Scripture In This Episode:

Proverbs 17:27 – “He who has knowledge spares his words, And a man of understanding is of a calm spirit.”

Philippians 2:4 – “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Romans 12:2 – “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Philippians 4:6 – “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; ⁷ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Proverbs 17:21-22 – “He who begets a scoffer does so to his sorrow, And the father of a fool has no joy. A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.”

James 3:14-18 – “But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.  For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

• All Ministry Resources: becourageousministry.org

  

  Social Media For Christians – BE COURAGEOUS app

  • Exclusive access to the courageous kid’s podcast. Play it for your kids to stir up good discussions.
  • Monthly LIVE Q&A with the Tolpins; ask the anything.
  • Powerful Biblically minded community.
  • Topic-based discussion groups.
  • You get your own profile and can connect with others.
  • Resources on marriage, parenting, homeschooling, pregnancy/birth, and more.

  We look forward to engaging with you on the inside!

  FREE COURAGEOUS PARENTING WORKSHOP

  

  Relevant Resource Links:

  • The Homeschooling Blueprint, the online program to boost your effectiveness & help your kids thrive.

  • Parenting Mentor Program, A 6-Week, self-paced online program giving you the Biblical Parenting Model

  • Postpartum Course, The First-Ever Christian Postpartum Course!

  • FREE Courageous Parenting Workshop; Get the Parenting Packet Download!

  If The Spirit Prompts You to Financially Support (We are a for-profit, for social good organization.)

  • Financial Giving, is important to support our family and expand the impact of the ministry. We aim to impact 10 million families and their legacies. We are in full-time ministry as a family of 9 at home, so everything makes a difference. 

  Thank you for being part of this movement to equip 10 million families and their legacies with Biblical truth to raise confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Full Transcript

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 I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married 20 years and have seen the fruit in raising our eight kids biblically based on the raw truth found in the Bible. We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from the faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parentingin a fallen world.

So glad to be back here with you on the podcast.

Yeah, we have a lot of interesting updates. Well, we launched the home-school blueprint, you guys.

Wow. We started out thinking that was going to be like three hours of curriculum, 20 page workbook.

What ended up happening on it became six sessions, plus a bonus session on leaving a legacy. So it six and a half hours of curriculum.

Yeah. Very to the point curriculum and a 43 page workbook which is interactive lets you take notes and action steps and so forth. So it’s really to help you create your unique blueprint to homeschooling, whether you’re the most seasoned. We’ve already got reviews for people five, six, seven years homeschooling. They’re loving it to the brand new people, lots of brand new people doing it. So praise God on that. And yeah, is exciting. We kept the price the same and it’s discounted 63 percent because we just want to keep the price low right now with everything going on in the world and the economy and things. So anyways, that’s awesome.

Yeah, but it’s also been exciting to be able to bless some families that couldn’t afford it that really needed the help.

Yes. Well, yeah. So we’re open to giving it. If the. Absolutely. There’s no way somebody can pay for you can always message and let us know. So it’s been working out pretty awesome. So praise God on that. And we’re just really having fun with the ministry. It’s so encouraging when you guys share. Give us five star reviews, the reviews. It’s not us, actually. It’s the it’s the movement. One million legacy’s. And so just thank you for that. And we’d love to you know, we love to keep serving. So anyways.

Let’s dive into this with six keys to healthy attitudes. OK. Why do you think that’s important right now?

Well, if any of you guys have been experiencing having your kids home, I mean, people who have their kids home schooling have their kids at home all the time. Right. And and so we’re used to dealing with sin and attitudes and things like that.

All parents have experienced this at some point or another. Right. But homeschool parents just deal with that like more often because they’re with their kids. More hours in the day. Right. But right now, with the quarantine and the stay at home order because of the coronavirus, everybody is at home. And so the longer that that goes on, the harder it can be to have a good attitude.

Yeah. And sometimes when you’re only with your kids part of the day, you kind of let things slide. You might let things slide because you don’t see it as deeply. But when you’re together all the time, you see things more deeply. I guess that’s the opportunity. Yes. You always say which is, hey, at least you’re seeing it, right?

Right. Exactly. It’s better than the unseen sentence that you don’t know to deal with or to encourage your kids.

So we have six keys for you guys that will help everybody. We believe these are keys. We continued to use ourselves.

That’s right. And we actually I’m you know, I think that we have a resource Isaac and I always like to try to promote or share a new resource with you guys that we have become aware of. Yeah. And so in this podcast, there’s actually something I want to share with them later.

Oh you can share later. Yeah, later. Oh, yeah. OK, let’s go. So. Point number one, it’s so important to start the day right now. I’m not just referring to Bible time. You’ve heard us talk about that many times. There’s many aspects to starting the day, right. That are very, very important in really affect your kids, whether they’re a 2 year old or a 14 year old.

Yeah. And let’s just be honest. They also affect you on your starting your day, right? It affects your attitude. And we all know that attitude reflects leadership. That’s one of our our most favorite quotes from Remember the Titans, right?

