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Full Transcript:

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

Hey guys, thanks for joining us today on the podcast.

So glad you’re here. You’re going to get some practical insights on what you can do now to help with your children’s whining, grumbling, complaining.

You know, I love this episode because we have also had some insightful conversation, just the two of us, regarding like, Oh, wow, this is really helpful for us having three kids, seven and under. But we’ve been at this for a long time and we’ve experienced it a lot in our home over the years. And so I hope you join us and are encouraged.

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.

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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. It’s so glad you’re here for the Courageous Parenting podcast. This is courageous parenting, not, you know, normal or fear based parenting. There you go. So let’s go. Are you ready?

Hi. We’re so glad that you’re here with us today. Thank you for joining us and for guys, thanks for the encouragement. Thanks for engaging with us, sending emails, comments, especially on Apple, iTunes and things like that, that helps to get the word out to other people. But we also really love reading those. I know that for myself, I’m I’m human. I don’t know if you knew that Isaac and I are human and all humans need encouragement at times, and it’s easy to get discouraged. And for the enemy to attack you and make you think that, you know, you’re not making a difference or whatever. So when we see those encouragements, it actually really means a lot to us. So thank you so much. And when you’re.

Sharing on social media and everything and by the way, you can find all the notes at be courageous ministry.org. But what a good practical topic today.

Okay so we are talking about whining, complaining and grumbling. Um, this is a topic that is just essential to parenting, period. There’s like nothing more to say, right? Yeah, I mean, legitimately.

I think we’ve experienced 23 years of this.

That’s true.

Because we’ve always had more because we’ve always had young.

Kids. Well, and we’re human too. And we probably did it when we were younger. And I know that I’ve struggled with it at times, being older of being discontent and whining.

But don’t be discouraged by that statement because our older kids very much are not like that. No, no, no. And I could see, though, if we only had older kids, how you might forget that you might just give a simple equation to fix it.

Right? It’s interesting. Sometimes we get young parents, even our kids, sometimes they’ll ask us questions about how did you do this with kids? Or how do you teach your kids, Da da da da da. And it’s interesting because if we were done with that season of life, we would probably have to sit there and think for a really long time and go, Hmm, let me get back to you on that and think back and, and then when we came back with an answer, it might not be like as full as we’re blessed to be able to give because we’re literally living it still. Yeah.

So we have three, seven, five and two year old. Yes. That are the young ones. That’s right.

Now. So we’re talking about whining, complaining and grumbling. Three very distinctly different things. You and I were chit chatting about like, wow, these are actually very different from each other. Yeah, because at first we were thinking maybe we’ll do a podcast just on whining. And then it just dawned on me one of my favorite verses to go to, which is Philippians 214. I’ll just read it to you guys really quick. It says Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Another translation says, Do all things without grumbling or complaining that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, we are in a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world. So this is a really big deal because if you are grumbling, complaining and disputing, you’re not being the light in the crooked generation because you’re being like the world is essentially what this verse pans out to be, right? And so it’s like the first verse that always tends to come to my mind is, Oh, that’s the verse that’s about grumbling and complaining. But, you know, we as we were preparing the podcast, there’s actually a lot out there. So at the very end of the podcast you got to stick around for At the very end of the podcast, we’re going to give you like key phrases that would be good to do Bible studies on with your kids that you could look up in your concordance. This is like a new idea that I kind of came up with for the end of the podcast. So we’re going to dish off like a bunch of really good keywords that you could look up in your concordance to find other Bible verses and do like word studies with your kids that are around this topic of whining and complaining because we can’t cover it all, but we’re going to try our best.

Well, it’s really cool how there’s three different words here in that scripture whining, complaining and grumbling and three really different things. They can be easy to mistake that they’re kind of all the same, but they’re really actually different.

