Why Parenting 8-12 Year-Olds Requires The Right Intentionality Today

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Episode Summary

This is a crucial period where it’s more important than ever to tend to their hearts more deeply.

We can all agree that Christian parenting requires more intentionality than ever to equip children to stand firm in their faith in these unprecedented times. Specifically, parents have a unique opportunity they must seize while their children are between the ages of 8-12. This episode goes into why and some practical things you must be doing with them to defy the odds against you as the culture war heats up in society.

Main Points in This Episode:

  • We list the reasons why this parenting season is so vital
  • We give practical tips on what you should be doing
  • We give many warnings

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Scriptures From This Episode:

– Proverbs 15:1 – A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

– Proverbs 1:8-9 – Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching,  for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”

 

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Full Transcript:

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

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

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

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

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

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

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If you want access to all the episodes, show notes, and other biblically based resources, go to Be Courageous Ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. Hey guys. We’re talking about parenting 8 to 12 year olds, a crucial period of time in a child’s life. It is a crucial part of parenting. This episode is essential whether you currently have 8 to 12 year olds or not, you’ll be there. And if you’re beyond there, this will give you some important insights too.

Okay, we’re going to start with the scripture this morning. You guys ready? It’s Proverbs chapter one. So it’s at the very beginning of Proverbs obviously. Probably pretty crucial. Yeah. Verse eight and nine says here, here, like listen here, my son, your father’s instruction and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful Garland for your head and pendants for your neck. And then there’s warnings that come on after that, if sinners entice you, my son, do not consent. And it continues on. Yeah. Okay. So why are we bringing this proverb to people at the very beginning of a podcast? So whenever I see a verse that talks about the responsibility of parents, I pause just to remind myself just how important this is. Obviously, if God is speaking to a son here and he’s saying. Hear your father’s instruction. Forsake not your mother’s teaching. That can’t happen unless a father is obeying and giving instruction, and a mother is obeying and giving teaching to her son.

And I don’t think that Proverbs is talking about just giving instruction about how to play a sport. Oh definitely not, although that’s good.

I don’t think that was something they were focused on in biblical times. Oh, I gotta go to my basketball practice. Wait, did you feed the sheep? No. Like I just don’t.

I think it’s it’s the ways of God. Yeah. Father’s instruction in the ways of God in wisdom and how to operate in the world.

Okay. We’re gonna we’re gonna go off to, uh, off line here in a second and go to Deuteronomy chapter six. You just made me remember this. This is another one of those verses that shows the importance of parents teaching. And we’re talking about this at the very beginning of this podcast, because it needs to set the tone, like biblically, God has called parents to be teaching. So chapter six in Deuteronomy verse five says, 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 shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, 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 doorpost of your home and on your gates.

Another way of saying that is always be teaching.

About the Lord specifically.

That’s what that means. What this is, it gives all these examples. And literally that just means every chance you get, you should be doing discipleship. Discipleship isn’t an event. It’s got to be woven into the fabric of your parenting. Right? So it’s so important. That’s where that comes from. That’s where that idea comes from. That we talk about in the Bible is there is a declarative direction to us to always be teaching wisdom. And that can be rattling. I mean, I don’t always teach wisdom. Yeah, right. You’re not always instructing, always instructing.

Sometimes we’re laughing with our kids and yeah, we’re playing with them. So I think.

That that is good. Yeah. But it is I think all of us I think the goal is without feeling this daunting feel about it. Instead, let’s go. What can we do a little bit better? And if we’re always trying to just get a little bit better, that accumulates over time. And so how can I disciple my children a little bit more? Which simply means how can I teach them the Bible a little bit more? Hmm.

It’s so good. It reminds me of, um, you know, we do. We share this little teaching and the parenting mentor program about kids and the the concept of sending them out into the world to be lights, because that’s something that a lot of people say, well, I’m sending my kids to school so that they can be a light, but yet they haven’t actually discipled them, poured salt into them so that they can be salty. Right? Because children, people, humans are not born salty. They’re not born ready to disciple other people. They have to be taught there has to be some instruction and they have to be discipled.

Yeah, but, Ange, I mean, we’re in modern times now. We’ve got programs for this. I mean, we go to church on Sunday, we’ve got the youth programs, we got these things, you know, they they they know how to be salty. They know how to stand firm in the midst of peers mocking godly things.