Such a good move. It is such a good movie. I have to go into a side note here, because they might not know this, but you guys did. I don’t know if you knew that Isaac’s dad, Henry Castro, was on the original. Remember the Titans team? And so when we first were married, they had the premiere. Right. Because, you know, Denzel Washington, all these guys were in the movie. I’m just letting you in on a little piece of our history here. It’s just kind of a cool little piece. So we flew to to stay with Isaac’s family in Virginia and got to go see the premiere. It was a red carpet event. And meet the whole team. Isaac got to sit with Yost and some of their own coach Boone. Yeah. And they told them stories about his dad because you didn’t actually get to meet your dad.

Yeah. Supercool, actually. One of the players, when they found out I was Henry’s son, he was so excited to meet me. And he said, I got to introduce you to every players who took me around where they rented out the whole ESPN zone. And they took me around one by one. And each of the players told me something about my dad. So that’s pretty cool.

It’s pretty cool. His dad actually represents a unique kind of niche. During that time, because there was a lot of racism back then, if you’ve watched the movie, you know, I’m talking about. But that was primarily between the African-Americans and the white people. But his dad was actually from Venezuela. Yeah. And him and his sisters and his brother were like the only ones.

And he was a starter. He played well and he was friends with Bertier and other guys. But attitude reflects leadership.

That’s right. Yeah.

And so I think that there’s an important element of recognizing the power of influence that we have as parents and being responsible to start our day outright so that we can lead our kids in starting out their day. Right. Otherwise, we’re being hypocrites. Right. We can’t lead people. We can’t lead our kids where we have not gone yet. So if we don’t have a good attitude, we can’t lead our kids to have a good attitude.

Yeah. So one of the keys to starting the day, right. Is really good connection with each of your kids. And good connection involves eye contact. Sometimes we can be so busy where we’re looking at the things we’re focused on while listening to them over here. And I think if you start the day where they feel their love tank is filled with a feel good connection with you, that’s a big deal.

It’s a really big deal. I think that some kids well, first of all, all kids are wired differently. Right. There’s that element of what makes each person feel valued, which is different than love languages. But then there’s also like certain love languages that each person has. It’s just good to study your kids. Be aware of what makes them feel filled up. What does actually fill their love tank? And that’s going to require you not being selfish as a parent and thinking that your kids get filled up the way you do, but recognizing that they’re different people and then trying to connect with them on their level and the way that’s going to make them feel like you love them.

And it’s a bit of an affirmation for them to feel that connection with you. And you might even use words that your kids need to hear based on what you know about them. So you might know some of the things they have going on for the day. You might know some of the challenges they’re dealing with, some of the previous attitudes that haven’t been right. And so you need to be smart and be thinking and have wisdom and think about the words that are going to shift their behavior by making them feel affirmed in the good aspects of who they are, not the negative thing. Sometimes we just focus on the negatives. Yeah, they need that positive out for me. Yeah.

Hey, you guys, you know, if you want a good book to be challenged in the Sam Crabtree has a book called Practicing Affirmations. And it’s it’s I mean, it’s for counsellor’s, but it’s a fantastic book that shows even biblical ways that Jesus affirmed people.

And it’s just really by the way, we’re not saying, you know, look in the mirror and say, you’re great, you’re beautiful. And that’s not what we’re talking about here. So the other thing is real simple and practical. You won’t talk about it.

Food boom.

In all real reality, this is actually a really big topic. We won’t get into it as much as we do in the courageous parenting mentor program. But the reality is, is food, nourishment, nutrition. Sustenance is one of the most basic needs of all people. God made us to actually survive on food. And so in the parenting program, we talk about the basic needs of every person, every human, and how it’s our responsibility as the parents to be fulfilling their needs, providing for their needs. And one of the other aspects is being realistic about, you know, are you setting your kids up for failure or success? You’re not going to take them grocery shopping if they if it’s during naptime and they didn’t eat lunch. Right.

They’ll be too tired and they’ll be hungry. And so, of course, you should expect some kind of meltdown or tiredness because you haven’t set them up for success. You have set them up for failure. There’s actually either or.

So there’s two kinds of feasting, feasting on food. So you’re talking about feasting on the word of God?

That’s right. And so that’s the God’s word is the bread of life.

So any both of those things and you need to lead them in that end, if they’re really little, I’m. So you’re reading for them. They might have they’re older. They may have their own devotion time. Are you doing Bible time or a mix of those things in prayer? Praying together? not only does it activate God in a real way. He hears our prayers. Secondly, we get to hear each other’s hearts.

It is the best way to deepen relationships. Know what’s on people’s hearts. And this is something that I talk about a lot in the biblical Frendship course, because a lot of times people get caught say that their relationship with so-and-so is centered on Christ. Oh, we go to church together. But I would just venture to ask some really hard questions. Do you pray for your friend and then do you pray with them? Like, have you sat folded your hands and prayed together? For people? That’s actually a Christ centered friendship. And so that can actually be played out in your relationships with your kids. And knowing what’s really on someone’s heart comes across when they’re communicating with God, when they’re in a safe space.

