Written by: Kimberly Scales

Adjusting to Parenting High Schoolers

Parenting high schoolers brings a unique combination of excitement and challenge. These are the years when independence grows, the world’s influence intensifies, and a teenager’s heart feels pulled in many directions. As parents, we step into a season that requires courage, wisdom, and a constant return to the foundation of faith.

Our family’s WinShape journey began long before our kids were old enough to attend. During my years at Berry College in the late 80s and early 90s, I had the privilege of serving on summer staff. Those experiences shaped my faith in profound ways and did the same for the friends who served alongside me. We would often say: “One day, when we have kids, they will experience this too.”

Years passed, that dream became reality, and a new generation began creating camp memories of their own. All eight of our combined kids (ours and our friends’) attended WinShape Camps together every summer, beginning when they were in elementary school. Those two weeks quickly became their absolute favorite time of the year. Coming home was always the hard part.

When our kids became high schoolers, we knew the stakes were higher. The world’s voice grew louder. Pressures increased rapidly. Their hearts were being shaped by forces we could not always see, and we knew we needed to be intentional.

We set expectations for academics and behavior, although those were never our highest priority. We cared most about who they were becoming. Camp continued to play a significant role in that commitment.

Here are some of the truths that we communicated to our kids in this season of them being high schoolers and entering young adulthood…

5 Truths that Guided Us While Parenting High Schoolers:

Your heart matters most.

We valued hard work in school, yet grades never defined success in our home. Character did. Integrity, effort, and personal faith were the markers of real growth. Camp helped nurture those qualities by reminding our kids who they belong to and who they are called to be.

We don’t “roll with the world.”

Our children knew we would not parent according to what “everyone else” was doing. That was our commitment. We made choices that protected their hearts, even when unpopular. Camp reinforced this countercultural mindset by surrounding them with peers and leaders pursuing a different, fuller way of life.

Mentors matter.

Every teenager needs a trusted adult outside the home who will listen, pray, encourage, and hold them accountable. For our kids, many of those voices came from camp counselors who modeled a vibrant faith during some of the most formative years of their lives… older college kids who were “cool” (unlike their parents.) 😉

Your faith must be your own.​

We wanted their relationship with God to go beyond what they learned at home or in church. We encouraged questions, personal time in Scripture, and genuine pursuit of the Lord. Camp became a place where they wrestled, discovered, and embraced their own faith in Jesus.

You don’t have to be the type of teenager the world tells you to be.​

Culture often assumes that the “typical teenager” will distance themselves from family or rebel. That does not have to be their story. We loved the teenage years with our kids and saw them thrive. Camp helped strengthen the biblical values we were teaching at home, helping them stand confidently against cultural expectations.

Parenting high schoolers is not simple. Even with conviction and clarity, there are discouraging days. Today’s teens face pressures and influences that continue to evolve. The battle for their hearts is real. Yet God’s calling for parents remains steady. His truth is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Parenting high schoolers is not simple. Even with conviction and clarity, there are discouraging days. Today, the pressures and influences that teens face continue to evolve. The battle for their hearts is real. Yet God’s calling for parents remains steady. His truth is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Be present. Speak truth. Love your children the way God has loved you. Remember, they are His children first.

And thank God there are places like WinShape Camps that support and walk with us as we journey through the high school years. Camp has been a partner in shepherding our kid’s hearts as they move toward adulthood, and we would not trade that for anything.