Do you have a vision of teamwork within your family? It definitely goes against the grain which is why vision is so important. You’ve got to really desire it to stay the course instilling it in your family and ideally, this would start when they are very young. However, as we always say, it’s never too late to influence your kids and family dynamics.

In part one of this two-part series, we share foundational truths to creating a family culture of teamwork and practical insights into what to do with your young children. Get ready to be positively challenged as it takes doing things beyond your strength at times to get you into a mode of realizing you can’t do it all and need the family working together to do it. Sometimes it takes going outside your comfort zone to have to rely on God’s strength and not your own.

Main Points In This Episode:

1. Have you thought clearly about what you are preparing your kids for?
2. Instill in them to be producers versus just consumers
3. Don’t ask too little of your kids
4. They must feel like their life matters from a practical standpoint, not just a knowledge standpoint. When they contribute in practical ways they know they are needed!
5. Examples of projects that require family teamwork
   – Littles
   – Keeping their room clean
   – Helping with laundry
   – Pet care

In Part 2 we will cover

1. More examples about littles
2. Examples about Middles
3.  Examples about teenagers
4. Overall tips that make the difference.

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Deuteronomy 6:5-9 – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

1 Corinthians 12:14-20 – “For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”

1 Peter 4:10-11 – “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

Galatians 5:13-6:30 – “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show with 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 21 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. Hey, everyone, welcome to Courageous Parenting.

Hi, guys.

We are so glad you’re part of the podcast community. Some of you are part of the parenting mentor program community. Some are part of the other communities that we’re doing with different courses and so forth. So we’re so happy you’re here. The ministry is encouraging to us. I hope it’s encouraging to you. It encourages our marriage and encourages us to spend some time and really think about the experiences, the things we’ve learned and the things we’re learning. Right?

That’s right. Because we’re always learning. It’s not like you ever arrive, as you guys know. Absolutely spending. Over the years, I’ve had a lot of moms reach out and say, oh, have you ever struggle with this? And like, are you kidding me? Twenty one years in, I’m still struggling with this. Whether it’s an ongoing project of sanctification, I think that I get to a place and I’m like, oh, wow, look at the growth. This is awesome. And then God humbles me again.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And today we’re talking about pursue projects that require family teamwork. And before you tune out, if you have littles, it is for you to.

Yeah. You guys, just to give you a little glimpse. So we’re going to give you some really practical examples of ways that you can do pursue projects that require family teamwork even when you have little. And here’s a good example. We planted a acre and a half vineyard with five kids five weeks after our fifth was born. I have pictures. Yeah, me also goes with Luke in the infant carrier. And at the time that meant that Kelsey was seven. Yeah. So she I mean she wasn’t even seven yet.

So Andrew had his own rose called Drew’s row. How old was Drew.

He was just eighteen months old, barely

Because he really liked seeing the fruit of his labor

And he was like too. Yeah.

Yeah. So he would do his own watering on that road. We didn’t water very much was a few times in the really hot summer because actually you don’t want to water it when you’re usually.

Yes, but a lot of littles still did a lot of different things with them over the years. So we’ll get into some of those stories a little later in the podcast.

But this isn’t about you creating a vineyard. Don’t worry. All right, because that’s very hard. It’s very hard. I wouldn’t prescribe that to anybody unless it’s something you’re supposed to do, which evidently we were. Yeah. So rare. Couple little things in the intro and we’ll get into it. But first of all, we’re in the studio. So if you hear a little echo, it’s because we don’t have a rug down yet. We don’t have enough things in here probably to counteract that. So we’ll be experimenting with that. Plus, our expert, Austin, is out of town at the moment. So so we just actually have an iPhone up for the video. But you know what? I’m sure they’ll help us make it all look better out here. Right now. We have it set it up. But Rumball is where you’ll find the video version if you want to see what we’re doing in the studio and those kinds of things. I know a lot of people listen online to the audio only, but that’s fun. Also, if you saw our reel on Instagram, we just want to give a shout out to Megan Tulpan, who has officially joined the team as our social media, something we don’t know what the title is yet, but she’s she’s going to she’s really impressed us. And so she’s going to be on the payroll and starting to help with more social media things, which is really, really exciting.

Some kids just have a gift for that sort of thing. They just have a knack for it. It comes so easily to them and they enjoy it. Yeah. And we’ve seen Megan really get good at doing some of these things that we have absolutely no idea. How do I like a

Reel I must be getting early Instagram created reels? What is a reel. Oh, you can see our first real. Yeah. Which of many to come I’m sure. I can’t believe I was dancing.

I can’t believe you were dancing too.

Do I had a little. I know it’s cumbersome when you see it on my part.

She’s always well it seems good for me too. I mean I’m in my third trimester so moving around is not as I’m not as agile as I am.

A little scared. If you saw the real on Instagram, then how we did that is I had many practices beforehand and then Megan actually did it behind the camera so I could watch

So we could copy her. It was fun.

Yeah, it was good. Now, the last series, we kind of referenced this and I put a social post out and people started asking, well, what are examples of things you can do? How do you do difficult things or projects or, you know, break out of your comfort zone as parents and with your family. So it actually requires everybody to be involved.

