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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom and Isaac.

From Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord that the ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews, or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch, or join the Be Courageous app community, enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 Million Legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome to the show.

Hey, everybody.

So glad to have you here. This is an important topic, especially in times where there’s this tendency to want to really protect our children, which we’re not saying that’s wrong, but at the same time, we have to make sure they’re learning their lessons and growing up to be resilient for a different world in the future.

So resiliency is something that’s going to be cultivated in kids when we’re not overprotecting them, but we’re also not overly permissive to where they’re irresponsible.

So where is the perfect balance? Well, I promise you, we won’t give you an exact equation for your family today. But we will give principles, talk about stories and as much insights as possible. After all we’ve launched. I don’t know if you know this, but for adults already.

Well, it’s interesting. We yeah, we have four kids, 18 and over. Um, two are out of the house and we have seven more that we are in the midst of training. So this is something that we deal with even on a regular basis. In fact, one example I was thinking about this earlier when Isaac and I were preparing, and there was a time I was thinking about this scenario where I wanted to. I was near a store to get a specific thing that one of my kids needed, right? And I had already told them multiple times, hey, you should get this. Hey, hey, you should just order it online. So you get it in time. Yeah. Have you gotten it yet? And, you know, we had an event that was coming up, and I saw the shop, and I wasn’t with them, and I thought, well, I could just go in and get it for him. And so I said this out loud to Isaac, and he goes, no, they need to get it themselves.

They need to experience the pain of their decision making, of.

Their forgetfulness, of their choosing to be more lazy or procrastinate.

Isaac. It’d be easy. You’re already there. It’s an hour away to get it. You got this thing you know that was coming up. And why not just go in and get it?

It would be blessing your child.

I was like, no, let’s not do that. That? No, because we have to think a little differently than what’s natural. Naturally, we want to nurture, protect, provide help in every way. And by all means, we need to do those things. But there are some times where we need to purposefully make sure our children experience sowing and reaping while they’re in our homes.

Well, and sometimes we can be enabling our kids, right? If we’re just doing everything for them. And so that was one of those situations where I was like, not necessarily thinking about it. I was just thinking, oh, I’ll be helpful. I’ll go do this. My heart was right. And Isaac went, no, this kid needs to learn this lesson. Like, they need to feel the little bit of pain, of not having followed through on the thing that they know they need, like let them experience that so that they don’t do that again. Right.

So we’re going to talk about there’s some things you can do. You might have littles, you might have middles, you might have older kids. And this will be relevant to whatever age your children are. We have all at the same time plus grandkids. So we know what you’re talking about or dealing with.

I mean, yes, yes. There are times when with the littles, I’m like, I feel like I’m doing everything for them. And then there are times when I go, oh yeah, I need to like, really believe what I like, live out what I believe, which is that kids are more capable than we think they are of doing things. Do you know what I mean? Like sometimes I do, I actually create more work for myself by doing too many things for them sometimes, right? Um, and then they miss out on learning how to do those things. Like cooking is one of the best examples for little kids. How many moms don’t want to have their kids in the kitchen because it takes too long and it’s too messy?

It’s importance of delegation, right? And not having mommy guilt about it.

But if you think about it, just even that thought of like letting them in the kitchen, how many people grow up and don’t know how to cook well and don’t enjoy it?

So much to unpack here, plus more than we’ve said already. Uh, get all the show notes and resources. Be courageous ministry.org. Make sure you give it a five star review if you love the show, and share it on whatever your favorite player does. You know we’re on Spotify, YouTube, we’re on Google Play, Google, We’re on Apple, we’re everywhere Amazon. So you can just search for the podcast and subscribe. So you make sure you get it every week. By the way, we haven’t really talked about this, but heart of the home podcast is out. There’s two episodes launches every Monday, all the same players. And it is unbelievably good practical insights for mom. It is so good. And if you want the bonus footage and you want the Q&A and ability to be there, live and powerful community, then you can get all of that. Plus the library of episodes that have already been shot in the Be Courageous app too.

Yeah, I believe that this Friday I’ll be, um, live going through the 26th heart of the home, right? 31st or 31st. Wow. I’ve been doing 31 weeks in a row anyway. It’s just been a really great time. Um, with the ladies in the Be Courageous app. So if you want to join me in the Courageous Mom group, they’re in the app and be able to be answering, you know, asking questions, be a part of the Q&A at the end, which is not actually on the podcast. That’s exclusive for the app only.

But the free podcast does stand on its own in the valuable content. So go get it. That’s right. All right. So you. We’ve got curriculum to talk about and then we’ll dive in.

