If we don’t tend to the small weeds while our kids are young, their roots will grow strong making it even more difficult to remove them when they are older. This episode will help you know what to do when your kids blameshift or show an entitled attitude.

Main Points in This Episode:

1. How to handle blameshifting.
2. It’s vital to have a vision that propels you to take the right actions today with your kids.
3. It’s important to communicate using biblical vocabulary.
4. Look for and respond to any entitlement attitudes developing.

Weekly Tip and Date Night One Sheet SUBSCRIBE HERE

Check out Angie’s Postpartum Course!

Scripture in This Episode:

Genesis 3:12 – “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

Proverbs 28:13 – “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”

Galatians 6:7 – “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Proverbs 22:6 – “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

2 Timothy 3:16 – “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”

Philippians 2:3 – “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”

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 I’m Isaac from Resolute Ma’am.

We’ve been married for twenty one years and have seen the fruit from 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 their 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 parenting in the fall. Hello, everyone, welcome to the podcast.

Hey, guys.

What are we talking about?

And we are back and we are we’re actually answering some questions. Or here are some topics that people have asked for. So I have a feeling that you are going to want to take a listen, potentially share with other people. Let me ask you a question before I tell you the title. Have you ever experienced being blamed for something that wasn’t your fault? Here’s another question. Has your child ever been blamed for something that they did not do, potentially like a little friend of theirs, and you didn’t know quite how to handle that? Or maybe you have kids that are doing this blame shifting together because today’s podcast, we are talking about parenting kids who blame, shift and have an entitlement attitude so good.

And so we appreciate everybody being part of the one million legacy’s movement. Whether you are in the app or giving us app reviews or you listen to the podcast and you’ve given us reviews out there or shared the social posts, or just encourage us with a message or liked or any other posts or anything like that at all helps. And we just appreciate it. Most importantly, probably the people praying for us. It’s not easy. It’s joyous, it’s wonderful. We feel blessed to be able to do this together, but it’s definitely nothing’s ever easy, right? So we appreciate your prayers and those of you that are donating. You can do that. Courageous parenting also tons of free resources at courageous parenting dot com. A couple of free workshops. All the show notes for every episode, and we just try and pour out as much as we possibly can. So even if somebody can’t afford to purchase something, they’re still getting fat and getting really good wisdom. That’s what Tuesday is about when this podcast comes

Out, right? So we are on. This is actually episode like one hundred and seventy six, I think.

Yeah, one seventy six, three years later and still taken, and soon we’re going to have some unique special guests. Angie is going to have some guests on periodically, and that’s going to be pretty cool. We do aim at some point also to start the Resolute Man podcast. The original plan, if you saw our email, was in January, but we’re about to end January, so we’re not sure when that’s going to come about. We have many things going on and we just got to be wise when we add things, but we’re definitely going to do that at some point. Also, be praying for us because we have books that we really want to get out there that are already written, and we’re excited about to take some work to do the final pieces. But we’re really excited to get these parenting books out to you guys, too. So be praying for us for that and provision to to be able to do all that stuff. So anyways, we’re going to dive in today. We have four points for you and I think this is such an important topic because everybody blames shift.

Sometimes everybody struggles with taking responsibility.

They do. And and it really is something that happened when Sin entered the world, isn’t it?

It is. So we’re going to start off in Genesis Chapter three, actually. So if you guys have your Bibles, you can go there. We’re going to be in Genesis and Proverbs here, and during the first point, we’re going to talk about blame shifting. This really is an issue that all of humanity struggles with. This is a human nature problem. And so if you have struggled with your kids lying, lying as a form of blame shifting, blame shifting is lying, actually. And so if you’re looking for scriptures to go, go over with your kids on the topic of blame shifting because you see them like saying, No, I didn’t do it, he did it, then you could utilize any scripture if you get out your concordance and you look up lying because maybe you have a smaller Bible that has a smaller concordance and blame shifting is not in there. I’m just going to share with you. You can literally look up versus like Proverbs Chapter six, where it says Line is one of the seven sins of the Lord Hades. It’s an abomination to him.

