[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome into the Think Deeper podcast. I'm Jack Wilkie, joined by Joe Wilkie and Will Harab and our recurring guest, Dr. Brad Harib, here once again to talk about esteemed guests. Joe, you don't have to make nice to our boss. I mean, come on, now.
But as most of you probably know, we've had ads for it on the show. We've talked about it. He and his wife Melinda just released a new book on parenting, Arrows in the Hands of a warrior. It's on focuspress.org, it's on Amazon. Definitely go pick up a copy of that. And so we're excited to have that out. I know a lot of folks have picked up a copy. If you haven't yet, be sure to do so.
And, yeah, we wanted to bring them on to talk about it. Bring them on to talk about parenting, talk about the book, just talk about some of the ideas we think that are very helpful to people. And so we'll just start by putting you on the spot and say, when did you get the. The idea, the push to write a parenting book? And. And talking Melinda into it, I think, was quite a feat. I know she's not terribly comfortable, but I think that was great. So tell us a little bit about the. The project.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So for over a decade, you know, I've been going out and realizing that the home is broken in the church, in the world. We. We don't do marriage well.
We basically, if you stop and think about it, male leadership is. You guys have covered this gazillions of times. It's considered toxic in our culture.
Ladies are encouraged to get an independent career. And as a result, we've got a lot of homes that are fragmented, a lot of situations where children are kind of raising themselves, they're latchkey kids. They are being raised by school, teachers, youth, ministers, whatever. And at the end of the day, I felt like we needed to get back to some of the basics and talk about, hey, how do we fix the home? And at the root of that is parenting. Because if you stop and think about it, parenting is God's way of passing on faithfulness to the next generation. And so, yeah, it did take me a little bit to. To talk my wife into it. She likes to stay way, way behind the spotlight, doesn't like to be up front. But she, as Will, can tell you, she possesses a lot of wisdom. And so I was anxious to pull some of that out of her.
[00:02:39] Speaker C: What was it like? That was the first time that you. Not the first time you've co written a book, obviously, but the first time you've co written it with somebody that close to you, was that an interesting different process?
Did that go well? I don't know how much information you want to divulge here, but I can only. I mean, I've written a book with you, and that was pretty painless process, but I can imagine maybe sometimes it's not always quite so painless.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: This one was a little bit different in that it was so personal.
You know, it was. We were. We were kind of opening our lives and letting folks in.
It was interesting in that getting her started was a little bit of a challenge, but once she got rolling, it was. There were. There were a couple of weeks where, man, she was just flying. You know, she was kind of like, all right, where's the next chapter? Where's the next chapter? And I was having to kind of keep up with her. So I. She's got lots of wisdom and I think the book is so much better just bringing in her perspective.
[00:03:48] Speaker D: So I'm curious. You know, obviously we want everybody to read the entire book. Is there any part of the book, any excerpt or anything that really stood out to you, though, that you think packs the biggest punch or something that you would draw people to specifically? And like, this is a chapter I'm particularly proud of.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: Joe's wanting to know the Spark Notes version so that he doesn't have to read the whole book.
[00:04:08] Speaker D: Yeah, that's right. Can you just send me to the one chapter I need to read?
[00:04:11] Speaker B: I'm sorry, Joe, you're going to have to. Okay, I don't have to read the whole thing.
I think the. The re. Reoccurring theme that. That you're going to get all throughout the book. But there is a specific chapter on. It deals with centering everything around God.
Something we tried really hard to do and are still doing to this day in. In our home. Trying to make your relationship with God and your Christianity more than just checking off a box on Sunday morning.
Obviously we go, you know, you draw back to Deuteronomy chapter 6. And while we don't have something literally on our doorpost, it's very, very important to us that whether you're sitting, lying, walking, talking, that we are bringing up God in the. In the situation.
Will can tell you we talk about spiritual things around our dinner table pretty often. I mean, it's. It is not unusual at all for somebody to bring up something and us have a discussion about it. And that's the way we wanted it. We wanted a Home that was centered around God.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: All right, I've got a kind of a two sides of a coin question, so I'm dibs ing the next two here. Boys.
