Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, Second Edition

I am still in the process of reading this book, but I had to share how it has already helped me as a mom of two teens. Through this book, I have found a new way of relating to my girls and the results have been wonderful. The author has a gift of relating to and understanding teens. He does a wonderful job of sharing this gift with parents through his writing. I have read MANY books on parenting and am so tired of the books that make you feel like you have ruined your children forever if you haven't already followed their special formula for raising the perfect Christian child. I have read books that have beaten me down as a parent. It is so refreshing to read a book that is such an encouragement to parents raising teens. Paul David Tripp speaks of teens in a positive light and shares his own experiences with his teens. He shares his mistakes as well as victories. He has a way of reminding parents what it was like to be a teen & he gives parents a new understanding of this important time in a child's life. What I found most helpful in my own situation was how the author has parents examine their own hearts and states that if our hearts are controlled by something other than God, we will not view the parenting opportunities of the teen years as opportunities. We will view them as irritating hassles. He goes on to explain some typical parental idols & how they shape our responses to our teens. This was a very enlightening chapter and really made me examine my own heart. It truly explained why I was having a difficult time relating to my teens. This book not only helped me feel encouraged, it also gave me practical ideas in raising teens. It has blessed me already and I am only a little over half way through it. :) I highly recommend it to all parents. I am going to purchase more copies to give to friends as their children hit the "pre-teen" years.

Amazing book for anyone guiding teenagers. This will train a parent to seize those unpleasant moments and go from sending quarreling siblings to opposite ends of the house, to getting to the root of their strife. Mr. Tripp likens our families to God's training ground for placing a Biblical world view into our children. So that everything they are interpreting can be viewed through and held up to the grid of God's Word. This book is not for the faint of heart. This is a "roll up your sleeves and get dirty" book. It's a "take a good look at your own heart/example first" book. I've been convicted so many times throughout the book. God didn't give us children so that we could raise them, but so that He could finish raising us! It is a book that gave me so much confidence and direction and allowed me top go from frustration to a plan that's was calmly executed. It is filled with scripture! I've started giving them out to people who have teenagers. Thank you, Mr. Tripp!

My husband and I led this study with a group at church. 25 of us went through it together over 3 months. At times, it's very challenging - this isn't one that waves a wand, or makes easy promises. This is about recognizing several biblical truths and then working on them. I was drawn to this because I was just sad at hearing people say "Buckle the seatbelt, you'll get the kids back when they are 19." Well, by then they'd be in college, then married... so that's it then? Kiss goodbye to the previously great relationship just because they hit teen years? I was looking for a better answer. This gave a lot of hope, and a lot of answers. As I said, they are not easy answers and take work. Are you willing? The premise behind it is that God is the God of every little thing, and it's the little things in life that provide the most and best teaching moments - and they are everywhere! Second, kids have a way of pushing buttons and revealing to us things we don't like about ourselves (anger, pride etc). Often we'll blame the kids, but God gives us that opportunity to work on ourselves as well as help our teens. It's filled with great biblical guidance for our families, the community within our families and our teens directly. It's a long term solution, one that will carry through guiding your kids to the day they leave home and beyond.

Tripp pulls no punches about the baggage we bring to the table as parents. It helps that he is honest about his own mistakes, about losing patience or lashing out when tension gets high at home. The advice and approach are biblical, and ideas are organized under headings and lists that help with review and implementation. This book helps me remember the vulnerability of being a teen. It encourages us as parents to love deeply, humbly and help direct our kids' hearts, not just protect or correct their behavior by managing circumstances. It has been wonderful to see my experience with my teens as a season of opportunity, not a dark age that must be endured by any of us. I am a single mom of two teen boys. I am also applying Tripp's suggestions to my time with other teens, in our youth group and with the kids who hang out with my boys. I see a difference in the mood around here, and I believe this book has contributed to it.

Being comprehensive is both good & bad. Tripp covered many teen issues in great detail. Some of it was very helpful; some of it was just too long. Conciseness and brevity are good, but he was rarely concise or brief. Again, he covered many topics from many angles and offered many Biblical principles on how to parent teens. Some of his advice is brilliant! Some of his applications are very practical. All of them are biblicaly based, which is the most important thing. I highly recommend this book to anyone with teens or pre-teens.

This is easily the best parenting book I've read. I've read a lot of parenting books, but in this one the author seems to really understand the struggles associated with attempting to raise teens with a godly perspective in this current age. He gets to the heart of what's going on and it isn't simply a "do this, don't do that" type of book. He shares God's goal of reaching our teens hearts AND our hearts as we raise them. Can't recommend highly enough.

Don't be put off by the naff cover, this really is a very helpful book. Helpful, and also poignant, funny and insightful. As my own children begin the transition to adolescence I am eager to obtain wise advice to help me in my parenting, and would see reading good books as a key component of that. When I was in my mid-20s I spoke at parenting seminars and could do so with the memories of my own teen years still being fresh and real. The sad reality now is that I am nearly as close to retirement age as I am to my teens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to remember accurately what it felt like to be a teenager! Insightful authors like Tripp can help with this inevitable amnesia. Raising kids is not really that complicated. We often think its terribly difficult, but lots of other people have done it before us - its not like we are pioneering new territory. But parenting is an activity that can generate a lot of stress and anxiety, and where there can be a lot of conflicting advice from those other parents who have gone before us. If we are to navigate the sometimes turbulent waters of parenting we need a clear biblically informed strategy for doing so, and Tripp helps provide this. There are several pitfalls that (Christian) parents often stumble into. One that greatly aggravates me is low expectations - the assumption that all teens have to rebel, get bored with church and backslide. Other mistakes we can make are to think the goal of parenting is simply to raise children who will be reasonably socially acceptable adults, rather than seeing our role as being to raise disciples of Jesus. We can make the mistake of giving our children too much freedom, in things that are not helpful for them; or, we can make the mistake of being too controlling, and not allowing our children to grow and mature as they should. Tripp addresses all these kinds of parenting pitfalls, and in a way that is full of grace and wise counsel. Tripp is very clear in how our parenting stands or falls on the attitudes of our hearts. We need to see our teens have hearts that follow after God and not simply try to regulate behaviour. But we also need to ensure that we - as parents - have hearts that delight in God. This means we will have to constantly assess our own motivations and actions - checking that no idols are replacing Jesus at the centre of our worship and distorting the way we parent, and being quick ourselves to offer apology and ask for forgiveness when we sin against our children. This focus on the heart means that Age of Opportunity is a very challenging book, and it will be uncomfortable reading for some parents. The good news is that by the grace of God it is never too late to step-up the effectiveness of our parenting. I would recommend this book to those parents whose children are young, as many of the principles discussed apply equally as well to five year-olds as 15 year-olds; also it is good to prepare early for what is inevitable. But I would also recommend it to those with older teens as it will help you think about how you are parenting and maybe sharpen up in some areas.

Very practical book. Easy to read & follow. I think I read the whole thing in a couple of days. I've highlighted sections to go back & re-read. Timely advice . Well worth your money if you've got teens

If you are the parent of a confused self-centered hormonal teen then this is the book for you. Really focussed the heart on what it important - God and His glory.

Having read dozens of such books over a 33 year ministry I believe that this is one of the sanest, wisest most humble books and one of the most helpful I have read. There's a great balance between biblical insight and parental experience. The author focuses on the heart more than techniques for changing behaviour.