I know as a dad, I feel like I’ve already won the day when I’m involved in some of these things with our family. Yeah. It just makes me feel so good. I could have been like, oh, I’m so tired. I couldnt sleep last night, got woke up five times or whatever, which, by the way, did happen to us last night. So. And then, you know, and then I start leading and helping others and I start to feel better, which we’re going to talk about. That’s a principle in here, too. But the second thing we won’t talk about is clear expectations. This is a big deal because nobody likes things sprung on them. And sometimes as parents were absolutely in control. And so we can take that for granted and just move our kids around in the way we want to go. Oh, we’re doing this now. Yeah, with no notice. And sometimes there’s unavoidable. So don’t feel bad about yourself.

You definitely do want to lead. For sure. You know what we’re talking about.

As much as you can be thoughtful about the day, think in advance and just as you would want to kind of know the lay of the land for the day. So do they. Right. I do better.

And that doesn’t matter how old they are. Even the 4 year old can feel empowered and feel more confident when they know what to expect. Right. So like today we even did that after our family Bible time. We’re having a little family meeting. And I just said, hey, you guys, we’re re-instituting. Quiet time today. Solomon, this is gonna be your first time having quiet time. You’re four years old. And so it’s it’s going to happen and then you’re gonna have your nap, because a lot of times we’ve done quiet time, like during the kid’s nap as they’re quiet. Yeah, but he’s at that age now. We’re at 4 years old.

I mean, try to see if he can flip the pages in the word and song Bible and he can do that on his own. I’ll have a little time to turn the page if he can drive an RC car.

He can flip pages. That’s right. So here’s something that’s profound. You just give an example of that I want to talk about. It’s called pre framing. Pre framing is something a lot of times talked about in the business world and leadership.

And it’s used because for the same reason people thrive when they understand the potential challenge or change or something happening way in advance and you teach them in advance about it or how they want to respond to it when it happens. Then when it comes, they expect it and there’s not an emotional drain on them trying to figure it out because the leader already made them aware of it. So that was a perfect example, because if we didn’t pre frame to Solomon, that was really quiet time today, then he would have he might have had been upset about it because he loves to play with his toys and things like that. But because it was mentioned in the morning, it was pre framed around. That’s part of being a big boy. Now he’s looking forward to it where that could have been a challenge.

Right. And so whenever you’re adding in something new, you always want to pre frame givings expectations and make them somehow give them vision that this is actually part of growing up. This is what you had. This is what we’ve been looking forward to. And so we put little, little, I guess, trinkets along the way to go and get them looking forward to growing up to like that’s also a part of pre framing as dreaming with your kids when they’re younger.

What to expect when they’re older.

It reminds me something in business. Some of the guys might find this interesting. I used to run a large organization where we had 32 physical locations across two states and we were going into the recession of 2008. And I asked God for wisdom to lead this through this. And he really gave me supernatural wisdom.

And I started spending part of my Fridays just thinking I’d pray and that I was just thinking I’d have my journal, no electronics on me and outright. And I kept thinking of things that would happen way before they would actually happen. And so my team would run conference calls weekly and meetings and one one calls with them. And I would give them information about what’s going to be happening soon. And as a here’s how we’re going to respond to it. And they were they. It was amazing. We grew to levels that never been seen before. When the economy was crashing and I just give you that, that’s a kind of a bigger example of the same thing of teaching your four year old about something different happening today ahead of time and how we’re going to respond to it. That’s the power of pre framing. It is so important.

Right. But it does take a little bit of vision to pre frame. So you need to think about what you want your family to be doing down the road so that you can actually start sharing those things like, for example, the 9 year old and. Emily knows that when he gets to be twelve years old, then he can stay up a little bit later. Like there’s even those little things where it’s like nobody. You get to do that when you’re older. And so he has something to look forward to. But pre framing can be really important in this season that we’re in right now on a day to day basis trying to plant. But this requires you to kind of plan ahead and have at least something planned for your day. All right.

And that’s actually part of what we’re trying to inspire you to hear, is that you recognize that as parents, your families, your jurisdiction, and you should be living purposefully and giving your kids something that we’re doing today. So like for us, we have like purpose. We are productivity happening.

We have people doing school, but we also have lunch. We have different things going on. Like they know that tonight we’re having salmon and grapes. Like there’s like fun things. And people know who’s going to be helping make the crepes, who’s going to be helping with the dinner. And and the kids actually like that. We put worship music on. We do something fun. So finding something fun that you can have in your day or something that’s like a reward that you can do along with the hard things and giving that vision, it’s only two things.

And by the way, that’s so good. And by the way, husbands, you should follow me on Resolute.Man, because right now I’m giving wisdom on that kind of same thing two weeks ago is saying, hey, in 30 days, what decisions do the media making today that will be required 30 days from now? So I am giving some of that thoughtfulness and wisdom that I’m going through right now and leading my family during these challenging economic times and things like that. So, yeah, and it was just to say no, but clear expectations. So important. And we have a scripture for that.