One of the things I liked about the book, you guys have a feature you explained very early on that you want to talk about things you've done wrong and that there's kind of this illusion of perfection sometimes and that you said you'd read so many parenting books that just make you feel hopeless.
I think I really love that you guys did that.
Why do people need to. Older couples, maybe parents that are empty nesters at this point, helping younger people. Why do you think it's important to talk about the flaws? And is there maybe social media? What are your thoughts on why we have this kind of theory of perfection? You've got to get everything right. You got to pretend you have everything right. If you don't talk about that a little bit.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So let me just go ahead and get my hot shot out there with. With Joe, his hot takes.
It is extremely frustrating that the generation above me never talked about any of their mistakes. In fact, you would think they made no mistakes.
And the reality is they did. And the reason I say it's frustrating is because I feel like I could have learned from that. I could have really, really done a better job of what I was doing. And so when Melinda and I set out to do this, I told her. I was like, we. We're going to admit our mistakes.
That's. Will you ask the question about, you know, was it. What was it like? That was actually one of the funnest chapters. We were driving together, just she and I, to a weekend seminar, and she took out a legal pad, and we said, all right, let's list all the things that we would have done differently or areas that we feel like we made mistakes, things that we really wish we could have kind of go back now knowing what we know. And we. I mean, we literally just after like, 20, we're like, okay, that's probably enough.
But, Jack, to back to your cheer question for just a moment.
I've always told my children I want to give them a better blueprint to start their lives than I had, so that hopefully they can kind of have a foot up, so to speak. And part of that means I admit my mistakes. I look them in the eye and I say, you know what? I could have communicated with your mom better. So when you get older and get married, learn how to disagree and communicate with your mom, that kind of thing.
[00:08:06] Speaker C: One of the. One of the things that I, yeah, one of the things that I liked about that, specifically that chapter was a big problem I have with books like that sometimes or just kind of books that are trying to tell you how to do better in marriage or, you know, better yourself type of books. They speak in such kind of vague terms like it's very generic, it's, it's all theoretical. And what I liked about the chapter was you guys gave very specific things. I think one of them was, you know, you would not have given a smartphones as early as you did. And that's a very practical thing that I think younger parents at least like myself are looking for. Like, I don't want to read a book that's just going to tell me, oh well, you need to, you know, very generic things like, well, you need to devote more time or you need to spend more time with God as a family. Okay, great, that doesn't help me a whole lot. Or you need to, you need to, you know, sp. I'm just trying to think of things like that you need to spend more time being closer together as a family. Like, great, that doesn't help me. But stuff like probably wouldn't have given my kid a smartphone at 14 or social media or whatever some of the other practical things were that you guys had on there. To me, once again, as a parent of two who were very young, that's tremendously helpful. The practical side of what did you, what did you do well? What did you do not do well? And I think maybe a lot of times, whether it be in books like that or classes or even sermons, the more specific, the more practical, the less generic, the less vague, I think the better at least as far as being helpful to other parents.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Well, think about how much better it would be if the older generation, the 60s, 70s, I mean like elders generation in the church, if they would be speaking up right now and saying to your generation and even my generation to some extent, hey, here's where we totally whiffed. This is where we completely messed up.
I think that generation dropped the ball on home devotionals. I, I don't think a lot of the 60, 70 year olds had any kind of home family, Bible time kind of thing.
They need to be up in the pulpit or in a classroom saying, hey guys, we, we miss this one. It's very important. Make sure you're doing it in your home.
[00:10:22] Speaker C: We've run into this before, Joe, and sorry, then it's all you. At our thing deeper seminar that the three of us had last year, the idea that talking to somebody who apparently had, had lost at least one of their kids and they made the comment that they, what did they, how they phrase it, it wasn't we did everything right, but something along those lines essentially that we did everything the right way. There was none of that humility that you're talking about. There was none of that kind of fessing up to, you know, and whatever it was, whatever it might have been, I didn't, you know, I didn't know their family background or whether or not they did home devotionals or not. But I do. I appreciate that point. As somebody who can get frustrated sometimes with older generations who do seem to kind of, they're sure quick to jump up and tell you the things that they did right or the things that they don't like about the current generation, but when it comes to the things that they did not do well or the things that they messed up, they're not quite as quick to do that.