Yeah. So like whining, obviously if I say the word whining, most parents think of toddlers, young children who maybe have a kind of like a. Yeah, well, yeah. Well, thanks so much. Yeah. No, I don’t know if you could even be proud of that, but. But in all seriousness, like, you think of the loud whining, you think of the whimpering, whining you think of there’s not really so much a bunch of words. It’s more just like, ho hum. I’m unhappy and constantly focused on it over and over and over again. Right. And so when I when we were thinking about whining, I even thought of how that’s like a maybe a younger child’s version of nagging in a sense, because it’s like a dripping faucet, right? It can be annoying in that.

There is a reality to as, as very young children are learning how to talk. They’re feeling that space sometimes with whining. And so it it’s you know, when they start to use their words, it’s really important to remind them to use their words, something I see Angie do all the time. Of course I do too. But is to. Remind them because sometimes it’s easier when they don’t know very many words just to whine and but they actually need to use their words. And so that’s something important.

So even when you look up in the dictionary, this is interesting. I had to because I love that looking up, whining. It says the making of a long, high pitched cry or sound, which is obviously different than complaining. Like, could someone be complaining and whining at the same time? Yes. But they’re actually two distinctly different things that you would want to verbally communicate with your kids and hold them accountable for.

I guess a good question to ask yourself is, do you, by your actions, encourage more whining or by your actions? Are you curtailing the whining in favor of something more productive with your children? Right.

Like, okay, So that’s really good question because there is this issue I’ve noticed over the years I’ve even struggled with it as well when I’m in really like maybe more high stress environments or like an event that you go to where maybe you have many kids going in different directions and let’s say, you know, that one kid is going to be more prone to whine because they have a hard time sharing something, right? So maybe you as a mom to curtail the event of whining, you try to distract your child away from that temptation and you kind of direct them in a different direction, which some people would call helicopter parenting. Other people would be like, you know, I don’t know. I could go either way on that. Because the truth is, is eventually you need to be in situations where your child is tempted. And in in that sense, like that’s a normal situation to play with other kids. You can’t just direct them away from playing with other kids all the time. It’s not that you want them to be in a position of being tempted, but you want them to experience being able to overcome that temptation. And so being there to maybe help them manage their emotions and to say, Oh, let’s try practicing, calming down, and you can even practice that ahead of time. And so instead of moving your child and directing them away from it, what I would probably encourage two other moms to do, because I had to make this distinction in my own life, is instead not have the adult conversations at the event, but sit down with the kids. And if my child started struggling to start reminding them of those calming things that we do to have self control over our emotions so that they don’t begin whining so they can stay and continue playing.

Also, I think the thing that encourages whining the most is actually giving them what they want, what they’re whining for. Yes. And so that can be easy to do in certain situations where we’re tired, we start to subconsciously maybe we haven’t even acknowledged that we believe this. We start subconsciously believing just that’s the way kids are, or we’re tired accepting it and we’re kind of tired and we feel beat down. But I just want you to remember in that moment you’re either discouraging the continuation of this habit or you’re encouraging it by your actions. And if we give in to what they want, you’re anchoring behavior for the future to repeat.

That’s interesting. We had a little situation today and I think about coming home. I had a doctor’s appointment. I came home and one of the boys had been coming out from his nap and the big boys were kind of in charge in the sense that they had put him down for a nap and they were doing their other things. And he came out and I saw him out and I didn’t know if he had napped or not. And they’re like, No, he hasn’t napped Mom. But I was trying to have a conversation with them and he was like, I’m going to jump on a trampoline. And he starts like heading towards the trampoline. And I was like, okay with it in that moment because I wanted to have a peaceful conversation that’s uninterrupted and not having the whining going on because that’s what was happening. He was literally whining in my ear and I couldn’t hear other people in the conversation. So my thinking in that moment, even today, you guys, was if I let him go jump on the trampoline for five minutes. A he’ll wear himself out more and maybe he’ll go down for a nap easier. And two, he won’t be whining in my ear so I can get this conversation done faster. But the boys even held me accountable. This is my 13 year old and my 15 year old going, But mom, no, he can’t do that because then it’s like a reward for getting out of bed. And I’m like, okay, yeah, you’re right. And so you guys, that is awesome. Like that right there. I look at my teenagers and I go, They were raised right. We did a pretty good job that they know not to do that. And and they’re like telling me what was happening because I literally just gotten home communicating with mom. And to see that wisdom that they would be good parents. That’s what you want for your kids. You need to follow through so that they follow through with their kids. Right.

