It’s hard to be consistent as a parent, but it really is an essential part of parenting. We cover seven reasons why parents struggle with this with tips and motivation to overcome these pitfalls. If you feel like you’re doing everything you can, you will be encouraged in this episode as you will likely realize, you just need to follow through every time with your current parenting initiatives. Consistency really is a difference-maker in parenting.

The Seven Reasons Parents Lack Consistency Are:

• Time constraints; feeling too busy to follow through.
• You are too tired.
• You have a wrong view of your relationship with your kids.
• You have rose-tinted glasses.
• You cave to pressure (Three kinds of pressure).
• You want tranquility and peace.
• Inconvenience and/or embarrassment.

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Scripture in This Episode:

Deuteronomy 6:7-9 – “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”

Deuteronomy 31:6 – “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

Psalm 85:10 – “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”

Full Transcript:

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

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

Hi, I’m Angie from courageous

Mom and I’m Isaac from Resolute Man.

We’ve been married for twenty one years and have seen the fruit from raising our eight kids biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the

Bible, we can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from their faith by age 18, and it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting and the fall. Welcome back to the podcast.

Hey, everybody.

We’ve got a good topic today.

We are actually shooting this podcast in the middle of the night.

Why do you tell people that

I’m telling them that because I want them to know how

Committed we are?

Ok, we’re super committed and we’re very excited about this.

Actually, this is a really good one. Overcoming five reasons parents lack consistency.

Ok, let’s just be honest, we’ve all been there. Yeah, we’ve all we could. Well, if we’re honest, we’ve all been there, right? I mean, there’s a lot of people who are not really being honest. And so today, when we go through these different reasons, you may go, Oh yeah, that’s me.

And the reason this is so important is that consistency is such an incredibly important part of parenting. You could have the best principal to do something or.

But if I were the most intentional heart,

But if you don’t implement consistently, it just doesn’t work with kids. See, as Angie always says, parenting is a long game. Mm hmm. So it takes consistently doing the right things over and over again for a long period of time, which takes

I mean, it’s a stretch, right? Like it’s a boot camp that parents are in. Everyone says, I mean, well, not everyone. Christians who are honest about the journey of parenting will say that parenting is sanctifying. Mm hmm. It’s like a sanctification boot camp. Always every season, right? Yeah. But the reality is, is that consistency is one of those things that is a boot camp for us because it takes endurance to be consistent

And it takes to overcoming these five or seven things five to seven. We’ll see. Yeah, we’ll see. There might be seven, actually. So thank you for being part of this incredible movement we’re all a part of. It’s incredible. It feels like we’re running a race with thousands and thousands of other intentional parents, other courageous parents, and we’re so enthused. In fact, lately we’ve been just reinvesting in some things that are going to happen soon. We can’t really talk about them yet. They’re super top secret, super exciting, but have been taking some wee hours of the night to do and get things done and get things ready. So I can’t wait to unveil some of these things soon. Yep.

So it’s got some tools for you guys coming. Yeah.

So anyways, it’s time to take it up a notch. Don’t you guys feel that it’s like, OK, the enemy is trying to take over the world? It seems like right now, doesn’t it feel like that sometimes? No, God is bigger, and he’s going to use you to parent your kids to make a difference in this world, right? Absolutely. By the way, I just felt so encouraged the last two weeks. I’m like, I’m way more optimistic about the world. I feel like at least in the United States, things are going to turn around and it’s amazing. I just I just have this gut feeling right now.

