Linda Slaughter and her husband, Chris, hadn't spent much time thinking about teenage rebellion before the older of their two children, Emily, started high school. "She'd always been happy and responsible," explained Linda, a retired businesswoman and now a full-time volunteer from Dallas, Texas. "The model child."
So when their daughter's behavior began to change, the Slaughters were caught off guard. "At first we rationalized it as normal teenage rebellion," Linda told the Journal's Amy Brooke Baker. But after a few months, it became clear that something needed to be done. "The disharmony in our home and our disconnect with Emily got too frightening and too sad," she said. "It had begun to affect everybody. So at that point we really began to pray. And we asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray with us."
We needed to see God as our daughter's real Parent—able to guide her, protect her.
