Episode 4: Parenting Through Conflicts With Your Teenager and Children

Danny Kwon: Welcome to Asian American Parenting, a podcast from Rooted Ministry and the SOLA network, where the gospel meets Asian American faith, culture, and parenting. Each episode, we explore how to raise the next generation with a strong gospel foundation in Christ while navigating the unique challenges of our cultural identity. Thanks for joining us. Let’s dive in. Welcome to Asian American Parenting, the Rooted Ministry and SOLA Network podcast. We’re excited that you can join us today, and I want to welcome my co host, Monica Kim.

Monica Kim: Hello. Good to be here.

Danny Kwon: Monica is a psychologist and biblical counselor. She’s also a mother of three children and a wonderful wife to me. I don’t know if she thinks it’s wonderful, but my name is Danny Kwon. I’m Rooted’s Senior Director of Youth Ministry Content and Cross Cultural Ministries. And before that, I was a youth pastor, youth and family pastor, for 29 years.

So today we’re going to talk about conflicts with your children. And it kind of reminds me of a lot of stories that parents used to come to me as a youth pastor and youth and family pastor and ask for help with conflicts with their children. This one particular family, their mother would call me of their teen all the time, and she had this really outrageous request. She would say, her child never wakes up for school. Could you call in the morning at 6am and give him a wake up call, but don’t tell him that I told you to call, but he just refuses to listen to me, and it’s so hard. But don’t tell him that I told you to call, and I was like, how can I? How can I randomly call him at six in the morning? But you know, when I think about other conflicts with your children, and especially teenagers, you know, I don’t know what comes to your mind, Monica, as you’ve been a family counselor and a counselor of parents and teenagers, you know, I think about, you know, getting our kids off their social media or phone. This is not just our kids, but parents telling me, you know, getting their kids to have a discussion about what they did at youth group, getting their kids just to talk, getting their kids to go to church or school, anything you can think of,

Monica Kim: Various conflicts. I imagine—

Danny Kwon: Studying.

Monica Kim: Sure, studying. Maybe even like conflicts about character, too. I see that a lot where parents will be upset that their children or their teen, their teens are rude and so they may call that out a lot and would want to correct that.

Danny Kwon: Who their friends are, who they’re hanging out with. Why is their light on still at one in the morning when they should be sleeping? O, don’t take your computer in your room. I really advise no computers in the or phones in the bedroom, but there are some conflicts. As far as being an Asian American parent, what are some angles that might cause conflict with our own children that were passed on from our Asian American heritage, or some of the, you know, things that we might have inherited from being children of immigrants? Anything come to mind for you?

Monica Kim: I’m imagining conflicts, again, like you said, from an Asian American standpoint, about success in schools. That is really highly valued. Again, education in Asian American contexts—that is high, highly valued. Another source of conflicts, I imagine, might be how they bring honor to the family in some ways, because, and that’s discussed in many different ways, right? They might not use the word, “Oh, you’re not honoring the family.” But parents might discuss, “Oh, what will other people think?” Or—if you’re not—there’s a lot of, maybe, comparisons. Or, “this family does this,” “this family’s child or teen was able to get this grade. How come you can’t?” So there are all these different kind of indirect ways in which these Asian American values of honoring or not bringing shame or being able to have the family feel more proud of themselves. So a lot of those, I imagine, the sources of conflict.

Danny Kwon: It’s kind of universal to all ethnic and cultural groups. But like, even if you like, walk down like a supermarket and a child’s crying, or, you know, a toddler and the parent says, you know, “why are you embarrassing me?” or, “you’re making me look shameful,” or something like that. But I think with some of the Asian American cultural aspects of shame and honor that’s subtly passed down to us, you know, we can inherit that and influence us.

Monica Kim: And on that note, I just, I know I’m interjecting—in Asian American families, or Asian cultural families, they might actually make sure that never happens. So in the home, there might be a lot of managing behavior and being able to keep it together and be good boys and girls or teens and teens who will not act out.

Danny Kwon: Yeah, yeah. And so, conflict can happen on many levels. It’s not just like, you know, you get in a fight with your child and, and they, you know, they get angry at you and you get in the scuffle with them. It can just be like, you know, “get off your phone during dinner,” or, you know, “turn off your computer at night.” “Why aren’t you listening to me?” like you said, like, you know, character and, “why don’t you talk to me?” and things like that.

What would you say for a parent? How can we begin to handle whether it be minor or more difficult conflicts with our child? What are some tips and strategies? And you know, we’re going to talk about Scripture in this too, but you know, I know you’ve done a lot of family counseling, so, you know, what do you advise for parents?

