Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
You know, when I think back, when I was a teenager, I was small, a frame. I was a lightweight, literally. I was just a little late bloomer. And I'm in the locker room with these guys during high school. And it's like, you guys are men. I am not. And I felt so insecure. Now, it's got to be a lot worse today. And so many teens are struggling with self-worth issues.
with the added layer and complications of online bullying and social media and everything. But God's word tells us that each of us, whether we're large or small, no matter how we turn out, we're fearfully and wonderfully made. How do we convey that to our teens? I'm John Fuller, joined by Dr. Danny Huerta, who leads our parenting team. And Danny...
I don't know if you could relate. You couldn't relate because you were never the 95-pound weakling. Oh, my goodness. And you're pretty buff now in a way that I'm not. But struggles are real. And today, I mean, you're a counselor. You see a lot of teens, I'm sure, who are dealing with body issues. No, and I struggled with that for a while. I was in...
In fifth grade, and I remember writing a note. I may have shared on one of the shows. I wrote a note to this girl. And I already had a little bit of insecurity at that point. I was a little chubby.
This is really weird because I can't see you as a chubby person. My grandpa was a cheesemaker, so a ton of cheese, man. I love the cheese. But I was somewhat chubby and I was insecure about that specific thing. Wrote this note to this girl at a camp and I said, hey, do you like me? Back then we wrote notes on a piece of paper. Yes.
And my friend brought the note back from there. Because that's how it worked. We never gave the note directly. That's right. That's right. And it said, you're a geek and you're fat. Oh. I go, what? And so then that one vote, this one comment that was pretty strong, pretty powerful in that moment caused me to question, maybe that is true about me. And so it led me on a trajectory of four or five years of...
wanting to just exercise, just being super focused, hyper focused, over focused on needing to look a certain way. And it was this...
impactful developmental time in my life and so many kids are facing it now and to a much higher extent now with social media with the comparison pressure I know that boys and girls face this and I've talked to several boys that are struggling with
various forms of eating issues on the continuum. And then girls that have struggled with the pressures from other girls to look a certain way. And then from media itself and maybe from what coaches have said even along the way, especially in those higher level sports. Yeah. Well, that's so true. And when one of my daughters was a teen, late teen, she struggled with body issues and
She had some anorexia going on, and that took a long time to address. She's way better now. But let's go ahead and turn to a conversation featuring Focus President Jim Daley about all of this. And here he is speaking specifically about teens and self-esteem with Jodi Berndt.
Jodi, let's move from that sexualized scenario that we talked about to body image and the other things that kids experience, young people experience, teens experience. You mentioned it, you know, when you were in junior high and what you were facing with your braces and everything. That's very kind. But the, you know, the idea of body image, again, because things...
Things are so sexualized and there's, you know, the 10 person is put out on the pedestal. I can only imagine the grief that teen girls are feeling. Yeah, you say girls, but boys too now. Oh, I know. Boys with body image. I was going to mention that, you know, in terms of weightlifting and trying to have a physique that matches some 20-year-old. But all of that kind of speaks to identity crisis. I mean, so they're trying to find some identity. They're very insecure. Right.
I was insecure in high school about my size, you know, my body. Am I big enough to play football? And I did all those things. But even doing it, I was the quarterback of the football team. I still had so many doubts than I did positive thoughts about where I was at and where I was going.
I should have made that pass a little better. All that stuff. But speak to identity in Christ because my sense is, especially with sexual identity issues today with the kids, parents cannot do enough to talk about with their children what
Who they are in Christ. Right. And I think that can sound very 10,000 foot view, your identity in Christ. You know, Christians, we throw that around. Yeah. We want you to be rooted in Christ, have your identity in him. But what does that really mean? And I think for us, if we want to get down to the very basics, is to know that you are Christ's beloved. Right.
You know, that's all of Scripture is His love letter to us. But I think when we take hold of verses like Ephesians 2:8, which talks about we are God's masterpiece, Psalm 139, we're fearfully and wonderfully made.
When we begin to speak those things over our kids and into their lives from an early age, letting them know, you're beautiful. God has made you wonderfully. And even that child that is not looking real wonderful right that minute, you can speak into the thing that you want to see. You know, I love...