Yeah. So if you guys have been following along at all, we’ve been sharing a lot of our day to day life and our Instagram stories since we moved. To Idaho, we’ve been in one renovation project after another, truly. Yeah, and making massive progress. The biggest one was the Courageous Parenting Headquarters studio and it’s almost done. We’ll have some things outside that we need to do, but it’s usable. And it’s so exciting to have this space. But you if you’re watching, you saw that we had everybody in the family, even Solomon was helping with certain aspects of it. Right. So and we had some future neighbors that wanted to get in on it because we were having so much fun. Yeah. And so it was truly an all team effort and a lot of regards.

Amazing. Amazing.

Anyway, so ensuring that we start getting a lot of questions from people going, hey, how did you get your kids? They seem to have a good attitude while they’re working. That’s something that I struggle with, with just even doing chores, let alone like, hey, we have this big project that’s going to take us a month or two. Yeah. And how do you do that? And so we thought that doing an entire podcast was appropriate because it’s kind of a bigger question than just something we can type back to somebody.

Yeah, absolutely. And before we dive in, I just want to thank everybody for being part of the one million Legacy’s movement. Every time you share, we know you’re part of that movement. Give us a written review anywhere, especially iTunes, because that’s where 84 percent of people listen, actually. So it’s a big deal for the algorithms to get more exposure to the show. We are now the building projects are getting evened out at least less time on time or more back into, OK, what does God want for the ministry this year? And we overcame some things. Many of you helped us overcome, some things that now we can get some new projects dealing with the ministry,

Which is super, super exciting. I do want to just say, since you mentioned iTunes, I was on there just the other day, just kind of glancing at some of your reviews, because I was like wanting to get a taste for what podcasts meant the most to you, because a lot of times people will put, like, this is my favorite podcast or whatever. Right. And I was really encouraged to see that we have one point seven thousand comments or reviews on the iTunes

Review is not written. OK, but but yeah, ratings ratings.

And so and I was just like, wow, wouldn’t it be fun if in the next few months, over the summer, we got over 2000 people and that would be a kind of a cool goal. But also, if you haven’t left a review and you’re kind of like, well, I just don’t want to put something that everybody else has, but why don’t you just share what your favorite podcast was? We would really love to hear that, because that helps us to know what kind of topics to do in the future.

That’s a great idea. So let’s dive in. I think you have a scripture for us. Kick it off.

Yeah, actually, I’ll let you start. It’s Deuteronomy, Chapter

Six five through nine. OK, so we have you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and she’ll talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk, by the way, when you lie down and when you rise, you shall bind them as the sign on your hand and they shall be as Frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. So when should we be teaching in equipping our kids spiritually? Every moment we possibly can. Literally every all the time. Yeah, it’s not an event. It’s not like I know we talk about meeting sometimes in Bible time in these different things and those are great. And you should do those. But it is always it’s like if I’m doing something, might as well have a kid watching me and learning what I’m doing

And talking to them about the spiritual reasons why behind it so that they start thinking bigger than just the practical. Yeah, because we live in a practical, physical world. But it’s there’s also a lot of spiritual things that are going on even regarding the character development of our children. Right. Like if you’re talking about the character development of your kids, understanding that, like when you are spending time with them and you’re doing something, whether it’s something hard or something that you do all the time, that’s kind of like maybe even mundane or monotonous to Dad because he’s done it all the time. Right. The reality is, is if you take the time to fully explain it to your child, that’s with you. That’s maybe helping you set up. I don’t know. For us, it would be setting up. Cameras are setting up the studio or doing something right. You help them to see the bigger vision behind why you do this when you’re not with them so that they’re more supportive also and understanding, oh, this is providing for our family and this is doing ministry. This is impacting people. But you’re getting them to think, what can I do that provides for my family, impacts people, you know what I’m saying? So leading that by example, but always bringing it back to how am I glorifying God in this, which is really what Deuteronomy is saying. Like, we have many opportunities to teach our kids. The Lord’s Commandments to remind our children of the things that he’s done over the years, but the reality is, is when we’re living life side by side with our kids and we’re communicating with them and we’re pointing things out to them. Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that neat? I did this. You remember when God provided this way. Do you remember how that’s those are the things that they’re going to remember and that’s actually what they need to be doing with their kids. And that’s what Deuteronomy six is saying, that your children, you would teach it to your children and they’d teach it to their children.

Amen. So a big problem. Here’s our first point is don’t ask too little of your kids. OK, so many times there’s this mentality of let kids be kids. And even if you don’t say that sentence, it can come into your mind and go, am I asking too much of my kids? Now, it’s possible that you are. But I think in most cases we ask too little of our kids. In fact, I think depression’s on the rise because there’s way too much digital and not too much not as much responsibility. So we need more responsibility and less digital. We need to develop this idea of producing versus consuming. Now, there’s good consumption, don’t get me wrong, reading books, things like that. But those are education. What happens? The desire to remember kids when they’re young, they’re the Bible calls them foolish in many cases, and they’re growing out of that foolishness. But isn’t it true we’re foolish still sometimes like we’re all on a journey and you’re guiding your kids to become less foolish, more mature and more understanding of the word. But what happens is you need to pull them out of their short term desire for a long term gain and their short term desires. Immediate gratification,

Right. Doing a video game or whatever, whatever they can do a really quick.