Do you remember that time? We did a podcast interview with Ken Ham and we were talking to him about what’s going on in the world and parenting. He said something in that podcast that just like was super optimistic since you’re bringing it up, which is at least now when people are parenting, their kids are being parented in reality, because all of this stuff that’s been uncovered about like CRT and the different agendas that are being pushed, the indoctrination, the attack, really that is coming on after our kids, right? Like, we’re all aware of what’s going on now, but that attack was always there. It just was hidden before and now it’s just not hidden. And so that’s actually like, I’m I’m thankful for that. Are you thankful for that when you’re praying and you feel overwhelmed at times? Last week we did a podcast on overcoming discouragement. And so can I just ask you this question before we jump into the main topic? When you’re feeling overwhelmed by the realities of what’s going on in the world and you’re praying to God, do you come to him with your prayers and supplication? With Thanksgiving, like Philippians, Chapter four tells us that we need to because the reality is we all know that we need to preach to ourselves, remind one another to take our thoughts captive. But that passage of scripture has a promise that is Jesus Christ himself will guard your heart and mind. But it’s it’s the consequence. It’s what happens after you pray with supplication, with Thanksgiving.

Amen. Amen. So we’re going to dive in every time you share something on social media, write reviews. All this stuff helps the movement get out there. And when you donate, when you buy products and courses and books and things like that, it helps us tremendously

Helps us to keep doing this. This is our

Full time gig, and right now we’re putting an outflow of our investment, you know, money investing back into the. Street for the benefit of everybody, so anything helps, and we just appreciate your encouragement and prayers, most importantly. So yeah. In the financial side is a big deal too.

Ok, so let’s jump into this topic. But but as we’re doing this, you guys, you might even want to take some notes because these are going to be like, I know that for me, these are going to be things that are like on my my prayer request list, in my prayer journal, like I’m going to pull out my prayer journal, go look at our dry erase board. That because Isaac and I always use a dry erase board when we’re doing our brainstorming session for these podcasts, and I’m literally going to write these points down and I’m going to evaluate myself, probably on a weekly basis. I just decided that. So maybe you want to do that too? Well, maybe you

Want to just need a big

Well, because I’ll be honest, I struggle with being consistent sometimes.

Yeah, I do with a tired one. We’re going to get to that.

Yeah. And OK, so what time? So here is a good question to start with if you’re evaluating yourself. Let’s talk about why we talk about time first.

Ok, time

Is one of the biggest hurdles, right?

Like, it takes time to be consistent and it’s inconvenient. And often the need to follow through comes at the worst possible time.

Right? Like for moms who have many littles, it’s usually when you’re like nursing the baby that the toddler starts acting out and you need to be consistent in reminding them and getting down to their level and making eye contact, which requires putting the baby down.

So what’s your quick solution for that?

You had just have to do it. You have to do it. If you are consistent for two weeks or so, you the toddler will learn that that’s a boundary that he doesn’t get to cross or she doesn’t get to cross. And that mom. Moms, yes means yes and no means no. Just the same as it did before the baby was there. But again, like consistency is actually the thing that helps with that scenario, right?

I’ve said this so many times. Oftentimes, kids remember the two times he didn’t versus the eight times you did follow through on this particular thing to correct them or to follow through what you said.

Yes. And on the same note, we’ve also said that not only is it that they remember, but it’s like when you you could be consistent six or seven times in a row, eight times in a row. But that one time that you choose not to, it’s like you’re starting all over again.

It certainly feels like it when you were really honest with yourself because it kind of anchors, they kind of forget all the times you did fall through and they they remember they’re like a more immediate in their behavior, right?

So well, the reality is is we’re all like building reputations with one another in all relationships. Friend to friend, parent to parent, husband to wife, parent to child. We’re all building reputations with one another. And so here’s a perfect example when a kid knows, oh, mom’s more lenient, so I’m going to go ask her if I can have a snack because dad always says no or vice versa. Maybe it’s the other way around, right? Like they you build a reputation with your kids. And then a lot of times when they are being really selfish and they want their way, they’ll like, choose to go to the parent that is weaker. That is more likely to give them what they want. Yeah. And so the reality is the same when it comes to consistency, like in their heads weave. It may be a subconscious thing, but the reality is is they know which parent is easier on different things, and that’s where division can be created in the marriage, too. And so it’s an important thing to realize that we’re all building a reputation with our kids. And so is your reputation that you are consistent, that your yes is yes and your no is no. And are you building a reputation where you have a good enough relationship with your kid? You’re pouring into your relationship so that when you are consistent, like or you say something, they don’t challenge it.