That’s right. It’s in Proverbs 17:27 says he who has knowledge spares his words.

Interesting. He spares his words.

He doesn’t need to actually be speaking so much because he has knowledge and said and it says in a man of understanding is of a calm spirit. Don’t we all want to be calm? We want our homes to be calm. Right. We just want to calm spirit. Well, this tells us that a man of understanding is of a calm spirit. And so if you want your kids to have a calm spirit, give them understanding pre frame, give them clear expectations so they know what is going on that day. It can actually biblically. This is a biblical truth that if you give your kids clear expectations of what to expect and they have understanding of that, they will have a calm spirit.

Otherwise, you might be a bully.

Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s a difference between treating your kid. This is that’s a whole nother thing. We’ve done a podcast on why your kids don’t respect you. You guys have to go listen to it. It’s in Season 1. I think it’s like the fourth or fifth podcast that we ever did. One of the most popular. But one of the key things that goes along with this is that your kids learn how to respect people by how you respect people you know, and how you respect them. And so I think that there’s this element of understanding that if we are pre framing, we’re giving expectations to our kids. That’s actually one way that you’re showing them respect. You’re setting them up for success. You’re you’re understanding that they’ve been created in God’s image and that they’ve been created with this desire to know what’s going on to be purposeful. God has given all of us that desire to be living on purpose. And so if your kid is just a mini, you and they have this desire to be living on purpose, but they just don’t know how to verbalize it or to contribute somehow, because that is part of the human spirit. And you’re not giving them that opportunity to live on purpose, to be looking ahead, to be, you know, potentially going, oh, we did that today.

Oh, and now we’re going to do this like you’re teaching them what it means to live productively, to live on purpose. That’s how they were created. And they can bring so much joy to them.

But if you do that, that’s one way you’re showing them that respect because you’re honoring a part of who they are at there, that the essential part of who God made them to. And so it’s so much easier for kids to respect you when they’ve been respected.

That’s right. So point three is discover the deeper problem before there’s bad attitudes, a deeper problem. Before we go there, though. Would you join us for the parent mentor program? It is an investment. So when you go to courageous parenting.com, you’ll see it is 40 percent off. Well, I guess that changes. But depending on when you’re list, depending on your peers by gas at the very moment, it’s 40 percent off. Yeah, but it is worth it. Hundreds and hundreds of parents have gone through it. The community is powerful. We really love it because these are the people that we can be more real with, actually even more real than on the podcast.

Yeah. So we have a private Facebook community for just and then a direct connection with if they want that. Yeah, they can text us.

So. So that’s been really neat. And like for example, this course we just launched the homeschooling blueprint. They knew about it first. They gave some feedback on it. They, you know, got an opportunity to even get it for free. Yeah.

Some kind of a little shy about saying that, but yeah, that’s true.

And then some. A lot of them decided to pay for it just to help the ministry anyways. But it’s just so cool. I mean they’re the people we really rally with and a deeper level. But the curriculum is incredible. It is the most robust program out there on parenting in a biblical way is the biblical parenting model. We’ve used and seen the fruit from the last 19, almost 20 years. So anyways, it is it is really cool. So I would encourage you go check it out. Even if it’s not for you sharing, it helps. And there’s a lot of resources at courageous parenting.com. It’s also where the homeschooling blueprint is, and it’s also where all the show notes for this episode and all the episodes are with all the resources we mentioned in video.

And Isaac, where else can they find like if they were to share the podcast?

Sharing the i-Tunes link is i-Tunes is where 80 percent of people listens. But we’re also on Google Play in other places sharing this stuff out there in stories, Facebook, even getting reviews and ratings.

So while that’s really encouraging to us, but it also helps the algorithm so that other people can see. Yeah. The podcast and be encouraged in biblical parenting and diving deeper into these issues like what we’re talking about. Let’s do it deeper into the problem of bad attitudes. So there are some some reasons why kids have bad attitude.

Sometimes we see them at face value and I want you to think deeper than that and go what is behind this behavior? And sometimes it’s something you absolutely have no idea about. Sometimes it’s things you wouldn’t expect. Sometimes your kid actually hasn’t fully discovered what it is themselves. And they need you to ask three questions deep to discover it. I’ve said that many times I won’t go into it. But what are some of the deeper problems?

Well, we talked about one of them already a little bit, which was food. Right? So if kids. But this goes even deeper. It’s not just a matter of like, have you fed your kids? Because, you know, obviously, if they’re starving, they’re not going to have a good attitude. You could buy things that are irritating, irritating to them. Right. Exactly. So sometimes with parents, they they discipline. They’re trying to do their best and they’re trying to force. Biblical parenting model.

