Customer Reviews

Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up with Your Teenager

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Chapter by chapter, Peterson presents each teenage challenge to parents (10 of them), and answers them with scripture and understanding. If we cannot draw on the example of Jesus to relate to our teenagers, then what good is our faith? As Christians we are uniquely gifted to deal with life, especially teenage sons and daughters. I was impressed with the examples. I recommend this book for parents *and* for teenagers, as both should come to a better understanding of each other after reading it.

I always find Peterson's writing hard to follow - and I feel somewhat left out because (a) we are not your typical American Family (we are Australian) and (b)the adults of the family are 'recent converts'. This means that a lot of the examples get bypassed as 'irrelevant' (there are differences in culture) and some of the statements are hard to accept because they refer to families well grounded in Christ - for example, when Peterson asserts that Christian parents have a deep trust in God, I find myself thinking 'well, actually, I still don't quite...'.

However, some of the suggestions are very valid, no matter what the family background is - and for any parent struggling through in the adolescent phase of their children's life, his concept of treating it as an opporunity rather than a problem to be solved takes away a lot of angst, guilt and even a couple of arguments.

This is a reallt great book for parents and pastors who need to work with youths. It is balanced, graceful, and full of insights. It's one of the books I want to read again and again to make sure I do not lose sight of any of Peterson's advices.

Eugene H Peterson, Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up With Your Teenager (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994 [1976])

Review by Darren Cronshaw

My fear is that when my children turn teenagers I won't understand them. I am reminded of this underlying anxiety when they, now in their primary school years, express disappointment in my decisions. When the emotional storms escalate, I suspect the turmoils I feel may be a faint wind of what is to come. What I remember (and what I forget) of my own teenage years does not give me any more confidence.

So Peterson's classic book on parenting teenagers is welcome preparation. What I love is it presents adolescence not as a problem to solve, not a challenge to meet with techniques, but as a gift. Peterson says adolescence is God's gift to the child for their transition into adulthood, and also a gift to middle-aged parents to grow into a deeper relationship with our children and with God.

The 12 chapters untangle the dilemmas of comments that parents fear hearing: "I'll dress the way I want", "You never trust me", "You aren't going to tell me what to do", "If you'd love me, you'd let me", "I'm not going to church" and "You're nothing but a hypocrite." It addresses cars and drugs, discipline and communication, faith and identity, spirituality and emotions. Peterson's sympathetic insights help the reader understand what is a strenuous process. But he also points positively towards how to promote communication and acceptance, trust and love, and how to embrace learning and growth rather than allowing misunderstandings and resentment to escalate. His advice is not so much about how to make teenagers obey and go to church, but how to find their own identity and make their own decisions about God.

Each chapter has questions as group conversational starters and the book concludes with principles for parent support groups that Peterson calls `The Parent Coalition'.

Thanks Eugene for helping me look forward to and not fear teenage years my second time around.

Darren is BUV's Coordinator of Leadership Training and pastor at Auburn Baptist. This review was previously published in The Witness:The Voice of Victorian Baptists, Vol.90, No.3 (March), p.21.

True to Peterson's works, he invites parents to live so their inside person matches the person they are in relationship with their teen kids. Thankfully this is not a formula book; "How to be the perfect parent of perfect teenagers." It is a confident book; God's creative grace is active in teens and their middle age parents. Enjoy the ride through adolescence, everybody grows up!

What a blessing and comfort this book has been to me, a Grandparent. The wisdom of Eugene Peterson shines brightly in this little book and speaks volumes.

The oldest of Peterson's pastoral works was titled Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up with Your Teenager (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, c. 1976). Written by a pastor who's reared teens, for parents longing for direction, this book offers sound and (typical of Peterson) refreshing advice.

First, he helps us relax with the assurance that "there are no well-adjusted adolescents. Adolescence is, by definition, maladjustment" (p. 1). Just ignore much of the nonsense which assures you these troubled waters can be stilled by some conjuring tricks dispensed by media gurus. Accept the necessary goodness of the generation gap, "a design to be preserved" (p. 41) for teens' well-being and parental sanity.

Second, however much they may try us, parents should "embrace the experience offered to them by their adolescent children as a gift from God, a means of grace for themselves to mature into 'wisdom and favor with men and God'" (p. 6). Then we work not so much on our kids as on ourselves, which is considerably more do-able. By and large, Christian parents give up "meddling" with their teens, learning from Eli to "refer them to God" (p. 19).

In this process, if we allow God to work in our lives, our children will benefit. After all, they rarely heed our advice, but they constantly scrutinize our character. To be honest, reliable, openly relying on God's grace, allowing Christ's imprint to seared on our souls, will help our teens more than anything else. This means we most influence our kids in the small activities of life: listening, smiling, mopping up messes.

In an important section, Peterson shows how parent-child "love" changes during adolescence. A new kind of love is needed since "the old loves are no longer adequate for the new reality" (p. 55). Yet in losing the former kinds of love both parties frequently feel betrayed. The emotional need-loves of child¬hood, so marvelously satisfying to both parties, must be replaced by a parental love which "wills the fulfillment of the other" (p. 60). Children move through adolescence to adulthood, and parents must facilitate that transition.

That's done by patiently, consistently doing what's best for adolescents, knowing they're liable to rebel and renounce parental pieties, to indulge in rhetorical accusations ("hypocrite" is a favor¬ite teen-toned label). Teens further need, from adults, an unwavering hopefulness regarding their future (something they frequently question). And they need help moving from the needed prohibitions of childhood into the renunciations of maturity.

Designed as a study book for groups, this is one of the wisest books I've read on working with adolescents.

We have a review of this book on our church's web page, at www.ilinks.net/~faithpca/teams/youth/parents.html