Pessimism and optimism can both be problematic. We want to equip our children in being grounded in reality while hopeful about what’s ahead. Of course, this episode will help you navigate poor attitudes in your home, but it also helps everyone see the bigger picture of why this is essential in preparing our children for being adults in a future different world.

Main Points From This Episode:

• How to talk to your children about their negative attitudes
• Spending the time to tell the why’s is important
• Lead your family by example in not dwelling on negatives while being real.
• Create a thankfulness list with your children, especially after you all experience something together.
• Frequently ask what is the good that happened or is happening. To pull them out of their negative thinking cycle.

Scriptures From This Episode:

– Luke 6:41-42 – “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”

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

– Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.“

– 2 Corinthians 10:5 – “We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,“

– Romans 15:13 – “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

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

Hey, everyone. The accumulation of the attitudes in your homes really dictates the how things are going.

That’s right. And so sometimes there are homes that are more optimistic, which those tend to not deal in reality and have rose tinted glasses on. And then there are those that tend to be more pessimistic, which can really handicap your child’s long term to.

An optimism alone isn’t the answer. It’s got to be grounded in reality, too. So we talk about this in so much more in today’s episode. Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

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

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

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

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

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

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes and other biblically based resources, go to be courageous ministry.org.

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

Hey guys.

Talking about leading the attitudes in your home and obviously the more children you have, the more attitudes there are.

That’s true. So what we’re asking you to think about today, what we’re going to be talking about is do your kids tend to be half glass full, half glass empty kind of people? What is their attitude towards certain things? So here’s a couple of questions that might get your mind jolted and thinking because there’s people are always in transition and there’s fun things that happen in life. So if you were to go to your kids and say, Hey guys, we are going to start homeschooling right now, if your kids were in school, what would be their attitude towards that or their attitude that’s in their reaction? Or maybe if you were to say, hey, we’re going to go visit grandma and grandpa, what would their attitude be? Would they be like, ho hum or would they be excited? Right.

So we’re going to go to so-and-so’s house or today is going to be a work day on the property or yay, You know, everybody, we really need to dig down and start working on our math more or whatever it is. What is what is your attitude? What are the attitudes towards the things obviously they like to do? That’s easy one, but how about the things that are neutral to them? And how about the things they don’t really want to do? And this is so crucial because in the future, human beings that are good at doing the hard things first usually get more done, are more proactive, are happier, more joyful because they’re accomplishing things. And that’s going to be needed in their futures.

Yeah, because their attitude is going to actually play a big part on whether they do those hard things, right? Yeah. So I think that, you know, this can also affect their outlook on life just in general. If they tend to be a more pessimistic person or a more optimistic person. You know, Isaac and I were talking about this specific topic as we were planning the podcast today, and we had this really interesting conversation because a lot of times Christians well, all people there’s there’s definitely a movement, even in the self-help era, if you will, of trying to encourage people to be optimistic. And sometimes it’s so much so that they are missing a piece of reality.

Right? So we’re going to temper optimism, although we think optimism mostly is good. Yes. And we’re going to talk about these things in a really grounded biblical way because we need to know how to approach our children and talk with our children. Because if we just let things slide, then we get used to letting things slide. And pretty soon they really start to own a pessimistic approach towards life. And we don’t want that or only happy and joyful about things they really, really want to do. And that is not reality and that’s not the world they’re going to be living in and needing to thrive in.

Yeah, mean you’re right. I mean, if you think about it with any job or any vocation or even just like life, think about the, the life responsibilities you have as a mom and a dad, right? Like, do you absolutely love doing every simple, mundane task that you have to do in a day? Now, maybe you’ve gotten really good at training your attitude. I would say that for the most part, we’ve gotten pretty good at training our minds and attitudes. We still sin at times and have those like days where or moments when we struggle and we maybe grumble for a minute and then we preach to ourselves and we try to turn it around. Right? But maybe you’ve gotten good at it, but your kids haven’t been taught that maybe there’s a reality that as parents we protect our not we. But like in general, Do we? It’s a good question to say, do we protect our children from doing the hard things or maybe the not so fun things so that they have this like idealistic childhood and they grow up thinking that they only should do the things that they enjoy, Right. Because when they’re older, that’s going to be super problematic.