But they’re not realizing that the reality is, is that sometimes kids are intolerant to certain foods and that can actually affect their attitude. Now, I have to say something. I am not for parents who are making excuses and justifying their kid’s bad behavior and not disciplining it. Kids can learn to have self-control of their attitudes. And I know that that’s a really hard thing for you to hear. But I just have to put that out there, because it takes courageous parenting to do both and to figure out why your kids are for what foods are bugging them, what they’re sensitive to, why their gut is hurting, maybe why they have headaches to have grace with them. But there’s also an element of also talking to your kids. And this is dependent upon their age and their spiritual maturity as well. But being able to say, hey, buddy, I know you’re not feeling well, but that’s not a justifiable reason to be mad at your sister or to have a bad attitude. You need to exercise self-control. You’re being tested right now. Let’s pray about that. And so but you don’t just overlook the food issue and constantly do that. You have to be as a parent. You actually it’s your jurisdiction. It’s your responsibility. You must figure out what’s going on with your kids and understand that there are things that kids are allergic to, intolerant to. Right. I mean, it can even be as simple as like detergents and what kind of laundry soap you’re using or if you’re using bounce sheets. I know that for us we had two people, me and my son Drew, who had massive migraines for the longest time. We were trying all kinds of things, changing diet, detoxing off dairy supplements, magnesium, chiropractors, all physical therapy, all kinds of treatments over the course of three years, glasses, vision therapy, all kinds of things. You guys, you know what? I switch my laundry detergent and now he gets headaches way less, I think you’re saying, huh? And so you’ve just got to look into as many things as possible. Do not give up.

And sleep is a big one, too. That’s the second one. Big.

So it’s a really big deal. OK.

I have to add on something to this, because we’re not just going to fly by it, but a lot of parents don’t realize that their kids need more sleep than they actually do to do a little Google search on how much sleep a child who is 7 needs in a 24 hour period, then do a search on how much sleep a teenager needs in a 24 hour prayer. You’re really shocked. There’s actually statistics out there that show that teenagers need almost almost as much sleep as a newborn infant. That is insane. Newborn infants sleep 18 hours a day. That’s a lot of sleep. And so if your teenagers are staying up till midnight and then they’re getting up at 6:00 or 7:00 and they’re cranky, I can probably bet on why they’re cranky.

Yeah, I remember public school. I would stay up too late and then I’d always have to. What? We just have to be at school 7:30 in class and started at 8:00 or so.

I’m not saying let him sleep 18 hours. That can cause depression. What I’m saying is get educated on how much sleep your kids actually need. And I’m just going to put old. We talk more about this in the courageous parenting mentor program. But I’ll just give you a little piece of my history. My great grandma was super involved in our family’s life when we were growing up, and she was in her 70s. She was born in 1914. And apparently people who are from that generation, they make sure that kids nap until they’re six to seven years old period, because they just need sleep. So guess what I did all growing up? Me and my brother and my sister, we like we all slept and took naps everyday. And she was so awesome she’d take us out. And wear us out, like some people, they hear that they’re like, well, my kid wouldn’t go to bed at 7:30 or 8:00 if they if they took a nap. What do you say about that? And I go then put him in the sun and have him run laps and go like maybe they know not get enough exercise.

Kids are sitting in front of t.v.’s with Nintendos. That stuff didn’t exist back then, didn’t exist when I was a little kid digging in the ground, working hard. Like whatever it is, you guys. So that’s just me.

Yes, that’s my opinion. That’s not backed up by scripture. It’s my opinion that kids are not getting enough sleep and that can contribute to their bad attitudes. So here’s another go for it. So in Philippians 2:4, it says, Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

So this is a really, really big one because sometimes we’re selfish and and when we’re selfish, that can be a deeper issue when we’re focused on ourselves, which we’re going to talk more about in a little bit. But that’s that can be a big issue. Another one can be when they’re sad. Yeah, that could be something they’re sad about. We don’t quite understand.

Yeah. This is a whole. Again, another big topic, because when kids are sad, there’s there’s reasons, right, and sometimes it’s it is actually that they are a more emotional because they didn’t get enough sleep or and they’re hungry.

They get hungry going on right now. But then there’s also the element of did they get their feelings hurt? Did. Are they missing friends? Did they? What about your relationship?

Are they feeling like you’re mad at them or that dad was short with me and they didn’t say anything? And they’re wondering if there’s a little bit separation between them and dad?

Do they feel unappreciated? Do they feel like they’re constantly doing things for you and you’re not acknowledging it?

You know, there’s so many things that Ken promises aren’t being followed through with. Right. Yeah.

There’s a lot of things that can be potentially causing sadness. Now, I will say something regarding this. If you haven’t read the book by Timothy Keller, The Legacy of self forgetfulness, highly recommend that tiny little pocket books. One of my top five favorite books of all time. Well, and I don’t. Yeah. It lands in that category. Go. And it’s probably two books. I know. It’s. Yep. Well we’ll put a link in the podcast, show notes. How’s that sound. But the reality is that we as a people human nature, we are self-preserving of our egos.

Were that selfish. That’s how humans are.