[00:11:16] Speaker D: You know, I also think it makes parenting more accessible when you are willing to admit your faults and willing to say, we didn't do everything right, but we really tried to love you kids with everything. Like, you look at the way people are today, and they're so against making mistakes. They really don't want to mess up their kids. So now we have gentle parenting and things like that where it's very much swinging the pendulum back to the other side where parenting seems less accessible, less easy than ever before. And I'm wondering how much that perfectionism, we got it all right type of thing, how much that thinking is pervasive. But the bigger question I was going to ask you is why do you think they are so hesitant? Like, you're, you're spot on. And Jack's analysis is correct on this. Like, they don't want to admit faults, but it really seems like there's some deep seated insecurity or something. Like, look, everybody makes mistakes. We're all aware that we all make mistakes. But, man, that generation really does not want to seem to step up, like you said from the pulpit, or even taking people into their homes going, wish we would have done this better. Why do you think that is?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: I think it works. Righteousness. I think it's legalism. They feel like we have to check off every box properly and we've got to get every little thing right in order to get to heaven. And so they're not willing to actually say, oops, you know what, we really didn't do this well. And again, I think it would be such a Valuable thing for the older generations to, whether it's one on one, whether it's a Bible class, whether it's from a pulpit to actually pause and say, hey guys, here's some specific things that you really might want to consider bringing up your children.
Because again, let's, let's not miss the point.
It's all about training children and that's not being done these days.
[00:13:18] Speaker D: Sure.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: So the other side of the coin I had mentioned when I brought up the thing about mistakes is because of that and kind of that we did everything right, there is this idea in Christianity that faithful kids are basically a coin flip. You know, I just do your best and we'll see what comes of it. And not that you're taking, I like about the book, you guys aren't taking a victory lap of, well, our kids are faithful. So, you know, we're the greatest parents in the world. It's not that it's, God gave us a blueprint. It's not like, yeah, there's human imperfection. Like you say, we're not perfect. But on the other hand, you do have faithful kids. And so this idea in the church that again, it really is presented as a coin flip. And so that's why we don't really want to get into mistakes and things that could be done differently or reevaluating is, well, who knows, you know, some kids are faithful, some kids aren't. And so, man, that you guys just got lucky.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I don't, I don't agree with that at all. And, and let me just back up and say we still pray for our children daily.
As far as their faithfulness, as far as them continuing to grow, we'll continue to do that as long as we live. It's, it's not, we get done and we're done parenting.
It goes until I get in a grief.
But I think this whole coin flip attitude is because we've lost so many of our kids. You know, when you look across the church, hey, the statistics, they're there and you can't refute them. And so at the end of the day, I think there's a lot of folks who are looking for an easy out rather than saying, you know what, I was at the office too much and I let the TV raise my kid, or I, I sent them off to public school and they turned into humanistic atheist pagans and I probably should have brought them home or had them in a private school or something that you don't hear any of that.
We have a, well, you know, Some kids are faithful.
[00:15:23] Speaker D: We have an issue. I was just talking with somebody recently about this. The difference between responsibility and blame. And we really want to blame others. We don't want to take the blame on ourselves. I think there's a fundamental difference between taking responsibility and taking blame and saying they did make some of their own choices when they walked away from God. However, we need to take responsibility for our part in this, specifically as parents. And we bear a big part of the responsibility in saying we didn't do everything we could have. We didn't protect them from the public schools. We didn't protect them from a lot of the outside sources. And I think that's such a key point in the parenting discussion of being able to take responsibility, which is admitting fault to your kids. I should have done this better, and I'm sorry. And humbling yourself. Humbling yourself before God and before your kids and, you know, actually seeking their forgiveness for the ways that you parented. And that's taking responsibility. Instead, we want to just cast blame and go, okay, either I'm 100 to blame or they're 100 to blame. And we put a lot on the kids. Like, these things don't happen in vacuums. But one of the things you said that I wanted to come back to, I think it's. This is such an interesting and needed point. You talk about parenting to the grave. So many people seem to think parenting takes place 1 to 0 to 18. By the time they turn 18, you send them off to college, my job's done. I'm an empty nester. I'm out. You know, I don't really have much responsibility. Speak to that a little bit. And maybe where that idea comes from and why that's such a problem.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: That's. That's biblical. Genesis, chapter 4, verse 9. Talks about teaching your children and your grandchildren.