More practical insights in just a second. But I want to take a moment just to say, hey, come join us in the Be Courageous app. It’s a fast growing community of like minded believers. It is a amazing vault of content exclusive to the app. There’s so many things there you can find out more at Be courageous ministry.org before signing up. The app if you want, or just go look in your app stores for the app there and it’s an amazing community. Another cool thing that we’re doing now, we’re tying in this podcast every single episode to activity in the app. And so what we’re doing when this comes out on Tuesdays is we’re putting in a quick summary title of it and saying, Ask us anything about the episode. And Angie and I are going in there and answering questions for that week’s episode. In addition, for this episode, we’re going to try it out is we’re even going to have to end of this. We’re going to do a little chit chat about the content shared in a real, more canned, even more candid way, and we’re going to put that in the app, maybe seven minutes of extra content and then there’ll be Q&A in the app too. So that’s just one very small piece of the massive value in there and powerful community. Be courageous in your app store. You can find out more there. One other thing at be courageous ministry.org is the free biblical parenting. In a changed world workshop, you get the eight foundations of fruitfulness in parenting during these unprecedented times. It takes way more courage and intentionality than previous generations. You’ve got to attend that workshop. It’s short, powerful. You also get a 13 page download. So all of that stuff, be courageous ministry.org.

It’s for free. So we’re super excited that you guys are here listening. We’re talking about whining, complaining and grumbling today. Let’s just, you know, I want to share with the definition we talked about the definition of whining is like a high pitched cry or annoying sound is what the dictionary called it. The definition of complaining is the expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance about something. And then when you look at the definition of grumbling, it’s the action or fact of complaining in a bad tempered way. So you see how there’s just a slight difference there with grumbling and complaining in the sense that complaining like people can complain even while not necessarily having a bad temper, right? They can just be like, Oh yeah, today was not very good. Like, I just even think of going to the cashier grocery store and someone says, Hey, how was your day today? And do you tend to go, Oh, my day’s been great, How is yours? Or have you had days where you’re like, Oh, it’s just been a day full of appointments and, you know, you’re kind of complaining there, right? But that’s not in a bad tempered way, but still not good grumbling. You’ve got like the the anger is coming out like I think of when I think of grumbling. And I’ll just share candidly, because I have had this I’ve done this a couple of times.

Maybe two times.

I love you husband. But there were times and there have been times in the last 24 years where I have gotten frustrated that maybe he didn’t do something he said he would do. Whether in our early years, I think I’ve taken out the garbage, right. Or I don’t even I can’t even think of. I’m sure there’s tons of things. Oh, like maybe leaving socks on the floor or like just different things like that. That I do those things too, sometimes, you know? But in the midst of, like, cleaning it up, have I ever gotten angry or resentful and then grumbled under my breath about it? I have. Here I am on podcast confessing a sin that I’ve repented of and already had conversations with Isaac about this before. And I’ve already like been purposeful in trying not to do it. But I’m still not perfect. But this is a sin. And, and and the difference is like, it’s the complaining with the anger attached. And that can be manifested in many different ways. Sometimes people shout, sometimes people get really mad. They scowl their face while they’re complaining. And, you know, so think about your kids. Have you seen your kids do any of these things? I’m sure if you have humans for children, then you have experienced whining, complaining or grumbling.

And, you know, the reality is, is, you know, when I look back on all of our years of parenting and the different devotions, the different conversations, the different family Bible times, I had many conversations with the kids about these specific different things, especially the older six. When I was homeschooling, you were working away from the home. I remember like sitting in specifically doing a Bible study on whining or, you know, and it makes me go, this is a good podcast for me because it makes me go, You know what? I need to do this with my younger three. I need to have those calm conversations where I’m going through Scripture and I’m challenging them. I’m teaching them the difference between whining, complaining and grumbling and what does the Bible say and why is this bad? And for you, if you haven’t done that, I would highly encourage you to do so, because I think that it makes a huge difference when there’s a basis point where you taught something to be able to reference back to it in conversations with the kids.