But the long term gain as you pull them out of that and you teach them how to contribute, see, even if they don’t recognize themselves, you do things that they don’t recognize, which is helping them be a contribution, a productive contribution to the family and to others and to projects and just to start something that grows and happens. I remember when I was younger, just the idea of growing an avocado plant, that was something that really impacted me just into my mind, that I felt like I planted something, I watered it and I watched it grow. And then it was a big, huge plant in my room forever. And I really loved that plant. Why not? Didn’t know this because I’m a plant person. I love it or not because I like the look of avocado plants. They’re just kind of OK,

You got to help grow it.

I got to help grow it. And so when they’re able to contribute, they have greater appreciation, they feel valuable, they feel important. And doesn’t everybody wonder if they’re valuable at some point?

I mean, a lot of it. You mentioned depression among kids today. And the reality is, is that it’s I’m just going to say what we’ve all experienced in the last year has really put a big spotlight on what we were actually as parents, allowing our children to spend the majority of their time doing and being filled with. OK, and what I mean by that is let’s just use school. For example, if your kids were 40 hours at a school or 30 hours a week at a school and then all of a sudden they’re at home, it shed a big spotlight on that. Right. Like, oh, wow, I had no idea you were struggling with this subject or that subject. And now, you know, and you can get a tutor and you can help them.

And now some people are like, wow, they weren’t really being educated very well. Fix that.

Right. And then there’s the topic of friendships and going, oh, I thought we were much more like minded than this. And why are they reacting that way and going, I don’t know if that’s really the influence I want on my kids. There have been a lot of different kinds of spotlights that have been shed on our children’s lives. And one of those things I do believe, is how much we allowed our kids to just do things that were actually unproductive for character development.

Amen.

And what I mean by that is like, OK, evaluate how much time do you allow your kids watching the TV or playing video games or how much time did they spend their friend’s homes? Right. And then all of a sudden they couldn’t spend time with their friends and then they’re depressed. So was their worth found in their friendship? Was their worth decent? I’m sane. Like I think that we we as parents always need to be evaluated and know this is something that Isaac and I have done on a regular basis because we’re not anti-movies. And so but there are times where we’re like, OK, no, we’re taking this away for a while because there’s attitudes coming out or an entitlement attitude towards being able to even watch something once a day or, you know, and you have to just evaluate you guys. That’s the whole point of what we’re talking about, like. Doing things, setting up systems for accountability, even in your parenting. So for us, we don’t have a TV in our main room and we haven’t for many years. We have one on a stand that can be rolled into a closet, can be rolled into our room, is like a time out. It can be used as something that it’s a tool. But the reality is that that that’s just something we personally did because we didn’t want the center.

We want the control over where that thing is at all times

And when it’s on. And so anyway, that’s just one example. My point is even we evaluate and so we’re asking you guys to do something that might seem kind of hard, which is to evaluate like what have you been allowing your kids to spend their time doing and is it productive and creating purpose and like a passion for living?

Yeah, your kids were born. Every human being was born with purpose, born for a reason by God to do things in this world that glorify him, but also bring the individual joy. And what brings you joy might be different than the kind of activities that bring your kids joy. And they need to discover things that you take responsibilities when they’re young, their life matters, you know that. But sometimes they don’t know that, because when they’re in your protection, in your home, when they’re young, they don’t have the freedom just to do and try things as they want. You’re kind of there to guide them. But if you’re not even guiding them or creating opportunities or letting them try things, then they could become depressed. They need to contribute, in other words. And there’s ways we’ll give examples of this soon. And the question is, what are you preparing your kids for? I think that, you know, we need to sometimes sit back and go, what am I preparing my kids for? OK, well, what’s the world like today that they’re going to that we’re experiencing? And then if they’re launching in 10 years from now, what is the world going to be like in 10 years from now? That’s why we created the parent mentor program, actually, because we equipping confident Christian kids for an uncertain world that they’re going to launch into, totally relevant to now and the future from a biblical mindset, because what normal Christian parenting largely hasn’t been working right. So it takes something different. What are you preparing your kids for? You’re preparing them to be a light in a challenging world that we’re not to fear because God says not to fear anything. But how do we equip our kids? It’s not the normal rigamarole of parenting.

No, it isn’t. And it’s going to look different than the worldly, secular, non biblical ungodly version of parenting, actually. And so sometimes you can feel like you’re fish swimming upstream and you should feel that way if you are a believer. Actually, if you’re not and you feel like you’re just coasting and things are easy, then I really question if you’re doing things in a biblical way. You know, there’s another aspect to this and what are we preparing them for in the context of family? We’ve talked about this. We go in depth on this in the parenting mentor program, which, by the way, we have another one starting soon. If you’re interested in that, just go to CourageousParenting.com. But you guys, the family we have believed from reading scripture, just as marriage is an image of Jesus Christ as the groom relationship to the bride of Christ. Right. The body of Christ, bride of Christ. The family unit is a reflection of the body of Christ. Not only is it a reflection, an image bearing in that way, it is also a place where your children learn by way of living. OK, so I could use the word practice. OK, a lot of people have used the term that your child’s play is practiced for life.