Well, we don’t want to raise up an entitled generation, and that’s exactly what that does. And so sometimes when we don’t have the childhood we wanted or far from what we wanted, we go the other direction and make it way too towards idealism and only fun, which is what you’re talking about. And that is really, really harmful to children.

It actually, in my opinion, I think it sets kids up for living a life with a lot of pain and suffering and wondering if they’re a failure simply because they’re not enjoying their life as much as they did when they were a kid. And I think too entitled chemists say something that might be controversial, maybe even a little bit like, Oh, ouch, that kind of hurts. Entitled Parents will raise Entitled Children. Also. There is an element of that, too, where, like I do want to challenge people if they’re having a hard time getting their kids to do hard things, too. We need to look at ourselves and go, Wait a second, do I do hard things or do I delegate everything I don’t enjoy in my life or don’t want to do? Because because I think I’m too good for spending time doing those mundane things? Or do I dig in and get the things done that need to get done? Because our kids are watching all the time and they’re either they’re going to learn. One or the other. Right. And so and the reality is, is not everybody can afford to delegate everything, right?

So whenever parents make a decision for change, for doing something or these kinds of things, you’re going to evoke attitudes, good or bad. And how you address those is going to make the next time you do this better or worse. And it’s training them up to be, you know, wise, mature, God, glorifying people or something different. So we’re going to dive into this in a second. But first of all, thank you so much for being part of the 10 million Legacies movement. That’s simply if you’re new to the podcast, we feel called to impact 10 million families in their legacies with biblically, sound podcast material, other material resources and so forth, just to help this next generation. And how do you change the world? Well, that is a little piece of it. We’re hoping to be a little part of it, and we hope you’re part of it with us. Every time you share on social media, you’re part of it. You’re raising your hand saying, I’m part of this movement. Every time you give a five star review on Apple or elsewhere or a written review on the Courageous Parenting podcast, that means the world to us because it helps get the podcast out there. It’s encouraging, but more important than that is it helps the algorithms to get that podcast out there and you can find all resources free and otherwise at be courageous ministry.org. There’s four courses, there’s the app community, there’s a free workshop, there’s we have two podcasts now, this one and the Resolute Man podcast. So many things going on and.

We want to keep doing this. Do you want to keep listening to the Courageous Parenting podcast and the Resolute Man podcast that just launched? We want to keep doing this. And so when you guys support us by purchasing any of those programs, courses, merch, coffee, any of those things, it goes directly towards helping us to continue doing what we’re doing. And so we just want to say thank you. All right, Let’s talk let’s dive in. So on this topic of attitudes, leading attitudes of our children, the first thing that we need to do, and this is good old courageous parenting style, is take off the rose tinted glasses and look at ourselves. We have a verse here in Luke, chapter six, verse 41 through 42, It says, Why do you see the speck that’s in your brother’s eye? But do not notice the log that’s in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, Brother, Let me take the speck out of your own eye when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take out the log out of your own eye and then it continues. Then you’ll see clearly to take the speck out. So essentially you can’t correct. Like I even think that this is so relevant to parents because if we are trying to correct our child’s attitude, but we ourselves struggle with our own attitude around the home, that’s going to be problematic because children can smell a hypocrite a mile away.

Or if we’re complaining about our work or challenges overly or even leaving church and complaining about the Bride of Christ and these kinds of things, just having a sour attitude towards other people and pessimistic and, you know, tending to look at the negatives of things and dwell on those things. And overly talk about them and these kinds of things. Well, it doesn’t really matter what you teach them because they’re seeing that. And if they’re seeing that, then they will feel like there’s a hypocritical nature and we’re raising up. We’re having influence every day on their attitudes and their way of being and whether they lean into the Lord or not. And let’s face it, this world ain’t getting easier for Christians. It will not get easier. But that’s not a reason to fear anything. We have hope in in God and we get to glorify his name. But how can we glorify God if we’re complaining about things that are nowhere near as challenging is a lot of Christians are facing out there in the world. And so, you know, I think that we need to grow in capacity. We need to grow in strength and to be really ready to lead our families and and be examples to the grandkids way down the road and all these things. As the world continues to change. We’re in a great transition right now, whether people like it or not, that doesn’t matter. Whether you like something or not, doesn’t matter if something’s going to happen, no matter what. Right? So, you know, it’s like it is what it is. And and so now let’s be joyful. Great examples, great leaders as we go through this.