So practically, if you were to approach our five year old right now about whining from this perspective, what are some steps you would do to help them?

Well, I think that, first of all, if I hadn’t because with with Eli, I know I haven’t done a Bible study on whining with him. So I would say that that would probably be a first thing. Like I’m already on my radar going, this is something that I. Think maybe tomorrow would be a good thing for me to just sit down with the three youngers. Eli’s the five year old and read a Bible verse, maybe two Bible verses, and talk about whining and ask them if they can think of any times where they’ve whined and for them to sit and share what it’s kind of like how I am with you.

What if you have a new mom listening and the Bible is kind of foreign to them?

So in the very back of your Bible, and this is why I was saying at the end, we’re going to give you some words to look up. If you have your notes or journal with you or even your iPhone in the very back of your Bible, you have what’s called a concordance. And it’s very easy to look up words like grumbling or complaining, and it will lead you to Bible verses that you can specifically go to. Another really easy thing you can do is you could go to be courageous ministry org and you could look at today’s podcast and in the show notes it’s going to have all the Bible verses that we go over here today. That first Bible verse that I read, Philippians 214 is super good for that. The next one here. So when I think of grumbling and complaining in the definition of complaining, for example, was dissatisfaction. And I think that that’s really like at the heart. If there was a heart rooted issue, it would be dissatisfaction. Discontentment would be at the heart of all three of these things, actually. And then, of course, there’s obviously selfishness. Like if a whining is going on, it’s because somebody wants something and they’re trying to get you to give it to them through the an emotional form of manipulation or begging, if you will. And for a little child that doesn’t necessarily know how to communicate really well, their form of communicating, I want that sometimes can be whining. But you can train children not to whine by teaching them and communicating with them. No, this is not how we talk. Mommy can’t hear you when you’re whining, which I know you didn’t ask about the two year old, but that like in the first two years of their life, that’s something that I say often is I can’t hear you when you’re yelling or whining. You need to calm down, use your words. You know, teach them, Do you want this? Yes or no? Yes or no? You know, like if they don’t know how to talk huge.

Because sometimes we just try and pacify them. We just try and solve the problem without because we because you can kind of guess what they need. But I love how you do that. You actually slow down. You’re a little more patient and you you in a way strongly encourage them to actually communicate because that’s what it takes. The natural fall to things is is human beings sometimes is mediocrity. And what you’re calling your children up to is a productive way of communicating and and to try harder and to try harder. And I love those practical steps for the young ones. These things could also work for older kids if maybe you didn’t do that. It’s never too late to do this. And I just think it’s so important because if these things aren’t tended to, it’s just like the garden. If you don’t tend the garden correctly, all the weeds come in, it becomes chaos. You can’t even walk in your garden anymore. And that’s like an adult where this stuff has never been tended to in their life. And you don’t want to be launching, complaining, grumbling, whining adults into the world.

Yes. And I will say, I want to give a couple more little tips for the littler’s little kids that maybe are not super verbal yet, because whining is one of the natural forms. Like if they’re upset about something or something hurts them. For example, like I think of Zander, who like dropped a can in the pantry on his toe and his toe was hurting and he comes out and I didn’t know what had happened. And he and the only word he can say is toe. So he just like toe toe and he’s whining and and I’m like, okay. But I’m looking at his toes. His toes look normal, you know? And I don’t know what’s going on. So I pick him up and I hug him and I try to get him to calm down. I say, Can you calm down and tell Mommy what you need? And that like, I’m not always super patient about it, but I do try like a lot to try to get to model for him. Like take a moment, take a breath, calm down and then speak like, slow down. It doesn’t have to be fast. I’m here. You’re okay. And sometimes that’s what kids need to hear. They need to hear, like Mom’s here. She’s paying attention to me. She wants to know what’s wrong. Like for them to perceive that from us sometimes just takes us making eye contact, hugging them, getting in their space, reminding them how to calm down, reminding them that you want to help, but you can’t.