A 30 minute Sunday school classroom once a week compared to the 40 hours or 25 hours that they’re in school with other people that are potentially tempting them to be more of the world completely different. Like, let’s just put this into perspective of hours in pure minutes, right? If that’s the only option, or that’s the only actual discipleship happening that should be additive. We always talk about that.

You know, one of the challenges of modern times, by the way, the Bible is written for modern times. It was written for, for then time all in between. Today, in the future, all time. It is written as instruction and it is relevant and part of the challenge of modern times is resource. And what do I what do I mean by that? I go, well, the more opportunities we have for parts of what the Bible is saying were to do that we can delegate to somebody else. The more we let up in that area, and generationally, then there’s no training around doing that. So maybe you didn’t experience your father and your mother discipling you. And so then that didn’t carry forward because the previous generations also had the same things we have today, which is churches with youth group programs and so forth. Now, are we against youth programs? No. Absolutely not. They should be additive. But the psychology of a parent that’s busy is once they feel like something’s taken care of, they start to lessen their influence in that area.

Well, that’s true, I mean, about everything. Absolutely everything. Okay. So let’s start here. Let’s let’s talk about point. We’re going to go through. And we’re going to rattle off for you guys some crucial why is this a crucial period of time. So I just. Want to start by saying there’s a whole lot of parenting resources, biblical resources, lots of teaching on kids who are under eight years old. Yeah, okay. Babies, newborns, stage toddlers, little kids. There’s lots of resources. There’s lots of books. There’s maybe a few I haven’t really. I’ll be honest, I haven’t found any that’s like specific to this age category. And so we felt like it was really important because obviously this is the stage. This is the time ages 8 to 12, where you’re continuing to build because you’ve already been building a relationship with your child the first eight years. You’re continuing to build a relationship that is going to set the stage for the relationship that you have with them when they’re teenagers. This is a crucial period of time in their lives for so many reasons, like their bodies are beginning to change, right? I mean, I don’t know if you guys knew this, but girls nowadays are starting their cycles earlier than ever before, some even at age eight. Yes, that can seem a little bit scary for a moment because you’re thinking to yourself, my eight year old, she’s not really ready for for the for that. I haven’t had that conversation with my daughter. And if if you haven’t, I highly recommend that you begin having some warm up conversations so that you can talk to her so that she’s not scared and think that something’s wrong. When that does begin, we as parents need to understand something.

The pre-adolescent age, which is what we’re talking about here, right? They’re hormones in girls and boys don’t just start the moment. They turn 13 years old and become a teenager. Mhm. Right. Like we need to understand that it’s the few years before and for every kid it’s a little bit different. Right. Like I know that for us I know for me as a mom that’s focused on nutrition and nurturing my kids, I remember reading this even 15, 16, 17 years ago when our first child was six years old and going, I got to do whatever I can to try to postpone that kind of physical maturity from happening too soon, you know? And so I was like, okay, we’re going to do raw milk and we’re not going to get food that has a bunch of hormones pumped into it. And you start changing things, right. You work through the nutrition, the teratogens that in the world to try to delay that as much as possible. But the reality is, is we need to to understand that other parents are not necessarily doing that and other kids are potentially becoming more physically mature. But the problem is, is they’re not spiritually mature. They’re not emotionally mature to be able to handle that kind of stuff. So now, as a parent, understanding the world that our eight year old, nine year old, ten year old, 11 year old, 12 year old is growing up in that they are going to have peers who are going to begin having, um, changes to their body happening, and they may communicate that with your child. You definitely have to have those conversations.

So in the old days, children were mature faster, not physically. I’m talking about they were handling things. There was there was 14 and 15 year olds as captains of ships in history, for example, uh, running farms, kids were running farms. They were responsible at a very early age doing adult kind of things. So today, you could say that the maturity of children has been elongated, right? I think the college system has really perpetuated that. It’s it’s parents, it’s whole society technology. It’s like, let’s let them be kids as long as possible without much responsibility. Right. But because of Teratogens, right. And whatever else, there is a earlier age that children are hitting puberty basically, right? Yeah.

So I mean, their hormones are starting to change. And it’s I’m not saying that you’re so those year olds going to experience that.

So there’s a gap right here. And parents need to step in the gap and be communicating effectively in this 8 to 12 years is where this stuff is happening. Right.

