s our identity?” We think that now our child is never going to go on to do whatever she needed to make that position for to succeed. Success can become an idol.

I think parents, all the time, we so desperately want to be a good parent. Our intentions are well-meaning; and yet, all of a sudden, we’ve put our children on pedestals. We are expecting that they have to succeed at everything; their performance is everything. Then, we go in and start controlling, and nagging, and demanding, and doing crazy things. We were talking, off air, about the football culture—what parents are doing with their kids in sports—in nagging the coaches and just trying/they want their child to be the star—”That’s their ticket”; so they think.

Dave: Yeah; I mentioned before I was a high school football coach in Michigan for 12 years. I saw that every week with parents. It was so interesting: they couldn’t be objective. I had one guy tell me that his son should be the quarterback, and he was our starting center. He was a really good starting center; and he says, “But he’s a quarterback.” I’m like, “No, he’s actually not. I mean, he’s great; he’s really important to our team; he’s thriving.” “Nope, he’s a quarterback. He’s been to this camp, and this camp; and they all say he’s a quarterback.” I literally looked at this guy, and I said, “Well, I don’t think they’re telling you the truth. I think they were taking your money.”

You know what he did? They quit—quit the team and gave up all sports for high school—because he just thought… I thought, “How often do parents do that?—’If my son isn’t the guy,’ or ‘My daughter’s not the [girl],’—they remove them rather than let them grow through that adversity.”

Kristen: You’re right.

Dave: You write about that. Is it better to stand back, and say, “Okay, this may look like a terrible thing, but it may end up developing their character. They may be better, as an adult, because they didn’t start or didn’t make the team”?

Kristen: That’s right. And yet, we short-circuit these opportunities of growth for our children in learning to be resilient and being able to experience disappointment. Our children are so buffered from all disappointment, because we try to just take care of it ourselves.

Dave: Now, what’s at the heart of a parent who does that?

Ann: I was going to say that too.

Dave: You’re talking about looking at the heart: “What’s going on in us when we do that?”

Kristen: One is success is an idol. We want peace; we want happiness. I would say—research even confirms this—“What parents want most for their children is happiness and success.” I want those for my kids too. But I know that, in this world, we are not always going to be happy; and so we have to learn: “What does it look like when we face trials? Yes, I want you to have happiness; but we need to know that we need Jesus, and that He loves us; and that has to be our foundation.”

Back to the foundation of the book: I want for parents, way before the teen years, is: “Let’s be proactive in thinking about: ‘What is it we want most for our kids?’” I wanted my kids to know the love of Jesus and to love Him; so that became our baseline foundation for how we were going to parent. And then, there’s lots of other things, along the way, related to family time and values; and I wanted them to understand their own hearts.

We’re talking about parents: “How can I help my children know their hearts if I’m not in tune to my own heart?” I feel like the term, “idolatry,” is anything, apart from God, that rules us in the moment—even, as believers—any given thing, and good things, can be our functional savior. My marriage, my children, my success, my performance—any of these things can become what rules me and what I demand that I think I have to have—so with our kids: their success or their happiness—if that is our ruling idol, then we will do everything to try to ensure that.

Ann: I’m telling you—this is a thing—idols. I can remember this thought came up, of our children being idols, like scoffing, “My kids aren’t idols.” And then, I remember—this is years ago—where they said, “What do you worry about the most?” I’m like, “Oh, my children; my children is what I worry about the most.”

The more I started thinking about it, I thought, “I think about them more than anything,”—not that that’s bad—but when I’m worrying, and I’m tweaking; and I’m trying to fix, and maneuver, and manipulate situations—so that they’re not sad, or hurt, or forgotten—

Dave: —disappointed, even.

Ann: —that’s an idol.

Kristen: It is.

Ann: I think that’s just a good question to ask us, as parents: “What do you worry about the most?”

Kristen, when we’re worrying—let’s say I realized, “Oh, well, yeah; I’m constantly doing that,”—and we had a son who wasn’t starting on the football team. We would lay in bed, talking about that, and praying about it: “These coaches are mean.” Some coaches are mean. Man, we spent so much time thinking and worrying about that. Now, we look back and think, “That’s one of the best things that happened to him.”