Monica Kim: Yeah. I imagine that what’s going on in conflict, oftentimes, there can be a variety of reasons, right? There could be that the teen—there may be issues where the teen may be getting in trouble, and parents want to address that, and be able to take care of that. However, that may bring up conflicts as they address it. There might be times when conflicts happen because parents are not able to understand their teen’s experience or reactions or interpret what’s going on in their lives, if they’re acting out, let’s say, in anger. There might actually be if they’re angry at something or reacting really negatively, there might be more behind it. And so parents may have a difficult time understanding that perhaps their teen is actually expressing need for help, but they’re not able to share how, you know, feel like they can express it. So parents might not be able to interpret or understand that there’s actually much more behind it, and then, because parents might not be able to understand that when they experience a teen’s frustration or anger or irritability that might actually bring up or provoke they might feel this experience of that they’re provoked and they feel angry and they need to nip something in the bud, but they don’t recognize actually, because of their position as parents, it’s so important for them to reflect on, why are they getting angry? What’s angering them in the midst of what’s happening? So that might, you know, escalate the conflict, and so then there might be this constant kind of defensive and attacks happening together, and inability to actually meet their teen where they’re at.

Danny Kwon: So what I’m hearing from you, and again, you know, I always joke around that you as a psychologist and counselor, I get counseled every day, and I get good counseling though, too, although it’s kind of a joke. When we are beginning to be in a conflict with our teenager, it’s important to not be provoked or re-engage or provoke. But you know, there is a, you know, an exhortation there that you’re saying to parents, that you know, they need to be calm, you know, not get re-angry in the conflict. If you’re trying to correct your child and the child, the teenager is, again, not listening, the temptation or the default is to get more angry, right?

Monica Kim: To recognize that when you are unable, as a parent, to manage your own provoked feelings and depend on—when you’re depending on your teen to be okay, for you to be okay, there’s something unwise about that. So as a parent, if you’re getting provoked or feeling provoked, it’s not so much about, now I have to make sure my child is better, so that I can be better. You have to start with yourself and recognize, oh, I’m activated. I’m provoked. There’s something going on. I’m called not to provoke my child, my teen. Yeah, not, not the other way around. You know, children are called, or teens are called, to obey their parents. I get it, right, but I just want to focus on the parenting part right now.

Danny Kwon: So there’s two aspects I want to kind of delve into there. First of all, as children of Asian parents and maybe some, you know, the confusion, hierarchy and ethic. You know, our parents probably had an expectation as children: we just listened to them. And sometimes, I think subtly, I have taken that and with my teenager—now I’m speaking from personal experience—I’ve kind of put that on them. I want them to be, you know, not Confucian, of course, but this Confucian ethic that they just obey and submit and listen to me, right?

Monica Kim: And that perspective is elevated all the more, right? There’s the Confucian ethic that trickles down and I appreciate what you’re highlighting there. And then there’s the Bible that says: children, obey your parents, right? And then so, there’s this real kind of double kind of pressure that parents think in the Asian, American or Asian context that may put this real, heavy demand on their child, but then be very unaware that what in fact, they’re doing is they’re not, you know, they’re focusing on how their children can fix themselves through this pressure and demand, so that the parent themselves will feel better about themselves. And I’m not saying that every parent is doing that, but I think it’s really important for parents to be aware of their own emotions. And a lot of Asian Americans and for you know, many other cultural groups, aren’t as aware of how to understand their emotions. They may experience it, but there’s not as much space to talk about it, to be able to make sense of it, to normalize recognizing you have these emotions and how to actually acknowledge it. Like with your teen, maybe you say, you know, “I’m aware right now I’m really angry, and I don’t want to do the next thing that hurts you. I need to take time, even though this is a really important issue, to be able to find some self-control and calm, because I am your parent. And let’s come back to this.”

Danny Kwon: So that kind of leads me to what I was the second point I was going to say was, when you’re in a conflict with your child, teenager, whether it be major or just, “why aren’t you listening to me?” you have, I think, coined this phrase that you use in our youth ministry, youth and family ministry, to all the parents. And we had a big youth group, 250 kids, and you did a lot of counseling, thankfully, alongside me, with parents. And you use this phrase: the parents, be the parent. It was such a Captain Obvious phrase, but very profound, even though it was Captain Obvious. Be the parent. And kind of what you’re just alluding to in your example of taking a step back and saying to your child, “hey, I need to step back from this and not engage, and I don’t want to hurt you,” or something like that. You know, for our parents and for our churches who are walking alongside parents of teenagers, could you just explain that idea of “be the parent” again? And you just did, but I think, you know, when in the midst of especially conflict or you want them to study or listen to you, or they’re disobeying.

