Dream On — When teenagers think big thoughts, parents need to lend big support.

By the Rev. Ted Schroeder

A father spent most of his summer building a pond with a fountain in his back yard. “It’s a place for birds and animals to be safe,” he explained to his neighbor, who was peering over the fence.

“It won’t work,” the neighbor told him. “The ground isn’t right for a pond.”

“I know,” the father responded. He pointed to his teenage daughter. “But it’s her dream, and I promised.”

Remember when they were in kindergarten? Remember the pictures they used to bring home? They would offer us their latest work of art and then they would bask in our praise as we celebrated the marvelous job they had done, glowing with pride as we fixed the picture to the refrigerator for everyone to admire.

“Marvelous” wouldn’t have been the adjective a real art critic would have used to describe their creations, with their stick figures, crooked houses, and spiked-grapefruit suns.

I suppose we could have shrugged off our role as encouraging parent. Rather than praising our children’s efforts, we could have critiqued their work, demanding they draw more realistic people, blend colors and use proper perspective. We might even have been successful. Under our tutelage, they may have created better pictures—but we wouldn’t have known it. They would have stopped bringing their pictures home to us.

When children get to be teens, they don’t bring home their drawings anymore. But they do come to us with creations, usually calling them “plans.” Teens, often brimming with idealism, spin wonderful dreams about the future. Most of the time the dreams are impractical and poorly thought-through, like half-inflated balloons sent up in the sky without a chance of actually getting anywhere.

We could, of course, use teens’ misshapen dreams as opportunities to teach practical thinking. We could candidly assess the likelihood they will succeed. Who knows, we might get through to them, and in the future, they might construct plans more carefully—but we wouldn’t know about it. We would have taught them to keep their dreams to themselves.

Teens need to share their dreams. They need to test themselves and their world by floating their wonderful, wishful balloons. Most of their dreams will never fly. But the worst thing we can do is to destroy those dreams before they have had a chance to form.

Certainly, we don’t have to build every hopeless pond, but we should honor the hope that we see our teenagers express. And as we listen and celebrate with them, as we let them test and plan and dream, we help them grow into young adults who can not only dream, but also put their best dreams into action.

From God’s eternal perspective, our own adult planning must look like a collection of good intentions, sidetracks and double backs. Even on our better days, in God’s eye, we must look like foolish dreamers—hapless wanderers the rest of the time. And yet Jesus’ promise is not to correct, confine or conform us. His promise is simply “to be with us to the ends of the earth” (Matthew 28:20).

In the security of that promise, we should say to our teens: “My child, because of a love that reaches beyond the paths of doing it my way, know that I will not leave you, no matter how high your dreams may fly, or how far your wondering heart and wandering feet may take you. I will be with you. I promise.”

Rev. Ted Schroeder looks back in wonder at his three children’s teen years. He lives in Plymouth, Minnesota.

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:11 NIV).