Yeah, yeah. You can’t allow a divided front and you can’t allow kids to do that back each other up as parents and follow through if they asked a different parent after one parent already said no. So these things are very, very important. Let’s move to being too tired. That one is hard because you feel drained, you feel exhausted. You’re like, well, following through this one time probably won’t make a difference. You rationalize it in your head.

Oh, and how many times? So, you know, guys, I just have to say we talked about this in your Instagram Live that we just did tonight. We just brought this one up. This one, I would say, like, there are probably certain seasons like we’ve been parenting for a long time. Our oldest is twenty one. Obviously, we’re not parenting her. We’re in a friendship with her. But when I look over the last twenty one years, like there are certain specific seasons like age categories, when our kids are certain ages where I’m like, Oh, I was more tired then. And that made consistency hardest for that season. Or like would go to the time constraint one, right? Like I feel like right now. Time is my biggest obstacle because we have so much going on with nine kids, even though to live out of the home. And so it’s like different seasons. That’s why it’s important to be honest, transparent, introspective and evaluate. That’s why I want to evaluate, like on a weekly or monthly basis, these different categories and go, What is my hurdle?

So do you get tired and do you let up? Just be honest. And you know what? If you do, you have to be more principled about it. I find what motivates me is the principle of it. If I’m not principled, then I do what I feel. If I feel tired, I don’t take action. But if I see the bigger picture of why, it’s important to always follow through and if I don’t right now, it makes everything harder, everything harder. You know, all the work I’ve already done, it kind of hurts that work we’ve already done. So you have to kind of see the bigger picture of it so that you get yourself to get up and do it, even though you don’t feel like it.

Like, OK, so let’s just be real transparent. People are always asking us what our day looks like, OK, and we were just talking about time, and now we’re talking about being too tired. And so the two kind of go together for us on certain seasons, like when we have toddlers, like those two to three to four year olds, I don’t know what it is about Tobin’s, but they all wake up crazy early, like so early in the morning that we are just both like, Oh, we’re so tired. But we are also in this season where we’re up late at night with teenagers, which we love because that’s when the best conversations happen with them, because the young girls are in bed. But you know, we’re trying. We have to try different things like going on date nights or taking them to coffee, to work with you and stuff like that so that we can get more sleep. And so that would be like, my challenge to you is if you’re too tired, like evaluate why you’re too tired. Is it because you’re burning the candle at both ends like we are? Or is it that maybe you have adrenal fatigue and you need to have some supplements to help you? Do you need to take a nap when the kids are napping in the afternoon? Are you not having time with the Lord because he really gives us the energy and sustains us for this long game of parenting?

Maybe there needs to be more teamwork in the marriage too, and a good one. Really important, but we’ve got to move on to the next point, which is the wrong view of your relationship with your kids. And so that can really lead to a lack of consistency.

So what we mean by this wrong view, like evaluate what your role is as a parent, how you would define that, like what are the expectations that you have of yourself as the parent in your relationship with your child? The reality is, is that too many people have the wrong expectations of themselves. They are so concerned about being a friend, for example, that maybe they’re not being a parent and they’re not taking the authority that God is given them in the appropriate way. Not overbearing, mind you, but in a way of like owning it and going, You know what? I’m an adult and I’m going to adult, and I’m going to have emotional self-control like an adult, and I’m going to be the more mature one here because I’m the parent and they own that. And they have they own those expectations, understanding that God gave them a biblical jurisdiction to actually tell their child no once in a while. Like, there’s a whole movement of people who are completely inconsistent parents. They probably confuse their kids because they’re so wishy washy. And sometimes they say yes, and sometimes they say no. And sometimes they say maybe or maybe they just say maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Let me ask you this when you think back to high school, who’s the teacher that you really respected the most? It wasn’t the easy teacher. There wasn’t the teacher that tried to be your friend and cool and

Put it

On. It was actually the teacher that sometimes really frustrated you, but expected the most out of you and you got the most out of the class. Well, you want to be that kind of leader for your kids, not a friend, but a parent, a leader, someone that kids respect and and want to become like. That’s right.

