[The participants are Parker Thomas, a Christian Scientist, and George Richards, who is not a Christian Scientist.]

Richards: Parents want to do right by their children and establish and maintain warm, happy relationships with them that will continue throughout the school years and beyond. But many parents do not find this easy to do, especially when their youngsters get to be of high school age. They can provoke their children without even being aware of it, and teen-agers can provoke their parents. Perhaps generations pull apart at times.
Thomas: But I don't think the generation gap has to exist. Mutual respect and understanding, warm and happy relationships, can be established and maintained.
Richards: What would you say about this definition of a good parent: one who more than half the time does the right thing instead of the wrong? Would you say that a parent who does not provoke his teen-agers more than half the time does a pretty good job?
Thomas: It's a challenge for all of us to do a really good job. But when a parent really wants to do what is right with his children and works at it, accepting the challenge, he can. There is much support for parents in Bible insights, which not only raise a standard of love and respect but provide a basis for action. We read, for example (Eph. 6:4): "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

Richards: But if a parent starts preaching about God to his independent-thinking, long-haired, protesting teen-ager, I can't see that there would be any better communication between him and his child.
Thomas: I was not referring to preaching about God but to expressing more of the nature of God ourselves, exemplifying His nature as much as possible in our actions. As we begin as Christ Jesus did with "Our Father," God, everyone's real Parent, then we have a basis to express the God-derived patience and understanding that will help our young people become more responsible. We will begin to see them as possessing God-given qualities of discernment, alertness, good judgment, wisdom—qualities they inherently have in their true nature as sons and daughters of God.
Richards: Well, that sounds a little like abdicating our role as parent and saying, "He's got all these God-given qualities, so I don't have to worry."
Thomas: What I'm referring to is learning more of God and our relationship to Him and our children's relationship to Him. As we become more aware of God and His qualities as actually expressed through man, these qualities will be expressed more in our individual lives. God, divine Love, never shuts anyone off from His love, care, intelligence, and stability. Christ Jesus hinted at this when he asked (Matt. 7:9), "What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?" And then he commented (verse 11), "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

God, divine Love, everyone's true Father-Mother, supplies His creation with all that is needed. He embraces each one of His creation tenderly, lovingly, securely. He endows His creation with unchanging love, consistent control, and real affection.
Richards: That sounds wonderful, but where would you say this consistent control is at a time when a parent loses his patience?
Thomas: It's always present. What helps bring it to light is a desire on our part to really help a teen-ager be more of the man that God created him to be. Man, as the expression of divine Love, loves but never hates, strengthens but never weakens. He includes intelligence, right action, harmony. These are qualities that are inherent in the man God has created, and this is the real nature of all of us. It's these qualities that Mary Baker Eddy speaks of in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures when she writes (p. 60), "The beautiful in character is also the good, welding indissolubly the links of affection." So when parents realize the spiritual basis on which they and their children in their true God-given nature are welded indissolubly with lasting love, affection, understanding, and patience, they will be able to stop provoking their teen-agers and help them take on responsibility.
Richards: But wouldn't you say there are situations in which parents can't help, but provoke their children and are provoked themselves? What is a parent to do then?
Thomas: Well, I think we have to examine our motives. Here's how one parent faced up to this in a way that has had a profound effect on family relationships. It was a recognizable situation. A teen-age son had borrowed the family car to go to a party, and, as usual, there was an appointed time for him to bring the car home and be at home. In this case, it grew late, and the mother didn't get any phone call from her son. So she became quite worried and angry about it. She knew from past experience that getting provoked and angry wouldn't get her anywhere.

She was a Christian Scientist, and so she began to pray along the lines that we've been discussing. Her prayer brought a deep desire to see that her son in his real God-given nature was only guided and directed by God, eternal good, the one divine Parent.

A passage from the Bible came to her thought, and it took on new meaning as to its applicability both to herself and her son. It reads, "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness" (Isa. 41:10). She was concerned about her son's safety, and she wanted to get at the root of her thinking and heal the situation.

Thinking along these lines quieted her anger. She could see that her responsibility was to respond to God's direction, to be an avenue through which divine Love might be expressed. The result was that when her son did come home, she didn't give way to angry accusations but was able to discuss the situation openly and calmly with him. They explored what to do if a similar situation should arise, and during the remainder of his high school days there was never a recurrence of that situation.

This helped give the whole family a solid foundation on which to build a constructive, happy, and harmonious parent and teen-ager relationship.
Richards: What would you say is required of parents to establish the kind of attitude that this mother had?
Thomas: It requires, among other things, a willingness to exchange rigidity for God-motivated flexibility, thoughtlessness and callous ignoring for God-derived courtesy and genuine listening, impatience and indifference for God-sanctioned wisdom and heart-to-heart caring. All of these help loose young people from fears, self-doubts, and insecurity. They help support their efforts to express more of their God-given maturity. This kind of communication unites and strengthens parent and teen-ager relationships.