Go over those scriptures with your kids, but we’re going to talk about blame shifting where it began. Which Genesis Chapter three, if you guys want to flip with, they’re right there with me. So first thing that happens be right after Adam and Eve disobey God in Chapter three, and they partake of the fruit that he has forbidden them to partake in. Ok. And how do they respond? What is the first thing they do? And verse Chapter Chapter three, verse eight, it says the man and his wife hid themselves, so first they hid. Sometimes you’ll see kids do this where if they do something that they’ve disobeyed, like, say, they’ve written on a wall with a marker or a crayon, or they’ve stolen a toy that that that was their brothers or sisters, that they’ve been really coveting and they hit it. A lot of times, the first human nature that you’ll see in children, especially because they lack more self-control, they lack knowing what’s right and wrong, and they’re just purely operating in their. Human nature, the hide or they’ll hide the thing.

You know, what’s interesting about that is kids will do that, but don’t adults do that too? They they hide from God in the same way,

Especially kids that haven’t been held

Accountable. You’ll see people out there. Maybe you have relatives like this that have said they’re Christians before, but then they stopped going to church and then they stop being in fellowship with believers and this kind of thing, and sometimes not always, but sometimes they may be hiding from God, much like a kid hiding from their parents.

That’s right. And another thing that you’ll oftentimes see. So the reason why this is so, so I believe close to the heart of God this issue for parents. Because if you don’t train your children in this when they’re younger, they’re going to continue in the habit of blame shifting as they grow older, like Isaac was just talking about. And you’ll even see people who will, instead of taking responsibility for their own faults, their own sins they will blame, shift on other people to make themselves look better, which is lying. And it is blame shifting. It’s exactly what Adam and Eve did. It’s a form of hiding, actually, because they don’t want to take responsibility. So here in Genesis three, you have Adam and Eve hiding, and then the Lord calls out to them, asking them questions. Many questions. He’s he’s saying, Where are you? And then Adam comes out and says, I’m naked. I hid myself because I’m naked, and he goes, and he asks another question Who told you that you were naked? God actually asks three questions deep, which is one of the things that Isaac is always encouraging parents in and the parenting mentor program. Because then God says, Have you eaten of the tree, which I commanded you not to eat? So God asks three questions deep here. And then what happens? Adam and Eve start blame shifting. That’s their next tactic. The man says, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. So not only is he blame shifting and saying it’s Eve’s fault. He’s saying, it’s your fault to God because you gave her to

Me, spineless passive. And that’s why men need to reject passivity, because this is when it happened. And really, Adam was right there watching his wife.

That’s right, and so obviously there’s some we could go into that could literally about this the entire podcast, oh, lack of leadership. It is a lack of leadership for Adam as far as being the husband in the situation. But isn’t that human nature to blame someone else and then also blame God? Mm hmm. Don’t humans do that when things don’t go well for them or they’re there, they’re experiencing anxiety, like, here’s Adam. Oh man, I disobeyed God. I did something wrong, and now I realize I’m naked and like, he’s he’s like, potentially like, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. Ok, not. And and so what is he going to do? He’s turning to blame the woman first, and then he turns to blame God and say, You gave her to me. And so we cannot allow our kids to do this because when they are older, if they are not ever held accountable and taught that this is sin, blame shifting is sin. When they’re older and bad things happen to them, they’re potentially going to blame God or look to who they can blame. I’ll give you an example that I think this is just human nature. When I lost a baby, my human nature was at first to look for something or someone to blame, even if that meant myself.