How funny God made you. You know, I think he's going to use that gift in your life. Or, hey, I noticed that you did such and such for your sibling. That was really kind. I love seeing the way God is developing kindness in you. And I think our children will rise to those things when we... Instead of, what's wrong with you? How could you have done that? To take time to notice those things that they're doing right. You know, it's the tiniest thing. And to speak into that. Yeah, I think that's great. And that, again, I think it's drip, drip, drip. It's drip irrigation. And when we're constantly speaking...
spiritually to our children about God's love for them, God's acceptance of them. Yeah, his love for him. That does make a difference. And that begins to find the rootedness that they need in identity. And for us as well, because we can think we've blown it. We can think we don't have what it takes.
Oh, you know, Danny, I loved what Jodi said about speaking positively over our kids. And I fail at that. I still fail at that. What are some things that you said to your kids when they were teens that were positive and that you think made a difference?
Well, both of my kids had their unique challenges through the teen years. Every teen will face some type of challenge. And my daughter did share with me, and I asked her, hey, can I share this when we're on the show? She said, sure. And it was a time where she felt...
insecurity with her body image. And I know we were talking about that at the beginning to a point where she had an eating disorder for a while. Okay. And it came through a coach. She was in elite sports and a comment came through saying,
She was still getting all these positive comments from us and from people around her, but she believed this one. And I asked her, I said, what helped you get through that? How were we supportive in that? And she said, you know, the writing in the mirror with the chalk markers, I still remember the life-giving words you guys wrote there where I could process them, look at them in the mirror when I was on my own.
Those solidified some of those things. And then this journal that we've had that I've talked about on the show that we had at the kitchen table, we wrote life-giving things to each other. She said, that helped me. She said, I actually carried- Oh, so there's the journal. This is the journal. She said, I would carry this around with me at school, even in high school. And sometimes I'd just pull it out.
And there was several that she would look at over and over again. And there's several verses in there, but I was looking at one after she gave me the book and it says, I had written to her, you are enough. I love who God created you to be. Remember that today, Lexi. And she said, this and your support for me to be able to go see a counselor if I needed that.
See, we think that the generosity of our words, the life-giving words we bring to our kids are always about positive things. It could be that we say, hey, can I be of help? Can I pray for you? Or this is how I've been praying for you. And in those points of difficulty, being able to say,
Honey, it's okay to struggle. It's okay to have adversity. We are with you. Self-esteem is dangerous for kids. It's not always about feeling super great about ourselves. It's about knowing we're supported, that we have the strength to get through things, that we have the confidence and also the ability to
in a truthful way, understanding the abilities God has given us to be able to do the things he's called us to do, not to gain the praise of men. And so for my daughter, she's learned that her life is not about gaining as many likes or as much love as possible, but about being a loving person to those around her. That's where we begin to find the self-confidence that
And what we're thinking about is healthy self-esteem. That's good. Well, on top of what we heard from Jodi and Jim, that's really solid advice. And I hope you as a mom or a dad are thinking, I can do that. I can take some of what I've learned here and use it effectively with my child. I can use words. I can speak to them in truthful ways.
We want to keep encouraging you on a regular basis to do that. We have two things I'm going to point out. One is the book from Jody Berndt called Praying the Scriptures for Your Teens. This is a terrific resource. You will wear this out, believe me. It's got such a great collection of various prayers, and we're making that available for a donation of any amount to the ministry today. So donate and get your book. We've got the details in the show notes.
And then our free Age and Stage e-newsletter, which contains a lot of great info. Danny, you and the team have worked on this for a long time. Give a couple of headlines about why I would want to sign up for an e-newsletter.
Yeah, this one, it's a free resource that's sent to you annually at the birth date of each of your kids. And it's well-researched. It's biblically based. It gives you what to expect at that age of your child's development, what to build intentionally, and then how to grow. Three important categories to be looking at.
absolutely free and you get it around the birthday of each of your kids as they're growing older. You don't have to go looking for it. You just have to open the email. Then the other one is a weekly email that you get with content relevant to the stage you're in. And we try to pick out questions that the parents are asking or relevant things to you and your parenting that, again, sent to your inbox every Thursday. And we're also, John, adding every week, we're adding new content to our website that
where you can sort things through each stage and then through each category, which are mental health, biblical sexuality, technology, entertainment, the top concerns parents are having, all absolute free. Okay, well, I wish I could look around the corner and know what's coming up.
You can't really, but you can sure have a lot of great research and biblical insights to help you do that in some very helpful, informed way when you sign up for the Agent Stage e-newsletter. You'll get all that Danny just described. Once again, it's totally free. Go to the show notes right now and check it out and sign up. We'll hear more from Jody Berndt next time about challenges teens are facing and how you can show up for your child.
On behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and our entire team, thanks for listening today to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.
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