I don’t know if you’ve heard that before. I know the first time I heard that, I think my oldest was five and it just made me go, OK, so part of their play needs to be responsibility type stuff, like doing dishes and laundry, because that’s their practice for life, developing work ethic, knowing how to do certain things that are necessary for clean living. Right? Yeah, domestic things like that. And I’m talking about both men and women here, obviously. And so I just want to reiterate that, OK, and so this is a reality, though, is that in our family, our kids learn how to be a part of the body of Christ. They learn how to participate and be a member of something on a small scale within the family. And that should prepare them for being an active member, not a spectator in the body of Christ, which is the family of God using their gifts, serving one another starts first by practicing that, growing up and developing that habit. It’s like a muscle unable to see and need, carry a burden, serve one another.

And that probably brings up a whole nother question we’re not going to go into. But the way traditional churches, how do your kids actually be involved? And that is a bit of a breakdown of are they a

Spectator

Or how things have a lot of people are spectators at church and that’s a problem.

So I just wanted to read a little part of First Corinthians, Chapter twelve. I encourage you to read the entire chapter is on spiritual gifts. That’s kind of a heading that a lot of different Bible translations have given it. I must start in verse fourteen and just read through verse twenty real quick. It says, For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. Isn’t that true of a family also? I mean, it takes more than one person to be a family. Yeah, OK. If the foot should say because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I’m not and I, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body weren’t I, where would be the sense of hearing if the whole body were an ear? Where would be the sense of smell? But as it is got a range, the members in the body, each one of them as he chose, guess what? He arranged the members in your family to be in the birth order there in the gender there. And he chose that for a reason, just like he did the body of Christ. And if all were. A single member, where would the body be as it is, there are many parts yet one body and it just continues on talking about the eye, giving honor, being a part of the body of Christ and individually members of it, this is a beautiful if you were to study this from the perspective of how does this change how I view my family functioning?

Real quickly, I just want to say, a lot of times this is only focused on in the context of church, but it does involve children. It absolutely should be thought of in the context of family.

It should because there is an image bearing. And if we want how many kids percentage wise are falling away from the Lord by age 18? We’ve talked about this. This is one of the passions behind why we’re even doing courageous parenting podcast and parenting program. This is why we are doing what we’re doing, not because we have it all together. It’s because we desire that for our family. And we know many of you do as well, and we all need encouragement in it. The reality is the family unit is important. Right now. The government is largely trying to take away parent parental involvement and authority, even just being able to have medical records available.

Right. And just I mean, not to get political or anything, but in a society, if there’s a breakdown of the family unit. Yes. Not blaming the government here. If there’s a breakdown in the family unit, then naturally, whatever governing authorities see that breakdown problems happen in society with crime and all kinds of things. So then there’s a belief by some that then you need bigger government, more rules, more laws. And so we shouldn’t expect smaller government when there’s a disintegration of the family and a disintegration of morality constantly happening. I am a believer in small government because I’m a believer in the family unit. And and that’s the big mission for us, which is, wow, can we just play a little bit of a role in restoring the family in the world? Because it’s not just America. People are listening all over the place.

Yeah. And it’s true that, you know, when we are first having our kids, we there are many things that we desired for our children as they grew up. Right. I think I mean, obviously, you think about their salvation. You want them to know the Lord. You want them to not just know the Lord or believe in the Lord, but you want them to, like, love God more than anything else, even more than you, so that they want to serve God. So they want to raise their kids. Hey, my God. Right. So of course, there’s those things. But there’s also this element of like I want my kids to be like if they’re loving God, then there’s going to be these positive consequences that come after. Right. That are like, oh, they’re potentially going to be more compassionate, more gentle, more self-control, and think of the fruits of the spirit, which we’ll cover in a second. But the reality is that the family unit is where those things are taught and in and they’re encouraged and they’re affirmed. And if you’re not spending time with your kids to see them actually living out, I don’t know, generosity. Yeah. Then you’re not going to be there to call it out in them. And other people are probably not going to use that biblical vocabulary and call that out and then and nurture that in them.

And that’s God, what God desires of your kids. That is something that he wants in his body. So think about them becoming wanting your kids to become a good citizen, for example. How does that even start? It starts in the family growing up, understanding that you have something to contribute, you have a part to play. People are relying on you. If you don’t do your part, then things don’t happen the right way. Right? Like if someone doesn’t take out the garbage. Yeah. Or someone doesn’t pick up our garbage or garbage would overflow. Yeah, and so it’s is important that kids see that like even in jest what First Corinthians was talking about. It’s so important that people don’t view one part or one position or, oh, you’re the oldest. You have it better. You have more privileges than me. Yeah. And they don’t go. I’m not I’m not her. I’m not gifted the way she is or I’m not gifted the way he is. And then they feel bad about themselves. That’s what First Corinthians is talking about. God dispersed dispersive guess among the body for the whole right. Even the guard the guy who picks up the garbage is an important person.