I know, so you guys, one of the things as a homeschool mom, this is our 21st year homeschooling. Wow. That’s a lot. That’s that’s over two decades I’ve been homeschooling. That’s kind of crazy to think about. I’ve used all kinds of different curriculums, and one of my favorite curriculums that I’m using this year so far is master books. I don’t know if you’re familiar with them. If you haven’t looked them up, you got to go to Master Books.com forward slash courageous. You can look through the different things they have there. We have a giveaway going with them as well, which is super awesome. So you got to check that out. There’s only a few weeks left of that. Um, and you know, one of the things that I want to encourage you guys with is when you’re homeschooling over the years, one of the things I’ve experienced is that sometimes my kids, certain kids, will thrive in certain subjects over others, like one kid might be like two grade levels ahead in math, but be behind by a year in spelling or in some other subject, right? Like science or something. And it can be different based upon how your kid is wired and what comes like natural to them and what they’re really good at.

And my motto has always been like, keep your kids stimulated, right? So that’s why, like some kids will get ahead in science, some kids will get ahead in writing, right in reading and things like that. And it’s different for every kid, which is kind of cool to see how God wired them. But one of the things I like about master books is that you can get a grade level curriculum, but you can swap out different subjects. So if you have a kid that’s already done some of the most fundamental science curriculum for grade four, you can switch it out and get a totally unique science curriculum for them and swap it out. Same kind of goes for history and different things like that. So it’s I like that it’s a plug and play kind of curriculum, which goes well with a mom who has kids that are thriving in different subjects at different seasons. So anyway, go check them out. Master books.com/courageous. All right, let’s dive in.

Let’s dive in. You know think about for a second your relationship with God God’s relationship with you. It’s a two way street right. And imagine for a second that when you prayed to God he gave you everything you prayed for. Of course, we all know that’s not true. That’s not biblical. We know we don’t believe that. But imagine if that were the case. Would that be good for you?

Mm.

That would not be good for you. Because so many times we think we know what’s best for us and we pray for things and God hears us. But he answers that prayer in a completely different way than what we asked for. And sometimes it is in his will, and he does give us what we ask for. And that’s just an amazing thing. But he is so good. He’s like, he is the perfect parent. None of us are perfect, so he can discern perfectly what we need and what he allows to happen, and what he answers in prayer and how he answers it and so forth. But it certainly is not just giving us what we want. It’s not just doing everything for us. And so therefore we want to model ourselves as best we can after God. We don’t want to just give our children everything they ask for. We don’t want to just do everything for them. Obviously, if they’re babies, that’s different, right? But as they get a little bit older, they need to start to experience the spiritual law of sowing and reaping. They need to start to work the muscle of following through and doing things on their own. And not just mommy, not just daddy doing things for them.

Right. And I think that one thing that we need to recognize is that God as our father in heaven, he models for us what we as parents should be following his example and how we are to parent. Right. And so, Isaac, you have a scripture you’re going to share in a second. But for the parents that are listening this scripture for me. When I listen to this from the perspective of a parent looking at how God as a father is treating those he loves, that’s convicting to me because I go, oh, wait a second. I’m always trying to protect my kids from experiencing tests, trials, suffering those kinds of things. And I’m not saying that like, none of us want our kids to suffer, right? Like, God doesn’t want us to suffer. But sometimes we as parents, because we love our kids like we try to help them not to experience so much of the consequence when there is a bad decision that’s made. And one of the things that we’ve talked about, we talk about this a lot in the Parenting Mentor program, right? Is that when your kids are littler, letting them experience some of the consequences, like, for example, if they are riding a bike, not always being there to make sure they don’t fall over like they need to fall over so that they know how to get back up. It’s the same thing with your kids. When they’re crawling or learning how to walk you, they have to fall over. But do you as a parent, sometimes with your little ones, maybe move the coffee table out of the way and stuff and and that? I’m not saying that that’s a bad idea. We did that with our kids, right? Because they would bonk their head on it or whatever. Um, but there is an element of not over protecting to where they never learn. And then all of a sudden they’re they’re out there and they fall and they get really, really hurt.

I think everybody just needs to think about their own children, their own relationship with how they’re parenting, and be honest about it and just think about where they might be micromanaging, overprotective, where they might be too permissive on the other side. And we want to be on that good firm road that’s best for your family. And Psalm ten, Psalm 66, verse ten through 12, it says, for you, O God, have tested us. You have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net. You laid a crushing burden on our backs. You let men ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water. Yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. I love that scripture because it really does show that things, challenging things happen and we learn through that. Right. He allows us to go through the fire using silver as an example. How do you get pure silver or very close to pure silver? It needs to be refined in a melting pot. And and it’s a refining process. It’s burned to burn all the impurities out. And I really think as we look at Scripture in so many places, that’s what God is trying to do in us. And could parents sometime be preventing the refining that God wants in their children because they’re overdoing it in some areas, or underdoing it in some others.