If you can’t hear them and you’re whining and you can’t hear when they’re whining. And so, like, I think that a lot of times people assume that kids can’t understand us if they can’t speak. And that’s simply not true. If that was true, then no one would ever learn how to speak because no one would ever talk to a person that can’t speak. And so we have to give our kids some credit, give God some credit that he created humans with an intelligent design. Nine and that they are learning constantly and they do understand more than we think they do. And so talking to them clearly as a person, to a person being patient and calm and letting them try and screw up their words while they’re trying to get them out and trying to guess. And then, you know, and sometimes making it easier for them. Like I said before, yes or no, this yes or no. Like, I don’t know how many times my child’s wanted something, not being able to speak clearly, then whining. And I’ve had to go in the pantry and give them multiple options and say yes or no. And then finally he gets it. And I’m like, okay, that word is connected to that thing. Like, I get it now. And so that takes time. Like learning how to communicate with someone who’s learning how to talk.

Absolutely. And by the way, just real quick is we have the parenting mentor program. I encourage you to learn all about it at Courageous Parenting.com. It is the most powerful resource that we believe exists today for equipping confident Christian kids for an uncertain world. It is robust and it’s going to take a little bit. But the beautiful thing is you always have access and it’s self-paced. We all start at the same time, but you have access and can go your own pace. And it’s covers the foundations and the biblical truth about parenting and all the different topics and the hard conversations to have, to discipline, to tending to the heart, to all of these things, but in a curriculum way, which is really, really powerful. So anyways, learn more about that and join us for the next one. We also do lives with Q and A’s attached to that. It’s really, really an amazing thing.

That’s right. So, you know, I want to ask you a question. Do you want more peace in your home? Because really that’s what we’re talking about.

Everybody wants that, right?

Like and if you have whining, complaining and grumbling, that’s like the opposite of peace. That’s like that. Yeah, that’s complete opposite of peace. And so Isaiah 26 three has a huge encouragement for us. You keep him in perfect peace. Whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts you. We just talked about how discontentment and dissatisfaction is like a root thing of whining, complaining and grumbling. If our minds are stayed on God and we trust in Him, we are going to have contentment, which then leads to peace in the home. It leads to less whining, it leads to less complaining and grumbling. And so this would be like an imperative verse that is just so beautiful. Isaiah 26 three If you want to go and you want to memorize it or write it on a Post-it note, put it on a, you know, in your kitchen or something. But I know that for myself, I have to own that as a woman. I set the atmosphere of the home. And so if there’s chaos, I take responsibility for that feeling of chaos or hurriedness or the whining, the nagging, all that kind of stuff. Because the very first question we talked about, we have three little things that we just want to talk to you guys about regarding this and helping your home to be more peaceful. The first question that you want to ask as parents is what influences are there that are potentially tempting my child or teaching my child to be more complaining, to be more grumbling to to maybe Or maybe you’re feeding the whining because they’re giving in.

And sometimes you can notice that, though, right? There’s a there’s an increase in some kind of behavior that’s happening. Then you really need to look at, okay, what are the influences that they’ve been around? Okay, we’ve been at this thing with the group, we’ve been with these friends and so forth. And it’s not to be nitpicky, it’s not to find fault in others. It’s to diagnose. Are there influences that are causing this to be exasperated, my children, causing this to grow, my children going against what I’m trying to influence with my children. And so what’s beautiful is when you start to identify those things, you can talk to other parents, you can talk to your kids about how to handle that. If other people are influencing that way or how to lead behaving in that way, how to be a leader, not a follower. And what’s so cool about this is there’s so many opportunities from when they’re a young age, middle school and into high school and onward where you can teach them little pieces of how to be a leader, not a follower. Do you think it’s more important in the future they’re going to be launching in to be a leader than ever before? Yeah. Oh yeah. It is essential. It doesn’t matter what their personality is. Every single child needs to learn how to be able to stand firm in a loving way and to stand for truth and not to fall into weaker behavior 100%.

