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Full Transcript:

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

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

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

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

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

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Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Welcome, everyone. Hi, guys. Good to have you back at the podcast Today. We’re talking about cultivating leadership in your children. And no matter how old your children are, this will be helpful because this is a process that should be interwoven to all facets of your parenting.

You know, I even think about the the little babies and the toddlers and the children and how, you know, their innate desire sometimes is to be well, a lot of the time is to be selfish, isn’t it? But sometimes when there’s a sibling in a family that is better at being selfish, the other kids kind of give way and they just will follow. Maybe you have those dynamics in your family where you’ve seen that, you know, maybe you evaluate your kids and you go, That one’s more of a natural follower. That one’s more of a natural leader. Well, we’re here to tell you that you can cultivate the leadership ability in all of your kids, you know, regardless of how they’re wired. Actually, you can teach them skills. And I think that when it comes to kids who are natural born leaders, it’s good to even challenge them, to be giving and to follow sometimes.

Well, because those natural leaders tend to take that for granted into their adult years and don’t really hone their skills to the level they could be to have a better impact. And so regardless of their personality, it’s important. I’m glad you said that and it’s really important. This is such an important, timely conversation for the days we’re living in. And you think five, ten years down the road, how old are your kids will be or how old they’ll be when they launch into the world and what the world will be like then. Not to create fear, but to create respect for the job we have as parents and what we need to do in the different world they’re going to be launching into. And I personally really believe that every Christian needs to be a leader. It doesn’t need to be that. And that doesn’t mean they’re, you know, leading a company necessarily. It doesn’t mean they’re leading a church necessarily, but they need to have those leadership skills to stand firm, proclaim the gospel, lead their families, take care of their children, equip and raise up the next generation in the future. All of these things in a world that hates what Christians are doing and hates what Christians stand for and things like that. So the antagonism against believers is only going to likely get greater. So raising up kids to have those leadership qualities is more important than ever. Every Christian needs to have them.

And we’re so encouraged because there’s many of you guys that have been listening for a long time, choosing to rise up and be courageous parents who are doing just that, right? Like ever since I just even think for a second how sometimes this parenting journey of choosing the biblical way, which is many times the harder path or the path less traveled in today’s society, and it can feel lonely at times. But I just want to encourage you that there are thousands upon thousands of like minded Christian parents all over this world that are trying to raise up their kids intentionally for the glory of God and to bring them up in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord. And I say that because I want to encourage you that there’s probably times where you’re like, okay, Isaac, Angie, this sounds great. Yep, I agree there needs to be more Christian leaders, but my kids might be the only ones. Have you ever felt that way? I know that there are times where we felt that way, where we’re like, Man, who’s who’s God going to rise up to marry that child or to lead that kid or to, you know, where are they going to go? Are they going to be the only ones in that industry that are proclaiming Christ? And I just want to encourage you, because that’s not true.

Those are lies from the enemy that I think can paralyze thinking. They can paralyze parents into maybe being even less intentional, actually, because, you know, you can be tempted with the thought to think, well, my my life or my child might be a little easier if they’re not so on fire for Christ or they’re not so on fire for wanting to obey his word and things like that. Can you imagine being in that place? I know that there have been parents who have come to me and messaged me with these specific messages where they get kind of discouraged because people have said, Oh, you’re too intense for Christ or you’re you’re you’re always about the Bible. Lighten up. Well, can I just say that’s not biblical, That those temptations, those lies are not from the Lord.

At the same time, people saying lighten up or, you know, sometimes they’re also the people that are fearing the world right now and fearing raising kids in these times or walking in sin and wondering, wondering, you know, oh, what’s going to happen to my kids when the world is so different? And not in every case that’s the case. But, you know, we actually part of this is why we’re so confident in launching our children into this world and into the future world. We have a two year old, so he’s going to launch, you know, 16 years from now or so into the world. And what’s the world going to be like? Six. Ten years from now when we’re in our how old are we going to be?

We’re in be in our 60s.

60s when when Zander launches. And we’re just excited about it because you know what? We really feel like we’re equipping our children to be leaders, to not just follow the wayward path, not just follow the trends of the day, what’s popular, what’s good, even in Christian circles necessarily, but to really follow what the Bible says. And that gives us a confidence.

And I just what I was saying just a second ago, I want to swing back around to that. You guys also kind of give us a little bit of confidence, too, because we’re encouraged by how many of you are like minded and are listening to messages like raise your kids to be confident Christian leaders in this world, in their generation, And you’re going, yes, I’m going to do the task that’s encouraging to us. And so while we get those messages from people who are discouraged and God gets to use us to encourage them, hopefully there are also those times where we get inundated with encouraging messages as well, and we see the droves of parents who are rising up, who are proclaiming Christ and doing such a good job. And so keep on keeping on. And thanks for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for joining us. By the way. Everything’s at be courageous ministry.org please go check it out. I mean it’s a relatively new site. We made it easy for you to find everything, all the free resources, the over 300 blog posts that Angie wrote, all the podcast episodes, you know, all kinds of other things, free workshop, for example, but also the things that support the ministry, like the coffee, the app, subscription, powerful community, the Be Courageous app and information about that too. All the courses, the homeschool blueprint, incredible homeschool course for anybody thinking about homeschooling are already doing it or even seasoned in it. People are thriving. Loving that to the postpartum course. Christian postpartum course to obviously the parenting mentor program which this topic is. You know, that program is perfect for really understanding how to equip your kids for this world. So let’s dive in. So go there. And by the way, we always know you’re raising your hand when you share on social media. Give us five star reviews and all of those things. It helps so much. The first point that’s so important is to have vision, because if you yourself don’t have a vision of your children being strong leaders, to be able to stand up for what they believe and be loving and serving others and in compassionate hearts and all these different aspects of leadership that we’ll get into, then you’re likely not to do the hard work today.