So, you know, we talked about taking the rose tinted glasses off about yourself, but there’s an element, too, of biblically needing to be grounded in reality and teaching our children how to be grounded in reality. And what we mean by that is like being honest about the issues that you are struggling with. So obviously the first step to leading an attitude is to not have rose tinted glasses on in regards to how you’re viewing your child’s attitude. You need to be honest and you need to go, You know what? Their attitude really stinks right now. Or man, they’re really like focusing on the negative instead of thinking about all the positive things that this is going to mean for the family or for today or whatever. Right. And and being honest about that is super important. This is a muscle that we need to exercise within our families when we’re leading their attitudes, because it’s we talked about this in one of. A previous podcast. It was actually a podcast that I did about self-examination versus introspection, and the biblical terminology is self-examining, right? And so here we have to be grounded in reality and self examining and saying, Lord, search my heart. Is there any wayward way in me and teaching our children how to be asking that question and being honest about it as well and going, Yeah, you know, you’re right.

I’m sorry. I was having a bad attitude. Sorry. Brothers and sisters. Sorry, Mom and dad, You’re right. You’re right. It’s going to be good. Like, do you see how there’s a switch happening? It doesn’t have to be this massive, big thing of, Oh, you have a bad attitude and an overcorrection, if you will. I’m going to say that word overcorrection. But instead, like, let’s be honest, we all struggle with having a bad attitude sometimes. And right now you’re having a bad attitude. Why? Why can you identify why is there a reason why? Or are you just kind of grumpy today? Because you need to lead yourself and teaching your child how to lead themselves and pointing that out and going, Hey, when I feel this way, this is what I tell myself. These are the verses that I think of when I’m struggling with having an attitude. And then maybe what I have to do is put worship music on to help lead my heart, to help lead my focus of what I’m meditating on, and then I’m doing the things that I need to get done while I’m listening to worship music.

I think when you do things like that too, after the fact, it’s in and when the attitudes improve because you’re worshiping the Lord and so forth, is to just circle back and go look at what happened, look at how the Holy Spirit impacts us. Look at how, you know, worshiping the Lord has just a deep impact on us. And I think of, you know, when you’re grounded in reality also, you’re not spinning things. You know, people there’s a lot of leaders in business and things like that that I’ve seen. They just spin, spin, spin, spin. And you got to deal in reality. There’s a good book that talks about dealing in reality and how companies that went from good to great companies had leaders that dealt in reality. I think it’s the same thing for parents because sometimes we think, Oh, I don’t want to burden them with a reality about something. I don’t want them to hurt the mood of the family and these kinds of things. And I think that we’re underestimating the intelligence of our children when we do that, and we’re overestimating the strength of them without that. And it’s so it’s important to deal in reality and good timing and talk about the hard things happening, things ahead, whatever situations, and then them seeing you still have a good attitude and and be optimistic. I also think you know optimism and we’re talking about this is harmful in the wrong ways sometimes like that Pollyanna. Everything’s good. Always looking for the good no matter what, but not addressing the bad. That is not reality. And so while I am very much optimistic and very much for looking for the good that we’re not, we need to not overlook also the hard parts where we can learn lessons. And doesn’t it? When something is difficult, doesn’t it shine a brighter light on God in you when you’re looking at it from a right perspective and your kids see that? So I think there’s so much more goodness that can happen when we deal in reality. But we’re optimistic about the future and the present, even even when hard things happen. I think that’s really important.

Now, there’s also an element of needing. So we talked for a second there about, you know, being overly optimistic in a sense of that that would be a rose tinted glasses kind of person where everything is happy, cheerful, always good, never dealing with the issues. And the unfortunate thing is that sometimes those families are not even teaching, let alone training their children. Yeah, I said two different things there. A lot of times people group those things together. They’re very different. Teaching your child would be like, Hey guys, today we’re going to go to church. Remember, these are the expectations. We’re going to pray when we’re sitting in church. We’re going to worship when we’re when we’re worshiping. We’re not going to be doing other things When the pastor is teaching, you know, like you’re literally giving expectations, you’re teaching them something, or maybe you’re teaching them how to put away their lunch supplies if they’re starting to make lunch for themselves for the first time and not make such a huge mess, you’re teaching them some things, right? And then there’s the training, which is the regular reminding of things. Well, the truth is, is that when we are overly optimistic and we’re only focused on the good things, we’re not seeing the things that actually need teaching and training, and we’re not investing in that. And unfortunately, what can happen in those situations is that the children are still children, they’re still humans and they still sin at times and they still make mistakes. But if you’re a parent that has rose tinted glasses and you haven’t talked to your child about what it means to actually be a kind friend and what it means to share and to encourage another person versus bring them down to make yourself feel better.