And so we just need to find out. Okay. Are there areas sometimes it’s just one of the parents. And this is an important marriage conversation. That’s where the parenting mentor program is so helpful because Angie and I teach together and you can allow that to be something that brings up these conversations and to work through them in a six week process, of course, is self-paced. But anyways, I think that’s so important to think about. So God’s relationship with us, we talked about that, and he is a perfect example of how we should also parent, which is allowing things to happen sometimes to our children so that they learn those lessons so that they’re strengthened. Aren’t we strengthened when we have those? When you think back of those times where you’re like, wow, God is so powerful. Not every time, but many times, that has to do with difficulty and how God brought you out of that. And many times he brings you out of that, not in the way you expect. And those are God stories. That is faith strengthening. And so we want to make sure your children have those experiences.

You know, first John three one is a beautiful scripture that shows that how the father views us. It says, see what kind of love the father has given to us that we should be called children of God. And so we are. We are called children of God. Your children are actually called children of God. And I think that there’s this aspect, as parents where we have to learn to trust the Lord with his kids. See, I think that a lot of us, you know, you know, that overwhelming feeling when you just have a baby and you have them in your arms and all of a sudden you didn’t think that you could love them any more than you already did when they were in your womb. And you are just flooded with even more love. And the more that you experience parenting and they’re growing up, and you’re experiencing all the fun experiences that life has for you as a parent and a child. You just continue to grow and grow and grow and more and more love for them, right? And the truth is, is that I think that God puts that in us. We are made in his image, and he has that same kind of love for us that we are his children. But I think that for parents, you know, we we as parents struggle with this, this illusion called control. And I say it’s an illusion because there are there are some things that we might have control over in our life.

We have control over the decisions that we make. Right. And then those decisions have consequences, whether it be good or bad. There’s repercussions. There’s you reaping and sowing. Right. And the reality is, is that a lot of us rely on our own strength, and we don’t get pushed to have to trust God with a lot of things, actually, because we’re pretty capable people. And when we’re using wisdom and we’re making wise decisions, sometimes we don’t experience that many hardships in life. Right? And the truth is, though, is that life is humbling in a good way. It reminds us who really is in control, who really is sovereign. It reminds us that we’re not sovereign. It reminds us that we are not like God. We are not all knowing. We are not wise. All all wisdom is from him. So even though we can have wisdom from the Lord and we can seek wisdom, we are not God who is all knowing and all wise, right? And so, as parents, who is the best person that you could ever trust your kids with? It’s God. He he. Not only is he the most trustworthy, but he loves your children even more than you do. He created them in your womb. He knit them together as what we see in Psalm 139. And so understanding when we’re in these different decisions that we have to make as a parent, we need to ask ourselves, hold on a second, am I doing this because I don’t trust God? Am I doing this or making this parenting decision out of fear.

Now we talked. We’ve talked a lot about how our anti fear based parenting. Right. We have a whole thing that we talk about in the parenting Mentor program on this. Um, and I just want to bring part of that into it. So fear based parenting is not biblical parenting. We are not called by God’s Word or even made. If we have God’s Spirit indwelt in us, we will not be walking in a spirit of fear. We’ll be walking in a spirit of power, love, and self-control. Right? And if we as parents are making decisions out of fear, then we need to repent of that. We need to evaluate why are we making these decisions this way and change our ways? But for us as parents, part of that is remembering that God is the father of our children. Mhm. So, you know, as we are continuing in what we’re talking about, there’s a few examples that we see in God’s relationship with us. One is he doesn’t always say, yes, I think you talked about that. He also disciplines those that he loves. And I just want to share a verse with you guys in Proverbs chapter three, verse 11 and 12 says, my son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof. For the Lord reproves him who he loves as a father, the son in whom he delights.

What a perfect scripture for what we’re talking about here, right, is because we want to mimic that. We want to be like that because the challenge is this is our next point, which I think is a weighty point, something we hadn’t really put to words until preparing for this episode. But we want to share it with you, is that it is possible. Just think about this for a second. It is possible that we might warp our children’s view of God away from what’s accurate to the way he has a relationship with each person. Because if if we’re overdoing it and catching them in every failure, in solving every problem for them and all of these things, that is not in the way that God treats us. And then when we’re not right there with them, and then they’re on their own and relying on God or, or walking with God, what happens when that test comes and the parents aren’t there to catch them? And God’s also not catching them how they’re used to being caught by the parents. And now that could hurt their trust in the Lord. That could hurt their relationship in the Lord. Because it wasn’t the foundation wasn’t built right in the way the parents interacted with the children.