Amen. So do you have the wrong view of your relationship and that and and can I just ask you, have you allowed society, media, maybe your upbringing, maybe the way things your, your brother or your sister parent, or the way that your friend’s parent to influence your expectations of yourself and to influence the jurisdiction? Like your view of the jurisdiction that God has given you. Or have you allowed Jesus? By the transforming of your mind, by the reading of the word, to renew your expectations of yourself. And when I say expectations, I think sometimes people go like, Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself. Well, you know, that’s that’s right. We need to have grace with ourselves regarding time being tired. But when it comes to like our view of our relationship with our kids, that is something where there is right and there is wrong and we need to have a biblical worldview. So to do that, we wanted to share with you guys from Deuteronomy six and these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart. Verse seven You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk, by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as front. Let’s between your eyes, you shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates. And you guys, this is Deuteronomy Chapter six versus seven through nine. This is the first time I read this scripture. While I was a parent, it like hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m a teacher,

Always be teaching. There’s always ways to be teaching your kids, and

I’m a teacher and I get to teach all day long because I’m modeling for my kids, even if I’m not speaking, you know. There are so many amazing quotes out there, you know, that talk about, I hope that my life preaches a stronger gospel than my words do things like that, you know, and that is a huge thing that we need to evaluate. Like what is our view of our relationship with our kids?

Ok, so the next one and this one is super important and this one, usually people don’t admit to it’s if you have rose tinted glasses. So these glasses, when you have them on, they just make your kids look perfect, perfect all the time. And so parents need to take those off and look accurately at what’s happening

In their children’s hearts. Yeah. And I think that there’s an element here, too, where when we take the rose tinted glasses off. It will. You can test if you have them on or not based upon if if you have friends or family members who come to you to point out like character flaws in your kids, if you get defensive and you don’t want to hear it, you might have rose tinted glasses on if or you or you might not have rose tinted glasses on, but you just don’t have a teachable heart, and you’re certainly with pride, too. And so the reality is, as we can’t correct our kids, if we’re struggling with that, it’s that whole Matthew six thing, right? We’ve got to take the plank out of our own eye before we can take the spec out of our brothers eye or our son’s eye. Right? And so I just for me, I this is something that I personally like I’m super passionate about because I think that it’s easy for parents, especially if they’re not with their kids all day long. Right to like, we want to think the best of our kids, and that’s great. But you guys, like we have to be honest about the character issues or the unteachable heart or the competitive nature that’s potentially ruining friendships or the the sassiness or the disrespectful attitude or whatever it is like. We have to be honest about that, and it’s our job to correct it in our kids, to go to our kids in love and say, I love you enough, I got to tell you the truth.

And sometimes it’s just that we have this thought in our heads that this is what kids do or let kids be kids, or these kinds of things which create a weird kind of rose tinted glasses of just acceptance of sin, which shouldn’t be there. And it it it makes it to where you don’t follow through. You don’t you you don’t have high enough expectations for for for where you can help your kids grow to be not perfection, but to to be pursuing God and to to recognizing their sin and apologizing for it quickly. And, you know,

