Our oldest child recently got his driver’s permit. All those years of driving simulated video games were only partially helpful; he’s an OK driver and will get better with practice and a driver’s education course, but right now I find myself pressing the invisible brake pedal as I ride in the passenger seat, trying to drive a vehicle that I am not in control of. This can also be a metaphor for a lot of my parenting. More than driving, my kids’ friendships is a space in which I wrestle with God for control.
When Friendship Is Easy
The illusion of control started early. We easily got into a daycare where they would be with our neighbors’ and friends’ kids. We could arrange our work schedules to do the extracurriculars that people we knew were doing. We could afford a house in a desirable school district. We sailed along from a church to a school to sports teams full of familiar faces that had been carefully curated from years of playdates and community building.
Then Covid came. And then breast cancer. After months of isolation and treatment, we looked up one day and realized many of our oldest child’s friends were dispersing to private middle schools, and we had missed all the application deadlines. No problem, I thought. I can leverage my social capital to control the situation. We rushed to fill out applications and take tours. And then I anxiously waited with a side of prayer. When the call came, there was one spot left, we had 24 hours to decide, and no financial aid was available.
My calm and patient husband suggested, “What if we don’t rush the decision? What if we wait and see how he does and apply next year if we want to?” Translation: What if we don’t anxiously control the situation? What if we trust that God cared about where our child went to middle school more than we did? What if we watch and see what God can do when we don’t have every detail of the next step planned out? As it turns out, God can (and did) give our son wonderful new friends. God can (and did) maintain friendships even when kids did not attend the same school. God can (and did) give our child the rare delight of middle school years filled with relative social ease.
When Friendship Is Hard
And then just before high school we moved out of state—one week before the new school year started. Good thing I learned everything I needed to know about letting go and letting God. Good thing I knew God’s equation for friendship for all children for all time: form new friendships + maintain old friendships = relative social ease.
Well, that’s not exactly how it played out this time. Every adult in your new community can be on your team and on their knees praying, but no one can control an adolescent’s social life. There are no playdates to be orchestrated. There are no back-to-school ice cream socials for parents and kids. There are no little league teams to coach. There is only dropping your teen off at the new school, youth ministry activity, or practice to wait for another teen in the middle of his own adolescent social development to look up from his personal identity construction and peer relationship formation and notice the new kid.
This time, there would be months without a new friend. Old friendships would be harder to maintain over the distance. The community highway with one small bump in the road that we had been driving down for a decade was now an off-road experience. We were faced with less relative social ease, no control, and more fear, anxiety, and grief.
When Friendship Is Rooted in Christ
We will know that we have pivoted from attempting to control our child’s friendships and towards godly discipleship when we view our child’s friendship with Jesus as the most important relationship to be nurtured. We must learn to be acutely aware that the best possible friendship is available to them right now through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and does not require an admissions committee decision, a tryout, an invitation, or 18 years of uninterrupted childhood together.
When we think our child needs a friend, we can turn to Scripture to trust God with our child’s loneliness. Jesus tells his disciples that the greatest love of a friend is love that is sacrificial (John 15:13). The sacrificial love of Jesus left the perfect friendship of the Trinity, chose incarnation and befriended his disciples, then died on the cross to make us his friends. Our children are sacrificially loved by Jesus. Whether they are away at summer camp, heading off to boarding school, lying in a hospital bed, or not at the football game with everyone else, they are never without at least one very good friend.
When we wish our child had better friends or was a better friend to others, we can also turn to Scripture and trust God with our child’s popularity or poor choices. The Gospels introduce us to Jesus’s friends, who were far from the type of friends Mary likely prayed for her son. Peter, James and John fell asleep when Jesus needed their companionship and prayers (Matt. 26:36–46; Mark 14:32–42). Judas betrayed Jesus, and Peter solved problems with violence (John 18:3–11; Matt. 26:47–56). Peter denied knowing Jesus again and again (Matt. 26:69–75; Mark 14:66–72; Luke 22:55–62; John 18:25–27). Thomas doubted Jesus’s good news about his resurrection (John 20:24–25). Each of these men failed in some way in their friendship with Jesus. Yet, Jesus still called Judas his friend, and his other friendships are restored to endure in life and death.
We can and should make wise and evidence-informed decisions that help our children to have good friends and to be good friends. We can model healthy friendships, watch and read stories of great friendships, balance free time with scheduled activities, limit screen time, and get a dog, all for the good cause of our children’s social well-being and development. But when our resources for nurturing our children’s human relationships are prioritized over our time and energy devoted to nurturing their friendship with Jesus, we are merely using simulated video games to teach our children how to drive. When we prioritize prayer, reading God’s Word, and being in a local church—free and gracious gifts given for developing a friendship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit—we are putting them in a real car with the very best driver’s education instructor.
There was a billboard in our city years ago, “Buzz driving is drunk driving.” In our culture, wrestling with God for control over our kids’ friendships by over-functioning in their lives can look and feel like good parenting. But if it is leading to anxiety and fear, we may be buzz driving our kids’ relationships. We can stop the car, hand the keys to Jesus, and listen to “He Calls Me Friend” by CityAlight. When we know Jesus as our very good friend, we will want our children to know him as their very good friend, too.
Interested in hearing more biblical wisdom for parenting? Listen to the Rooted Parent podcast, which hosts regular conversations to equip and encourage parents.