Yeah. You know, I even think about how we as parents, if we are jumping in, let’s just use an example of like a little kid and we’re jumping in to correct them. Imagine. So when we did co-op years ago, the kids always would bring a presentation with them and they would have to present it, whether it was like a show and tell kind of item that they were bringing in, and they would tell about what it was that was the smaller kids, or as the kids would get older. And if and I was always tempted to remind the kids, right. I’d be watching them. And I knew what they had been practicing at home and in the van on the way to co-op, they had been practicing their little speech of what they were going to share. And then sometimes you know how it is. You get in front of a group and you forget some of those main points, right? Yeah. So as a mom, it all of a sudden they’re done or, or a kid asks a question of them in the middle of their presentation. This would especially happen with the five and six year olds, right? And they would get kind of like come combobulated in their head and they forget what they were supposed to be saying, or how would they feel as a mom.

When you have it memorized and you know, and you’re just staring at the situation and I’m like.

And I’m nodding. If you’re watching on YouTube right now, you see me like doing this whole like, you know, the look, right? You’re giving your kids the look in the back and you’re like, kind of trying to whisper with your mouth. And then they start looking at you and they’re trying to read your lips. You mess it up even more, and then. And then they get embarrassed, and then they get red in the face, and then they get upset and they don’t want to do it right. And what is that? What is that urge in a mom to try to get their kids to do it perfectly, the way they had practiced it, or the way that they had made it, versus just letting them experience what they experienced. And I think that this is the thing is, sometimes we can create more anxiety in our kids by having these expectations of the way we want things to be done, versus just letting them experience it and have the good growing experience of that and going, oh yeah, I forgot to say this, but it was okay. You know, and it’s just chill. And now they’re not scared to get up the next time. And so it’s like this, this urge. And every mom has that urge. We all want to like jump in and save the day and remind our kids, oh, you were gonna tell this. You were gonna say that, right? But. And our hearts have good intentions. We don’t want them to walk away going. Oh, but I forgot to say this and this and this, you know, and and we so we just want to help. But sometimes it’s over helping.

So I think what helps with this is to see beyond the moment, to actually think about what the learning opportunity could be by allowing this to happen, things that aren’t going to actually hurt them, right. You’re always going to protect them from being actually hurt, like in a serious way or something like that. But you have to discern this. But in those opportunities where you’re watching them struggle, you’re watching them fail at something, and you now see, okay, this is an opportunity for me to follow up and talk to them about that experience and have a deep conversation about what happened, how they feel, how did they do it next time, what they learned from that. Because remember, the best learning some of the best learning is from our failures, is from our mistakes. And of course there is no failure if you keep trying right and keep working towards the future, right? You’re going to teach that to your children. But how do you teach that kind of thing if there aren’t those challenges? And let’s face it, we’re preparing them for a challenging world that they’re going to launch into. So not having fear about that, but being sober minded, the Bible tells us to be sober minded, clear minded about the reality of situations. And while they’re in the protection of your home while you’re raising them up, isn’t that the perfect opportunity to allow them to experience trials and then talk through it with them and watch them experience doing it a better way in the future, and then acknowledging and anchoring that behavior and go, wow, you did so much better this time. Well, look at you. If you didn’t have that other experience, you probably wouldn’t have excelled now in the way you are because you learned from that past experience. Right? And what does that teaching your children? It’s teaching them a full cycle of how life actually works and how God works in our lives to to purify us, to test us and help us to build stronger character.

You know, it’s also interesting, as I’m thinking about this, one of the things that God doesn’t do to us, but I think we as parents do to our kids unknowingly. Like we wouldn’t purposefully try to do this, but any fear that you might have had as a kid, you can impress upon and portray through your child, right by the way that you react or overreact or overcompensate or over protect or whatever you want to call it, you can actually like, you can actually challenge your child in a negative kind of way to struggle with the same thing you yourself struggled with.

I think that’s a natural inclination as to where our past hurts are, is where we’re trying to overdo it with our children. That’s an opportunity to look for. I mean, I.

Even think of parents who struggle with vicariously living through their child in sports or in music or whatever. The thing is that they wish they did when they were younger and like, really pushing their kids to it, when it might not actually be something their kids want to do. So, you know, there’s a lot of aspects of parenting where we can evaluate, like, Would God parent me this way? Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to the Courageous Parenting Podcast. We just want to take a moment to highlight some of our awesome sponsors who are actually there making the Courageous Parenting Podcast possible. And so let’s just take a moment and listen to the sponsors, and then we’ll get back to the show.

Steve and I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.

What Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications.

This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of the heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in Scripture this is.

Do your legacy.

A favor.

And your self a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year. And I could not recommend it more. We’re no longer.

Fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

I want to share a really amazing personal testimony with you guys. The first 20 years Isaac and I were married, we primarily went the traditional health insurance route. Being entrepreneurs in those first 20 years, we had nine pregnancies, one loss, and eight babies birthed Earthside. Each time we were pregnant, we felt limited by our insurance coverage when making the decision on where we were going to have our babies. When looking into coverage for those births, home birth exclusions were a really big deal for us because of the risk of liability in case of an emergency. As we continued having babies later in life and being older, I was labeled geriatric. I was considered high risk, which made it even more difficult to find the care that I wanted with the assurance of support. Then, four years ago, we switched over to Samaritan Ministries, which is a health sharing organization. A few years into switching, we experienced another pregnancy loss and then we became pregnant for the 11th time, still desiring to have a home birth. We were so blessed and surprised to find out that all our needs were shareable within the organization and that I could choose the provider I wanted. So we moved forward to have the home birth of our dreams. If you’re looking for an alternative option to being able to pay for medical expenses incurred in raising a family, and you desire the freedom to choose your own providers, including alternative providers like chiropractors and naturopaths, we want to encourage you to check out Samaritan Ministries at our link. Samaritan ministries.org/be courageous. In the video, we share how it works and answer a bunch of frequently asked questions. So check out our link at Samaritan ministries.org. Forward slash. Be courageous I think is really one of the best questions.

So what we were just talking about is we might might you have to be the judge of this for yourself in your own family. But we might warp our kids view of God and ill equip them for how they’re walking with God later in life, which could hurt their their walk.

You know, one of the things that I think of in regards to that, that would be a huge warning in warping a kid’s view or image of God, because we as parents are like that image bearing example of of that father child relationship. Right? And I when I reflect on myself as a parent, especially of like younger kids and middle aged kids, because there’s a different growth, you have to start letting go and letting your kid more and more and more, right? You’re more hands on when they’re little. And then as they get older, you’re more hands off. At least that’s what we teach in the parenting Mentor program. Like let them start growing up. And then when they’re even older in their pre-teens and teenagers, you should have already established through discipleship, training, teaching and discipline to where there isn’t a lot of that having to happen anymore when they’re teenagers. You know what I mean? And so, you know, as parents, one of the things that is difficult for us is when when we step into soon, it’s actually being impatient. And God the Father is totally patient with us. And so that’s like a perfect example of how we can warp our child’s view of who God is or or even what a parent should be or shouldn’t be, right. If we are impatient with our children, like if they’re doing a project and they’re not doing it fast enough, or if they’re not doing it right, if they’re not loading the dishwasher, it’s okay, honey, I’ll do it. I’ll do it. You just go. You just go. And because they’re not doing it your way. Right. That would be an example of being impatient and taking over. And God doesn’t do that with us.

Showing them that they’re not capable actually. Right.

But God, God doesn’t parent us that way. We are all children of God. He is incredibly patient with us, with us. I even think of the example. I’m not going to read through it in depth, but in Luke we see the prodigal son and we see the father of the prodigal son when his son takes his inheritance and flees. Yeah, and he squanders it. What is the response by the father when he comes home? He is patient, he is rejoicing, he is forgiving. And forgiveness is another thing that I think that as parents, if our kids screw up and we are like, and we get, we get anxious, we get, you shouldn’t have done that. I’ve I’ve done this before. Many times. You’ve witnessed it where like the first thing I do is I told you not to do that. And I have whenever it comes out of my mouth, I tell myself that’s not the first thing that should come out of your mouth, Angie, because I know that God’s not saying that to me the first time I write, when I screw up or when I fall. He’s not right there going, I told you not to. When they need to be comforted. Instead, it’s like they need to be comforted. They need it. Like we need to understand that how we respond to the the mistakes, the falls, the, the, even the sins at times need to be as much as possible. And this is a message for me too, because I’m in it. They need to be reflective of how the father responds to us with forgiveness and love and patience and self-control.

And once they feel that, then teaching the lesson right is everything settles down.

Mhm. Yeah. So good. And it’s interesting because if you respond that way versus the anxious control I’m going to fix it. You shouldn’t have done it. Why didn’t you write that response doesn’t open up the ears of the listener to hear the correction in it later. Instead, If you are the loving, caring, nurturing, helping when they’ve fallen, then their ears are more apt to hear you when you’re disciplining and correcting.