Monica Kim: I think it is that sometimes it can be counter intuitive, because we want so much for our teens to do what we instruct them, and so we aren’t aware that when they express frustration or annoyance or resistance to wanting to do things that are, you know, helpful for them to do, that we will have a reaction. And being the parent means being aware that that’s going on, not because then not to have a reaction, but then to be able to wisely organize or decipher how to be able to engage with your teen in a much more wiser way. So for example, if you’re not reflecting on your position as a parent, but you’re only simply thinking, my child or my teen is not doing what they want, and then you have an angry reaction, you may actually justify the anger from the thought that my child ought to be doing what I want them to do, and not recognize that, in fact, the anger that you might be expressing means that you’re not self-controlled, and if you let it fester and keep going and escalate, eventually, what might happen is the teen will try and challenge that a little bit more and then you don’t know what’s going on, you get more angry. The teen eventually will feel discouraged, and then will shut down, and then do things out of they have, you know, a shutdown mode. And in some sense, then what might be happening is the teen recognizes they need to do things in order to take care of the parents’ feelings. So then it becomes a bit of a reversal, where the teen is having to work on controlling for the parent’s emotions. That’s not being a parent, right? It’s a bit of a reversal now of roles, and so, being aware of what’s going on inside of yourself and not justifying your anger, but being able to say, “hmm, I am angry, and I don’t have self-control, and I need to step away so that I can regain being the parent.” And there’s a phrase that we in the attachment kind of circles use: being the bigger, stronger, wiser and kind one, and then, when necessary, take charge, because teens can hurt themselves, right? So you need to take charge in a situation so . . .

Danny Kwon: And as you always say, that’s a very gospel-centered image of God—picture—that it’s not just in psychology or attachment theory, but it’s really reflecting our reflection as image-bearers of God. And be the bigger, kinder, wiser, stronger parents.

Monica Kim: Ultimately, that you can do that as a parent, if you really press into the comfort and the call of the gospel.

Danny Kwon: Yeah. And one more aspect of that, first of all, it reminds me of like, you know, like me, wanting to turn into the green Hulk, and I need to be the parent. Remember that I am God’s image-bearer and a reflection of God for them and bigger, kinder, wiser, stronger, show them that model. I know you talk a lot about Ephesians 6, and the battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual darkness, the forces of evil. And I’ve stolen this from you, borrowed this from you in talks. So I want to give credit where credit’s due. But the battle for parents, with your teenager, with your child, is not against flesh and blood. It’s not against them, but against the spiritual forces of evil, and then winning that battle in your self within the Lord—could you just touch on that in our last minute or two?

Monica Kim: I guess, yeah, that might be relevant to talk about, because all the passages about, let’s say, children obey parents, or in Ephesians 6, talks about parents you know, not to provoke or exasperate your children. And then, so there are all these relational dynamics that are highlighted in Scripture. And then you imagine, you know, in Ephesians, at the end, points to the spiritual battle. I think just in following in that context of Ephesians, and particularly Ephesians 6, that there’s also other things going on that we often center ourselves to our conflict that’s going on right now, but it’s so important for us to, again, step back, especially as parents, to recognize that there’s more going on and in this moment, sometimes we might have to say to ourselves, how do I love my team amidst my own battle of anxiety or wanting my teen to do something, because it feels like everything rides on this moment, right? We often feel like it rides on this one moment, rather than knowing there are greater kind of hopes to come. And I’m not saying, then be dismissive of the situation. “Oh, don’t care.” So we don’t want to go the other end to that too, but to be able to stand back and recognize there is a battle that’s waging more in our hearts as parents, and oftentimes we feel like, that moment, our children’s future rides on that one moment, but not on Christ and the greater hope he has given to us and the manna that is available every day. His mercies are new every morning. So we we get to do this again with our kids, and we get to come back around and be able to connect with them, bring to bear that gospel that brings about the fruit of patience, of gentleness, of kindness, of love, etc., etc., and be able to, then from that, instruct and teach and guide and support and challenge and discipline. So there’s more opportunities.

Danny Kwon: That’s a very hopeful way to close. And you know, being a youth and family pastor for 29 years at one church, seeing a lot of parents with their own teenagers, and you know, it’s great and it’s joyful, but it’s hard, and seeing that conflict that they come and share about with me, and in that moment, you know, the parents and even myself with our own kids, sometimes I’m seeing them as evil and the instigator. But you know, it’s not a battle against them, but I can let the gospel speak to my heart in the spiritual forces of evil, win that battle with the gospel. And as you said, find that hope.

Monica Kim: Yeah, I just wanted to add one last piece on that note about the spiritual battle context. I imagine that you know, while there is that spiritual battle that we have to identify or understand, going on, it talks also about putting on the whole armor of God and to be ready. And I would also add on, it’s also in the greater context that God has already won the battle in Christ. And that’s where the good news comes in, that it’s not us having to, you know, re-engage in a spiritual battle where we’re not sure whether we’re going to win or lose, but the battle has already been won. And because of that, we can be a lot more sure-footed, be able to stand back, reflect, be able to continue to build a relationship with our teen in such a way that we could guide and teach particularly about who Jesus is in their lives.

Danny Kwon: That is super hopeful, and we really appreciate you all listening. And you know, we encourage you to subscribe to Asian American Parenting at the podcast channels that you listen on. And as we’ve closed with Monica’s exhortation and encouragement and hope, may we all embrace the hope and joy of the gospel and believe that it’s true, powerful, and transformative. On behalf of SOLA Network and Rooted Ministry, thanks for listening to Asian American Parenting. We hope that you have enjoyed this podcast. For more resources, visit the show notes. See you next time.