It really does. Thinking have a clear vision in the future of what you hope your children will become within the same personalities God gave them. And it really takes that to do it. You have to see a strong hope for them, but you also have to instill in your children that God can use them, that they are important, that God has a plan for their lives, not in a pressure way, but in an encouraging way. You know, one of the prayers I often have prayed over our kids is, is that, you know, God has big plans for their life and and incorporating that in some of their night time prayers when they’re little. And I don’t know I just believe that I believe that God has big plans for your children. Right. I believe God has big plans for his people. So it enables me to say that about my own children.

Yeah, I think that, you know, sharing that vision with your kids is super important. Otherwise they can walk through life kind of wondering and and being tempted with all kinds of lies that you may not even be aware of. There are so many mixed messages and false messages out there that and I really do believe that there is a scheme by our enemy, the enemy, to try to discourage our children. And so recognizing the power of vision, the power of purpose and giving your kids a vision of the purpose that God created them for can literally be the thing that helps them to fight off those lies when they’re tempted with them because they will be tempted with them. Even the strongest of kids like you would be surprised how many people have come to us over the years. And we’ve even heard it at homeschool conferences where people have said it doesn’t matter if you’re raising your kids strong, if you send them to college or you send them to this place, they’re going to be tempted with these different things. Have you thought of talking to your kids about these things? And that is true. But one way you can combat that is also to continue to give them vision, continue to give them purpose for their life, believe in them when they struggle to believe in themselves.

Right? Well, that’s true. I mean, a part of a mature leader is seeing in people that follow them more than they even see in themselves. And so you’re the mature leader in the family situation and you have up and coming leaders and you really got to see the potential. You’ve got to see the capabilities. You’ve got to notice the good, you’ve got to call it out. You got to call it out in them repeatedly, repetition over and over again. Every single year of their life. You’re good at.

This. You were made to do that. See this spiritual gift in you? Like all of that, all of those things. It just even reminds me of, like, last night, we had a there was a little conversation that Isaac started with one of our kids, and he just was encouraging them because they had led worship at church. And there were a little bit there were some tears that followed because it just meant so much to them because that had been a struggle for them and just because of feeling hurt in their throat and stuff. And it it meant so much to them to be able to do that. And I just even think about that one. Tiny What was it, maybe a two minute conversation and how much power that can have in that person’s life forever, actually just because you’re calling it out. Kids care so much what their parents think. They do. They really care so much. And our words matter. We have the we’re going to read about this later in scripture, but we have the opportunity to breathe life or death by the words that we choose with our kids. We talk about this more in depth in the Parenting Mentor program in that very first session, when we go over biblical vocabulary and we’re talking about identity in Christ and raising your kids to have a firm identity. And this is something that I know that when we first started parenting, we didn’t fully understand the depth of the importance of our words, and we were careful. But now we have like a theological understanding of the power of our words. And it’s very important that we both are purposeful in speaking truth when it needs to be spoken, but that we’re also good at biting our tongue when we need to do that. And so that’s just an aside. When you’re coming to vision, you don’t want to give too much on like maybe what’s happening in the world because it could scare them, actually. And so that’s where you would bite your tongue.

So it’s important to have vision and cultivating leadership, but it’s here’s something that’s relevant. No matter how old your kids are. Is servant developing, cultivating, encouraging, praying for a servant heart in your children and that there’s so much parents can do to encourage that. Because, you know, when you serve, when you go serve somebody and it really helps them afterwards, how does it feel? It feels so good to not be expecting anything in return, but just to see a need and helping with it feels really good. And I think that that servant heart is cultivated through feeling that good feeling over and over again. So how can we find ways to serve others and help our children serve others? Well, we don’t have to go very far if they’re siblings, right? Exactly. If there’s parents, if there’s a family, there’s plenty of opportunities every day to serve.

And I think that, too, one of the things on this specific topic that I have underestimated, and it goes back to the power of words again as well. Kids can and they should. They can and they should feel all that good feeling that comes when they’ve served someone without expecting anything in return. That is a very when a when a person, an individual gets to that place where they have the desire just to do something good for someone just because and they don’t expect anything else, there’s a level of spiritual maturity that they have now attained. Actually, if think about it for a second, there’s a selflessness that’s there. But when that happens and they do something just for the sake of doing it, to bless the family or bless that person or take something off their honey do list, if you will, and you as the parent notice it. And even if you come to them and you say, hey, I noticed you did this, thank you. That that’s.