And for sure, depending on how you’re wired, it’s going to be easier or harder for you to do that. Certain people are wired in a get it done. Take action. That’s me. You know, more controlling wiring. And some people are far more wired in a comforting, loving, embracing listening mode. And there’s in-between that obviously, too. But it doesn’t matter how we’re wired, because we all need to shift to the needs of the different person in front of us that needs our love in a certain way, and we need to cater to that while being ourselves, but cater to that. And being in the word and praying and walking strong with the Lord is going to help us to be patient and loving in those ways. All right. The next thing is to balance and the balance of fulfilling our God given jurisdiction to provide, nurture and protect, teach and train and disciple and discipline our children. Yeah, there’s a good handful of things.

I know. There’s like five bullet points basically, that we have. But, you know, provide and protect. I mean, those kind of go more under the husband, father, although there are women who do those things as well. Right. Like if I’m out with my kids and there’s a threat, I’m going to protect them, right? Like, I’m. It’ll take. I’ll be kicking and screaming, taking them down. Right. Um, but generally speaking, the protect and provide lands more on the guy. Shoulders. Right. Then women are more wired for the nurturing, caring for taking care of their health.

I can’t think of a specific example right now, but these things have happened where somebody does something to your child when you weren’t there and you’re like, whoa, you know, you have full capabilities of smashing them verbally or, you know, doing things to make sure they learn their lesson and these kinds of things, these things probably go through your head, gents, you know. But then what are we looking for? We’re actually looking for the best learning experience, outcome, possibility, if at all possible. Sometimes we do need to step in and I have before, but sometimes it is literally coaching and encouraging how to handle the situation to become stronger, handling difficult people or difficult conversations and your children, depending on how old they are, of course need to start experiencing that. And so that first gut reaction is sometimes the worst thing you can do. Sometimes we need to think and pray on it and think about what is the best way to protect them. Use this as an opportunity to teach them how to protect themselves. Right. So they’re not always going to be with you. That’s why I have so much confidence in my children being out there in the world and doing things. We have lots of older children now.

Well, the older ones.

Yeah, because when they were little, we were gradually teaching them these things and they know how to protect themselves verbally. They know how to stand their ground. They know.

Even physically.

Yeah, they even know some skills. You know, physically, you know, obviously nothing’s perfect, but, um, but I feel confident that they can stand on their own in an environment of hooligans, even if they’re in a group where that stuff’s happening, they wouldn’t participate.

Mhm. You know, I think that if we were to take one of these out of the five categories we have provide nurture which nurturing is like caring for their health, feeding emotions, loving them. Right. Like there’s even with moms, one of the challenges that we have is to be so over nurturing that we’re taking care of everything to where they don’t learn how to take care of themselves. Right? Like if you’re when your kids are little, you brush their teeth at night so that you get every area and you train them in how to actually brush all the areas of their teeth. But if you do that for a really long period of time, eventually they’re not going to learn how to do it themselves, and they would be dependent on you. Can you imagine a 20 year old not brushing their teeth because mom did it for them for so long that they didn’t develop the habit themselves of good hygiene? Yeah, right. Same thing goes for food. Imagine if a mom was always cooking for her family. Like I’m always cooking for my family. I provide three meals a day, but I try to bring my kids in to help with those different meals, and sometimes I assign them to a certain meal. And there are times when I start to struggle with that mom guilt of like, no, I should be doing this. But then I’m slightly reminded. I’m reminded that no, this is good for the olders because they need to learn how to be responsible and make their own lunch. They need to be able to care for themselves. Because I may not always be here.

You never know. Like that’s the reality, right? And so recognizing that so you provide the food but you have them feed themselves sometimes. Right. That’s what the as they get older. Not when they’re little little. And the same goes for like even their emotions and taking care of their own physical needs. So a good example of this is that today, one of the things that I’ve heard from so many moms is that their kids are scared to even as like young adults and teenagers, to call the dentist office and make a dentist appointment, or they’re scared to get on the phone and make a doctor’s appointment. Yet they’re 18 or 19 years old, and good old mom and dad are not actually on their account, and they’re young adults. And so the problem is, is that kids need to be trained before they get to that age and what it means, what it looks like, how to call the doctor, be confident, make an appointment. And yeah, you can go with them, but you teach them. Like I recently was with one of my kids at a doctor’s appointment, and we were getting some imaging done and different things. And the whole way there, well, not the whole way, but a lot of the conversation was you are older now, so these are the conversations that you need to be having with your doctor. You want to take notes. You want to pay close attention to these things, go down these different avenues. And the reason why we’re having that conversation is I was like, you are getting older. You need to be able to ask these questions.

And on a side note, you always want to put your children in the position of authority, not the doctor in a position of authority. They have that relationship. They have to advocate for themselves because otherwise.

They’ll get taken advantage of.

There’s lots of different directions doctors can take people. There’s really good ones and there’s some that aren’t as good. So in like minded. So they have to be good at these things and you have to train them in that.

Yeah. So you have to train them to be confident.

