All last week my 14-year-old daughter was at camp, about 3 hours away from home. It was all middle school kids who were told to not bring their cell phones. Since I was in North Carolina, I missed that information at a parent meeting.
So the next morning when I dropped her off at church, she mentioned her phone was low on battery but that she couldn’t bring the charger because she wasn’t supposed to really have it. Yes, just minutes before she is leaving. I didn’t make too much of it and said my goodbyes.
It was hard having her gone all week. I had only gotten back from a three day trip out of town to see her just a couple of hours and then the next morning I was dropping her off for a five day camping trip.
On Wednesday, just barely three days into it, I received a text message from her saying she wanted to come home. I wasn’t expecting this at all. Of all my children who could survive being away from home for several days, it is her. But she was apparently not happy with an adult in charge.
It was raining and she didn’t pack rain gear. So she was cold but was told that she had to participate in the basketball game. She didn’t want to and she wanted to come home. I told her that I couldn’t come get her. Do you know how hard that was to text back? It was really difficult.
She replied back that she wasn’t going to play, no matter what. I told her to remember that it was just one moment in an entire week and to not let it get to her. But then she replied back, “My phone is dying…” and that was the end of our conversation.
Well this certainly didn’t leave me with a good feeling. That night I had church and I stopped to talk to my friend whose daughter was also on this camping trip. She said that she had one of the youth sponsor’s phone numbers and I could text her to see how my daughter was doing. I was happy to take that number down.
Shortly after that I ran into another friend and I told her about the text messages between me and my daughter and how I now had the youth sponsor’s phone number. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Don’t contact her.” I looked at her with surprise…what did she mean don’t contact her?
We ended up having a really good conversation. She shared with me some things she had been learning in a Sunday school class, about how parents try too hard to protect their children. And that when we are always interfering in the name of “protecting,” we are actually doing more harm than good.
She made several valid points and I walked away totally at peace with not dialing up the youth sponsor. I even managed to make it through the next couple of days without stressing over it.
So when I went to pick her up Friday, all I heard about was the fun she had. As it turned out, another youth sponsor told her she didn’t have to play and although the team had to forfeit (she wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to play in the rain), it worked out.
It just made me think…what if I had dropped everything to pick her up? What if I had called up complaining to the youth sponsor? It all worked out in the end. And it was a good lesson on remembering that sometimes our children really do need to figure things out on their own and not have the interference of their parents.
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Give Your Teen Opportunities to Make their Own Decisions
We Can’t Always Rescue Our Children
Decisions, Decisions: When to Step Out of the Way
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