And so a lot of times when there’s hurt feelings and if you’ve heard a kid say that hurt my feelings, well, we don’t really hear that in our family very much anymore. But when we are first starting out in the parenting journey, I did hear it a couple of times and then I read this book and then it never happened again. And the reason why is because that is actually a sign of ego feelings. Being hurt is really you hurt my ego. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a real thing called emotions and like conflict. But we need to put a proper biblical vocabulary label on things. Is someone sad because there is conflict in a relationship that’s very different than they hurt my feelings, right?

Like if there’s conflict, conflict happens between two people and it needs to be resolved biblically. So they have a choice. They can either overlook the offense because to a man’s glory to overlook an offense or they can go. Matthew, 18, confront the issue and learn a biblical reconciliation. Looks like and that can be a good, healthy thing. And so you see how we need to teach our kids the two. There’s only two options when they’ve been offended and they need to deal with that.

Now, this is the tricky thing you brought up, that maybe they feel like dad was sharp with them and maybe they feel like dad is an approachable to go to and say, hey, dad, you hurt my feelings when you snapped at me today. So that’s going to require you going to your kids and going, hey, I knows you’re kind of sad. Is it because of how I talked to you earlier?

I’m really sorry. You need to humble yourself down below your child. Look at them in the eyes.

Take responsibility for your sin and your lack of self can just be careful not to rationalize it, to apologize, then rationalize it. Hey, I’m really sorry I did that, but. But here’s why I did it. Yeah, okay. Do you want your kids to do that? Well, I hit my sister, but she because she took the toy from me.

You guys, we have to be mimic. We have to be modeling good behavior. And if we want our kids to be taking responsibility for their actions, for their words, for their sin, then we have to.

Yeah. Couple last things. We talked about health and friendships. We’ve kind of already talked about that. Health is really a big deal, though. And you want to make sure, you know, we had a kid where, you know, allergic to something. And once that thing was out of their diet, massive attitude changes. So massive, it really can be just a massive, massive difference. The next one is get them off of themselves. By the way, all of these things could equally be for you as they are for your kids. And when I say you, that’s for us too write all of these points, no matter how old somebody is. These are truths we got to get ourselves off of ourselves. And right now, people in quarantine, things like that. People not around her friends as much in those kinds of things. We can start to get self focused. And there’s two ways we get so focused. I taught this to our kids this morning, actually. One is we’re moving towards depression if we’re self-focused as like the worst thing to think about all the time is yourself. Oh, am I good enough? What do people think of me? I’m not pretty and I’m worried about relationships and how I maybe did something wrong because they haven’t been communicating with me.

You see in this this wormhole that leads towards depression if we think too much about ourselves. So that’s one bad path. The other bad path is pride. So both are bad and both block our communication with award. So if we’re self focused and we’re worried and an anxiety about ourselves because we’re thinking about ourselves too much, if we’re thinking of ourselves too much and we might be boosting our ego and having too much pride in thinking too highly of ourselves, both are very, very, very bad. And so we have to think about is which one of those might be happening with our kids if they’re thinking too much about themselves in the best way to get off of ourselves is to help others. So what could you be doing to nourish the servant hearted efforts? Right now, we’re brainstorming that during the economic challenges. And right now, we’re praying and thinking about what business in our area do we love and want to support and how can it end up bless as we’re supporting them?

How can it bless someone else? So like an example we wanted the kids brought up was buying gift cards from a local restaurant and giving them to the nurses or something like that. So we’re not 100 percent sold on that for our family. We’re praying about it because there are quite a few little ideas.

The other one you had is, is we’re gonna buy Bibles and there’s these little library boxes in neighborhoods. Yeah. And we’re gonna drive around and the kids are gonna jump out and put Bibles in the boxes, kid Bibles, regular Bibles.

And that’s a way they can be physically involved. I don’t know if you guys listened to our previous podcast over a month ago. Now, when we are talking about coronavirus and reaching out and how people are more open to the gospel right now, we notice when these lending libraries in our neighborhood and I put a couple of Bibles here.

Soloman And like that. Where are they the next time I went to check our mail? All three were gone. Both both of the kids Bibles and the regular school. So then I started thinking like, oh, man, I’ve seen these other places, we’ve got to do this. So we wanted to share that with you guys to inspire you to think of other ideas of things that you can do to spread the gospel.

And are we just praying for ourselves or our kids, just praying for themselves? Or are they praying for others with lead in, praying for other people and get ourselves off ourselves, which is important. We have a scripture on that.