Really huge.

It is. It makes such a huge impact in the kids lives. Yeah. It becomes that thing that that they then feel like wow when even when I think no one’s watching it really did make a difference. And isn’t that true? Like we should all realize that, you know, the work that we do, we do heartily for the Lord, not for men. Right? Think of Colossians 323 But within that scripture, when someone does recognize something and you didn’t do it for them to see or notice, you just did it and they bring it up. Like as parents, there’s something beautiful about that where we’re actually showing them a piece of God because he sees all things even when we’re not trying, right? And so when we do that, good thing for someone that that’s us doing it for the Lord. Amen.

Amen. In first Peter 410 it talks about this and it says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace. Now it’s talking about gifts right there. Let’s not get too lofty about this topic of gifts. Did you know one of the gifts is the gift of helps? Right. So there’s all kinds of gifts and God cares about them all. And so we’re all given different gifts, even your children. And when they use those, they really feel good. And serving is a part of leadership. It’s going to I really believe as we move into the future, it’s going to become even more important. There’s lots of believers that are servant hearted. There’s going to be lots of people that need help, not only people that aren’t believers, but people who are believers. I think we might come into a time where we all really need to help each other just to to create food and these kinds of things way down the road. So it’s important. So are we equipping our children for today’s world? No. We’re equipping our children for future world. And serving is so important. And that’s going to help them as they, you know, lead their families, as they have marriages. All of these things. Having a servant heart is such an important part of leadership. Another one is work ethic and follow through. This is incredibly important and you have so much influence over that. Even the more maybe not the best word slothful child, maybe not the best lazy, those kinds of things we never want to give them that label.

By the way, we can say don’t be lazy, but we don’t want to say you are lazy, right? Because whatever we give them, they tend to hold onto because we have so much influence. You don’t want to mess with their identity, but you do want to call out the the things to improve in and those kinds of things and worth work ethic. How can you instill work ethic? Well, give them things to do and encourage them on to talk about how great it was that they persevered. Give them opportunities to persevere in things without stepping in and just taking over. You know, it. You know, one of the things I think of when if you’re going to develop work ethic and I think this has a lot to do with the moms actually when they’re young, is that not just stepping in? And why do why would mom step in? Because there’s so much to do. And it takes patience to allow a young person to finish something. But I think that that patience is so important, that patience is a virtue. It’s like it’s like you’re instilling in your children work ethic and follow through by enabling them to actually follow through even when it gets a little challenging. And I think that’s important. And it’s not on mom’s shoulders. Dads have a huge impact on that. But I think as they get a little older, dads have more of an impact on that. And it’s a teamwork.

I would even say that as moms, because we’re spending I mean, most of us are probably spending the majority of our time with our kids, right? Especially when they’re little. When I think of work ethic, it’s and follow through. I think of finishing the job all the way. Right? So if I tell my kids to pick up the toys in their room, I swing back around and make sure that they got all of them and that they didn’t just stop halfway through, Right? Teaching them certain principles, like putting something away before they get something out, teaching them different ways to make their own life easier as well that make it easier for them to follow through. Because let’s just face it, let’s say a kid was to get out one toy, put it away and get out another. And then you say, okay, it’s time for us to go. I need you to put that toy away. It’s going to be a lot easier for them to put that toy away versus that toy, plus the five other big things that they had out. If they had choo choo trains out and they had Legos out before that. And if you were to come in and they had got out like five different big things and you go, okay, put all the toys away, they’re going to have a harder time. That three year old’s going to have a harder time following through On putting them all away. It’s going to feel overwhelming to them. And so part of teaching work ethic is this concept of like taking care of things in a manner that’s going to actually help them to be able to obey and get their jobs done and their jurisdictions done and that they are able to follow through. Right.

And dads, as they get a little older, not much older, but start doing projects with them and do things that are a little tough and persevere, do group things together, whether it’s clearing a field or building something, putting something together that was hard and then celebrate afterwards and make it enjoyable. I think of I’m looking right now at a floor that Drew and I put in together and I think we finished it, you know, one in the morning or something like that. And the reason we worked so late is because we were delighting in the project and we were like, I wonder if we could finish this tonight. And then we got excited about finishing it that night. And then we’re like, We’re going to finish this tonight. And we persevered together and we celebrated afterwards with a hug and, you know, and talking about it. And it’s just such a great memory. Him and I have actually about this floor in the studio and I just think you should I think we all should look around and see things that we persevere on with our kids. And that might mean you’re you’re doing this is that you’re in. Follow through and work ethic. And by the way, if you ever have concerns about your children being able to provide for their own families in the future in a different world, I think this really, you know, kills that concern because there’s plenty of people that don’t have follow through and plenty of people, unfortunately, that don’t persevere. Isn’t that true? And so if your kids do, they’re going to be doing well, whether they’re in a job or good work, running a business, good attitude, servant, heart work ethic, ability to communicate. Your kids are going to be doing good.

