Andy Stanley on Parenting Middle Schoolers

I love Andy Stanley, and since my passion is to provide parents with good parenting tools… this video is a gold mine!

The video is an interview with Andy Stanley about parenting middle schoolers– a great free piece to show as a parent training tool.

I love his answers on so many of these topics. Sound familiar?

• Don’t have THE TALK… begin a conversation (more than just the talk).
• Don’t let your kids keep their phones in their rooms at night. (Keeping social media safe)
• Start with more strict rules with the goal of no rules their senior year of high school.
• Don’t freak out.
• Delay punishment, giving yourself time to think.

So much good parenting advice in this video!

Here’s the video- a great tool to show to parents and then discuss with the questions I’ve provided below:

(LLMSW Andy Interview from North Point Web on Vimeo.)

Discussion Questions:
1. What is one thing Andy said that really resonated with you?
2. What is your current guideline/rule in your house for kids and their phones at night? How’s that working?
3. How can you apply his principle of starting strict, and setting the goal of no rules their senior year?
4. Share either a time where you either “freaked out” or could have “freaked out” but didn’t.
5. What advice can you use from Andy to keep from freaking out when your kids drop a bomb on you?
6. What is one piece of advice Andy gave that you can apply right now?
7. What is going to be difficult about applying this?
8. What is something someone else in this group said today that was helpful?

FOR MORE FUN DISCUSSIONS ON THIS TOPIC, INCLUDING DISCUSSION QUESTIONS, CHECK OUT JONATHAN’S BOOK, IF I HAD A PARENTING DO OVER