Yeah. So Philippians 4, I know that we’ve shared this in multiple contexts when we lost our baby. This was a scripture passage. I was focusing on Isaac and preached on Philippians for literally the week before I lost Mercy. But you guys, it says be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication. With Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So sometimes kids, when they’re focused on themselves so much, they can become stressed out and anxious and that can become part of their bad attitude is that they’re full of stress. They’re anxious about things, wanting to control things, that sort of thing. But it’s giving you the actual equation for how to help your kids and to help yourself to come out of that, which is to pray, which is what we were just talking about. But pray with what, Thanksgiving? So maybe doing a whiteboarding exercise with your kids and coming up with the things to be thankful. Or to spend time praying just in Thanksgiving so that your kids are not struggling with an anxious, stressful attitude. This is the other aspect and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. That’s God’s peace, not your peace. And that’s why it surpasses all understanding. It doesn’t make sense to humanity. It will guard your heart and mind through Christ Jesus in another passage of scripture in Romans 12:2. It actually tells us to have our minds renewed by the transforming power of the word. We have to take action. We have to be in the word. So then the word can transform us. But this is different. This is Jesus Christ actually guarding your heart and your mind. So you guard your heart and your mind and godel guard your heart and your mind based upon Philippians 4, which is what needs to happen.

So being the word to have your mind renewed. You know, change your kids attitudes. Be in the word, but then pray so that the peace of God will also guard your heart. There’s two ways you can do this.

Very cool. You know, it’s interesting. It connects with friends. Now, if you have little littles, that’s harder. One of the things we’ve been doing, we’ve been doing Zoom Church for our home church lately. And at the end, all the kids, all the little kids get up to the screen and wave hi to each other. And one thing I noticed is none of them know how to talk to each other. Or at least through zoom, they all wave and smile. And then they don’t really actually engage each other. And that was it. Just a I open eye opening that. Well, I need to teach Solomon at four how to engage conversation. “How are you?” Because conversation is all about focusing on the other person, not yourself. Right. And so let’s let’s connect him with friends. But let’s make sure we’re reminding me of it’s not just that occupy be a vacuum for their sake.

So you guys are getting a little bit of a glimpse into what Isaac and I when we’re just having our normal like conversations because we haven’t had a chance to talk about this. But that was actually one of the things I was thinking, too, on Sunday, because I was literally telling. Solomon Tell ask them how they are. Yeah, ask them how they are. But that’s how you teach your kids. You actually have to put the question in their mind, have them mimic it and practice it. And then they get a response and then you give them another question. You have to teach people how to be good question. Askers. Yeah. And that is definitely something we need to work on with him. Yeah, sure.

But I have another passage of scripture here. Same chapter in Proverbs we were in just earlier. Proverbs 17, verse 21 and 22. The reason why I’m bringing in 21 is because a lot of times people focus on verse 22, which is a Mary Hart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. We’re talking about bad attitudes, broken spirits here in this podcast. So, merry heart, a good attitude is like a sin to a broken spirit. Right. And so we are talking about bad attitudes versus healthy attitudes. But it’s important that you recognize that a bad attitude can actually create a broken spirit. And that’s not what we want in our children. We don’t have to want to have to fix their spirit or try to help their spirit. We can’t do that. thats something God has to do. But you guys, it’s always interesting to read the scripture that’s surrounding it and not just pull out a passage of scripture like I think about this and like, oh, I know a song, a cheerful heart is good medicine. Get old Steve greed and hide him in your heart. But if you look at verse 21, it says he who begets a scoffer does so to his sorrow.

What is begetting it’s giving birth to it’s having so a father here who has a son that is a scoffer. Has sorrow. And then it says in the father of a fool has no joy. We’re talking about bad attitudes, healthy attitudes. We want joy in our homes. And this is a warning to mothers and fathers that you will have no joy if your children are fools.

That’s a huge. And what is it?

Well, they’re not like naturally fools and we’re constantly pulling them out of foolery.

That’s right. Because foolishness is brought up in the heart of a child. That’s also a proverb. But a scholar. What does a scot-free guys look up the definition of scoff? I did a little study on this with my kids. Very good little word study to do with your kids. It’s someone who literally laughs at other people, looks and watches people walking by and makes fun of them. We do not want our kids to be like that. A scoffers is foolish. And if you have a kid, that’s that way. You will have no joy and you will have sorrow in your life. And that is the first verse. That’s right. Before a merry heart does good like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. It’s important that we’re reading all the scripture, not realizing that sometimes these little scriptures that we’re singing and we’re thinking about actually have to do with parenting, family life. God’s word is so good, you guys.

So next point number five, help them see their sin. Now, some of you might be going. Wait a minute. Are kids do kids sin? And I don’t know how you could possibly ask that question unless you don’t have kids. That’s right.

Because selfishness is sin and our kids ever selfish. Are they ever one in their own way right now on their schedule?

I mean, at least maybe it’s just our kids, honey. But right when they come out there, they appear to be sinful. Yeah. Give me that milk right now, OK?

Im not gonna tell you who, because they don’t want embarrass my child. But we had one child who my milk hadn’t come in yet. They’re like 24 hours old. They literally had their first temper tantrum at under twenty four hours old. So much so. The trachea collapsed and they went purple and blue. The face and Isaac rose in the hall. My baby’s not breathing. All because my milk come in yet. I’m telling you, kids are sinful from the time they are born.

