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Key Bible Verse: A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out (Isaiah 42:3). Bonus Reading: Matthew 21:28-31a

"Tell us more about it," we urged. By braving the Arctic hardships and working all the daylight hours of most days, Steve reported, he'd earn "massive overtime" and pile up enough money "to live on Easy Street" when he returned home a year or two later.

"Just how much do they pay?" we eagerly asked.

"I'm not sure," our son hedged, "but I know it's a lot."

"And where will you probably live? What will you eat?" we asked, to get him thinking. Steve answered that he'd probably rent or build a log cabin in the woods, buy a high-powered rifle, and live on moose meat.

We resisted telling Steve he'd probably lose his fingers and toes to frostbite in the Alaskan cold. But as we reveled in his dream with him, we tried to subtly interject possible down sides of his plan. By the time we asked just when he thought he'd leave on the project, he'd turned vague: "Maybe in a year or two."

Because we listened non-judgmentally to his dream, our son didn't have to go to Alaska to assert his independence. He finished high school and graduated from college. Today he regularly wears a suit and tie in his challenging work in the corporate business world.

—Dennis Gibson in The Sandwich Years

My Response: How can I challenge a teen's thinking without crushing his dreams?

Thought to Apply: That energy which makes a child hard to manage is the energy which afterward makes him a manager of life.  —Henry Ward Beecher

Adapted from The Sandwich Years (Dennis & Ruth Gibson [dennis@dennisgibson.com], 1991) by permission.

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

I need Your wisdom, Lord, to adjust my parenting style from director of children to encourager and shaper of emerging adulthood for youths.

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