[00:16:54] Speaker C: Deuteronomy 4, verse 9. Sorry.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: I'm sorry. Thank you.
Will. Will tell you. See, there you go. I trained him up well.
Actually. Actually, that was just a test. No, Will will tell you that I do not enter. At least I hope he will, that I do not interfere with his life and his. His family, because he is now a man and he has a family of his own. And he is supposed to leave and cleave, but I think he would tell you that occasionally I'll send him a. A video to watch or I'll ask him how he's doing, both mentally, spiritually.
You know, oftentimes it's by text or by phone. But I am invested in him to Continue to grow. Same thing with, with his.
We're in a unique situation right now where we have two still at home, two who are married. And so we're kind of walking two different lines in that we're, we're full time investing in the ones that are home. But at the same time we're also wanting to help grow, fertilize and encourage the ones who have left the home.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: I've got something I wanted to bring up along these lines of kids walking away and youth unfaithfulness.
This is probably my biggest pet peeve with not to come out just bashing the Church of Christ, but kind of the way the Church of Christ does things currently. And that is you go to just about any congregation, you look on Facebook, you kind of listen to the main message of a lot of ministers. It's evangelism, evangelism, evangelism, evangelism. Nonstop door knocking, mission, mission work and go out and teach the lost and reach the lost. And I appreciate that. Obviously that's something that we are commanded to do. What I don't appreciate and what drives me nuts about it is that it seems like we're going to go full speed ahead into that. And the issue that we've just been talking about with raising our kids to be faithful gets brushed by the wayside, gets treated as a coin flip, kind of like what you and Jack were just speaking to.
And I've always said, I think I brought up on a episode that we had maybe a couple months ago, if we spent half the time, half the money, half the energy, half the effort into making sure that our kids as a, as a congregation, you take a congregation of 200, say they got 15, or say they got 25, 30 kids that are under 18, if we spent half the money, half the energy, half the effort into making sure that they were discipled to be faithful Christians, that they grew up to marry faithful Christians, that they grew up to raise faithful children themselves.
Obviously I'm not trying to say that that's better than evangelism or anything like, or, but to me, that is evangelism. That that is where our main focus needs to be. And to me what it seems like is we got to go get people baptized, we got people wet, we got to go knock doors, we got to go out and again teach and reach the loss and all these things that you see non stop. And it's like, when are we going to switch the point of emphasis away from that? Not that that doesn't need to be done, but I do think There's a level of irresponsibility to trying to go out there, teach the loss, reach your neighbor, all these things. When our kids are literally, we're batting what. I mean, 75% of kids are leaving the church. And it's like we don't, it's like we don't notice it. I mean, I'm sure that ministers and things notice it, but maybe a few sermons on that, maybe a few Facebook posts about that, maybe a few campaigns or money spent from congregations to try to get our 30, you know, 15 year olds that are in our congregation raised faithfully. It just drives me nuts that it's, it's like that's the evangelism that we need to be focused on. That is the evangelism. Go ahead.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: How many times have you heard me say the home has to be the primary mission field?
[00:20:58] Speaker C: Right. But nobody acknowledges that.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: No. And nobody actually does that. And what I mean by that is you think about how much time and energy people put into whether it's a domestic mission trip or an overseas mission trip.
And they're doing all this planning and they're thinking, okay, maybe we're gonna, we're gonna put on a vbs or we're gonna have a bunch of kids classes and a meeting, gospel meeting at night, and we're going to door knock and we're going to do all these things. And so there is like lots of effort and time and energy plugged into getting that thing done.
