PARENTS
At CrossRoads, we believe our role in children’s and student ministry is to come alongside the family in discipleship, prayer, and life. Parents are the primary influence and primary disciple makers for their children. This page is a landing space for resources and more to help parents in the things of life. Parenting isn’t easy, don’t do it alone!
I’m guessing that you know that the pressure our kids feel doesn’t suddenly show up when they become teenagers. It starts much earlier than that. Even our younger kids are learning what it means to perform, succeed, fit in, keep up, and measure up. The messages they receive along the way can begin shaping how they see themselves and what they believe really matters. As parents, it’s worth slowing down and asking, “What kind of pressure is my child already carrying?” We can’t protect our kids from every difficult expectation they’ll face, but we can help them develop a healthy understanding of growth from the very beginning. We have the opportunity to remind them that they don’t have to be the best, the fastest, or the most successful to be loved, valued, and deeply known.
In this month’s Online Parenting Class, we encourage you to pay attention to the pressure your kids are feeling as they grow up and look for ways to help them navigate it in healthy ways. Our kids are facing pressure to perform in so many ways and, as parents, we have an important role to play in helping them learn how to handle that pressure without letting it define them. We can’t remove every source of stress from their lives, but we can be proactive in helping them develop healthy rhythms, lower unnecessary pressure, and remember that their worth is found in who they are, not in what they accomplish. This video will give you some practical ideas and steps you can take to help your kids navigate the pressure they’re feeling and create a healthier path as they learn and grow.
The teenage years can be a pretty intense season. There’s pressure to perform, pressure to fit in, pressure to look a certain way, pressure to know what comes next, and sometimes even pressure they put on themselves that we don’t fully see. And if we’re not careful we, as parents, can unintentionally add to that pressure by focusing more on outcomes than on the person our teenager is becoming. So, it’s worth slowing down and asking a tough question: What is all this pressure doing to my teenager? Are they learning to grow in healthy ways, or are they simply learning to keep up? As parents, we have an important opportunity to help our teenagers understand that healthy growth isn’t about becoming more impressive, it’s about becoming more of who God created them to be.
In this month’s Online Parenting Class, we encourage you to pay attention to what’s happening beneath the surface as your teenager navigates the pressures of the world around them. The teenage years come with plenty of expectations, comparisons, decisions, and pressure to figure out who they are and where they’re headed. As parents, we have an opportunity to help our teenagers develop a healthy view of growth, not one defined by performance, achievement, or keeping up with everyone else. We really want to help them become the person God created them to be. This video will give you some practical ideas for coming alongside your teenager, recognizing the pressures they’re carrying, and helping them grow in healthy ways.