Like if you’re not being honest about this issue that your child has, then they’re gaining a reputation among those friends and those. Friends may not want to spend time with your child. Ooh, that hurts. That’s painful. Right? And so the truth is, is that’s why we need reality. And we need to teach our children to be in reality, too, and not be constantly only focusing on the good and themselves, but being honest about, like, their own struggles now. Okay, So that’s one aspect of being grounded in reality. But then there’s the aspect of when maybe you have a more pessimistic child or maybe you’re a pessimistic adult and you’re always focused on the negative and you’re not ever like hopeful for change, allowing your child to grow and change, This is extremely dangerous as well. So on one hand, you have someone who thinks that they’re perfect and a know it all potentially and and is sinning but never being held accountable. That’s dangerous because they become prideful. But then on the other hand, you have someone that is depressed and anxious and walking on eggshells thinking they’re always doing things wrong because a pessimistic parent is never going to point out and encourage and do all the good things. So this is first and foremost, like we said, look at the specs in your own eye. What are you are you a more pessimistic parent or a more optimistic parent or do you operate in reality but also have hope for the future, expecting change? And we really think that that’s like the biblical, like sweet spot, right?

So we want to be hopeful for better. We want to look at the good of things and how God is redeeming things and anticipate and expect good and not just look at the bad in a pessimistic way while grounded in reality. Because if we’re not grounded in reality, that poses its own problems. And so I think when children are being pessimistic, I think some practical things you can do is shift their mindset for a second and go, hey, you know, I’m hearing some negative things about your time doing that thing over there. But what’s positive? Like, what are some good things and, and and drawing those out of them and then you’ll watch and they’ll go, oh, yeah. It’s almost like they were in a daze of pessimism. Right? And and so all of a sudden you break that cycle and they start talking about the positive things. And I go, you know, I just think it’s I want to hear everything, but I don’t want you to dwell on the negative things because there’s so many good things that are happening, too. And most things that we do are going to have some things that aren’t positive, right? There’s going to be some harder things, some things that don’t work out according to plan and things like that. And I think it’s really important to raise up resilient kids, which is required for the future they’re going to launch into is that they have to have a flexibility to them. And you’re doing flexibility training with them when you keep them hopeful, even though the plans don’t work out exactly how they wanted them to or expected them to. And because we all know that plans usually don’t actually work out exactly how we plan them to be. If you ever ran a business, you know that for sure. So it’s important.

Well, and I think, you know, one of the last topics before we move on to the next thing, which is really focused on being hopeful for the better, you know, I think about today’s society and what is happening in the world and what you see like even on social media, what you hear from other parents. And there has been a growing number of teens slash young adults who do the blame shifting game and are focused on the negative aspects of their childhood or their jobs. And they they just say it. There’s a lot of whiny people out there that are they would go in the pessimistic category, the half glass full category, you know what I mean? And those children are oftentimes not led or they weren’t led when they were children to also acknowledge the positive things. And so this is actually an exercise that I think families need to do. A lot of I feel like we did it a lot with our with our older kids when they were little, but we could have even done it more. I mean, there’s always room for more of that. I know I could have during the day, it’d be like focusing on the oh, and what was good today and what was good. What if you ended every day going? What was your favorite part of today? What you literally ended every day that would help that child. That tends to be more pessimistic and only remembering the negative aspects of the vacation to start remembering. Oh yeah, there was good too. 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 to 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.

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

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 yourself a favor and just do it.