And so I was trying to, like, figure out, Oh, why did this happen? Was it because I was too stressed out? We shouldn’t have been living like we’re in the season of so much stress. I should. I should have been protected more. I should have not done that thing that I shouldn’t have picked that thing up. There’s so many things that I could have blamed myself for or blamed Isaac for or blamed God for. But you have to have self-control in those moments and choose to trust that. You know what? Even if I was to know what caused the miscarriage, the reality is, is my babies in heaven? And there’s nothing I can do to change that. So why create discord and why sin and blame shift and get hung up on that? Why that is the foothold the devil wants me to get stuck in. And little kids do this all the time. And so if we don’t hold our kids accountable, then they’re going to potentially struggle with this forever. And so, you know, after the thing that’s interesting, though, is I want to point out that after Adam blamed Eve and then God, then what happens, then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? And what did she do? The serpent deceived me and I ate so that she’s like, the snake made me do it like.

And so you’ve got blame shifting again. And then the last point in this particular chapter that I think is really important, which all of us parents need to pay attention is that God then goes on to discipline Adam and Eve and the Serpent. Actually, he says, because you have done this cursor, you above all livestock and you can go on and read, we’re not going to get into that too much, but there’s a point here right where like when someone sends in disobeys God, human nature is to hide and then God, will God asked questions. So we, as parents who are image bearers of God in our children’s lives, we need to ask our kids those questions. And then when they start blame shifting, we need to hold them accountable and call it out. We need to ask three questions deep or more. And when you get to the heart of the issue and then we need to to correct them.

And without the correction, you’re not going to be helping your kids and it takes a lot of times correcting. However you decide to correct your kids, whatever you discern is the best method to correct them with. If you miss that part, you’re missing out on really equipping your kids. They need to feel the reality of sowing and reaping. Right? It’s super, super important. They feel that.

So we have a couple verses here that would be good for you guys to teach your children actually regarding this concept of hiding their sin, whether that’s like literally hiding something. Yeah, or if they’re blame shifting.

Proverbs 28 13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses them, forsakes them, will obtain mercy. And then I like the next part. Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always OK. So we want to make sure our kids are walking strong with the Lord, and God uses parents to help kids see the repercussions of their sin so that they understand the danger of sin. They understand the problem was soon because they have to understand that problem. If they’re going to fully appreciate this solution, the solution is Jesus and what he did on the cross. And so I think a lot of kids grow up in Christian homes and they don’t fully understand. Jesus. And how amazing and what he did and the uniqueness compared to any other religion of Jesus dying and being resurrected, and all of those things don’t have the same effect because they were raised, perhaps in a family where they didn’t really call out sin. They didn’t really take action and correct their kids in a consistent manner.

Yeah, and it’s hard. Even there are some. So I’m just going to say, if you’re watching Rumble, I’m like, I do my quotation fingers often, but people who call themselves Christians who don’t believe in sin. This is a massive, blasphemous pitfall for people to get into because without sin, we have no need for a savior, right? And so when you’re parenting, we should not be looking at our children as innocent. Yes, I said we should not be looking at our children as innocent. They don’t need to learn sin. It’s part of our human nature since the fall. But there are times, as you guys know, like Isaac and I talk about the importance of influences and previous podcasts and different things in like being aware of protecting your kids, that they’re not led into sin, that they’re not being tempted into sin. We even remind you guys about Matthew Chapter six verse that warns all. I think it’s like the big one of the biggest warning for all parents, whoever leads one of these little ones astray. It would be better for him to be thrown into a lake with a millstone hung around his neck. Go, look at that one. There is definitely a responsibility that we, as parents, have to make sure that they’re not. Our children are not being corrupted, being led into sin or into wrong thinking. That is for sure our responsibility. But kids also don’t have to be taught sin. There is an element of this hiding blame shifting lying that is is something that as kids grow up and they start speaking and they start struggling with coveting and they struggle with other sins, we have to correct our kids and using the biblical vocabulary.