But let’s say a parent realizes: “Okay, maybe that is an idol”; now, what do we do with that?”

Kristen: We confess, and that turns us to God: “Lord, help me because, in ourselves, we can’t.” That is our bent—we worry; we want to try to control—when we recognize what’s happening in our heart, I see more of my need for Jesus.

For me, personally—throughout, especially, the teenage years, but just parenting in general—God has constantly revealed to me my idols. It has turned me more and more to Him, so I live a little bit more dependent on Him than I did. I think that’s just growing in grace—the journey of sanctification—little by little, we depend on Him; because we see that we can’t [do things ourselves].

We confess it; and we’re going to have to confess it again, because—tomorrow or next week—that same idol, or a different idol, is going to pop back up. But when I recognize it, I turn back to Jesus, and I say, “Lord, Lord, please help me to trust You. I believe, but help me in my unbelief. Help me trust that You have a good story for my children. I can’t see why it’s good that they aren’t playing in their sport,” or “…why they didn’t make this team,” or “…get the election,” or “…why they were being left out from this group of friends. I don’t understand that; but Lord, I know that You love them.” We constantly have to reorient ourselves back to the promises of God.

Dave: With this son, it was really interesting—because, like Ann said, we would lay in bed at night—and I wasn’t coaching yet at that high school. I actually started the next year. I’m watching—and I was a college quarterback, so I understand the game—and I’m watching. This is our number-one son; we have two more to follow. He’s really not getting to play much. He’s at every practice; he’s working.

We’d be like—and every parent has this discussion—“Should I say something to the coach?” It seems like he’s as good as the other kids, but maybe we’re not—and I’m like, “I’m a football guy; I know if he can play or not,”—and we decided: “No, we’re not going to say something to the coach. We’re going to trust God; we’re going to trust the coach.”

It was really interesting—this is his senior year—and they’re winning and winning and doing really well. One of his buddies is not getting playing time; he and his dad go in and have an all-out argument with the coach; he quits/the kid left the team. Our son kept doing everything; and by seventh week/eighth week, he’s now starting to play more and more. They win the state championship the school’s never won.

Ann: Oh, our son started playing more and more.

Dave: CJ got to play more and more, and they won a state championship; and it was awesome. It’s not Texas high school football, where you’re living; but it was incredible! It was interesting to see—that dad and his son—they missed out.

Kristen: They missed out on that.

The coolest thing was—I have a men’s group with these guys who I’ve been with 20/30 years; we meet once a month—and I asked CJ to come after the season, said, “We want you to come to our men’s night.” “What for, Dad?” “I just would like you to come be a part of this night.” He came, and we had dinner; and then, we went down the basement. We said, “CJ, we want to present you with an award for your tenacity and your perseverance of sticking with football for the last three years, even when you weren’t the starter.”

One of my buddies was the all-time leading scorer in Iowa football history. And he has this big Iowa—

Ann: He had several.

Dave: —he had two trophies that were the same trophy, a big gold football—and he gave it to me. We took off the thing that said something about kicking; he was a kicker—and we put on: “Never Give Up”—trophy we awarded CJ that night and just prayed over him. It was such a beautiful moment. I was so glad he didn’t quit. We didn’t go in, as parents, and rescue and try/we just trusted God. It’s a really cool moment.

Ann: And it really did build his character.

Dave: He’s amazing.

Kristen: Well, that’s what I was just thinking. I’m sure, now, as a man—what that perseverance—what that did for him.

Dave: He’s an amazing man, and he doesn’t quit at anything; and part of it was that.

When you think about what matters, as a parent, that trophy—“Never Give Up” trophy—compared to an MVP trophy/Most Valuable Player, which is awesome; our last son was the MVP, so we’ve seen both sides—and yet, that’s what we’re trying to do as parents.

Ann: But let me add this—we’re talking sports right now—some parents are saying: “My child is questioning their sexuality. This feels like a bigger thing than if they made the team or if they’re starting. How do I not worry about that? And what do I do with that?”