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

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

I always usually do a debrief after a vacation, a trip or something like that, and and really make sure we anchor. You know, anchoring is it’s it’s it’s how you the thought process you end with usually is the thought process you stay with. Yes okay so if you just had a vacation or you just went and did something and of course, there’s a mix of good and bad happening in most things that happen, then let’s focus. Hey, you know, let’s talk about your favorite part of the trip and what else did you like and what else did you like? And have this discussion. Spend a couple hours an hour on it, you know, and and then what’s happening is you’re bringing all the good up and then those are the memories they have. And so it’s really, really important to do so. Remember, we also want to teach our children how to look in the mirror properly. Yeah. Okay. So the new age world is going to say, look in the mirror and do your affirmations and, and, and and only think about all the positive things. And I’m not completely like, doubting that because we do need to think of ourselves in good ways. God created us and so forth. But I think there’s a balance. It needs to be grounded in reality. We need to also look in the mirror and go, Hey, how do I need to improve these relationships? Friendships I keep having ended up not working out what is my contribution versus what Angie was talking about of blame game, only blaming the other person for the relationship problems or only blaming the other person or just situation out there for financial issues or or.

Worse, blaming God. Right. And I think that there’s an element of like when we recognize and we teach our children that in life there will be hardships. That’s what the Bible teaches. There will be trials, there will be suffering, there will be pain. We live in a fallen world that’s teaching your child a realistic perspective of what the world is. But also what does the Bible say about what we should be focused on? Should we be focused on those things? No. We’ll talk about what we should be focused on in a few minutes. But the element that we’re talking about, though, is that if you’re such an optimistic parent that you’re not operating in you’re not grounded in reality, then you’re actually omitting, teaching your children about the realities of what this life is and how to cope with them by leaning on the Lord, by trusting Him, by growing in Him, by growing in maturity, seeking out wise counsel when those things happen. And so I think that there is a real need for parents to not get all swept up with this grandiose, attractive idea of let’s just be an optimistic parent all the time and never tell our kids the truth and the reality of what’s happening in the world. And no, no, no, no rose tinted glasses off, let’s be honest. But let’s be hopeful and excited for change and cheerleaders when we see those changes happening, continuing to affirm our kids.

Because they need us to remind them of their character issues so that we can help them refine and grow over those and become more our.

Spouse. Their future spouses need us to do that.

Romans, 12 two, says, as you know, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. We need to renew our minds. We need to teach our children how to do that. It’s part of having a strong relationship with the Lord is is to be hopeful for what’s better, to be able to look at things one thing and then we’ll transition to the last point is one thing that an exercise that I think is so important that families replicate, which is the thankful board. I just this was just an a sermon I gave yesterday to which is to get a whiteboard, chalkboard, piece of paper if you need to. Don’t know. Excuses for not doing it is to write down and brainstorm with your family, even if you have littles. Wonderful. Perfect. Brainstorm. What are we thankful for? What are all the ways God has shown up and helped us? Small ways. Big ways and all kinds of things. And you just keep the list going. There is a big list. And you know what it does? It fills your heart with a realization of how God is working, how there are so many good things that are actually happening, and I can’t speak for God. I never would attempt to do that. But I would think that if we’re not thankful, if we’re not contented and what God has done for us, he may have some other will for us so that we wake up and realize how much he’s doing for us. Right? And so if we’re asking God for better outcomes and things happening then but we’re not realizing and thankful for what He’s doing in our life, that seems like a relationship problem with God.

Yes. Well, and we have clear direction from the Lord on what we should be focusing on, which we want to share with you guys from Philippians four eight. I’m sure many of you recognize this verse. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And then it just before that, I just want to remind you that it’s actually talking about coming to the Lord when you have a need and not being anxious about anything but in everything with prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. That’s verse six, just two verses before. And then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, which is another aspect that we need to acknowledge, that we need to be proactive in guarding our hearts and minds with our other Scripture that talk about that. But Jesus himself will guard our kid’s hearts and minds if we teach them this practice when they are struggling with being pessimistic, looking at the negative, maybe worrying about the negative. This is the equation God gives us in a sense of like, give this to God, be reasonable, be thankful. And with prayer and supplication, like teach your kids to go to God in prayer. Teach them what it looks like to be honest about those hard things, too, and give them to God and let him guard their minds and hearts, talk to them about it, and then refocus our job.