And so having the the deep relationship, we’re going to be talking about that in a little bit here. But having that relationship where you can have those conversations comfortably, where your kids can ask questions and you’re not embarrassed or shy or making it awkward. We talk more about how to do that. Actually, in the Parenting Mentor program, we have an entire one hour teaching on that. We’re not going to dive into that in this podcast today. Um, but we do cover that with a whole bunch of resources on how to talk to your kids about intimacy, um, as well as their body changing and all kinds of things like that. We give a lot of guidance in the parenting.

Yeah, that’s a lot of stuff. And it’s got to be that conversation. There’s warm up conversations, there’s resources. There’s things you’re talking about in this season. Yes. And down the road. But it’s it’s you have to be the first to talk to them about the. Touchy subjects about these different things. It’s so important. We’ll dive more into that in a second. But I just first of all, want to thank you for being part of 10 Million Legacies movement. Every time you share, every time you purchase, every time you pray for us. Maybe that’s the most important thing. Every time you give financially, we have some important fundraising goals that we were trying to hit by the end of the year. And God is so faithful, right? Just what needed to come in probably came in. You know, God’s in control, but there’s still a gap to close, uh, to do double vision for this year. So you can go to be courageous Ministry. Org for all the resources. Courageous Parenting.com. If you want to go directly to the blog post for these episodes, you can go there too. And we’re just so thrilled to be doing this with you guys and something that’s really exciting about this year.

There’s many things. So get our newsletter that’s coming out this week, so make sure you’re on our email list. Super important. You can go to our websites and get on that too. But, uh, by the way, you can scroll all the way to the bottom and it’s there on Be Courageous ministry.org. What’s there uh, the form letter, the form to get on our email list to get the newsletter and the free downloads and things like that. But Angie is doing something really incredible that just started in the app. In the Be Courageous app, there’s many groups and there’s an open feed and you create a profile. It’s very, very elegant, very nice platform. And what’s really cool is there’s a courageous mom group and only women are in there. And so not only is it not on big tech and it’s safe, big tech is not creeping in, looking and keeping track of what you’re saying. But secondly, it’s only for Christian women. Yeah. And what did you just start? Oh well.

We started a series that I’m calling The Heart of the home. And so this first live that I did this morning was on setting the tone of your home. And it was just such like I was really encouraged by the content as I was putting it together and doing research on definition of tone. And what does the Bible say? What are Scripture verses that are going to encourage those different aspects of tone within your home? And then you answered questions.

It was very popular. People are loving it. So join this really special community. Of course, the whole app is amazing. So many resources there, the exclusive, but I think moms they need that fanning the flames. They need that incursion. They need that safe space to be able to share. And I think it’s cool that you’re doing that. Okay, let’s dive in.

All right. So this is a crucial period of time if you’re just jumping on here. We’re talking about parenting the 8 to 12 year olds. And listen here’s what we’re just going to rapid fire. Why this is a crucial period of time in kids lives. Right Isaac. Yeah. The first one is that, you know, they are really curious. This is the time in a kid’s life we have an eight year old, you guys. And I noticed a massive difference. Even, like on the day he turned eight. Now I get that. It’s not necessarily like that. Like they wake up eight and all of a sudden they’re not a little kid anymore. But there was an awareness about him where he was starting to be more socially aware of how people were looking at him and how people were responding to him. When he would ask for something or need help with something. And it’s just been a thing that I’ve noticed a big maturity in him, where he’s thinking of other people more than himself. And that’s a beautiful thing. You want your kids to get to that age, but during that time, too, they start really like, you know, struggling potentially with being a people pleaser, wondering what people think of them. There’s a lot of like, identity stuff. This is where they start, really. Like needing leadership in how they view themselves and their identity in Christ truly, versus their identity and how they perform.

It’s also where you’re gaining or losing influence that much needed essential influence you have to have in the teenage years. A lot of times it gets lost during 8 to 12. Well, you know what else is often happening during the years of 8 to 12 is, uh, that is careers are rapidly increasing, money making is increasing a lot of times for guys out there in their provision. So a lot of times they’re very busy with work and occupied in their minds during their children’s 8 to 12 years. And but we have to not let that interfere with this essential time frame in your children’s lives to nourish the relationships your relationship at at this age is crucial. Uh, it’s really a stepping stone to those teenage years, and they really want more privilege. They want to feel needed. They want to feel responsible, uh, like they matter specifically. Not just because they’re your kid and you love them. That’s fine. It’s just.

