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Let me just begin by sharing that my heart’s desire is to understand how we as women transition through, and are transformed by, the unnesting process. Moving through the tween and teen years has been surprisingly difficult at points, which is why I decided to start the Unnesting blog.
I am not a parenting expert, far from it.
When I asked one mom what tools she found most useful in connecting with the heart of her teen during the unnesting years she said, “I am pretty much winging it every day.”
As she said that, I knew it to be true of me too. For although we were intentional in parenting our children, I have found that parenting teens is an entirely different animal. There is no playbook, but there are helpful tools.
Axis: The Cultural Translator has been an incredibly useful tool to my husband and me as we walk our adolescents into adulthood. Axis offers weekly emails, a blog, conversation kits, parenting guides and regular summits featuring experts on various aspects of the teen experience.
PROs:
- Email, a weekly heads-up on teen culture: I love the Cultural Translator’s free weekly email, which highlights three big things currently taking place in the teen culture. I use the email as a sort of shortcut to keep up, at least to some degree, on the fast-paced and ever-changing preferences of teens. What I have learned in the emails has often led to good conversations on topics that are meaningful to my teen.
- Blog: When I want to dig deeper into a particular topic, I pull up the blog by Axis known as Centered. So much useful information there! I especially enjoyed a recent post on Teen Stress.
- Conversation Kits: Not sure where or how to begin some of those difficult conversations? Then you might enjoy the Conversation Kits, which cover topics like leadership, identity, gender, suicide, pornography and more.
- Parenting Summit: I have gleaned insights and gained much needed tools from the Parenting Summit’s Axis offers. And! They are offering a free 10-Day Raising Gen Z Parenting Summit featuring 50 speakers. You can watch the speakers from anywhere you have an internet connection. I have already signed up. If you’re interested, you can sign up here.
CONs:
- Axis is a go-to resource for me. The one drawback, if you can call it that, is that their offerings are so extensive that sometimes I get a little overwhelmed. If you are like me in that way, I recommend you begin with the weekly emails and take it from there.
May you be richly blessed, sweet friend, as you strive to parent well in this season.
The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26
Teresa Dunn says
I Recommend this book: “Doing Life With Your Adult Children” by Jim Burns. Good stuff, confirmed most of what we already are doing/practicing (keep loving them, keep praying for them, keep listening to them, to not judge).
Tiffiney Cowan says
Teresa, thank you for the recommendation! I will check it out. Perhaps I will post a review of it at some point. Thanks again!