But one thing I saw Angie do just the other night is we went out for dinner, I think it was Sunday night or something, and we went around. We had the with the we had the lower half in age right with us and the littles and she coached them on the way there to put their orders in. Once they figured out what they’re going to eat, the waitress came and each of the children made their order, including the little three year old, right?

Because I had practiced with them before she got there. And it’s it’s something that I’ve done at different points with all of our kids where it’s like this conversation of make sure you make eye contact with the waitress. She’s a person, too. You want to show respect, use your manners, please, and thank you. May I am asking what options are if you don’t know the answer right. And so I had them practice. I was like, okay, where are you going to order. All right. Make sure that you’re loud enough so she can hear you. Make sure this make sure that and all of the kids ordered for themselves, which was great. So we start this obviously, like as soon as the kids can, like, talk in an understandable way for the waitress, we try to have them at least share, like what drink they want or what they’re going to have on the menu. And I think that that’s like the beginning of it, right, is being able to be confident to interact with other people in real life. But if you take over and you do it all of the time, then they’re never going to learn that skill.

And there are times where we’re in a hurry. We just got to get food. So mom just goes.

Boom, boom, boom boom.

Orders for everybody. But it’s true. Um, you know, there’s a time for that. Yeah.

But, you know, I think that on this balancing the fulfilling of our God given jurisdictions, right? So we have these God given jurisdictions and protecting. Let’s just talk about that a little bit for a second. So obviously we’re called to protect our kids. Use wisdom, be realists about what’s going on in the world right now. This is this is a really great topic for right now because there’s so much weirdness. I’m gonna use that word weird that’s getting overused today. But there is a weirdness happening where sin is becoming normalized by by those in authority, and they’re pushing some really weird stuff on kids. They’re pushing sin, they’re tempting kids to sin. They’re specifically trying to indoctrinate in, in their own sexual ideologies or kids. Right. And so there’s a lot of moms that are protective.

Well, and just a side note on that, is anybody that’s trying to create a more permissive culture and change the laws to do these terrible things to children at a younger age and all these things, it probably means they participate in it, right? Because that would be the motivation of these people around the globe. They want.

To justify their sin and.

They don’t want to go to jail eventually. So. Right. They probably are participating in these things they’re trying to legalize, which can take a moment to listen about youth drive our children going through this this summer. And it’s so good to feel the gaps of financial education. We’ll be right back to the show.

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As think about.

That. But but as parents, I think that we need to recognize like, yes, it is our job to protect our kids. So that’s what you’re going to hear from courageous parenting. That’s our official statement. Yes. It’s your job to protect your kids. You have parental rights. You discern, be realist. Take the rose tinted glasses off. Look at what’s being taught to your kids. Make sure you know who’s influencing them. Then there’s this other aspect right where you have the the. So there’s overprotecting which this is like a spectrum, right. The whole protective versus being permissive. And you don’t want to be overly permissive, but you also don’t want to be so protective that your kids don’t ever have to learn how to defend themselves and why they believe what they believe. Right? That would be an older kid and a younger kid. It’s more like you’re going to protect them from dangerous people, but you’re also going to teach them like, hey, we only have certain people are the safe people, right? Like, you teach them parameters, you teach them their boundaries, and then as they get older, you’re continuing to teach, but it just gets more educational. Right? And so as parents, though, we need to understand, like God is again given us this awesome example of what it looks like to be a parent. And we see it in Romans chapter five. I just want to share verse three through five with you guys. It says not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This is the thing guys like whenever we read this scripture. This Scripture has been one that people have given to me in times where I’ve been in suffering, whether it was losing a baby or, um, losing a my dad or whatever, whatever the circumstances, losing a job, you know, people generally use this scripture and they’re like, okay, but what is good about what you’re going through? Like, you’re growing, man, right? Like, you hear that? You get that encouragement. But you guys, this scripture is also for our kids. And the reality is that, yeah, our kids have little sufferings. They have scraped knees, they sometimes get sick. They, um, they sometimes have a cut on their finger because they weren’t using the scissors correctly. When they’re learning how to use scissors or whatever it is, maybe they have hurt feelings from a friend because they weren’t sharing. That’s something to learn, right? Like, there’s a little bit of friendship suffering happening right there, and it’s a good thing for them to learn through. And so there’s this element of understanding, like, do we want our kids to have endurance? I know I want my kids to have endurance. Do we want them to have character? Oh, yeah, I want them to have godly character. Do we want them to have hope? Oh, yeah. I want them to know where their hope stands. Well, then that means that there’s going to be times where I need to allow the the natural consequence, even if it’s a little bit of suffering, to exist in my kids life, so that they get motivated to change that.