That’s true. But, you know, when I think of work ethic, too, as far as if they were to work for someone I know after having had businesses, those were the people that we wanted to honor and wanted to be giving promotions to and and honoring them and that kind of a way because we could see long term with them because they were hard workers. You want to invest in people who are hard workers. And so sharing with your kids that insight is actually kind of a huge deal because work ethic is part of the character of a person and it’s something that they do. It’s not their identity, but it can become part of their character. It can become a habit, right? To be good at working hard and getting things done and and having integrity with themselves. Right. That they’re going to follow through on something they said they were going to do. All these things kind of all go together into one one category. And it’s something that as parents we have to start teaching them when they’re little, like with the example I gave earlier. But then as they’re in our home into their late teen years and young adult years, you still are working with them. You’re still potentially even repeating yourself. Again, the same things where it’s like, well, no, I asked you to do this all the way, not do halfway. Herbert You know, Yeah. How many times we said that, right? And the truth is, is that those are the memories. Those are the little sayings, the things that your kids are going to actually remember when they’re older and they’re going to be repeating themselves.

So absolutely. And the next point on cultivating leadership in your children is biblical literacy. It doesn’t matter right now if you feel like you understand the Bible or not. What matters is you have a vision for your children understanding the Bible. And that’s really important. And a byproduct of that is you’ll have to understand the Bible yourself. You’ll have to grow in this area because parents that don’t grow in this area don’t tend to help their kids grow in that same area. And so if you have if the Bible is foreign to you, you’ve accepted the Lord, but the Bible is really foreign, then it’s going to be important to make it not foreign anymore. And the only way to do that is to read it. And so we really encourage that because parents that read the Bible, the physical Bible, and it’s open in their house, not just an app on their phone either so the kids can see what’s happening. Those are parents that tend to actually help their children become literate in the Bible. Now you can delegate some of that. There’s programs and youth programs and things like that, but nothing is as good as you actually, because you’re the parents. You have the most influence. You’re around them the most. And really, this is an ongoing thing. So it’s really important that they that your children grow up in a home where they become, okay, can you let’s flip the job real quick and they’re able to flip to job really quickly. Right. Let’s read a proverb and they understand the navigate the Bible. They can find things pretty easily. They can remember scriptures. They know how to look for things.

They have an understanding of it. And that takes time. But they have that whole period of time, all those years in your home, they really could become very literate in the Bible. And why is this important? Because in the future, they can’t stand for truth. They don’t understand. Right. So and the enemy is has nuance to him. He’s tricky, right? And he tries to create fool. If I can just get Christians to slide a little bit on this one issue, then they’ll start sliding on more. And why do Christians slide on an issue Either they don’t believe the Bible is the inherent word of God and all of it’s important, or they just don’t know what it says. And I think a lot of times it’s they just don’t know what it says on that issue actually says in many, many parts, Right. And so biblical literacy is really important in second Timothy three 1416 It says three 1416 it says But as for you continue in what you have learned that and have firmly believed knowing from whom you learned it and how. From childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good Work is like the best scripture on this. That is the why right there. And it is so important. If how can a Christian lead and influence in society without knowing what the Bible says or being confident in finding an answer in the Bible?

I think even more importantly.

I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date Night one sheet. It is a beautiful document you can download that will have some key questions on it for your date night. Just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to courageous Parenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at Courageous Parenting.com. And I also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it. You can find out more at Courageous Parenting.com.

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

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

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

This class has just really rocked my world. It has given.

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

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

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

Do your legacy a favor and your self a favor and just do it.

One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more.

We’re no longer fearing dark days ahead, but we’re so excited to raise lights to be leaders for the next generation.

We as parents need to. We if we’re Christians, which I’m assuming most people listening to this podcast today are Christians, we need to ask ourselves the question, What is God’s word actually say? What is God’s word command us to do as parents? Isaac mentioned, you know, yeah, some people delegate their kids learning about the Bible by putting them in Sunday school or in youth group, and he said, You can do that. But you know, we have a whole entire podcast that we talked about our stance on youth programs and different things like that. And we probably don’t agree with most in some cases, which is kind of funny because, you know, there was a time where we did have our kids in some childhood programs when our oldest were really little. I taught Sunday school. I was a youth pastor intern for a while. That was what my education was in and thought that I was going to be doing that for a while. But really, when you look at what Scripture says, it commands parents to teach their children what the Bible says. It says parents are to teach their children God’s commands. So parents are the ones that are supposed to teach their kids the Bible. It is the authority that was given to us by God. Nowhere in Scripture is there even an example of a Sunday school program or a youth program. Now, those things are not bad.

They can be additive. They are.