Everybody, I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one. She 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 CourageousParenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, at CourageousParenting.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 for us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it and you can find out more at CourageousParenting.com.

Dotcom, Steve and 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 a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids basically like our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of 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 the lights to be leaders for the next generation. Well, hey, we’re going to dive in in this part, one of a two part series here into the examples of projects doing difficult things together and so forth. And we’re going to start with the Littles and then we’re going to move into the middles and then we’re moving to the teenagers. You’d probably say those age ranges differently. How would

You say? I don’t know. No, I like that. I like how you put it. Okay.

Okay. So in terms of things you can do, because that was the question, what, how do we do this at different ages. And so we’ll we’ll cover some of the littles and we’ll continue with Littles and then the rest in the next episode. But but disclaimer first of all, just because we share stories about ages of our kids doing things is not prescriptive of you doing things with your kids at the same ages or even doing the same things. See, every family’s different, every kid is different. Age is kind of meaningless in a lot of ways. It’s about maturity. Isn’t it true that some people, some kids are more mature at age six than some other kids at age six? Yeah, and it’s based on their personality is based on God’s wiring. It’s based on how they’ve been raised in their experiences and what they’ve been exposed to and so

Forth, and how much responsibility you’ve given them and other things to prepare them to be ready for something that’s a little bit bigger.

Right. And so just because Austin was on a tractor, Kubota Tractor, New Kubota tractor at the time, mowing our three acres and mowing in between the vines in the vineyard, if you hit one, it’s dead forever.

These guys can take down an entire row.

So any never did. And we trusted him. Well, there’s a reason Austin could do that at a very young at a very young age, but maybe not for surely not all people can do that. Yeah. And so I just and it’s not a competition or a comparison or anything or anybody feeling bad. It’s everybody’s in different places. In fact, within our own family, people are in different places. Not everybody at age eight for sure would be on a tractor in our own family. Yeah. So it’s just differences. So I just want that disclaimer out there that you have to discern yourself when kids are doing things. However, within that disclaimer, I want to challenge you. Usually parents are behind in their thinking of what my kids can handle. So just challenge yourself with that. Am I codling, my kids. Am I selfish and not wanting to spend extra time it takes to teach them?

I would say that that’s like the biggest thing for moms who have multiple littles. Yeah, I know that for me, I was faced with that. So I’ll just say it is this selfishness. If I do, I can get it done faster and then it won’t be as messy and then I’ll have more time, you know, and that is actually that, you know, thinking through things as a parent and being really purposeful is a good thing. But the reality is, is sometimes you have to set aside what seems logical for what’s better in the long run. OK, so, you know, one really good example with Littles is kitchen cooking and baking in the kitchen. But but you have a verse that you’re unsure about.

I love this verse. Did you know the word Oracles is in the Bible? Think about the context of it. Really get it. OK, I’m going to teach you right now whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God, there it is, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to him belong the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Well, it’s interesting that we would do this in parenting. Right. But do your kids serve by the strength that God supplies or do they serve by their own strength? Do you serve and do things for other people and do things for your family only in your own strength, or are you dependent on God? That is probably the biggest thing here. One of the biggest takeaways, I would say this two part series is that. We have to endeavour and things beyond our own strength, otherwise our kids won’t witness it. They won’t be a part of it. We will not rely on our kids help to the level that they need to grow into to feel responsible and strong, be equipped for this next world they’re going to launch into, unless we’re stepping beyond our comfort to go into a place of having to rely on God. So what is it that you have done in the last couple of years that has caused your family to step beyond their comfort and everybody to have to rely on God? I think that’s a good question to ask. And that’s what we’re talking about.

Yeah. And I think that a lot of it is being willing to do things that I’ll just say there. We’ve been doing a lot of things recently that were things that years ago we had decided, oh, no, I’ll just pay somebody to do that for me. And sometimes I think that we overlook the opportunities that we have for growth, not just with our kids, but to model for our kids that even in our 40s we can still learn something new. OK, I just think about the studio and all the skills that you learned alongside Drew and Luke and Ethan. Yeah, I don’t

Know if you guys me I don’t know if you guys do this, but I felt so inept as a man and a lot of ways when I was a new father, new husband, even in the middle of our experience, there’s still parts of my life where I felt very inept, very incapable, like a lot of a lot of men know how to do certain things. I just never felt like I knew how to do. But then I just go, you know what? I think a lot of men feel that way and we all know different things. And there’s this beautiful thing that we can do these days on the Internet, which is look things up and and learn and learn things and just learn them with my kids. So I’m just really candid with my kids. I just go, I don’t know what I’m doing. Let’s just learn together and we’ll all learn a little bit. And then I’ll teach you and you’ll learn a little bit and you’ll teach me. We’re learning together. Drew teaches me some things. Yeah. He is so patient to do it perfectly. Right this floor right here, for example, when we were put this floor in, Bruce helped us, a good friend of ours. And then he was gone the next day and we did the second half of it. And then there was this there was this cut. And I’m like, oh, man, this can be a lot of work if I make this little extra cut. Drew, what what should I do? And he goes. I think you should spend the extra time and make the extra cut. That’s what I would do. I’m like, oh yeah, I need to do that the right way. Yeah, it’s so cool. Like, it

