The Space Between: A Parents Guide
to Teenage Development (Youth
Specialties) by Walt Mueller
A Look Between The Spaces
The changes and challenges of adolescence can leave many parents
feeling overwhelmed at times with fear, confusion, frustration, and a lack of
understanding. But here you’ll find hope to help you understand and
effectively parent your teen. Dr. Walt Mueller brings more than 30 years of
adolescent research (and his own parenting experience) to help you
through the tumultuous years of adolescence.
Personal Review: The Space Between: A Parents Guide to
Teenage Development (Youth Specialties) by Walt Mueller
Humans are strange. We are the only part of God's creation made in his
image, yet we are the most screwed up part of his Creation. And to be
quite honest, there is nothing that seems more out of whack than a
teenager. Yet it is just this jacked-up human species that Jesus Christ

came to die for; not the chimps, not the whales, not even the temperature
of the climate. Jesus came to redeem mankind from the mess that we are
in by our own doing. It is just this message that those whacked out
teenagers need to hear, and they need to experience it first through Mom
and Dad.
Commenting on Deuteronomy 6:6-9, Mueller says, "God, in his perfect
wisdom and plan, has chosen to do his work through the family. God
began with a family in Genesis, and God continues to use the family as the
primary area for bringing people to himself...God's 'how' for imparting these
truths to our children is by a diligent commitment to teach and model
wholehearted and single-minded devotion to God 24 hours a day. When
God's truths become the central overriding interest and purpose in our
lives, teaching them to our children will happen almost subconsciously."
As a youth pastor, there is nothing more valuable to me in my ministry than
parents who not only care to see their kid "succeed," but also care about
the message of Christ enough to see it become the theme and passion of
their children's lives. In "The Space Between," Mueller mixes his deep
understanding of the Scripture and how it dances in our lives with his 30-
plus years of experience with youth and culture (see [...]) to send an
equipping message to parents. This message is one that not only helps
parents understand what is happening to their children spiritually,
physically and mentally, but it is also one gives hope to parents who feel
hopeless through the hope that is found only in the Gospel.
It is not enough to let this generation go through their adolescence on their
own. No, parents must stand in the confidence found in Christ alone and
help their children through these formative years. Mueller argues that
parenting teenagers is not about the moment-specific "solutions" to
problems, but about the overall emphasis of the heart of the parent. While
it seems that many parents today want to have more of a hands-off
approach to parenting their teens (by letting their coaches, teachers and
youth pastors do what they were called to do), Mueller calls parents to be
what God has called them to be: examples and teachers to our children of
what it means to "prayerfully endeavor with God's help and by God's grace
to integrate their faith in every nook and cranny of their lives (p.104)."
Mueller gives great and biblical advice to parents (and youth workers) on
how best to approach these years. It is my opinion that, if parents take
heed to this biblically based and youth-culturally informed advice, they will
feel equipped to continue the task bestowed upon them at the birth of their
child: to train them up in the way they should go.
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