And here’s here’s the exciting part. When your older kids are doing this right, there be an example for the younger kids. So you have to work hardest with those older kids because when they get in sibling arguments and the older one is blame shifting and they have an advantage over the younger one, just the ability to speak fast, all the different things, confidence, all the things, right? So then they’re using their advantage of being older to bully in a way through blame shifting. And there’s a problem right there. But then the examples, the problem too. And so you are sowing in your family by allowing that to happen discord among siblings and difficulty in your parenting?

Yeah. And let’s just be honest, kids are going to have memories of their childhood, not just of your parenting, but also of how their siblings treated them. Before we move into the next point, which is super important, I just want to share with you guys this this topic of, well, going to first John with your kids and reading the first chapter and going slowly like verse VI verse would be a very powerful lesson in regards to taking ownership over their own sins. And like teaching your kids, Hey, listen, doesn’t it feel good to say I’m sorry? It feels good. It’s because when you don’t say you’re sorry, you’re enslaved, you’re like in a trap, Satan just put you in a trap and you’re experiencing the oppression of bondage of sin. Because that’s what sin is. Sin is a bondage. And so first, John, I’m just going to read a couple of verses that says, if we had it says in verse eight, Chapter one, verse eight, if we say we have no sin, we’ve deceived ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us, our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

So blame shifting is a big deal in your kids relationship with God. And if we do it, it’s hurting our relationship with God and our example and our ability to lead our families, right? So it’s really, really important taking personal responsibility. What’s a sign of good leadership? It’s people who take responsibility for their actions. They don’t immediately blame somebody else or cause a diversion of other people’s blame, even though they know inside they were part to blame. And so we have to train up kids who are going to be leaders in this world, and good leadership is about taking your part first and long enough so that there’s not a smokescreen of somebody else’s blame covering your mistake. Now, in many situations, there’s two people with mistakes, right when there’s arguing happen, and usually both people have an issue. But the good leadership is to. A minute and let it hang long enough as to not be disguised by, oh, but look over here. Isn’t that how, you know, magicians do this right? It’s all trick trickery. I was teaching my kids this recently how it’s just trickery, and I was teaching how some tricks work right and how they do it.

And so we were distinguishing the difference between like witchcraft and trickery.

And yeah, not condoning even trickery necessarily, but just educating and equipping them and so forth. But that’s kind of what’s happening. It’s why why does it trick work like with cards? It’s because they hid something they they sleight of hand or something like that. That’s kind of like blame shifting. It’s like, I have part in this, but I’m going to use a smokescreen to all the attention diverts over to my younger sibling. And now they’re getting in trouble and and I’m off the hook. And you know what, even though they feel like they won in that moment, there’s probably a little bit of guilt setting in and it’s that bondage and you’re talking about and guilt layers upon guilt. And then kids

Feel unworthy for God because when they do truly know who he is and hopefully you’re teaching your kids who God is, they feel like they’re unworthy

And they should be set free with Jesus were set free. But we have to repent. We have to repent. We have to acknowledge

It’s it’s interesting because as kids grow up and they become parents, I mean, this is going to be played out again in their parenting. And I think that we need to understand how we are legacy levers and we’re legacy changers as parents, which is the next point that we’re going to talk about, about having vision. And and I just want to ask you, like what vision do you have for your legacy? I think that that is probably hands down one of the most important questions that a parent could be asked because you have a choice. You have a choice, and in that choice, you have a responsibility to choose God’s way. If you are a Christ follower because our lives are not about us, they’re about glorifying God and recognizing that sin gone left, unaccounted for in our kids lives. That becomes habit in their life. We have to take responsibility for that too. And not just go, Oh, it was all then because the reality is, as God gave us a jurisdiction to hold our kids accountable, to teach them the ways of God, to teach them his word and his word, as clearly stated in the first part of this podcast, how many verses have we read about sin and about human nature and about what has happened and how God can forgive us? We have to pass on this knowledge. This life breathed just amazing word that God has written to us. We have to pass it on to our kids, and when we do, their hearts are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is a god thing that he does in their life. But God wants to use you. So we want to talk about vision.