Kristen: As a counselor, I hear that; so I know. I wish that there was an answer. And that’s the thing in all of parenting—there is no formula, and there is no guarantee—we can do everything right, so to speak, by the books; and yet, still our child could struggle with their sexual identity. That’s heartbreaking! It’s hard, even in that, to: “Lord, I trust You. Help me, again, with my unbelief; because I don’t understand this.” The answer is always back to Jesus, because we can’t do anything.

Often, in counseling, I draw a circle of control. It’s like an outer circle; and then, an inner circle—we’re in that inner circle: “This is what I can control within this inner circle.” I’ll have people list out: “What can you control?”—and then, all these things that are outside of our control. We recognize, real clearly—I’m a very visual person—that there’s very little in this I can control. And yet, God made all things; He’s in control of all things. We don’t understand all things.

He’s big enough for us to be mad at Him and to question Him. We know from the Psalms that we can go to Him with all of our emotions; and yet, He is our resource. We have to go back to Him: “Lord, help me to trust You in this journey.” It may be long, and it may be hard; and then, “What does it look like to love my child in this/in their struggle?”

Ann: Is there anything we can do [with] preteens—any things we can be talking about, as a family, of what’s going on culturally in the world—and what the Bible has to say?

Kristen: Yes. I think that that’s a very important thing that we must be talking as early as possible. We parents are the number-one shepherding influence of our children. Of course, church, and Christian schools, or Christian camps—those are all good; and church, especially, we want them in church—and yet, so often, parents delegate their spiritual teaching of their children to the church/to these leaders.

Ann: —thinking like, “Oh, they’re covering all that.”

Kristen: Exactly, but we have to. Especially, in today’s culture, I feel like, at an early age, we need to start talking to them about God’s design for sexuality, for marriage. Starting when they’re little—just bare bones—Birds & Bees. I don’t know if y’all are familiar with them; they are great—about just saying, “Drip, drip, drip.” We just start—

Ann: Say what the Birds & Bees is.

Kristen: Birds & Bees is a ministry helping parents talk to their children about sexual development, puberty, marriage, pornography—helping children, from a young age, learn—”God created male and female,” and “What is that?” And then, as they get older, we add onto that; because they’re only asking certain questions when they’re young. But we start with these foundational things as young as possible.

And if you’re listening right now and you haven’t done that, I always say it’s never too late. It’s harder, but it’s never too late to go back. And I would just be honest and say, “Mommy and Daddy should have started talking to you about this a long time ago, but we don’t want to let our failure not to talk about it then to stop us now. And so we’re going to do some things a little bit differently, and we want to have these conversations.” There’s always a pathway to change course.

But God’s design, in general—just about creation, and the fall, and restoration—helping them have a gospel lens so that they can see all of life. I think of it—and I had this idea when I was at the eye doctor one time—and she’s showing me the different letters out in front of me, like, “This one or this one?”—which one can I see better? —”One or two?” “Two or one?” If you’ve been to the eye doctor, you know how that goes. And it just made me think, “This is what it’s like. We can either have on the glasses of the gospel lens to see all of life, or it’s a blurry vision.” With culture coming at us, it’s so easy to see things the way culture does; and yet, that’s not clearly God’s design. We need to help our children build that, early on, so that when things start coming at them, they are able to filter it through the gospel.

Dave: What role would you say other parents have in community? Do you do much with: “I’m not just parenting my son or daughter by myself; I have a village”?

Kristen: I agree; it does take a village. One thing I loved—my children grew up in a smaller church plant—so intergenerational relationships was natural, because we were a smaller body. But it’s funny because, a lot of times, people move to a huge church for a big youth group. That was a grievance for me, early on; because I thought, “My kids aren’t going to have a youth group at their own church.” They can go to other churches, and they did. But I see how God actually used our small little church for their good, because they built these relationships with people much older and much younger. That community, and what that looked like, was such a grace in my children’s lives—they went to college, and they went and found a church—and they didn’t hesitate to meet adults.

Yes, I think other people, speaking into our kids’ lives, is super important, whether that’s small group leaders, other parents who come around together, youth leaders.

Dave: It sounds like your kids have turned out pretty good, the way you talk about them.

Kristen: By God’s grace.

Dave: We feel like we did a pretty good job; and every parent listening is going, “I want my kids to turn out like that.” What would you say is most important of what you did? And again, I’m not saying your kids are perfect at all.