Next. We actually don’t just leave it there. God gives us a next step that we’re supposed to do, which is to purposefully choose to focus on what’s true, what’s pure, what’s lovely, what’s commendable, anything worthy of praise. Think on these things that is leading our own hearts. And this is a practice we need to teach our kids. Sometimes I think Christian parents will, if they are doing the good job of going, Hey, is something bugging you? I can tell you’re down and and let’s say they have the relationship where the kid does actually open up and says, Yeah, I’m just really struggling with this. I’m worried about blah blah blah, blah, blah. And the parent goes, Hey, well, let’s pray about it. Good job. But guess what? God wants us to take it a step further after we’ve prayed about it. We want to have Thanksgiving. And and so in our prayer, we need to also be giving the hard things to God, but then thanking him for the good things that are in it and that we’re learning that we’re growing, that he’s there for us and then challenge our children to do the next step, which is to focus on the things the rest of the day, not let that negative thing affect the rest of their day. Amen. Yeah. So that’s how you’re leading that process is actually how you’re leading your child’s heart and attitude through things.

I want to give you an example that you’ve read about many times. Probably if you read your Bible, I’m sure you do, which is Paul. Paul from Prison wrote the book of Ephesians and Colossians, and he’s writing to churches and to bodies of believers, and he’s not focusing on his circumstances. Instead, he’s showering them with love, appreciation, correction, exhortation and encouraging them to become mature in Colossians specifically become mature believers. And I think that is such a great example of focusing not so much on ourselves but on the mission God has for us. And I think if we overly focus on ourselves and our own circumstances, we get caught up in that and we become selfish versus selfless. And when are we going to glorify God the most? When we’re selfish or selfless? And so what are you teaching your children by your example, selfishness or selflessness? And are you glorifying God in your jurisdictions, whether you’re taking care of the home or out working or a mix of both and all the things. So it’s really important that we think about that. And I think Paul experienced the most brutal of circumstances. He ended up dying for his faith. He ended up not making it out of prison in the end. And but you know what? He was focused. What was he focused on? His ministry. He’s like, pray for me that. I my words would be right, you know, and that’s not line for line scripture. But you can read in Colossians, it talks about this. He’s asking for prayer so that he can have the right words to share the gospel with the prison guards and so forth. Wow.

Living selflessly. And that is truly what we want to teach our kids, too, because our kids also will have massive impact on the atmosphere of your home. I’m sure you’ve heard the term that a mother sets the atmosphere of her home. So obviously, if you’re struggling with your attitude, guess what? Your kids are going to mimic you. But it is also true that the kids impact the atmosphere of the home. So when one is negative, it’s kind of like a rotten apple. It can affect the whole bowl of apples in a sense. And because it’s contagious, attitudes are contagious. But guess what else is contagious? A good attitude. A cheerful heart is contagious. A worshipful heart, a prayerful heart, a thankful heart, a gratitude. Heart is contagious. And so we want to challenge our children to to be walking in those things because those are what God wants us to be living in, right? Not dwelling on the things we can’t change, but changing our heart attitude because that is in our power. That is a choice that we have to make on a daily basis. And I you know, Isaac, as you’re talking about spiritual maturity, don’t we as moms want all of our kids to grow in spiritual maturity? I think of Second Corinthians ten five, which says we destroy every argument or we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Read be being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. So that’s second Corinthians chapter ten, verse five and six. This is the taking every thought captive chapter, if you will. And I just cannot ignore that scripture when we’re talking about raising children to be spiritually mature. And also this aspect of like, how are you leading them to act and how to respond to their own bad attitudes at times, right? Like part of teaching a child what is Christian living? And to have be successful in life and resilient is going, hey, acknowledge when you’ve heard something, an opinion that’s lofty or against the word of God or a lie from the devil that’s popped into your head about yourself being a failure or whatever it is that, Oh, I can’t do that. Have you ever heard your kids say, I can’t do that? You ask them to do something new, like sweep to the five year old and they’re like, Oh, I can’t when you know they can. Like, that is a no no word in the house because it’s a negative thinking about ourselves. That is not true. Really, what they are saying is I don’t want to or I’m not going be accurate. It’s okay.

To try. It’s okay to ask for help if you’re having a hard time. But you can’t just say I can’t and be a fatalist. Right? Right. Are your children fatalist or are they arguing for reasons why they can do something? Or as someone once said, are they arguing for reasons why they can’t do something? That’s where that kind of stem from is We’re like, No, we’re going to talpins. We’re going to argue for reasons why we can do things. We need to get help sometimes, but we’re going to find a way and be resourceful and resilient. Hey, we all need to toughen up. We all need to toughen up. It’s a different world. And we’re launching kids into a completely different world than today. You’re not launching them in today’s world. You’re launching them in a future world. And we can see the trends of things. We don’t fear anything, but we are to walk in wisdom. We do have a God authorized responsibility to disciple, equip and train up our children and help them with the right mindset. And the right mindset is to be satisfied in Christ no matter what our circumstances are. Over and over again, that pattern is communicated and lived out by examples like Paul in the Bible, and we need to embrace that. We need to not embrace the condition of the world, which is to get upset and bent out of shape about really small things, right, in the whole scheme of things.