Yeah, absolutely. Without vision, the people perish, right? The Bible says. And I think it’s so important that we think about, OK, how does this ripple? There’s ripple effects. So every decision we make has positive and negative ripple effects right into the future. And so we have to be thinking about that parents who only think about the media and right now, they don’t realize the the mistakes today, they’re going to cause problems in the future. And so if we are not following through to hold our kids accountable with blame shifting or having an entitlement, attitude or pride in their life, then what’s going to happen is that’s going to ripple forward into causing more harm, which is problematic. So in Galatians six seven, it says, do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one sows that will he also reap. So when you teach this to kids, make sure you educate them on the word sow and reap mean you’d be surprised. Sometimes you know different age kids don’t know what words mean, and we forget what we’ve taught them, and I haven’t taught them yet. And so make sure they understand that. But it’s very, very clear what a good scripture. I would write that one out. So you memorize it because you want to use that with your kids over and over, over and over again. God is not mocked like you cannot hide from God. That’s the point there is that you can’t do anything to trick God or to hide anything from him. He’s not mocked. He knows what’s going on. So and so’s they also will reap and God loves us and loves your kids so much that he will allow testing to happen to refine them. And so we need to fear God that reverence for who he is to a level to where we want to please God. And so we don’t have to be tested. I’d rather not be tested, although in my adult years I still get tested, you know?

And the second verse right after verse seven says for one, for the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the spirit will, from the spirit, reap eternal life. And this is the reason why I am adding that last verse in is because isn’t that what we what we don’t want and what we do want for our kids? We do do not want our kids to so to their flesh, because then they’re going to reap corruption. But we do want them to sow to the spirit so that they can reap eternal life. And so this is an important question like as as we’re thinking about, OK, so maybe it’s the two year old or the four year old right that is maybe verbally lying for the first time. I get a lot of moms reaching out just so you know you’re not alone because this is a human nature problem. And for those of you who catch your kids OK, who you become aware of the fleshly sin of lying. I just want to remind you that there are children who are really good at hiding who are really good at not verbalizing things. And so while you may be like struggling because you’re like, Wow, why am I worried? My kids always like verbally dealing with this. At least you know what sins are in their heart? The quiet, compliant child that’s like covered up. It’s the smoke screen, and you can’t necessarily see what is in their heart because they’re not verbalizing it, right? And so you need to be in both rights.

Don’t let sin hide. Do your best to have a trusting relationship with your kids to where they can actually share with you. That’s going to be your best bet, actually is when they feel confident and safe to be able to share. And are a lot of that is based upon what your relationship looks like? And so this is a time to audit your relationships with each of your kids and. Audit how they respond and really take note of that, OK? And recognizing, OK, so here’s a question for you if your kid is if they get off the hook with blame shifting and lying when they’re three years old, what will that look like when they’re six? What will that look like when they’re 13? What will that look like when they’re 18? Ok, now what will that look like when they’re twenty nine years old and they’re working for someone? What will that look like when they’re married in their marriage? Maybe hiding porn, lying to their spouse? About finances or whatever. What will that look like in their parenting? And then what will that reap when their grandparents? Will their kids trust them to be grandparent and have influence in their kids? This is a massive question. This is why vision is our second point in this, because you have to ask those questions.

Yeah. And I think everybody wants to know, OK, what do I do? Well, that’s the next point, right? We’re going to get to the practical here right now, and that is to communicate biblically about what’s happening. And Angie does a session when we launch every parenting mentor program. Part of the first live. She talks about biblical vocabulary. Yeah, so we’re not going to go into that in depth here because that’s part of our program and it takes a long time to talk about it. But communicating biblically is super important, so I want to give them a sense for that, right?

