Clever advice for parents of teenagers

Comments from blogger Patrick Madrid. Eleven kids...wow!

Hard to believe, but Nancy and I have been raising kids for nigh unto 31 years now. We’ve done our best to lovingly and prudently herd our oldest 10 children into and through their teenage years and, so far, everyone seems intact and no worse for the wear.

Nancy and I, on the other hand, while not any worse for the wear either, have come to the point in life where we can begin to savor the tantalizingly pleasant realization that our eleventh and last child, Stephen, will soon be entering teenagehood. And that means (dontchyaknow), that, for us, raising teenagers will in the not too distant future be something we wondrously behold . . . in the rearview mirror.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that we haven’t loved and been grateful to God for all these years of living with a rambunctious throng of teens in our house at any given time, but we’re . . . shall we say, close to being ready, to transition to the next phase.

One of our favorite comedians, the insanely funny Tim Hawkins, delivers in this video some innovative advice on how to deal with teenagers. If only I could play the guitar and sing as well as he does, maybe I’d try it on my kids. Check it out.