In obeying the first time, having the

Fruits of the

Spirit. Like, it’s interesting because a lot of parents, I think, don’t recognize that the thing that’s holding them back is that they think kids aren’t capable. Hmm. And so their kids aren’t capable, right? Like they? And the reality is, is like, can I just ask a really solid Christian question? Do you believe in that resurrection power of Jesus Christ? Because if we really believe in all of the power that is in the spirit of God? Then we then that means that there is literally no cap on what our kids can learn. There is no cap on the capacity or the spiritual maturity. They don’t have to be a certain age to hit a certain milestone in spiritual maturity. That is the role of the Holy Spirit in their life. And you’re not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. But do you believe that Jesus can literally transform your kid’s life and that they can have a personal relationship that pushes them? That spirit pushes them, motivates them, convicts them? Like, if you are a Christian and you experience the Holy Spirit conviction that leads you to a place of like, Hey, I need to apologize for X, Y and Z, like do you believe that the Holy Spirit can do that in your kid’s heart? Because if you don’t, then you’re not believing in the resurrection power of Jesus. And if you if you don’t see that in your kids lives one, I would say, do you believe that what you’re doing as a mom or a dad is is part of the great commission? Are you purposefully disciplining your kids? Because if you’re purposefully disciplining your kids, you’re going to start seeing these awesome fruits start to grow and they may be a tiny little berry, but as they grow older, it’s going to become this big, luscious.

And it’s a bigger picture. It’s a more dynamic mission than just parenting or just trying to get through the day or just trying to get them to behave. You’re not trying to get your kids to behave today. No, you’re trying to help them chase after God

And live the way his word not only commands but guides, right? Like there’s commandments in the Bible. And then there’s like wisdom literature and there’s like, it’s a guidebook for life, right? And so when we’re trying to obey that as parents and we’re leading our kids to walk in it and to learn it, then they start to see that this is really a guide, a lamp onto their feet, if you will.

Next point next reason that you need to overcome the parents aren’t consistent is that they cave to pressure. And there’s several different kinds of pressure. They cave to pressure from their kids. They cave to pressure from society. They cave to pressure from peers.

Right. So we call it parental peer pressure. That last one, which I think is probably the most powerful one, actually, because people care what other people think and they don’t want to be the uncool parent in the group, right? Like, let’s say you have a 12 year old son that plays soccer or basketball, and there’s a whole bunch of other parents there, and they’re all letting their kids do something. I don’t know what it is a sleepover or ride a bus together, and you just have this like bad gut feeling about it. Do you cave to the peer pressure of just doing what everyone else does to go along to get along? Or do you stand to your convictions? Go, you know what? No, we don’t do that because your dad and I have prayed about it and we’re in alignment and we’ve always said no, and we’re not changing our mind like. Are you a consistent person, so let me just share a little story with that when it comes to certain convictions that your family has, if you are consistent, which is exactly what we’re talking about, if you are consistent and years and years and years past and you’re consistent on that one conviction, just pick one. When you have kids, you’re younger. Kids watch you being consistent with the older ones. They won’t even bug you about that thing because they know my family doesn’t do that.

That’s not a thing.

That’s not a thing that happens. Do so I’m not even going to bring it up because I already know their answer. And there’s no conflict because it’s just that’s what we don’t. We don’t do that and we do do that. And I have to tell you, that’s a beautiful thing. That’s a that’s a family culture.

We need to reject passivity. We need you to stand for truth. We need to lead unapologetically. And you cannot let what other people think deter you from what’s right and what’s best to do in the moment, because it’s in the moment that you choose to do the right thing that makes all the difference. And it’s in the moment when you choose to do the lesser thing that you mess up all the effort you’ve already put in. So don’t cave to pressure, don’t cave to pressure from your kids. It helps. It makes them too manipulative about what they want. So here we go in Deuteronomy thirty one six, be strong and have good courage. Do not fear nor be afraid of them. For the Lord, your god, he is the one who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. So be courageous.

This is one of our courageous parenting verses, but some this is the thing is that when we’re talking about parental peer pressure or pressure from your kids, it takes courage sometimes to be consistent to say no when you need to say no or to say yes, when you need to say yes, right? So the next one we’re going to talk about, we only have a couple left. Actually, one of the biggest reasons that people struggle with consistency and parenting is that they want tranquility and peace, and they think that if they confront a sin, for example, that it’s going to cause friction, it’s going to cause emotional outbursts, potentially, or they just don’t want to deal with it. They’re like, Oh, man, that’s going to be a long conversation or I’m just so tired of dealing with this. So I don’t want to deal with it again. I just want it to be peaceful in my home. But can I just tell you something? You’re actually living a lie if you’re choosing not to be consistent in the name of? I don’t want confrontation in my home because confrontation is the opposite of tranquility and peace, because the reality is is what you’re doing is creating a bigger problem later because you’re not dealing with the character quality or whatever the sin was, and it’s just going to fester and grow and get bigger and harder.