Additive. They would be what I would call extra biblical because they’re extra. They’re not in the Bible. However, they’re not they’re not bad necessarily. But you have to decide what is most beneficial for your family. Right? I even think of the scripture I think it’s in Romans that talks about the difference between being lawful or beneficial. We have to use discernment as parents as to what is most beneficial for my children. And so is your child going to Sunday school the most beneficial thing for them, or is it more beneficial that you’re the one that’s reading scripture to them and maybe doing both is beneficial, but maybe them going to Sunday school is hurting them more than it is helping them because of peer influences. Or maybe what’s being taught is maybe a little progressive. The point is, is it’s your responsibility to know and you’re not going to be able to cultivate leadership in your children, to stand firm against progressive thinking, wayward philosophies of today false teachings, and to be able to discern it, which those are all. I personally believe that if if someone’s in leadership, they’re required to discern those things in leadership when they’re a parent, they are in leadership. So if you want grandkids, if your kids are going to be parents, they are going to be required to discern what’s right for their kids. And so you got to realize that in the midst of how you are parenting them and the activities that you put them in, when you put them into something, it’s like you, their parent, are putting the stamp of approval on it and saying, Yes, go listen to this and pay attention and memorize and regurgitate and take good notes and learn, learn, learn.

And so can you honestly put that stamp of approval on the Sunday school teacher? Do you know them well enough? Do you know their worldview? Do you know that what they believe about the Bible? That it’s God’s inerrant word? That everything in here is truth? That there’s one truth, not a whole bunch of different people’s truths? These are important questions that we as parents have to ask when we’re allowing someone to influence our child. Because especially when it comes to the biblical literacy that our children are learning, that is, the foundation of being a Christian leader is being able to know right from wrong biblically. And so if you have a Bible teacher that you’ve kind of delegated your some of the the teaching to, you really have to take that responsibility because guess what? God actually gave you the authority in Scripture, not that person. And he will be holding them accountable. Because James three one says, Not many of you should want to be teachers, my brethren, unless you receive a stricter judgment. However, you’re still held accountable because you delegated that responsibility to that person.

There’s another thing to think about, too, which is in the future, let’s say ten years from now, when a lot of your kids are out there in the world, out of your home. Well, is it likely that within ten years the same thing that’s happening in Canada would be happening in America? Or maybe you’re listening from Canada or maybe you’re over in Europe somewhere or Australia? We have a lot of listeners or Austria. We have listeners in Austria. There’s tons of countries you’re listening from. Maybe this already is the case in your in your country. But you know, right now in America, a pastor can preach anything in the Bible and pretty much nothing will happen to him unless he goes on a megaphone on social media or something like that. But if he’s in his own church and preaching on whatever the Bible says accurately, then he’s going to be fine. But if he did that in, let’s say, Canada, you would not be fine. You do that in many other countries, you would not be fine. You preach on certain things that don’t look tolerant to the world. Okay. And so what is it going to be like several years from now, maybe ten years from now? And there is a likelihood that the only churches I hope this isn’t the case, but there is a likelihood that the only churches that exist are ones that are willing to compromise what the Bible says, to be able to be a church, a non-profit in the way that they’re doing it. And so to not speak on gender, for example, or marriage or not.

Read from Romans, for example. Right. You have to omit the whole book of Romans in order to stay open. Okay.

So so you will you already see this. But there is a potentiality that in every country that that’s the case, that a church can’t be biblical if they’re going to have a brick and mortar church in this kind of thing. So in that case, if you want to take your family or if your children, when they have children, want to take their family to church somewhere, takes vision to be a parent these days, we have to think about these things then. The only option for a biblical church might be. I hope not, but might be a home church, right? And then in a home church, there’s much more involvement, right, with people and so forth. So there aren’t any youth programs and things like that. So it might be interesting to think about that because what you’re demonstrating might not be what they can even replicate in the future. And so it is good to demonstrate things that can be replicated in a different world. And so just something to think about. Biblical literacy is important because no matter what is happening in the future, then your children will navigate their families to churches that are only biblical, even if that means it’s something different than what you raised them in. Okay, so the next thing is confidence.

Speaking to all ages. This is one that is so important and really has to do with the community year round. You really need to try and cultivate friendships with people that talk to your children, that look them in the eyes and show them respect and show them, give them time and have conversations because otherwise your children won’t grow up having experience talking to people of all ages. You also want to look for families that you can spend time with, where the older kids still talk to, the younger kids, where multiple ages spend time together and the olders don’t think they’re too good to spend time with the youngers and things like that. That is so important because if if if that’s not the case, what will happen is you’re raising kids that are not confident speaking to all ages, and that is a detriment to their ability to lead. They will potentially be timid around older people and these kinds of things. And you want your kids to get the opportunities when they’re young and to be able to thrive when they’re younger in society, no matter what it looks like. And part of that is having lots of experience in their upbringing of talking to people of all ages in a confident way.

So really what this comes down to is you need to evaluate your friendships actually, because it starts with your relationships, right? Like I know that there’s been there’s a big difference when I think about the friendships that Isaac and I have had with different families over the years, there’s a big difference between the families where the older children and the adult parents actually care about invest, make eye contact and have a conversation with one of our children versus only wanting to talk to us. Right. You know what I’m talking about. You know those scenarios where you have people over to your home and it seems like the parents only want to talk to you and they don’t try to get to know your kids. And that’s that’s kind of one of those relationships where, like you can try to lead it, right? And if it changes to where they’re like, I had no idea I was even doing this. Many of you listening probably have no idea. And you’re probably thinking to yourself, Well, do I do that? And that’s a good question to ask. Do you make an effort to get to know other people’s children? And it’s really important that we do, because if we don’t have relationships with other families where this is like a thing where they’re all getting to know each other, then your kids are not going to have the childhood that they could have where they get to grow up speaking to people of all ages.

