Parenting Ahead

Parenting Ahead: Preparing Now for the Teen Years, Kristen Hatton (New Growth Press, 2023) 

This is a really helpful resource for parents whose children are in the teen years, or will be in the future.

Hatton writes a grace filled message that encourages and challenges parents to consider what their goals of parenting are, and how they are shaped by the gospel. 

Part 1 starts with the reason for “long-range redemptive, hope-filled parenting.” She encourages perseverance and hope (in God’s faithfulness and in our security and transformation in Christ) as our main guides for the journey: 

“What an amazing opportunity you have now to help build that foundation for your younger children with biblical principles, boundaries, convictions, and honest conversations that will help them when they face the challenges of adolescence.”

Part 2 focuses on some of the pitfalls that hinder along the way.

• Parenting styles - both overparenting and underparenting and the consequences of each. 
• Idols & the way they impact us as parents, such as a desire for control, comfort, success and the fear of man. 
• The influence of the world. Here she includes a helpful table that works through the numerous main messages our world today, and then considers them in light of the gospel and how to adapt them to fit God’s truth. 
• Stop hurrying the hurt - that is, allow things to be hard and for your kids to experience natural suffering and pain. Not only does this reflect the reality of the world, it will grow and mould them. 

Finally, Part 3 considers what living redemptively might look like. This will include confessing sin, being open about our idols and our struggles, and offering mercy and forgiveness to each other - for parents and children alike. She proposes ways to continue to move towards our children: with connection, active listening, no nagging, no shaming, identifying, and normalising taboo topics. She challenges families to consider where their time, effort and money goes, and encouraged slowing down, saying no, and setting boundaries.

“Now we would likely all agree that apart from a relationship with Christ, family is our number one treasure. But I wonder if an honest assessment of our time and finances would show this to be functionally true.”

Hatten finishes with the encouragement and exhortation to grow in grace, manage our own guilt about our parenting, and cultivate compassion for our children and ourselves.

“I hope growing in grace leads to you being an agent of grace in the lives of your kids.”

Each chapter finishes with questions to assist you to apply the content to your own situation. Appendices provide a list of suggested other resources, and a Redemptive Parenting Assessment as a way of considering your own parenting perspective and priorities and things you might want to change.

Hatten is honest about her own failings, mistakes and regrets, but also shares wise choices and decisions that they made. Overall, she strikes a really helpful balance - acknowledging God is in control, we are sinful and will make mistakes, that no parent is perfect, and that there is no foolproof parenting formula. Yet, at the same time, there are things we can do as parents to be proactive, gospel focussed, and intentional. Worth a read for anyone in or entering the stage of parenting teenagers.


I received an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.