Not to oversimplify the ups and downs of the adolescent years, but you may be able to make a few tweaks to your parenting approach that could reduce tension and increase bonding with your teens.

Don’t Be So Quick To Snatch Their Phone

You’re concerned about their device usage or because you’re upset over something they have done. Your concern is valid, but taking away their phone is not always that effective in soliciting good technology-use or birthing a new attitude.

Relational Correction

Biblical Starting Point: Be gentle when you instruct and admonish. Teach in such a way that you inspire personal responsibility. (Deut. 32:2; Prov. 15:1; Gal. 6:1; Eph. 4:1-3; 1 Tim. 6:11; Titus 3:2)

Try this Experiment: Promise them that no matter what they do, you won’t take away their phone. Notice if you see a reduction in defensiveness or anxiety, more of a willingness to have proper boundaries with technology, and new signs of respect towards you.

Talk With, Not At

You talk at your kids instead of with them because you’re the person of authority. Your position is true, but using that power won’t invite open dialogue with adolescents.

Relational Communication

Biblical Starting Point: Your adolescent may seem stubborn, irrational, or emotional much of the time and undeserving of your respect, but there is a growing soul inside that needs to be respectfully heard so that it can soar. Treat them like the responsible, mature person you believe they will become rather than like the child you often see them act out. (Ruth 1:15-18; 2 Kings 22:1; Luke 2:49-51; 1 Tim. 4:12)

Try this Experiment: Ask your teen how you can react better when he/she has something to say. Be prepared for a lot of feedback! But if you change first, they will see emotional maturity and humility on display.

Don’t Forget How The Gospel Works

You know the Gospel, but you don’t know how to use it with teens. You have so much to worry about in this modern world it’s understandable that you’d focus on their behavior, but the Gospel starts with the heart.

Relational Gospel

Biblical Starting Point: Thanks to sin, everyone becomes forgetful of what Jesus did that humans cannot. And thanks to sin, parents can become shocked by their kids’ behavior. But you shouldn’t be. Teens are sinners who need a Savior – not sinners who just need to straighten up. (Rom. 3:23; 5:8; 5:18; 7:19; 8:1; 2 Cor. 5:21)

Try this Experiment: View the adolescent years as a journey, not a performance. Look for God to be at work in your teen’s life and pray and praise Him along the way. Be more of a mentor than a parole officer in your relationship with your kid and notice how your bond grows stronger and closer. Make your highest priority every day to joyfully…lovingly…calmly lead your teen towards the Savior and let the sovereign God take care of the rest.