O God our loving parent, you know how difficult it is to be a teen and how challenging it is to parent a teen. For our teens, help them navigate their uncertainties. Fill them with self-worth. Temper their risk-taking. Help them shun peer pressure. Keep them safe. For their parents, tempter the lectures with words of love. Grant them tolerance for hair coloring, piercings and choices in clothes and music. Sustain them through moments of doubt and panic. O God our loving parent, give teens and their parents full measures of patience and good humor. Amen.
This prayer accompanies “Parenting teens,” a devotion found in Living from the Heart of God: A Journal for Life’s Stages, published by Women of the ELCA in 2007.