So well, we are actually communicating with you guys biblically today. On the topic of blame shifting line so far we’ve talked about we’re going to talk about entitlement attitude next because they’re all interconnected to one another. And one of the things that we have discovered as we’ve been studying different kinds of sins because the important thing behind this is to communicate biblically in a way where you, as the parent are diagnosing the sin, giving it a label so that your kids can be praying for themselves so you can be praying for your kids so that they can repent using a biblical vocabulary instead of just going sorry, they’re like, I’m sorry, I lied to you. I know that that broke trust in our relationship. Is that a much more genuine, heartfelt, like it took time for them to think and articulate that? Now, obviously, a three year old is not going to say it like how I said it, but you could expect this out of a five year old. You can if you’ve been training them in a biblical vocabulary and you’ve been holding them accountable to, I want you to think about this. We have talked about this. Here are some verses. Here are some questions that I’m going to give you like how could you have done that differently? Why? Why were you hiding your sin? I want you to think about that one question. You only give your kids one question when they’re little.

And it’s a difference of, Hey, don’t be mean to your brother. Or Hey, let’s look at what the Bible says about lying, and you should not lie to others. You should not lie to your brother. Right? It’s getting specific about what the Bible says about the actual thing they did so that it becomes a powerful lesson that reinforces not doing that in the future. I mean, is so general, right? There’s all kinds of mean did did they lie? Did they push? Did they give hody eyes? Did they? What? What did they do? And I think we get more specific and then we’re able to specifically go into the Bible, too and educate them on that now.

But using having a biblical vocabulary starts with the parents, though. And so because you guys obviously are not going to use a biblical vocabulary if you’re not in the Bible, like you can’t recall those words and that vocabulary unless you’re in it, like Isaac just said hody eyes. That’s because we we are reading the word and we see that that’s one of again, the seven abominations that’s in Proverbs six, right? And so when we go into our parenting mentor program, we’re diving into a whole list of words. We’re only covering blame shifting and lying here today, but communicating is what God commands us to do. Proverbs twenty two verse six as train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it. That is a passage of scripture, a verse that is quoted all the time. But what does that mean? Part of to training up a child in the way he should go is communicating biblically. Go this way, don’t go this way. So when a kid is blame shifting, you say, don’t go this way when they’re lying. Don’t go this way so that when they’re old, they don’t depart from the truth that we’ve just been training them up in in what they should not be doing right. But a lot of parents think that that particular scripture only has to do with like like disobedience or certain things like that. But the reality is, is God has laid out a way for both children and for parents. When we went over Genesis Chapter three at the beginning, it showed very clearly God had given an expectation do not eat of this fruit. Adam and Eve disobeyed, he asked them questions, they hid. They blame shifted after he asked more questions, and then he had a discipline for them, he corrected them and said, You’re going to experience this is sowing and reaping. We should not be parents that are constantly cushioning our kids from experiencing natural consequences, like the sowing and reaping that happens in life. And a lot of parents do that.

I’m really concerned. I think there’s some even movements out there. I won’t name them because I don’t really know much about them, but there’s some parenting movements out there that are really evading, sowing and reaping. They’re not doing that. And the question you have to ask yourself is whoever’s teaching about parenting, make sure you can see the fruit. Whoever’s teaching you about marriage, make sure you can see the fruit. Whoever’s teaching you about how to run a business, make sure you can see that they their business is profitable. It’s the same thing. Whichever way you go is whoever is educating. There are people who can educate and have never done it. Yep, there’s people because teaching, especially these days with the amount of resources available. Anybody could literally teach. They can literally learn something and then teach it with the way technology is today. So you really need to discern, you know, what are you allowing to enter your mind into the people that are doing it actually have fruit? Or is it just a good idea? Does it feel good in their own life, even though their kids are still young?

Or is it the Christian thing to say or the Christian thing to teach? And I think that there is God is very, he warns us in scripture to be careful who we are learning from. And I mean, part of that is just even qualifications for elders, for example. But you could use that for a wise person would use that and they would go, OK, I’m not going to find a mentor that had in parenting unless they have fruit in their children, for example. And so I think that it’s important that we use wisdom as parents, for sure.