Amen. Amen. Let’s talk about, um, the unprecedented times tip that we always do at the very end. And I think it’s more important than ever that you’re having a marriage conversation. And so this is our challenge, is that you have a marriage conversation, and you write down each child in your journal or piece of paper, even a napkin at the restaurant, and you write down, okay, where might we be overprotective like a helicopter parent, if you’ve heard of that, and really controlling too much and not letting any of our children on this specific child. How about this child? How about this child? Where are we too permissive on what things? What they’re watching, what they’re exposed to, their friendships, things like that, and really audit that and see where you disagree. And don’t just skirt around. Disagreeing where you disagree is going to be your friction point that ruins your parenting effectiveness. And so if you really are disagreeing on things I highly or no matter what, I highly encourage you to take the Parenting Mentor program because that’ll give you a biblical foundation and all the talking points to talk about on all the things with all the date night questions and the packets and all those things, but have this challenge go out on a date. Date night in. If you need to and really vet this out on each child. Where are we being overprotective? Where are we being too permissive?

You know what I even say? I have a word for moms and dads that have, you know, pre-teens, teenagers, maybe even young adults in their home, just that, you know, over ten years old, if you have kids, over ten years old, if you experience your kids being disrespectful to you. I would evaluate on this date night. Am I making their life too easy for them by doing too much for them? Do they not have an appreciation for me? And have I cultivated an entitlement attitude in them because they don’t actually have to do the things I’m doing their laundry, I’m cleaning their room. I’m making their lunch. I’m da da da da da da. I’m getting them to where they need to go. I’m filling their gas tank. I’m doing oil changes on their car. Like, I think this is a really important. This is part of what we’re talking about here. Because the reality is when your kids are little, you might have this idea in your head, oh yeah, I’m going to train my kids on how to do their laundry, for example. And that’s a really good thing. But if you start stepping in and doing it because they’re not doing it your way, or they’re doing it halfway, and so you step in and do it for them, they’re not going to learn how to do it, and then they’re going to be totally sloppy later in life potentially. Right. So that’s a.

Good you bring up a good thing entitlement. And I think we should end on this is entitlement. People talk about an entitled generation. And some people are like wow, every generation becomes more and more entitled. Yeah. And whose fault is it that a child or a young person is entitled? Is it the education system that makes them entitled? Is it the peer relationships that makes them entitled? Is it the school they go to? Is it society? We can blame it on society. Is it the devil that’s making them entitled? I actually think that it’s a parenting issue. I think that parents as they’re raising their kids. So what does that mean if a generation after generation is becoming more entitled, if that’s something you believe? I would say that parenting is not keeping up with the rigors and changes of the day, and including in Christian circles. And normal Christian parenting is falling flat. The normal rhythms of what the average Christian’s are, you know, are doing they’re they’re going to church and so forth. So you need to be doing different things. You need you need to make some distinctions. What are we going to do differently? Because if you don’t change something, then you too will be launching very similar kids, a homogenized society where everybody’s kind of operating in the same flow. Well, the 70 or 80% of children are leaving the faith by age 18, leaving the church, at least the studies show. So, you know, you don’t want that. So you have to do something different. So we’re talking about something I think is crucial and very, very important for different, which is really honing in on where are we being overprotective and where.

Are we doing too.

Much? Where are we doing too much for them? Right. And where are we? Too permissive.

Right. Being too permissive would be like so. For example, being doing too much would be like cleaning your 11 year old or 12 year old’s bedroom for them when they should be keeping it clean themselves, right? Being permissive is being too overly permissive would be not ever having them clean it up, just letting them live in a mess, right? And so there’s this fine balance between the two where it’s like, so you want to be where you want to hold them accountable and you want to teach them how to do it, but they need to do it themselves. So look.

For those teaching opportunities versus looking for ways you can do things for.

Them. Let’s you know, I want to end on this verse. It Proverbs 13. I just love Proverbs. This is a warning for those entitlement attitude kids. Right. But it’s also a scripture that we as parents need to really heed. It says the soul of a sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. So what do we want? Do we want our kids to be a sluggard? That’s going to be the fruit of someone who is doing too much for their kids. Actually, is that they won’t actually do the things that are necessary in life, like the basic things that they should be taking care of in their life, those those mundane like nuance things that are sometimes annoying, like everyone needs to do them, everyone needs to clean their toilet, everyone needs to make dinner. Everyone needs to do their laundry and pay their bills and all of those things. And if we’re not, then we’re not walking in godly character of taking care of the jurisdictions that God has given us to steward. And so if we keep doing them for them, it does actually perpetuate an entitled attitude. And they never get challenged to actually be thankful that their parents did that for them before, if they’re still doing it for them. Amen.

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