I also think that, you know, you said something that was super important that I just want to highlight or reiterate, which you said We don’t ask this question to to find fault or to cast blame. Right. Right. And I think that this is huge because, you know, for us, I’ll just share personally, I know that when when our kids are struggling with any kind of sin. Just whining or complaining, but any kind of sin. The very first question I ask is, under this category of influences and I look to the most influential people in their life, which is me and my husband. And so and it’s not that you aren’t going to hold your kids accountable for their own sin because they are responsible, okay? They don’t get me wrong here. They are responsible. But this is important because Matthew actually warns us that we cannot do surgery on taking the speck out of a brother’s eye unless we take the plank out of our own eye. And if we want to be able to lead our children without hypocrisy, where they’re going to have respect and they’re going to listen to our deep concern about them whining or complaining or grumbling or whatever it is like. Think of the maybe eight year old that doesn’t want to do dishes in the morning. That’s grumbling. I can’t do it or I don’t want to. And and they’re just like, it’s drawn out. It’s taking 40 minutes instead of 20 minutes. And it’s frustrating. The sibling they’re working with. That scenario has happened in our home many times, you guys and I think about those times and I go, okay, hold on a second. Are they mimicking me? Do I struggle with this whining and complaining and grumbling? Because if I do, then I need to repent of that and I need to confess to them and say, Hey, I’m sorry that I’ve been leading this way, but what you’re doing is not okay either.

I think it’s really good, but really hard for people to see that in themselves when they’re parents, because as parents, we have way more responsibility, way more things going on, way more burdens potentially. Right. And so we can justify our behavior. Plus we’re the authorities in the home so we can justify our behavior as being okay, even though it would be unjust behavior for our children. Right. And if we are operating in that way, whether we know it or not, we should do a double check on that, too, because you won’t even see what Angie’s talking about. If we secretly like. No, I’m justified in grumbling because that was a bad situation. Well, wait a minute. Capacity. Yes. Your children spilling their milk is is bad of a situation as your big thing because their capacity is at a different level. So it gives them no justification. And you have no justification either for the Bible talks about that in the New Testament that have joy despite any and all circumstances that we are, to maintain joy. Is it true that none of us are perfect at that? Absolutely. But to not check ourselves would be a devastation for the trajectory of your family, because you are the mirror, you are the examples that they’re following. And if we’re teaching and correcting yet we’re doing the thing and we’re not really recognizing it or we do, but we justify it because we have so much more going on and we’re so much more busy and it’s so much more of a serious issue when I grumble that is not going to work.

No, it’s not. And so we need to like. So this is why influences are like such a huge thing, right? So first and foremost, you look at yourself and you go, Hey, hold on a second. I don’t want to be a hypocrite because kids can smell a hypocrite a mile away. And I want my kids to listen to me, not laugh at me. And so that’s why we have to walk in humility. Otherwise, we’re not going to make progress forward. But also, it’s just modeling the Christian life to our children and that this there’s this reality, right? That mom and dad are humans. We’re not perfect. Our family isn’t perfect. We all screw up. You’re going to continue screwing up as you get older, but you own it and you move on. You live in forgiveness and grace and and that is the that is the power of Christianity. That’s the power of Christ on the cross lived out on a daily basis. That should be one of the things that your kids remember. And so we have to ask that hard question. Then we ask the questions about peers, family members, neighbors. Are they being influenced by media? Are they watching cartoons or Disney shows or something where it’s like showing disrespect to parents or whining and complaining and then getting their own way and then they’re like subconscious plea or un subconsciously influenced to try it out themselves.