So on the last point here, the last part of this point, communicating biblically, we want to share with you a very good scripture that you should mark in your Bible. Second, Timothy 3:16 all scriptures breathe out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. And of course, that’s talking about women of God,

Too right there. And children, I mean, feel that what we’re doing here is this is about equipping confident Christian kids for an uncertain world, and we want our kids to be equipped for every good work. And part of that is that we are equipping them with skills, but we’re also equipping their character. We’re where we want our kids to be trustworthy citizens on this Earth while they are living here. We want our kids to be because it will go well for them if they are right. And so it’s also about shining brightly for God, which is a command that he gave all of his church is that you guys are a city set up on a hill. And when you act differently than the world that is lying and cheating and stealing and blame shifting when you act differently and you own your mistakes, that brings glory to God. That shines brightly for that for him, which is what we want to tell our kids and we want it when they say, I’m sorry, you guys. Part of communicating biblically is also that we would parent Biblically, that we would affirm them when they do do the right thing. And so when your kids do apologize with a sincere heart, call it out. Thank you for that heartfelt apology. I forgive you. You want to make sure that you’re saying, I forgive you. You want to make sure that you’re affirming them, because then they’re going to be more likely to do it again. But if you just like and I’ve done this before as a parent, if you just keep digging in that sin father, that’s not what Jesus did.

Hey, our final point is entitlement attitude. And as we’re going into this, I mean, the the absolute worst outcome of entitlement attitude can lead to socialistic beliefs. It way down the road, right? Why do you think socialism is a problem in free countries today? It’s because young people have not been parented well, in my opinion, and they have developed an entitlement attitude and that has led into these beliefs that, oh, my education should just be debt should be wiped out. This should happen and that should happen. I’m entitled to these things, and entitlement is believing I am owed something, even though I have not earned something. And so that’s a problem. We don’t want people to have entitlement. Now here’s a bit of good news. I was just thinking about this recently is that you know how there’s pictures on social media right now of empty grocery shelves because of shipping problems and all these things? Well, our kids right now are growing up and seeing or hearing about people talk. A lot of kids about, you know, there’s not enough groceries, we’re going to stock up in our home and things like that. I think these kinds of things bear fruit for our kids actually in this area because they’re not the kids of this generation, because of the weird stuff happening in the world I believe are going to come up less entitled I do. And they’re going to be more equipped. It’s when things are so comfortable and there’s no issues going on. It doesn’t mean we want problems. We never want problems. But I’m just saying an outcome. A positive outcome I see is potentially less entitlement of this next generation because they’ve lived through some weird stuff happening like, you know, grocery shelves being empty.

Yeah, I mean, all of human nature struggles with selfishness, I would say, and blame shifting at times, for sure. Like the guy loses his job and he’s going to blame shift, right? He’s going to blame the people at the top or whoever. And sometimes and sometimes, sometimes they should. Sometimes they should. But my point is is that sometimes there is something to take responsibility for. And you don’t find that very often when people are in conversation and they share about their financial hardships. A lot of times you see guys blame shifting like, Oh, well, that happened because

Now I just want to say something on this because I know there’s a lot of people losing their jobs because they won’t get vaccinated or things like that happening out there. We get all those messages. Oh, yeah, we’re not. No, no, no. Not referencing you at all. No, no, no. And it’s a tyranny. It’s an evil that you be forced to put something in your body to keep your job. I think that is an atrocity. I think it should have legal ramifications for the companies doing it. And because of the evidence coming out, you know, potentially there are in the future those possibilities. But I just think that’s terrible. Now, if you’re a family, one of those families has been writing us or hasn’t. But this is happening where whoever is providing has lost their job because they refuse to get vaccinated. First of all, you’re a hero to your kids. You should tell your kids you’re a hero to people around you. And it’s a testament to powerful story, and you should include your kids in praying for provision in the next things. And so the whole family can watch and experience God come through and redeem this situation. Now, remember, just because something better happens and God redeems it down the road, even if there’s a struggle period, I I still believe it doesn’t mean that thing always had to happen. We live in a fallen world. God is sovereign, but bad things also happen to good people that aren’t God orchestrated.