It’s a human.

Desire specific. Like, what do I contribute? They need to be able to think of ways they contribute, and they’re needed as so they’re increasingly feeling valuable. Yes, we want their identity in Christ, but that may or may not be there yet. And even if they’ve accepted the Lord, they’re baby Christians, and that needs to be cultivated in them over time.

That’s right. Another thing I think of that why this is such a crucial period is this is where you still have influence in steering who their peer peers are. Yeah. You know, you get to have influence and help them make decisions. Obviously you’re making decisions as the parent as far as like who their who’s going to be influencing them on a teacher level. Right. Um, if you’re homeschooling or who you’re choosing to have as tutors or music lesson instructors or what school you have them going to, parents are making that decision. Right. And so this is a crucial period of time because influence is happening in your child’s life, and you still get that you have that authority in their life. They’re not questioning that authority in their life yet. Whereas when they’re teenagers, they’re starting to go, hey, can’t I decide? And like wanting to be more a part of the process, which makes sense, and you need to be equipping them to be choosing. Right. But this is a crucial period of time because this is when their like their worldview, the Bible makes it really clear through examples like Moses for example, right? He was nurtured by his mother up to like age five, I believe it was. And even in Scripture we see examples of the importance of kids being instructed and raised by their parents. Yeah. And I also just from a social sciences perspective, it is said that a child’s worldview is formed by between the age six and eight. Right. And so they’re going into age eight. You’re still like at that crucial period of time where you’re helping them to have a biblical perspective on how they’re viewing the world. You this is the age where you start maybe being more transparent and talking to them about, like the different agendas that are happening out there and what’s not right, and that we don’t believe this because the Bible says this and you’re not really clear.

It reminds me of the speech I gave to a, uh, Christian Academy middle schoolers. And, uh, I gave them a clear. Accuracy on how the enemy is trying to attack their generation. Uh, and through gender confusion, through, uh, breaking down biblical marriage to, um, uh, sexual activity and these kinds of things and causing doubt and creation. And so I gave him these four basic things. And, um, they were latching on to it, like, because I was telling them the truth. I’m like, hey, here’s the deal. There’s an enemy attacking and and wants to confuse you away from what the Bible says about these things by and and he’s going to be clever. He’s going to try and make you feel like, oh, it’s not loving to believe what the Bible says about these things because other people are choosing different lifestyles. And then I taught them, and I keep hitting this drum. We have to get really good at loving people. Well, while disagreeing what goes against the Bible and not.

Being apologetic for what we believe. We need to be unapologetic. Standing firm. Right? Like you can still go, hey, I love like, what is love guys? If someone is believing a lie about how they’ve been created and they’re in a bondage of sin, you know that sin separates them from God. What is loving? To leave them there or to speak truth in love? To walk with them and to help them to be in a place of repentance towards the Lord and turning away from their sin. That’s what Jesus did. He said, go and sin no more. And a lot of Christians aren’t willing to say that out loud and be unapologetic about it. Instead, there’s too many people who, once their kids start getting older and their kids start having like, making lifestyle choices that are anti-biblical. I’ve seen so many parents their doctrines changing. Do not do that. Be the parents that instead, during these eight ages 8 to 12, you’re teaching your kids biblical theology. You’re teaching them what the Bible says about the current issues of the day, that the enemy is trying to scheme and distract and lie to your children about like, go towards the problem and talk about it.

So you’re saying Christian parents become more progressive as their children in these years and right into the teenage into sin, fall into sin and, and choose a lifestyle that’s against the Bible, and then the parents think it’s the loving thing to do, and they actually shift their position away from biblical truth and rationalize things however they do it, so that the thinking maybe is that so that because it’s their kids so they can love their kid? Well, no. We can love people well and stand firm on biblical ground. And what kind of faith shifts away?

The waves of the sea, the.

Waves of the sea, like in James Bible.

Is very clear about that.

It doesn’t. No, it doesn’t. There’s either truth or there’s not. Man can’t. Man is so fallible. Look at yourself. Think about it. We’re so fallible. Why would we start deciding what parts of the Bible are true, and what parts of the Bible are not true? Actually, you.