Just takes humility. That’s the thing. Parenting takes humility. And I know that that’s something that I’ve been challenged in a lot. I’m always challenged in you never grow from meeting. You never go from needing to grow in humility. Yeah. And I think that that’s something that for you over the years I’ve seen you grow a tremendous amount in that, because even though you knew there was a humility when we first got married and you were like, yeah, I don’t really know what I’m doing regarding being a Christian husband. No, I haven’t seen a Christian husband and a Christian dad. Right. And how does that look different from my experience and has it look different from what I see in the world and you have this humility and this desire to learn these things. But then there was this like period of time, I feel like, where I don’t know if it was because you are becoming really super successful in the business world or what it was. But there was this period of time where he was like, well, my time is worth more money than me spending the time to do this one project. I remember he’s even saying right. And so we would hire people to help us with our previous remodel project on our Damascus house. Right. And of course, our kids were a lot younger and it would have been harder to bring. Like Drew, he was like,

That’s when it just means a different season.

Yeah, it was a different season. But like I look at Solomon and he was like four and five when he was working on the studio with you, which is the same age Austin was when we moved to the Damascus house. And look at how different of a dad, a teen, and encouraging him to come, come be a man. Let’s work on this together.

Oh, yeah. This one part of the floor over here I’m looking at I’m like we were there’s this little sliver that goes around where the tile is now. And we were going to cut a separate piece just so that sliver would be there. And then drew in our like, no, let’s really let’s let’s do this really difficult to cut. And we’ll always look at that. Remember that we chose the harder path.

It is a sliver. He’ll have to show you guys pictures anyway.

It’s just on Instagram. So I look at I look at things. I’m like, oh, man, I remember that you got to do things for the kids. Okay, let’s talk about little so, you know, families listening. They have a one year old. Yeah. In a three year old and a

Five year old. You know, we go into more in depth. Again, I’m just going to put a disclaimer. We’re not going to cover everything like we do in depth in the parenting program. And we do talk about this concept a lot. But this is actually where like with kids, I believe that if kids can get it out, they can put it back OK? And so if a toddler is able to take toys out of a basket, they can likely sit up and put toys back in a basket. Right. And so this applies to your one year old, but you need to, like, encourage them. It doesn’t need to be this discouraging. Oh, now you got to do the duty. Right. So if you have this, like on a town bad attitude, guess what you’re going to get in reflexion back at you because kids are mimicking this, right? They’re mirrors. Also, I will say that because kids are always watching and this is I, I even think about this being pregnant and I talk about this and reading in childbirth. Our kids can actually hear us right now, like my baby. I’m in third trimester. My baby has ears. It can hear when I’m worshipping, it can hear when I’m crying, it can hear when I’m having conversations with my husband or

When you’re angry. I have anxiety.

Yeah. If you verbally express those things, it can hear it. And even if you don’t verbally express it, the baby, your womb can actually experience some of your emotions as well. And so there is a real accountability partner when you’re pregnant, and that does not change when they’re born. So when your kids are under one and you’ve got the baby in the Urgo and you’re talking and correcting the two year old. Right. Or your baby, you’re in an argument with your spouse. Your baby is hearing that and they’re learning from you in that moment. If you’re going to be apologetic, they can sense that. They can sense if there’s reconciliation, they can see the love between you and your spouse. The same goes for your work ethic and your attitude towards doing mundane things in the home. And so if you want your kids, because it’s one of the biggest questions we get in regards to this is how do you have your kids or teach your kids or hold your kids accountable to having a good attitude and doing these things? It’s yes, you definitely want to bring it up when they’re having a bad attitude about a chore or something that they’re doing for sure, because God cares about the heart. We should care about the heart more. But it starts with you. It starts with me. It starts with Isaac. It starts it first starts with us. Even when. They’re under one because they see us having the begrudging attitude while we’re doing dishes or they see us singing worship songs.

Attitude is huge. I’m glad you started with that. And then the other thing we alluded to earlier, but is the lack of patience to spend extra time to actually teach because you have to do it with you. Could you just clean up the toys real quick yourself? Yes. You need to allow more time. Extra time to be able to teach these things, the things you might be missing are the things you should spend more time on than other things. So the missing thing is the equipping like you’re talking about. Let’s do this together and have enjoy doing it.

Yeah. And see, you know, one of the things we have a clean up song. A lot of people have the same clean up song I share about that in the parenting program. But having like something that’s unique to your family, that’s like a fun way to do the chore. That makes it fun to teach them how to have a good attitude while they’re doing it, but it also teaches them how to do it. And so at first, with your one year olds through, I mean, I still do stuff in front of my older teenage kids that they have not ever done before. I will do it in front of them. So they visually see me doing it. And then once they visually see me doing it, they verbally express, OK, I got it, mom, I can do this now. And then they take off with it and they run. Right. It’s the same thing with learning new recipes in the kitchen. If I’m just like and then this and then this and then this and then Megan oftentimes will go, OK, I can do the rest. I get it because she’s been in the kitchen with me since she was a baby.