So because we live in a fallen world, that’s true. I’m glad that you said that I wouldn’t want anyone to misunderstand what I was referring to. I’m just talking about the character, the heart attitude of blame shifting in general and entitlement, which when we are talking about communicating biblically and using a biblical vocabulary, two of the root sins, if you were to take those down, would be selfishness and pride. And so those are things that we ourselves have to like evaluate in our own hearts. Are we trying to correct our children? But yet we haven’t dealt with this in our own heart because we can’t be hypocrites when we’re in our parenting journey, right? But the last verse that I want to share with you guys that we had for you today is in Philippians Chapter two, verse three, which says do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interest of others. This isn’t saying don’t look to your own interests. It’s just saying don’t look only to your own interests. Look to the interests of others. And I think that this is an important verse for the argument that we need to be raising our kids to not be self-indulgent, not be so selfish that we they grow up having an entitlement attitude that the government should just give them things, give them money. They don’t need to work for things. And I think that a lot of parents make this mistake in breeding this kind of contempt in their kids towards authority when they just give them things.

And I’ll give you a one simple thing because we get we’re going to wrap this up here. One simple thing that I think is important when your kids are old enough is teach them about profit. What I mean by that is let them experience creating something and selling it to somebody and making a profit or not. Maybe they made a loss on it. Either way is a very powerful lesson, and I just think that’s really important in our family. That’s one of the goals. There’s many goals that we’ve been doing this for many years. One of the goals is just to make sure they understand that good feeling of bringing value to the world and then somebody appreciating that value and in handing over more money than it costs them to make it and experiencing a little fruit from that effort. And it’s a win win win and experiencing that win win win helps them have a good concept over how business works, but also a good concept over not being entitled in a belief that they can create things of value in this

World, right? Which then I mean, I think that that sets a kid up for launching with an excited grounding. Actually, I mean, the failure to launch is one of the biggest issues that has happened among the millennial generation for the last 20 years. High schools are actually have meetings for parents that are like support group meetings trying to encourage them and how to help their twenty five year old actually launch out of the house or their 30 year old launch of the House, their unconfident adults that should have already launched from their parents home. And they’re not. And that comes down to an entitlement attitude that is clearly a reflection of parenting, of teaching, of indoctrination. And so this is a big issue that obviously we can’t continue going into it today because we’ve already gone for a long time. But I want you guys to see that there is a connection between the blame shifting two year olds. Mm hmm. The hiding three year old, the the lying four year old and the blame shifting 30 year old as to why they can’t get a job. The you see what I’m saying, and so we need to set our kids up in the future by parenting biblically now while they’re young. Now, if you’ve got teenagers and you’re like, Oh man, I just didn’t do this, I just want to encourage you guys. It’s never too late, but it’s going to require you to be humble. This is something we tell parents and the parenting mentor program all the time. If they’re like, Hey, my kids are 17, 11, 12, and how do we start this? We encourage you to sit down and be honest and humble and say, we have not been parenting biblically and we are so sorry. And we want to change, and these are the changes that we want to make. And being honest with your kids, that’s how you change a legacy. Amen. So thanks for joining us today, you guys. We hope this has been an exhortation that’s encouraging you.

Let us know and we’d love it if you shared the ministry. We do zero advertising. You are our advertising and we work full time at this. And so it’s very helpful when you spread the word out there.

So thanks again. See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, 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, we release a video with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible, self-paced program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private online group, live webcasts and the courageous parenting text message line. Ranji and I can send you weekly encouragement straight to your phone

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program. Secure your spot now at CourageousParenting.com