That’s where the practice is. And so you really need to try to lead in that. Now, leading in that may mean that some of those people respond well to that and other people, they just can’t change. Some people can’t change. And and that’s okay. But maybe those are the people that you’re not spending as much time with actually, because if you have a lot of children, one of our main goals when you have kids is to be cultivating leadership in your children. It’s that you’re you’re evaluating the the productivity, if you will, or the purposefulness of your relationships and how those relationships are actually impacting your kids. And so that’s that’s kind of a big deal for us. It’s always been a big deal in our relationships with people if they’re willing to invest in getting to know our kids or not. And is that a good thing or not? And so I’m just putting it out there because I think a lot of times people don’t realize that their personal relationships actually impact their children.

So good always be teaching communication skills. Communication skills are so important. And they the the the challenges of poor communication skills are probably in every home that has little kids. Right. Little children just do not have good communication skills yet and they have to be learned. So how are they learned? Are they learned in a training class? I learned at a family meeting. Not really. They’re learned in the moment. That’s most frustrating for mom, actually.

And for dad when they’re whining and they have a hard time getting their words out or they don’t talk yet. Right. It starts that little and it’s different for every kid when they start talking. I mean, we’ve had nine and they’ve all started talking at different times and different growth spurts, too, of many words or some words. Just one word. Kids versus the. Word sentence kids. And and it takes patience and it takes time. And I think that, you know, baby sign language is a huge thing if you have little kids, that can be very helpful so that there’s less whining. But some children to just kind of get that they think that they’re communicating right, but they’re frustrated that other people are not understanding them. And that is something that can be a challenge. But I just want to say that that never like while kids learn how to speak and the challenge changes, there’s still the same need for parents to be intentional with teaching their children communication skills. Because the truth is, is we all can be continually growing in how we communicate. There are times when Isaac and I even have a conversation and we will be misfiring in our communication and we have to be humble or we have to apologize or we have to acknowledge that we’re wrong or change or drop a topic or whatever it is.

We’re still learning. And so if we are still learning, certainly your children are still learning in the process. And I think that that’s that actually changes their perspective, too, doesn’t it? I know that it changes my perspective when I’m maybe getting frustrated with my almost two year old where I go, he doesn’t know this. I’m expecting too much out of him. And I that doesn’t mean I don’t encourage him to use his words. I do. I encourage him to use his words, but I have more patience and realistic expectations of of him communicating because I remind myself he’s still learning. Imagine how that could change your relationship with your eight year old. He’s still learning or your teenager. They’re still learning. I think it’s very important that we have grace for our kids in this process and understand they are learning and to tell them that to themselves also, because sometimes kids can get really frustrated when they’re trying to communicate and they feel like no one’s understanding them. But if we come to them and we say, Hey, it’s okay, don’t be so hard on yourself, you’re still learning how to communicate and I’m still learning how to listen, and I’m learning how to communicate with you because you’re wired a certain way. And and having that kind of grace and conversation can really I mean, I should probably do that more.

Well, I think life situations is where a lot of communication lessons can be learned. So be a looker for opportunities to teach your kids a better way to communicate, to say, I hear, I hear you. Hey, next time, here is a better way to ask for that. Here is a better way to respond. When someone gives you criticism, here’s a better way to respond. When you don’t understand somebody, when you assume things, here’s a danger of assumption. And talking about these the the negative leadership qualities, they aren’t leadership, right? They’re poor communication. They you wouldn’t say, wow, that’s a great leader. He can’t communicate that that never goes together. Right. So communication is so important and the ability to listen a lot of leadership is the ability to listen and withhold what we’re saying. And maybe even when we want to say something, but then we realize it’s a leadership skill to actually listen even longer and ask a clarifying question even before we say what we really want to say. And that is amazing. So how can you encourage your children to listen longer to each other? Sibling relationships is probably one of the most helpful areas to help your children become good leaders. And then the older kid, you should talk to them. Hey, you’re a leader. Your younger child, the younger, your younger sibling wants to be like you. Therefore they want to play just like you. You find that annoying right now. But if I change your if I help you understand a different perspective, maybe you’ll understand that this is actually flattering in a way. It’s actually a positive thing. They want to be like you, they look up to you and so it’s important you respond correctly.

So you’re helping them become a good leader too. And so having these conversations with your young kids, middle aged kids and even teenagers, that never stops. Hopefully, if you’ve done it all along, by the time they’re teenagers, you don’t have to talk about some of these things as much because they’ve really learned. But you’re always going to be communicating with them about how to improve some areas of communication because like Angie said, even we are trying to improve that. So that’s huge. That’s a really big thing. Proverbs 1820 through 21 says From the fruit of a man’s mouth, his stomach is satisfied. He is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits, death and life in the power of tongue. The tongue is so powerful in James. It also talks about this, right? You know, help your children use their tongues as something that produces fruit versus becomes a weapon that hurts people that is so important. And you’re there to steward them all those years we have. So. How many years with their children. But if we’re working on this every day, they’re going to be incredible leaders. It’s going to be really cool. Um, Proverbs 17 as well, 27 through 28 is really good. Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit as a man of understanding, even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise. When he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. Wow. So having that restraint, I was just talking about the ability to withhold and listen long and think maybe in a silent prayer of how do I handle this, Lord? Right.