And this is an important question because as parents, we actually are responsible for the influences that are in our kids lives and we have a choice. Did you hear me? They’re like, You have a choice on what you allow your kids to watch and listen to. You’re the parent. You’re the gatekeeper of your home. You’re the person that’s your jurisdiction, not grandparents jurisdiction, your jurisdiction. It’s not your brother’s jurisdiction. It’s your jurisdiction. And so the reality is, is we as parents have to rise up courageous and go, I’m going to own it. I’m going to be an adult parent and go, this is my job and I’m going to be unapologetic to other people about it. And I’m going to put my foot down and say, that show’s not okay. But this is the thing. At the end of the day, we still have to remember that kids don’t need to learn sin from other people. While we do take responsibility and we do evaluate influences and we make choices to protect our children and things like that, there is a reality here that folly is bound up in the heart of a child for all have fallen short of the glory of God. We all are sinners. Kids don’t need to learn how to sin.

So there is no quick fix on this. This is a consistent effort, consistent influence, and it really requires a consistent heart change towards God’s ways versus our selfish ways versus our impatient ways. And so is there any impatience in your life? Right. So isn’t that what we’re teaching our children is to have patience, to slow down, not just give them what they want, but talk about what’s going on, even pray together and to over time really point them to Jesus and having a heart for being more selfless than selfish. Because whining, complaining and grumbling all have something in common. Selfishness? Yes. A lack of contentment.

And. Sometimes when you’re dealing with this. So as parents, we talk about this in the parenting mentor program that Isaac was talking about earlier, this concept of like how we as Christian parents want to teach our kids how to be self-examining. And you know this, the world will call it introspection. The Bible calls it self-examination, where we’re able to look within our heart and be honest about what we’re struggling with. And the reality is that Jesus knew that this was an issue for all people. He knew that whining, grumbling, complaining was a human heart problem. And so when we understand that this is a human heart problem, we’re able to objectify it in a sense of like, this isn’t just my child, it’s not just, oh, my child is the only one in the world that struggles with this thing. It’s understanding that this is a human problem, that there is a human discontentment. We saw it in the Garden of Eden when Eve was tempted to desire to be more wise. Key phrase being more, more wise, more knowledgeable. And is it bad to want more wisdom? Is it bad to want more knowledge? No, it’s not bad. But there is an element there where we need to understand that like she disobeyed God because of her desire for more and we should not be disobeying God for our desire for more. And Jesus says that we shouldn’t. Like in Luke chapter 12, verse 15, it says, Take care and be on your guard against all.

Covetousness for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Listen, this was Jesus’s words, and this is a huge warning about covetousness, which is one aspect of what could be potentially causing whining, complaining, grumbling even within yourself. Like maybe. Maybe. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever been covetous of anybody else’s car or or or anything really better stroller or of course, cleaner diaper bag, cleaner like that’s humanity, right that we would we are drawn to think the grass is greener always we get tempted to think that way. But Jesus says no, there’s a better way. It’s called contentment in me and understanding that we need to keep our focus on what’s eternal here. Our kids don’t get that. Can you? Can you? We need to remember and have some long suffering with our children in the sense that we understand that they’re so little. They don’t they don’t understand or comprehend the even the what the word covetousness means unless we’ve taught them about what it means to covet and jealousy. And that that if that is left unchecked in your heart, that can turn into a a bitter root. And then what comes out of your mouth is the whining and the complaining and the grumbling. So I think that it would behoove us all as parents to understand that the whining and the complaining and the grumbling is really a reflection of something deeper within our hearts.

