When Every Conversation Is a Battle: Hope for Moms of Teen Girls

As a mom, do you ever feel lonely in the fight for your teen’s heart? In recent years, does it feel like every conversation has become a battle? You clash when it comes to the clothes she wants to wear, the music she wants to listen to, and the friends she chooses to spend her time with. Somewhere along the way, you’ve grown increasingly anxious about the everyday decisions defining who she’s choosing to follow and who she’s becoming. 

All you want is to guide and protect your daughter and to help her make choices that will be honoring to the Lord. But when she’s rolling her eyes at your advice and resisting your prayers, how do you influence her heart without pushing her away? What does it look like to help her hold on to her faith when the world seems to be pulling her in the opposite direction? 

When my friend, “Beth,” a mom of four kids (ages ten to fifteen) came to me with similar questions, I connected her with “Dana,” a Revive Our Hearts Ambassador who has walked this road with her now-grown daughters. I recorded their conversation and adapted a portion of it for this blog post so you could listen in as a fellow mom in the trenches. My hope is that as you read Beth’s honest questions and learn from Dana’s hard-won wisdom, you’ll find fresh courage and renewed trust in the God who loves your daughter even more than you do. 

When Every Conversation Feels Like a Battle 

As the conversation began, Beth shared some of her frustration surrounding issues with her fifteen-year-old daughter. “We’ve spent fourteen years laying a foundation,” she said, and while her daughter is not directly rejecting Christ, she rebels when her parents’ rules differ from what her friends are doing. Beth feels the tension in their home trickling down to her other kids. 

Beth: I feel really lonely. I’m asking the Lord, “What do I do in this situation?” I’ve been examining my own heart and asking myself: Do I have a fear of man? Am I worried what other people will think of us as parents?

Maybe I have unrealistic expectations. I don’t know if I just need to let her “work out her own salvation.” I don’t know where to draw the hard lines. My heart’s desire is to maintain a relationship with my girls so that they don’t just shut me out and stop talking to me about anything—we’re on the brink of that. 

Dana: My heart resonates with you. In those teen years, they are wrestling so much with the need for independence, which is normal, right? They want to be their own person. 

It sounds like you’ve been laying a foundation. Your role is going to begin to slightly change in terms of how you approach those things and how you reinforce your family values in light of what the Word of God says. When they’re closer to eighteen, you want them to own their faith as they prepare to leave your home. It’s a lot more collaboration and discussion about their choices rather than telling them what to do. 

The goal of our parenting is to make them passionate followers of Christ. Of course, we know we can’t do that. That’s God’s work to do. We’re an instrument, a tool of grace in God’s hands to speak truth and life and hope into our kids’ lives. 

Whether it’s modesty or music or anything else, it all comes back to helping them see what our purpose is in life. Why are we here? How do we live to please God in a way that glorifies Him? What is God’s agenda in this? Ultimately, when they leave your home, it’s not about what mom and dad wants; it’s about what God desires. 

Beth: As we’ve been walking through challenging times, I’ve been really praying about whether I’m a Pharisee in my own home. I’ve been asking, “Do I see my own kids the way Jesus sees them? Or am I just pointing out the Law, the Law, the Law all the time and expecting that to change their heart?” 

I’ve been wondering if I’m focused more on the Law than giving them a high view of who God is and sharing testimonies of all the things He’s done. What changes our hearts is an encounter with Christ. If they have a beautiful view of Jesus, I think it’s going to change the way they dress and change what they listen to. The contrast of His ways compared to the world will be so great. For me, that beautiful view of Jesus came through dark, dark valleys and hard, hard times, not when everything was easy.

Dana: Yes, it’s a matter of clinging to Jesus. What you do is pursue Christ and model what it means to be dependent on Christ in your own struggles. In conversations that you’re having with your kids, show up with transparency and vulnerability.

When you blow it, confess: “This is why we need Christ. I need Christ. Please forgive me,” and explain some of the why behind your responses. No parent is going to do this perfectly, but that’s where the gospel comes in to show us that we have a deep need for Christ and He’s the provision.

It’s such a privilege as parents to incarnate the love of God to our children. So many parents check out in the teen years because it does get hard and the pushback is real. Our feelings can get hurt, and sometimes the wall goes up, and we don’t want to engage. That’s why we want to recognize when that’s happening so that we’re quick to confess it and turn back and get right with God (vertically) and then get right with our kids (horizontally). 

It was helpful for me to realize that God is sanctifying each of us. He is going to usethe issue that He is after in my child’s heart—where He’s sanctifying them—to sanctify me. They’ll see Christ at work in you as you’re depending on Him and trusting Him.