Those are good leadership skills that you want to teach your children. And we need to be examples of, okay, public speaking. Last two here is public speaking. Um, you know, that’s a big scary word for a lot of people, public speaking. You know, someone once said that I think they did a study where, you know, I think the second most scary thing for most people is public speaking. You know, So, you know, let’s not be scared by those two words. Instead, let’s realize that public speaking is happening all the time. It’s not about being up on a stage and those kinds of things more. What we’re talking about is the ability to orate in front of groups, whether it’s three friends, whether it’s in front of the family at mealtime, whether it is in church at some point in the future, you know, sharing about maybe they’re getting baptized and they’re sharing, proclaiming their faith in Christ in front of the church. These look for opportunities for them to speak in front of other people. Maybe it’s as simple as every week someone shares what they learned in their schooling that week to the rest of the siblings for five minutes. You know, one of the things I need to get going, we get the Epoch Times physical newspaper, actually. And the reason I’ve kept the subscription is because I have this goal that I need to start, which is every week one of our kids reads an article and then teaches the family about that article. So, so many good things. So be looking for those areas where they can do public speaking.

The next one in the you know is life situations. Life situations come up every single we’re talking about the every day circumstances. The the times where there’s a need for a leader to rise up and lead. Well, whether it’s serving like we were talking about earlier or being selfless, maybe stopping what they’re doing to encourage someone who has hurt feelings in your family. Um, life situations happen every day throughout the day where there’s an opportunity to lead. Well, I even think about my kids right now as we’re shooting this podcast. They’re in in the house and they’re doing homeschool. Some of them, some of them are babysitting siblings because they trade off and on. Some are probably helping with lunch, different things like that. And it takes a certain amount of leadership that each of the kids, the older four, are rotating. What they’re in charge of and what they’re leading, whether it’s being in charge of the little guy, being in charge of the middles, you know, helping with something with math or whatever it is, it’s requiring leadership at this very moment. And there are good. There’s a good thing happening right now. You know, sometimes people ask us, well, how do you guys do everything that you do? How are you doing? The lives and the podcasts or whatever else? And Isaac’s usually out here all day working and I’m in the house with the kids and and then there’s these few times a week where I pop out and I sit down and shoot a podcast with Isaac. And and there are times where I have honestly, I’m going to share with you. I have struggled with feeling guilty that mom guilt that the society puts on us for not being 100% 24/7, always with all the kids.

And that’s just not possible. And it’s also not good. Can I just say it’s not good? It’s actually good for them to have life situations sometimes where they’re asked to be in charge, where they’re asked to be in charge of making a meal for the family. Guess what’s coming out of that? More preparation for their life down the road and being able to prepare a meal for 4 or 5 people. That’s a good thing. There’s also the situations where maybe two younger siblings get in a little fight and they have to mediate. That’s a leadership skill that is going to do them well in work situations, in friendships, in marriage, in being a parent themselves one day. And so I have had to do a little shift in my thinking that it’s okay for mom to be out in the studio for an hour, one day a week. That’s okay. It’s okay for the kids to have to be put into a situation where they have to rise up and they have to lead in all these different ways. And it’s been so good and beneficial for them. And so what are the things that your kids can start learning more? Is there something that you as a mom, maybe you’re hanging on to always doing the laundry and maybe you have a 12 year old and you haven’t taught your child how to do their own laundry, how to take initiative and be responsible for that jurisdiction and. For life and for them to do their part and contribute to the family. There’s maybe you’re not leading. Well, is my point by hanging on to all those things. But instead giving responsibility to your child. Because guess what? Responsibility is also part of leadership.

I remember a time when we had our big financial disaster. My company went out of business and we had to figure out the ways that God wanted to provide for us. And we had this RV and we’re like, Let’s rent it out. And Austin, I put Austin in charge of kind of the customer facing, you know, checklist, going through everything before they leave and after they leave, checking to see if everything was in repair or what broke in those kinds of things. And then there was a cleaning fee that every customer paid. And I gave that to Austin and I said, okay, now you’re going to lead your siblings in cleaning. The whole RV is quite a job to make sure it’s super sanitary, all cleaned up, imperfect, perfect, inside and outside. It’s 39 foot class A It’s a big machine. And he did an amazing job and it would have been easier for me to say, okay, you’re going to pay this kid this much based on their age and ability and this kid this much and so forth. But instead I said, I think the more fair way to pay is not based on age, is based on how productive they are and how much they actually get done. They’re working out of their out of the total job.

