Someone observed that the best indicator of where you'll be in five years are the close

friends you have today.

That's an interesting observation and when your son or daughter reaches the

teen years that does lead to the question of how can I help them find good friends

so that in five years they'll be sitting in a pretty good spot. I'm John Fuller

along with Dr Danny Werta who heads up the focus on the family parenting department.

And we're going to hear now from three parents, Shauna Hudson,

Ellen Sloaman, and Nick DuPont.

They talked with Focus President Jim Daly about their experience walking their child through

a focus on the family curriculum called Launch and the Teen Years, and today they address the need your teen has for good friends.

Nick, there's an illustration in the kit where we describe friendship fences and the importance of creating those friendship fences

how did you absorb that how did you illustrate that to your son? Yeah, so the friendship fence is a barrier that a child puts between their heart and their life.

It's a metaphor for what type of friends they're going to allow kind of into their

inner circle or to influence them in a big way. So every fence has a gate and if you leave that gate open there's going to be a lot of people trying to come in and and influence you.

So if a potential friend has the character traits that are in your friendship

fence like being a faithful friend as opposed to being a fair weather friend,

being able to forgive people or be forgiving

as opposed to being more toxic and holding a grudge, then they're allowed to come in.

Now that doesn't mean that everybody else is, you know,

on the outside.

You still want to, you know, talk with everybody,

love on everybody, but you're not just going to let them

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