Another encouraging moment came during a season when I felt uptight about so many things. I happened to be in Philippians 2, reflecting on the humility of Christ. It says: 

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2:3–5)

I remember thinking: That’s it: the humility piece. I need to not be looking out just for my own interests; I really need to see how I can serve and reach my child’s heart in this situation. Then I developed my own little saying: “Do not be uptight, but upright.” When I’d feel the tension and I wanted to get uptight again, it was a chance to lay down my life and say, “I’m going to choose to walk in humility at this moment.”

Do you have a parenting verse that sticks out in your mind that’s helped guide you? 

Beth: Yes, it changes through different seasons. Over the last couple of years, it’s been, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). That reminds me to lay down the idols of believing that I deserve better. It’s helped me stop believing the lie that if my circumstances were different, then I would be different.

Another verse that’s helped me is 2 Corinthians 10:5, “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” I might think I am the worst mom ever, but it’s not true. 

For the last couple of years, the saying “Heaven rules” from Revive Our Hearts has also been helpful, as well as the idea of seeking first the kingdom (Matt. 6:33). I tell myself “seek first the kingdom,” especially if I get upset over things like grades. I can be afraid my kids are not going to get into a good college, but at the end of the day, what do I want the most? If I really dig deep in my heart, do I want them to be successful in the world or successful in the kingdom of God? 

Their ultimate destination is heaven, so am I blowing up in the moment over something that’s kingdom focused or world focused? What is God’s agenda? It’s not straight A’s. It’s not perfectly dressed or well-mannered kids. Order is good, and doing things with excellence is good, but ultimately, what do I want? When I see Jesus face-to-face, I want to see my kids there.

Dana: You’re being transformed by the renewing of your mind (Rom. 12:2). I see you really seeking God and really trying to rely on Him. It’s a daily surrender to entrust the things most precious and valuable to us: our children. 

We want to be focused on saying, “God, this is about Your glory. I can trust that everything You’ve brought into our lives, You will redeem. You are the Redeemer.” That is so freeing for us as parents. We don’t have the power to create the outcome we want. It’s surrender: “God, Your will be done. You’re going to accomplish Your will in their lives in Your specific way because Your agenda is to make them like Christ.” 

“But Everyone Else Is Doing It” 

In the teen years, you’re more like a coach, helping them to pull back the layers of their heart, especially when they say, “Everyone else is doing it,” or “I want to fit in” rather than desiring to become more like Christ. Others aren’t the standard, so we encourage our kids to look at Him, to look at what would please Him based on what we know from His Word. You coach them to understand their aim is to please God, not to look like everybody else. 

“Mom, You’re So Judgmental. You Don’t Understand What It’s Like”

That’s a hard one—in their eyes, it appears like you’re judgmental. That’s where you step in with transparency and vulnerability. Share some of your own struggles with how you’ve felt pressured by culture. Maybe it isn’t so much what clothing choices you’ve made lately, but you might say, “I’ve been struggling with the fear of man in this other way.” Or, “I want my friends to think highly of me, so sometimes I exaggerate the truth.” Or “I’ve chosen something I didn’t want in order to fit in and to be seen a certain way in their eyes.” It lets them know how you’ve applied the gospel. How is it real? How is it making a difference in your life? It can help them connect the dots for their own issues.

Beth: I hope they’re listening deep down. Do you ever wonder that? Teenagers roll their eyes, or they think that you’re overreacting, or that you’re making something too deep. But I think that they’re listening. 

Dana: Yes, they are—more than you realize. For years there were so many moments I just wondered, Is she getting it? Is she getting it? Then I’d overhear a conversation that she would be having with a friend, and she’d be repeating the exact same words to someone else in their situation.

You’ve given your daughter the information she needs. Now you have to trust that God is going to work it out in her, as she grows in sanctification. The battles you’re facing will become less and less, but today these are the core issues of her heart—they’re where she’s finding her security and identity and approval. Help her grow her confidence in her identity in Christ. Remind her, “Who are you? As God’s daughter, your beauty and your value are in your identity with Him.” 

A Prayer for Perseverance

In the final moments of the conversation, before we ended the call, Dana took a few moments to pray over Beth. She began by reading a passage that’s become her theme for parenting. As you read these words, may the Lord strengthen your heart and remind you that the faithfulness you’re sowing in your teen’s heart isn’t wasted. God knows how hard it is, and He Himself promises you will reap in due season. May He continue to help you to press on in Him.

Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. (Galatians 6:9)