You know, how did they do? What was their contribution? So pay them based on their contribution and pay them all differently, even if they work all the same amount of time. And he did that every time, made that decision and made a decision how much he was keeping for himself and made a decision how much to pay his kids. And you know what? There was not one complaint. There was not one fight. And he did it for his team. Summers Actually, he led that team of siblings so well. And I think that you can see see opportunities, but also give responsibility. Remember, we’ve said this children rise to the level of responsibility you give them, be there to support. And I was and I am always right, but not micromanaging. Let them make some mistakes and learn from it and come to you and ask you questions. And I just think that those life situations are powerful. The final point is be understanding of their different personalities. Everybody in our family has a very different personality. That’s true, believe it or not, like really different. We’re all so unique in the Tolpin family, and I’m sure that’s true in most families. And so what tends to happen, though, is the parents kind of.

Well, one thing that’s true I’ve learned is that a lot of times whatever your personality is, we tend to lead from it and expect kind of the same thing from others. And that’s not good. We should really embrace how different our children are. One might be more analytical and need more training and equipping before you have them do something, and it might feel like it takes a lot of time because you really have to train them well before you give them a task. But that’s honoring who they are. And if you do that, they can become a really good leader. It just as good as anybody else. And but it just takes it a little bit different approach. So sometimes we have to not think people should be like how God wired us and really understand the different wiring in our children. Another one might be really high relational and so they make it trouble in trouble with their words a lot. And and so we understand that. And it’s not an excuse to get in trouble with the words, but then you can hone that, you can refine, you can help them mature in their area of strength. That also can be a weakness. So that’s really important.

I think, too, that being understanding of their different personalities and teaching your kids that they need to be understanding with one another and each other’s different personalities is a good training ground for future marriage and parenthood themselves. And we need to remind them of that, like because sometimes you can repeat the same thing over and over again and eventually kids are going to go, I know, I know. Well, okay. But do you know why the why behind it is. Yes, I want your relationship with your siblings to be healthy and biblical and for you guys to get along. And so that requires understanding. But I also want you to understand how deeply important this is for your future relationships and how this is going to impact you as a leader when you’re dealing with different kinds of people having understanding for each other, not letting people off the hook, but having understanding for where people are at and being willing to let them be on their journey of growth. Right? You can’t make people change. And so when you’re dealing with someone, let’s say you’re working a business and you have a customer that you’re dealing with and they’re coming from their own bent, their personal experiences, their personality, all those things. If you’ve raised your child with an understanding that other people are different than them, they’re going to treat them with more kindness, gentleness and understanding than if someone was raised thinking, I’m always right. My way or the highway. La la la la. You know, and. And those kinds of people are less successful than the ones who have understanding for people.

And so that’s just another way that we can love people well and actually be a light in the community. God wants us to have understanding for different kinds of people, to have compassion, to be kind. And all of those things actually come from having a mindset of understanding and being able to offer grace when grace is needed or forgiveness or just even not taking things too harshly. Right. And and and I think that this is really where the rubber meets the road when it comes to Christianity. Do you know what I mean? How we treat people in this world will reflect upon Christ if we call ourselves a Christian. And yes, it’s it’s so important in those deeply personal relationships, those lifelong relationships like we mentioned. But it’s also important as we are set out all on the same great commission to be a light to this world. If we go out and we have a self-focused attitude where we can’t understand why people don’t do things the way we do them, or why are they not taking my advice? Or we have that kind of attitude. It’s not a light. It’s not a light at all. And so if we want our kids to be Christian influences and to be a light and we want we’re going to be cultivating leadership skills in them, we also part of that is teaching them how to have compassion and kindness and understanding with other people. And if they have that, their influence is actually going to be great in this world. Yeah.

By the way, I have to add this one more tip that we didn’t prepare for, which is help them to be good decision makers. I mean, that is so important. I see people making decisions based on what everybody else is doing, go along to get along. All these things following their heart, you know, sacrificing what’s best for what’s good. You know, it might be good, but is there something better? Like really a lot of times better Is harder the harder path or the use to making the harder choice even though that’s better? Or do are they used to making the the thing that’s easier but good or easier or not so good? And so you really have to coach them through that. And so I always like to coach my children, even though it’s frustrating for them sometimes. Okay, well, that’s good. Is that the best? Like, what is the best? What’s the best decision you can make? And really analyzing that, Well, it’s harder. And you go, Well, if it’s best, we should probably do the harder and and then living that out ourselves. But decision making, critical thinking, actually thinking through things versus just going along because people that look trustworthy are doing the same thing. Well, they may look trustworthy, but they still may not be doing the best thing right. Really helping them understand that. How important is that going to be in ten years to be good decision makers? Should I put my name on a blog post that I didn’t write but a robot wrote?

Oh yeah, the moral integrity.

So there’s all these new situations that are here now and going to be here in the future and are going to be debatable things. But I kind of always will know what’s right in my mind about that. And so I think it’s important as things get blurred, as technology becomes something that is more relied on for everything, even thinking, well, how are your children going to make decisions in the future? So it’s really important. And wait, we hope this was helpful. We’re not to live in fear. We’re not to parent in fear. We’re to parent in the confidence that God gives us that he’s in control and that he loves our children. But he gave us an important job to do, which is to raise them up, equip them, disciple them, and prepare them so that they will glorify the father with their lives. See you.

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