Know, when I think about that statement alone, humans deciding what parts are true and what parts are not true, that alone makes the entire thing invalid. It did it. It does. It just does. Like any any child that gets smart enough and thinks logically will go well if my parents don’t believe the whole thing and they only believe parts of it, then like none of it’s true, right? Like, how would I know what parts to believe and not to believe if they’re deciding?

Yeah. So I was in front of this, this school and I’m saying, yeah, six days of creation. That’s what the Bible says. That’s what I believe. Here’s why. Here’s what it says. And that’s important. And I was doing that because I think just that one thing a lot of parents are wavy on that. Oh, well, a day means a thousand years or in God’s time it means these things. Well, he also rested on the days that mean he rested for a thousand years. So it’s like.

So, so good.

Isaac. I mean, and that was a model for the seven day week and for us to rest on the seventh day. So we have to be biblical completely, especially during these years and not wavering. If we don’t have the answer, don’t waver. Be comfortable saying, I don’t have the answer.

Let’s go figure it out.

Let’s go figure it out. Or you do research. You come back to your kids and do it because this is where they need the rock solid biblical truth, zero wavering, right? It is so, so vital.

We need to be the confident people that they’re like, oh, mom, I want to go to Mom and Dad. Let’s let’s go talk to them. Right? Like if you’re able to have conversations where you’re taking them to the word, then if they’re arguing with it, they’re not arguing with you. They’re arguing with God. And like that needs to be the distinction. That’s how you have good communication within your family. That’s how you have the ability to build a relationship that’s founded first and foremost on Christ. For the parents that I feel like are wavering, like we were talking about, I think to myself, what does that reveal? I asked that question, what does that reveal? It reveals that they actually are putting, uh, acceptance and and needing the love from their child above faithfulness and love to God first and foremost. And that is idolatry of children. That is idolatry of your family. We need to be on guard against that. We need to truly our hearts need to love the Lord your God with your whole heart. Heart, mind, soul and strength, just like we read in Deuteronomy six. And if we’re doing that, that means that we are going to be standing firm. Right? That’s right.

I love, I love, by the way, in in Timothy, Paul was talking to Timothy and I think first or second Timothy. And it talks about how his his mom and his grandma, I think Eunice taught him the ways of Scripture and the ways of God. And the Paul is exhorting him and saying, uh, don’t remember the teaching of your youth. And if you look at you look into that. Uh, Timothy’s dad was not a believer, not training in instruction and so forth. And the reason I’m sharing that right now is because there’s a lot of moms out there where the dads are either nonbelievers or they’re kind of nominal. They’re not taking it seriously, they’re not doing anything in terms of spiritual leadership and so forth. Uh, and I’m not dogging them right now. I’m just saying this is a reality I keep hearing about. And so but there but look at the example of I think it’s Lois and Eunice. Is that right? Lois and Eunice, mom and grandma training up. Timothy and Timothy was discipled, then later on by Paul. And then Timothy had a huge part in establishing the church and spreading the church. So I am setting, you know, Paul tells him to set in place bishops, which are elders and deacons in all the churches, and appoint them based on this criteria. And I just think that’s so beautiful. Look at what happened in Timothy’s life because of Mom and Grandpa. Sorry, grandma. Even though dad was not spiritually present.

Yeah, and if you guys want that actual scripture to go look at, it’s actually in second Timothy and it’s verses three through seven, so you can go and look that up. It’s a really encouraging thing. Isaac’s actually preached on this a couple times, and it always encourages me to remember that, wow, like God is pointing out the impact of a mother and a grandmother. And so that’s an encouragement to me as a mom and a grandma to have a spiritual influence in teaching the word with those kids. So, you know, obviously, we’ve been talking about why this is a crucial period of time. There’s just a few more things we wanted to bring up about this specific age, which is this is the time in their life where you start seeing even more curiosity. Kids, of course, are curious kids. They ask lots of questions. But I just want to warn you, because at this age, sometimes, like the wise, you know, obviously there’s two different kinds of why asking. There’s the defiant, I don’t want to do what you said. Why do I have to do it, mom? Why? And that’s an entirely different kind of why than what I’m talking about. There’s the why. That’s like, curious about why and how things work, the way they work, where they’re looking at creation and they’re asking good questions. And sometimes I know that as a mom of many, there have been times where I’m thinking about something else and then a kid will ask a question like that and I’m just like, oh, really? Right now? Now I’m going to forget what I was trying to do, and I’m just going to share this one exhortation with you.