Kristen: Yeah, they are not.

Dave: But if you think back: “What were the things we did right?” “What were the things that we did wrong?” Of course, you wrote about it.

Ann: And there’s no guarantee.

Kristen: Yeah, there’s no guarantee. And they had their struggles—so I’ll preface with that—we definitely have had our share of trials. I think that, in part, is why they are where they are now: they have struggled, and they have seen and learned for themselves God’s promises are true. I think—had we shielded them from all adversity—they wouldn’t have learned some of those things for themselves. I think that that was foundational, actually, that they went through trials instead of us trying to protect them or rescue them.

Dave: Can you tell us one?

Kristen: Sure. My daughter dealt with an eating disorder. And one of my sons struggled with perfectionism that just came out as a lot of anxiety and some depression; and some of that, early on, we didn’t know. And then, it was difficult walking through those things with them; and the journeys were pretty long. And yet, I learned, in that: “I can’t control; I cannot rescue them from this. It’s our story; and yet, it’s their story.”

Ann: And it’s difficult, as a parent, not to beat yourself up. I have found that, parenting adult kids, I can go back and blame myself, like, “Oh, what did I do wrong?”; and it does no good.

Kristen: It does no good; no. You’re right, because I did: “How didn’t I catch this?” or “What could I have done differently so they didn’t struggle with this?”

I will say that we wanted our kids to be happy and successful; but overall, we wanted them to know Jesus. And so that was something that was always—and I always said to them—“This is not just because your dad is a pastor that we are going to church; that we are talking about these things.” And then, redemptive living is something I talk a lot about; that is, a normal pattern in our household should be: confession, and repentance, and forgiveness, and grace. Parents have to go first.

So often, I have teenagers in my counseling room who say they’ve never heard their parents say, “I’m sorry.” They see—especially, as they’re teenagers—they see that their parents are not perfect. And so now, they’re bitter and resentful; and they see them as hypocrites, because they’re not perfect. And yet, they’re on these teenagers for doing things wrong.

I would say, “Saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ when we see that we have wronged,”—whether that’s an idol, or we’ve lost our patience in our child—to go to them and say, “Please forgive me.” This was me: I was always ruled by my agenda, getting things done. I’m a great multitasker; and so, there was very many times that I was just doing my thing. I was dismissive of my children, or impatient, because they were interrupting me from what I was trying to do. I had to go back and say, “I’m so sorry.”

Ann: I’m still doing that; I just did it last week with adult children: “Hey, guys…” You know how you’ll put your head on the pillow; and then, when you’re quiet enough that the Holy Spirit can kind of whisper—not in a condemning way—because there’s a difference between the condemnation is not from God.

Kristen: That’s right.

Ann: But it’s just in that Holy Spirit conviction, of like, “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that”; so then, I get my phone out; and I text them in the morning: “Hey, guys; I’m really sorry. I hope you can forgive me.”

What are you laughing about over there?

Dave: I’ve seen you do that many times; and me too!—

Kristen: —which is great; which is great.

Dave: —with adult men and women now. It’s really needed—you’re right—that cycle of forgiveness: confession, repentance, forgiveness; and what?—grace?

Kristen: Grace, grace; always grace.

Ann: Well, this has been fun. And tomorrow, I’d love to get into your “Parenting Pitfalls.” You have a whole section that you talk about that. I think every parent will lean in, like, “Oh, I need to know what those are.”

Kristen: Sounds good.

Dave: Yeah; let me just say: if you give a gift/a financial gift to FamilyLife, we’ll send you this book.

Ann: —any amount.

Kristen: I love it!

Dave: Yeah, any amount. Just go to FamilyLifeToday.com, and you can make your gift there. And we will send you Parenting Ahead: Preparing Now for the Teen Years. Trust me: it’s really good; you’re really going to—

Ann: I really like the questions after each chapter too.

Kristen: Thanks. That’s amazing; thank you.

Dave: And again, if you’re not an internet guy, and you want to make a phone call, you can call us at 800-358-6329. That’s 800-F as in Family or football, L as in Life, and the word, TODAY.

Ann: If you need more on this, or any kind of parenting help, you can get more
at FamilyLife.com/ParentingHelp.

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