And I just think that’s interesting how this passage in Second Corinthians chapter ten about taking destroying arguments like literally like envision what it would look like to destroy something if an argument was a physical thing, like a a piece of wood to destroy that piece of wood, you would burn it. You would maybe hit it with a hatchet. You’d you’d literally, like crush it, right? You destroy to destroy an argument. So if a child is if you’re asking them to do something and they say, I can’t, what are they doing? They’re arguing with you. That is an argument that popped into their head. We need to teach them to destroy those arguments, actually, because those are fatalist arguments. Those are lowering their confidence to be able to do basic things.

What an opportunity. What an opportunity. When they when they get in that position, though, to talk patiently in in long suffering with them and lovingly and set aside your agenda for a while and just talk to them. What an opportunity to seize and to equip them in a better mindset and a better understanding about what they just did to have some reflection. Help them look in the mirror for a second and then go, But here is the better way to respond to that. So we have to be in constant. For situations where we’re exposing what’s actually real about what they just did, why that’s not the best, and then showing them what’s the best and the why’s behind it, which is the Bible. They’re human beings. They need motivation to change. Oh, that’s why. Yeah, the Bible says yeah, but also this is going to help me in my future. This is going to help me be a better husband or wife someday. This is going to be a better parent to my future children. A better friend, a better friend.

A better brother.

This is going to make it’s going to improve my the reputation with other people, which in fact enables me to glorify God and to to help his name be known.

Yeah, it’s really remarkable. We want to wrap up with this last verse that’s in Second Corinthians chapter four, verse 18, which says, All this is from God who through Christ, reconciled us to himself and gave us the Ministry of Reconciliation and you know, guys, this oh, I’m sorry, I was reading a different verse.

That was a good one too.

That was a really good one. But it’s oh, it’s chapter four, verse 18. This one right here. Are you ready? As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. So remember, at the end of the day, like, what are we focused on? What are we pointing our kids towards focusing on? Are we focusing on the non eternal thing that is going to be gone today, or are we focusing on the thing that’s really important now? You know, our attitudes are actually really important because they’re a part of our heart. They’re part of the makeup of our soul. Our attitudes. Also, we didn’t even talk about like the ability of having a teachable heart, for example. Right. But if someone is prideful, if we don’t ever correct our children, we don’t ever teach them, train them, if we don’t ever, like point out when there is sin, for example, and have these calm conversations, they are potentially going to become prideful and then not have a teachable heart later. Right? So like this literally this podcast could go on and on and on for a long time talking about all the different potential attitudes that could come out of the different aspects of like if you’re too optimistic or you’re too pessimistic, you can go down those bunny trails.

But our point is, is that biblically, our responsibility in leading our home is to first look at ourselves, teach our children how to look at themselves and try to walk biblically. We need to take control over our thoughts, taking every thought captive under the obedience of Christ. But we have to teach our kids to do that as well. And talking about it, just teaching like basically having this conversation go through these scriptures with your kids, especially the older they get, like sitting down with them for an iced tea in an afternoon and going, Hey, I’ve just been thinking about attitudes just recently and I wanted to share with you some of the things that I’ve been learning in the Bible. Let’s just look at three of these verses and then bop, bop, bop. Like, how powerful can that be with your kids That’s going to stick with them where they’re going? Oh my. Is this one of those moments where I’m not thinking about what’s true, what’s lovely, what’s pure? I’m just focusing on the negative. And man, I feel icky right now. Like they need to recognize that this could be incredibly powerful for them for the rest of their life.

Thanks for joining us.

Hey, thanks for listening And being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous ministry Org for more biblically based resources. Ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible be courageous app community for believers.

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 session 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. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group and the Be Courageous app, live webcasts and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure Your Spot Now at Be Courageous ministry org that’s be courageous ministry.org.