You need to stop and really value the question that your kids are having and not get annoyed by that. It’s really a beautiful thing. And if you shut it down, your kids might not come and ask you questions when they’re teenagers. That’s my warning. Um, I really think that this is the age where when they’re asking questions, you are their cheerleader going. That’s a really good question. And like Isaac said earlier, if you don’t know the answer, it’s okay to say, I don’t know. That’s such a good question. Let’s figure it out together. Maybe go to dad, maybe go to look in the Bible, look in a concordance. Um, but I just want to encourage you that, like one, you don’t have to have the answers to everything. You’re not going to screw up your kids if you don’t. In fact, you’re going to teach humility if you don’t. And that’s a good thing. Number two, it can be really fun looking up the answers with your kids. And what you’re doing is you’re developing a relationship of communication. This is the time where their vocabulary is growing deeper conversations are are able to be had. Like, I just want to share this one brief conversation I had with Solomon the other day.

We went out on a little one on one date and we’re in the car, and we were talking about worship and praise, and then we were talking about how Jesus is the serpent crusher and how he was, you know, um, prophesied in Scripture in the very beginning in Genesis that he would be the offspring that would crush Satan’s head. And, you know, we’re talking about this. And he was adding so much contribution to the conversation. And I was like, wow, you’re eight. You just turned eight. And I just share that with you. Not to like, puff up your view of Solomon like you guys. This was a completely unplanned, spontaneous conversation. Him and I in the car. So the point is, is that, you know, kids at this age, they’re having deeper conversations. It can be exciting. You can ask like, what are you praying for? What is God teaching you right now? And on that topic like this is the age, like age, you know, kids learn how to read at different ages. We’ve had kids learn how to read at four. We’ve had kids really grasp reading at even age nine. So if you have. Kids that are eight nine that are still trying to figure that out. It’s okay. Um, but the point is, is this is the time where you can start teaching them and guiding them and encouraging them to read the Bible on their own and how to study it independently.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, hey, you know, we have three keys that we’re going to cover in the next episode, but I want to review them really quick. And the first one is communication. This is a season where we have to have really good communication in a deeper relationship. And in fact, we’ll talk a little bit more about this in the next episode. Just listen to the next episode. But it’s uh, there’s a document also how to ask three questions deep. It’s called Go Heart Deep. When you sign up for our email list, you get that. If you’re already on our list, check your email because we send it to you a couple times. It’ll also be in this week’s newsletter and linked.

Available in the app.

And it’s available in the app too. So, um, uh, the second thing is discipleship. We are going to touch on some tips on discipleship in there. Obviously, if you want the full gamut of discipleship, it’s one of six major sessions broken up into 4 to 8 parts in the Parenting Mentor program. That is the go to foundational thing that you want to do, uh, alone or with your spouse, if they’re willing. I know they’re not always willing, but at least one parent needs to take this program. It is essential. We’ve seen it. We just had 90 couples start at the beginning of the year, the biggest program ever that we’ve ever had. And it’s so fun to see the impact just in the first live and what’s going on. So discipleship and then the third.

One is equip. We’re going to talk about equipping your kids that are ages 8 to 12 for the teenage years. Regarding the current issues that are relevant to today, we’re going to dig into some stuff on how to teach your kids about Fallen World. Um, also, you guys, when Isaac mentioned discipleship, we are going to dive into like baptism, like how to talk to your kids about baptism and how to really own their faith as their own, because this is the age category where a lot of kids who are raised in Christian homes, where you truly start seeing that spiritual maturity beginning, it’s where you start encouraging their own faith, becoming their own.

Okay, so thanks so much for joining us and catch us in the next episode.

Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement, go to be Courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible, self-paced program. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group in the Be Courageous app. Live webcast and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online Parenting Mentor program, secure your spot now at Be Courageous Ministry. Org that’s Be Courageous Ministry org.

 

Written By Angie Tolpin
Angie has been married to Isaac for 19 years and together they have eight children, whom she homeschools. She is the Founder of CourageousMom.com, a doula, the author of the best-selling book Redeeming Childbirth, and the creator of the first ever Christian Postpartum Course. Angie loves ministering to Women and has created a few online Bible Studies on Biblical Friendship and Motherhood.

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