And it really comes down to our character. Their character is being formed one day at a time over a lot of weeks, months and years, and that time goes really fast. And so we need to seize the day, seize the week and seize those moments within that these things are happening and really take them seriously to not just kind of overlook. But there’s the more as parents, we see the bigger purpose of something, the more we tend to the mundane action, even when we don’t feel like it. So it’s really important that we’re following through and being patient with things in these moments. In second Corinthians ten, three through five. Thank you, honey. Ten three through five for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

So I think that, you know, when you’re talking about understanding the human heart, which is what we’re kind of essentially talking about here, one really essential thing that we need to teach our children, because it’s like the equipping of all equipping for standing firm is to take thoughts captive, to be able to discern when we’re being tempted with a thought that’s not true or that is tempting us to covet or be unhappy or discontent, to be able to identify those thoughts when they are put into our mind and to take those thoughts captive into the obedience of Christ and remind ourselves, You know what? Nope, I’m going to be thankful for what I do have. And I really do think that, you know, the Bible over and over again. We’re going to read in Philippians in a few minutes, but over and over again, thankfulness is really the antidote to discontentment or dissatisfaction with.

Scripture, and holding our thoughts captive is so important. You probably heard that before. There’s. That’s where the verse is. So look at the show notes and get that and use it with your children. Also, Philippians four, seven through 13 says In the peace of God, which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there’s any excellence, if there’s anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And I think that’s enough. But it’s so important to keep our mind focused on good things and what a great verse Philippians four is. Anytime we have anxiety, anytime we’re thinking wrongly, and then to give that to our children, to share that with them, our little two year old to read scripture and to share that scripture with them. What is true? You know, I.

You know, I think, too, that when I think of the word people who are complaining or different things like that, I know that obviously there’s a few different things there. We’ve talked about discontentment as a heart issue or covetousness as a heart issue. Selfishness is a heart issue. Um, but there’s also a certain type of person, right? Like, you know, personality wise, there’s the half cup full and the half cup empty kind of people and the people who are the half cup empty kind of people tend to struggle more with complaining, thinking about the negative thing, verbalizing it, maybe even potentially whining, whining when they’re younger, maybe being more grumbly when they’re, you know, older. And I do think that as parents, it’s good for us to recognize if our child is that way, not so that we can give them a red card that says, oh, you’re I’m not going to correct you. You’re wired this way. That’s not what I’m saying. But to understand that there are certain kids are tempted with different things more than others, and to really, like dig in with that child, that this may be something that multiple times throughout their childhood, you’re going to need to really, like focus on these verses.

Because, I mean, if you’re a really optimistic, outgoing, extroverted kind of person, creative person, you might not understand one of your kids that’s wired differently than you. That is a little more skeptical, a little bit more needs proof first, a little bit more of a questioning or analytical mind. Yes.

Asking the what ifs.

And people are just wired differently. So understanding that can give you compassion and understanding doesn’t mean you allow it, but it lets you have a bird’s eye view. We need to kind of look at how God has created our children uniquely and don’t just assume they’re like us and expect them to be our personality. Well, that’s not allowance to whine and complain. No, no. It gives us an understanding and how to work with our children in a little bit more unique ways.

And I do think, too, that when you as a parent see a tendency towards a way I’m not in any way advocating labeling your child a certain way, I’m what I’m saying here is to study your children, to know them well and deeply so that you can go, okay, this is something that they potentially struggle with. So I’m going to work more with them on this. I’m going to spend more time focusing on these scripture verses because I tend to notice that they need encouragement on focusing on the positive more than the negative. Right. And like being more like. Um, it’s on your radar more, I guess. And I think that that’s an important thing that parents need to own that jurisdiction.

Absolutely. So we’re going to end on some key phrases real quick that you can do Bible studies with your kids on.

So one would be looking up the word contentment or even discontentment, because that can come up in scripture and there’s good warnings in there. The putting off and putting on encouragements, if you will. Another one is.

Is being satisfied or dissatisfied with life and circumstances and things like that. It’s so important that we’re analyzing that and we can look up scripture on that.

What about being grateful or ungrateful? Right? Another would be.

The tongue James comes to mind is the power of the tongue. And there’s lots of other verses as well. It’s so important that we understand the power of our words and teaching our children to the power of their words that their words have influence is going to help them so much in cultivating good relationships or or if you don’t, it’s going to cause them to not build good relationships, right? The power of the tongue is so, so important. So we hope this has been helpful. Join us in the app for the after conversation and Q&A. And we’re so glad you’re part of the ministry.

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