And so the reality is, is that they don’t know how else to communicate. And that’s true. That’s aspect of babies. And it’s a good thing. God makes babies cute. But the reality is, is it’s still sin to have it. Right now, my way.

Right. But even if you disagree with that, whenever you disagree with something, we believe from a doctrine perspective. Hey, I respect that. As long as you dive into scripture and, you know, one hundred percent only from the Bible. Why? You disagree. OK. And that’s fine. We have another scripture here. OK.

and James, chapter three. We’re actually going to read 14 to 18. It’s four verses. It’s not a ton. But this is super, super important because it’s talking about the issues of being self-seeking, of being selfish. OK. So it says, but if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your heart, do not boast and lie against the truth.

Ok, so like seriously, you have to be introspective. Do you have bitter envy or self-seeking in your heart anywhere? Because it says that this wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual and demonic. Yeah. Yep. That’s what the Bible says. Literally self-seeking in your heart and bitter. And the sensual earthly demonic you guys. That’s a big deal. Verse 16 says, for where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

Does that feel like your house? Sometimes. We’ve had times where that feels like her house in a day.

Oh, my gosh. It’s super convicting you guys. We all have to heed the word of God. Verse 17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield. OK, can I just pause for a second and just say two things willing to yield? That means you’re willing to give up your will and follow what you are told to do. Submit to authority, which right now you have people actually going against that. Right. And so there’s a lot of this is convicting for adults as well as for young kids. Do your kids obey you or are they willful, not yielding to you?

If you ever resist authority in the world, it better be a really good biblical reason. Because if you do, you’re basically giving a green light to resisting authority to your kids.

Yeah. So it has to be a biblical reason. OK, full of mercy. So this is remember we’re saying wisdom that’s from above is first pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy, which is what you were just talking about. If you do something, you can’t tell your kids, oh, no, you need to obey me, but I’m not going to obey authorities overnight. Me like you can’t be an independent spirit and then expect your kids not to be. You’re going to create the fruit that you are. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Now the fruit. This is interesting now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

So it’s very important that we’re responsive to their sin. A lot of times we let it gooks, retired, hungry, late, whatever. We need to be responsive. The times we need to slow down are when our kids need to be corrected and we need to do it in a loving way. Never in anger. And we talk more about that in the parenting mentor program, because that’s that could be up two full episodes, which has the biblical discipline, but super important a discipline well consistently and do it. And the final thing and it’ll be super quick is they mimic you. And we already said it. Don’t be a hypocrite. You can’t teach or correct what you don’t do. And so it’s so important you should have audit yourself, self-reflection real quick. What of these six things? Do I model poorly?

So good. And what are the six things? Let’s just go through them real quick. Starting your day, right? Having clear expectations. Number three is discover the deeper problem. Right. Like these are food issues, sleep issues, solving for yourself.

What are the deeper problems for you?

The fourth thing is get them or get your self off of yourself and onto God’s purposes for their life. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Number five, help them to see their sin. We’re talking about biblical discipline. We’re talking about consistency here. And number six, six is being responsible for the fact that they mimic you.

So do you start the day? Right. Do you have clear expectations because you’re good at planning? Do you just do you know what your deeper problem is? And are you on yourself or you off yourself and on purpose for God’s purposes? And are you really being introspective and see your own sin? And do you desire to lead well.

Who do you mimic? Like, who are you allowing to lead you?

Oh, that’s a big one, because our kids do mimic us. But we also mimic the people that we’re following. So we have to be careful who we allow to influence us. Right. So the last thing I want to say is actually the resource that I was mentioning. OK, so we mentioned in number three, discovering the deeper problem, are kids getting enough exercise and that they sleep well? Exercise can make you feel good, right. But right now, people are having a hard time getting out. Yeah. Right. And so I have to share with you guys, vagabond fit dot com. They are an awesome Christian couple. They have offered 30 percent off at checkout for their home movement online program. It’s a 10 week program that will give your family get your family moving and meet the physical education needs necessary for any student. This program will give you three workouts a week take containing body weight movements, challenges to build strength, speed, cardio mobility. And they also have included video demonstrations in every workout, healthy recipes and educational terms to help you progress and learn in your physical education. So this is like a 10 week physical education program that you can do in your home with your kids and they have a 30 percent off discount code. This is actually part of our home schooling blueprint. So you can use the code “HSblueprint” to be able to get that. But one thing that I am bringing up as we’re just sharing this with you guys is that this is an example of many discounts that we have in the home school blueprint. And I just want you to see, like this is an example of one of the things that we are we’re collaborating with other curriculums and other resources to be able to give that discount.

Well, thank you so much for joining us. We hope this helps.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. We wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, Isaac and I release a video with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you and your spouse to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

It’s an incredible program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes. Most Christians are making more than that. It’s an incredible community. You’ll have access to a private online group live Webcast and the courageous parenting text message line where Angie and I can send weekly encouragements straight to your phone if you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentorship program, Secure Your Spot.

Now at CourageousParenting.com