And what you do is you overlook a little bit bigger things, a little bit bigger things over time because you want peace and you’ve got used to overlooking little things. Now you’re overlooking medium sized things, and pretty soon you’re scared to talk to them about the big things in the teenage years, and you kind of blew it. So really important. Psalm, 85 10, says mercy and truth have met together. Here’s the key. Righteousness and peace have kissed, so you can’t have peace without righteousness. Mm hmm.

And I think that it’s an important thing that we realize that. Righteousness is righteous, living right, living. And we, as Christians, can’t have the peace without that righteous living and righteous living cannot exist unless we’re living in truth.

So you might have a fake peace home because you believe it’s peaceful because it’s quieter. But it’s really fake peace, because, right, it’s not real peace in your home, real peace is it would be a home that’s striving towards righteousness, that’s that’s correcting the kid so they they can be right with God or right

With you, right? And there’s like continued interactions. There’s forgiveness. There’s, you know, dealing with it, being honest about being offended and then more forgiveness and love. And like that is actually where peace, where peace and righteousness kiss actually right. But if there’s just, oh, I’m not going to bring it up because I don’t want to offend them. And even though I’m hurt here and oh, they oh, they broke trust again. And so now I’m going to step a little further away and oh, they sinned against me again. And because sin separates people just like it separates us from God, right? Like over time, when trust has been broken, for example, you start, your relationship starts spreading further and further, and that could happen between your kids and each other or you and your kids,

By the way. Go listen to blessed be the peacemakers. I interviewed Dr. Steve Crane, and he made us aware of this amazing verse right here in Psalm 85. 10. Make sure you write that down. Make sure you look at it. She’s studied. I think about it. Listen to that podcast because it’s so, so powerful. Ok, we have a final one, don’t we?

So, yeah, sometimes people are inconsistent in their parenting because it’s inconvenient or embarrassing. Yep. So I don’t know if you’ve ever been the parent that was like at the grocery store and your kid starts having a meltdown and you’re not consistent in how you deal with it. Meaning you don’t deal with it the way you would deal with it if you were at home. You don’t take the time to get down to their level. Help them calm down. Talk to them. All the things right? Potentially put them in timeout or whatever because you’re in the middle of the grocery store and you’re thinking about what other people are thinking about you. And so you don’t handle it the same way you’re inconsistent. Has that ever happened? If that has happened, you have just fallen into the category of this is inconvenient or this is embarrassing, and so you literally change how your parenting based upon your environment and the fact that you’re worried more about what perfect strangers think about you and your parenting rather than doing what you know is right and true and best for your child.

Or stopping the playdate, which Angie’s referenced before because the kids aren’t behaving. You were looking forward to that playdate because maybe your friends are there and so forth.

Yeah, and it feels like a punishment for you as a mom.

Yeah, go home because you’re principled about it. You’re like, What is it teaching my kids if I follow through on what they want, even though it’s also what I want and I’m looking forward to? So I punish myself because the long term is they need to learn a lesson. So these things are just hard. Parenting is a refining thing that takes courageous parenting to be consistent, to do it, and it takes being resolute, which resolute means unwavering and determined in means being principled about things. Yeah, so it’s super important. So we appreciate you being part of this ministry. We appreciate you listening. If you love this, would you share it and go check things out at courageous parenting Gqom courageous mom dot com? And we hope you were blessed by this episode.

Thanks so much for listening today. See you next time! Hey, thanks for listening to this episode! For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom for free online workshops, blog posts and best selling courses. Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program. Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

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

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