When Will it Be Up to Me?

Focus on the Family Equipping Parents Podcast

Focus on the Family

Kids & Family, Parenting

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When your son or daughter reaches the teen phase, it's common for him or her to want independence and to speak his or her mind. John and Danny open up about times their kids became more opinionated in the teen years. Plus, Dr. Ken Wilgus and Jessica Pfeiffer address the main battle that parents of teens face.

Find us online at focusonthefamily.com/parentingpodcast. Or call 1-800-A-FAMILY.

Receive the book Feeding the Mouth that Bites You for your donation of any amount!

Take the 7 Traits of Effective Parenting Assessment

Common Teen Issues That Drive Parents Crazy

Learn About Our Age and Stage e-Newsletter

https://sf.fotf.com/0ughun

Support This Show!

If you enjoyed listening to the Focus on Parenting Podcast, please give us your feedback.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	God is at work and he's calling his people to rise in truth. Truth Rising is a powerful new documentary from Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. See how ordinary Christians choose courage in a culture that needs truth. Watch Truth Rising today and find out how you can become an agent of restoration and hope
0:23.5	visit truth rising.com today that's truth rising dot com there was a time where one of my boys was
0:34.9	i think probably 17 and he kind of gave us a piece of his mind.
0:40.8	Mom walked away, rightly offended, and I just leaned in and said, let's talk about this and how
0:46.9	this really works. I'm not always that calm, but at that moment, I think the Lord allowed me
0:52.4	just to speak from a wise perspective and not an emotionally throttled perspective. That's tough, show. Yeah, it is. Well, I'm John Fuller, along with Dr. Danny Werta, who leads our parenting team here. And Danny, these moments are, you can't plan them. This just happens when kids kind of dump. Yeah, they bring a piece. How do you get a hold of it?
1:13.9	It's a natural thing that a teenager is wanting to explore these new things
1:18.9	and that they have not gotten to explore those first 12 or 13 years
1:23.3	that they have been able to experience with their parents.
1:25.8	And now they get to explore this brand new
1:28.0	world, new adventure. And so they're finding out these new things. And with that comes pushback.
1:34.2	And they'll say, well, my parents, they just don't understand. Or, yeah, it's kind of the old way of
1:39.4	thinking. They're new things with this new generation. And so there's this feeling of being enlightened by this new
1:45.6	adventure that they're on. And I remember having moments with my son when he initially started
1:51.5	to bring a bit of pushback on phone boundaries, on movies, on what, you know, why can't,
1:59.1	why can't I watch this movie or curfew? And, uh,
2:04.3	those were important conversations for me as a dad to consider, is this a time to begin to, to
2:09.3	give this over to my son to make the decision on discernment? And then with the phone, we were,
2:16.2	I was, I was, I was pretty hardlined on that one.
2:18.6	You needed to plug your phone in, 9 o'clock at night, you need to go to bed,
2:23.5	and just knowing all the science behind, all the research really behind the phones,
2:28.5	and he had just gotten it, and I know the teen brain is attracted to that.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Focus on the Family, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Focus on the Family and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.