Live Joy

  Parenting is hard. I am incredibly blessed to have two great kids. Even as teenagers, they are respectful, kind, and rule followers. Their dad and I actually laugh sometimes that maybe we did too good of a job teaching them to follow the rules, because now we are trying to teach them something that feels almost opposite: You are allowed to speak up. You are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to disagree. You can question something and still be respectful. At 14 and 15—almost 16—my boys rarely want to question an adult or speak up when they disagree with something. Unless, of course, that adult is me or their dad. They have no problem finding their voices at home. But we want them to understand that their voices matter outside of our house, too. As adults, we know that if you don't ask for what you want, you'll never know if you could have gotten it. If you don't ask the question, you may never get the explanation. And if you disagree but never say anyth...