By the way, this is the same problem in the business world. Why do leaders burn out and don’t develop people around them? It’s because they don’t take the time to actually train them, educate other people, and they always believe they could do it better. So they just put too much on their plate. Same thing with moms, same things with dads.

It’s why people don’t want to have more kids.

It’s all these things and it’s quite the same. What churches don’t grow is the same reason businesses don’t grow is because we’re not spending the time equipping. I remember in business I got to the point where I felt like it was a waste of time unless a younger leader was watching me do the things that I want them to learn. And so I just got good at, like always making sure somebody was watching me, whether it was running, training, interviewing people. You know, I always did a marketing, advertising, speaking, training, whatever the case may be. I was always whoever the next people were that we’re going to be doing those things in the future. Or I wanted them to want to do those things in the future and move up. I would have them. Hey, why don’t you watch me and hey, don’t just watch. I want you to take notes and here’s how I take notes and here’s things to watch out for. And, you know, during breaks and when I’m training a group of people, I’d walk back and I would talk to them. I go, hey, did you see I did this? You see, I didn’t see this. Hey, this is often missed. And I want to make sure that not in a micromanagement sense, but an excitement sense. Right. That’s the same thing in parenting is is spent delighting in the equipping versus the thing in the Genda.

Right. And so which is a it’s a paradox because everybody wants to make the best use of their time. But they failed to recognize that the best use of their time is actually equipping the person to be able to do it on their own in the future so that now there’s two people that are equipped to do it versus one. Yeah. And so and I think this is a really big deal for moms. I think that that’s one reason why a lot of young women grow up and they don’t have the faintest idea how to be a mom or a wife or to do any of the things that are the day to day things. You don’t know how to cook that in a grocery shop. They don’t to do these things. And a lot of it is that they weren’t equipped they weren’t allowed to go with their parents. Now, I so that’s one of the things if I’m going to give you five things that you can do with your littles right now, OK? And one of them is taking them grocery shopping with you. Yeah.

I mean, it seems like the thing this is probably the main thing that all moms would agree and go, yeah, I really prefer to go on my own or just take one, not three kids under four or and I get it. I’ve been in that season. I’m about to be in that season again, almost twenty two years into it. We’re going to have three kids under five. And so but we’ve been there before, right. We’ve had five kids under seven. But you guys have got to have the perspective of like you are actually teaching your kids and they’ll have more of an appreciation for it. And then instead of wasting snacks, instead of nagging for things, you have to go in with the mindset of I’m going to train them and how to grocery shop, which the first few times you do this, you’re probably not going to have the success that you’re expecting. You go in with a different mindset when you have the the when you’re when the point of going to the grocery store is to train them versus getting things. Yes, OK,

Totally different paradigm.

Totally different paradigm. You don’t lose your temper. You don’t I mean, it’s just different your patience. It’s just different. And so I would encourage you if you have children that are under five years old, you must take them to if you have to start with one, then take two, then take off four. But you go with the perspective of working to teach this brother now. Now that you’re a big helper, we’re going to teach this sister. Now, you

Extrapolate this forward. If you don’t do this when they’re young, it’s like when they’re teenage years, you’re not going to get them helping you remodel your house.

It’s it’s a capacity.

It’s a very simple. And you start simple and start young and you work all the way through. And it’s just so important. I think we should reel off a whole bunch of examples here.

So cleaning their bedroom is the next thing that I would say is a big deal. A lot of parents fall into the trap of cleaning their kids rooms for them. I don’t do that. No, I did do that. And it was a mistake. And I wish I did not do that. When my when my older kids were younger, and I think that in choosing not to have been the best thing for them, because it’s a reflection of them, and so they need to take care. They need to learn how to take care of things. And you know what, like minimal cleanliness and what like sanitary cleaning is. Right. And as they get older, that’s going to change. We’ll talk about that later. But teaching your littles that are under five, how to make their bed, how to take the sheets off their bed and put them in the laundry basket every day, if your kids put pajamas on and put clothes on, you will have at the least two opportunities every day to teach your kids how to put their clothes in the laundry room. And if you have to repeat yourself for the next five years. Welcome to Parenthood. It is normal. Kids have to be taught and they need to be reminded sometimes. Now some kids are just they pick up on it. They find it’s fun. They love the affirmations and it’s easier to train them. Other kids, they’ll get distracted, but you have to stay consistent. So their bedroom,

That’s a big thing. And things I’ve done, you might have heard is garbage man comes if they’re not doing this after they’ve been trained. So you can’t fault someone if they haven’t been trained. And still this with repetition. You don’t train kids once explain it. You repeatedly train things and don’t get frustrated. Teach them as if it’s the first time for a while. Right. Because repetitions normal. Now, if it’s disobedience, that’s different. But government comes and puts everything in a garbage bag and puts it in the hides of toys,

Clothes, whatever’s on their floor. Right. And so I would say room training is a good thing. And of course, there’s always a spiritual element, a respect element if they share a bedroom with a sibling, also a respect and obedience element that you can teach on regarding mommy asked you to do this, you need to obey. There are many different spiritual character development qualities that are taught when you are teaching your kids how to grocery shop, when you’re teaching them how to clean their room. Right. Because you’re teaching them stewardship. You’re teaching them we want to take care of the things that God has given us. Right. And you can take them to the word. Another big one is laundry room. So laundry is actually one of the things this is how all of my kids learned their colors. We would have Monday when we had two washers and dryers back when we were living in a different place. I did almost all of my my laundry in one day. And at the time we only had five and six kids. And we would the kids would all bring their clothes down to one room and they would sort the clothes into colors, light, yellows, whites. You get the picture, green, purple, blue, blue jeans, all the jeans went together and it taught them two things that taught them colors, but it also taught them how to do laundry. And it also taught them the importance of being careful what you’re putting with other things.

It taught them state how to take care of stains and and recognizing, oh, wow, did that come out when we’re folding, going, oh, I ruined that shirt because I didn’t tell mom that I got a stain on it earlier. And so when you have your kids involved in the process, they see the whole thing, that shirt that got stains so badly that you just removed from their closet and didn’t say anything to them about. Instead, when your kids are involved in this process, they’re like, oh, that was my favorite shirt and it got ruined. Oh, I should have told my mom about the stain or I should, you know. And so it actually is a really good exercise to be doing on a weekly basis with your kids. Now, we do it more than that. Obviously, we have teenagers, so most of our kids do their own laundry. I just pretty much do that. The younger three. Yeah, and Isaac and I. But laundry is a huge opportunity. They can also move laundry if you’re front loading washer and dryer. And I love those the best because you can have the kids move the clothes from one to the other for you. They can take the dried clothes out, put it in the basket and be helpers. And this is like eighteen months old. You know, when they’re walking, they can take steps in the dryer.

There’s no difference from boys to girls. I’d like to learn these same things.

Yes. Because these are all skills that every person needs to know. OK, so they all need to know how to take care of the rooms. They all need to know how to grocery shop. They all need to know how to do laundry, pets, pets is the next thing. And then gardening. And I know that not everybody can have pets. So we’re going to spend a ton of time on this. But this is a huge, huge opportunity, not just the feeding aspect, but are they grooming them? Are they helping you train a puppy or are they taking care of and keeping chickens alive or.

Now, the normal parenting is the kid begs for the animal and then for two weeks, the kid shows interest in helping with the animal and then the third week they stop showing interest and then all the burden falls on the parents. And the parents allow this to happen. Right. And that is not you got to go against the wind of normal parenting and you will not allow that to happen. You’re the parent. You have massive influence, but you have to use it in the right way.

And it’s a great opportunity ahead of time to talk to your kids. And yes, I put this in the Littles section because there are things that your littles can do. They can brush the dog, they can help clean up, they can help you take the dog on walks. They can. And there’s if you have birds or you have fish, they can feed the fish every morning. They can feed the birds and the parakeet cage. They can help clean up and wash their hands really well when you’re cleaning out the poo, there’s all kinds of things that are so important that your kids can be right beside you, watching again, watching you delight and even the hard things, the things that maybe you’re like, oh, why do we have this animal? Well, the reason why you have it is because it’s sanctifying and it’s good for your kids to learn how to take care of God’s creatures. And it’s a good practice for them as they grow up actually being able to take care of something, living and be responsible.

Well, hey, we’re going to put gardening and a few other examples in the move into the middle’s teenagers. And some really important final tips has to do with both episodes, episodes in part two. We so thank you for joining us. We’re so excited about I don’t know about you and I feel like a new energy out here in the studio. And I don’t know if you guys felt it. Let us know if you felt like in this episode you feel a different energy in us. I just feel super energized and excited

And less distracted. Yeah, I’m not hearing this amazing background and going, oh, I should ask.

And I just I just want you to say that your donations, those of you donated, helped with us, helped us be able to do this. We put obviously there was some earmarked if you earmarked it for our challenge we experienced in the past. And that helped with that. But some of you didn’t earmark it for that. And we put effort into the studio and it is a game changer for us. There’s our house is a four bedroom. We’re super blessed by it, but there’s ten of us living here

And eleven,

Almost eleven. And the bedrooms are big, which is amazing. But there really is no office in the house or anything like that. So we were doing this in our bedroom. I don’t know. I think great things are

Need to have room for the baby having

This. So. So I’m so thankful for you guys being part of it in your prayers, your support, your encouragement, your sharing, financial support. And by the way, all free resources show notes everything’s Akridge, parenting, dotcom, plus courses you can purchase, including the parenting program. Thank you for joining us. And make sure you tune in to part two, because regardless your kids ages, it’s going to be helpful.

See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. For more resources, go to courageous parenting and courageous mom dotcom 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, ICIC and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week we release a video with a downloadable parenting package to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

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