Well, imagine if you use that time and energy in your own home with your own children, which is basically part of what Melinda and I are trying to say in this book. And that is your home's got to be the primary mission field.
[00:21:51] Speaker D: But this is one of the issues is look around. In America, you take women outside, they're working outside the home. You put kids in public school, obviously the dad's working outside, nobody's home. The home went from being the focal point in America, which obviously strong homes, strong marriages, equal strong homes, equal strong churches, equal strong society. When the marriages aren't strong and when everybody's outside the home, who's there? Family dinner times aren't happening. One of the things I love about in your book and you, you see it specifically in the mistakes chapter, you hit hard on relationships, on several of them. Conflict management. You talk about making sure that there's, you know, like really focusing on relationships not just with their peers, but with the church, with the family. And I think that's so pivotal because that is bringing the focal point back to the home back to the relationships and the equilibrium within the home. And to me, that's one of the biggest issues we're seeing in America is when everybody's outside the home all the time.
Nobody's focusing on what's inside the home. And then even when you bring people in and you have stay at home wives, a lot of them are not. They don't know what it means to be a keeper at home because none of the older women know how to teach them. The older women were working women. So nobody really knows how to pass down the generational wisdom how to be a keeper at home. The kids are out, you know, outside the home. And then even if we bring them back inside the home, there just seems to be a purposelessness which seems to go to the guys that they're kind of purposeless. They're not really driving the home. So it's this big issue. But how do we. What do you think is the most important?
[00:23:18] Speaker A: We're.
[00:23:19] Speaker D: We're talking about all of this, I suppose. So I don't be redundant. But like, to those that maybe they're realizing, wow, the focal point of, of our family is not the home, it's outside. It's the evangelism, it's the, the workplace, it's the school, it's the activities, the event, even the church itself and not in the home.
What advice would you give them to go from external focus to internal focus, really fixing their home? What's a good place to start for those people?
[00:23:45] Speaker B: First off, they've got to get back in the home.
I think you, you hit it. Well, my generation was really the first generation of what we call latchkey kids, meaning mom and dad both work. Kid comes home from school, they've got a key around their neck or hidden under the flower pot or the, the doormat. They let themselves in, they go fix a snack, they watch television or play Atari or whatever that we were kind of the first kids to start doing that.
It's now so normalized that you're going to have two income families that in the church we don't even talk about, hey, is that the right thing we need to be doing for our children? Is this the best way to train up our children to have two independent careers where the kid is at home a massive amount of time by themselves?
First off, we got to address that. We actually have to get back into the home in order to do that as, as a part of that. Joe.
We got a lot of fragmented families. Think about how sports, all kinds of youth activities, all this Stuff is pulling at families.
I'm one of those really messed up people. And we actually talk about this in the book that basically says, hey, there's some times where you need to come home rather than be pulled by the even church activities. Because if you stop and think about it, you can fill up your calendar all week long with all kinds of activities. And what that's ultimately doing is pulling you out of the home, pulling the family apart, whether it's ladies Bible class and youth devos and, you know, all these different things.
We got to get back into the home for parents to do the job that God commanded parents.
He didn't command other people to do it. He commanded parents. And so if, if we're going to fix this problem, it's got to start known now.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Somebody, maybe a family who's really wrapped up in that, that might bring some resentment, that might bring some, some rough travel, you know, the first adjustments that you make. And I, I don't think that, like, that doesn't mean you don't do it. But, you know, you're telling the kids, hey, we're gonna cut out one of these sports, we're gonna cut out one of these teams or, or this activity that you're in theater or music or whatever it is, we're gonna tone it down because we can't live out of the minivan six days a week. Or, you know, maybe, maybe the wife, maybe the, you know, she really enjoys the, the schedule they've got going or whatever. And the husband says, well, we need to, we don't have room for a family devo. We're gonna cut something back and maybe she's upset about it and something like that. So there's, there's always growing pains to these kinds of things. Do you have any advice for people who are looking at that going, man, this is going to be really hard.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: First, and we got a chapter on this. You're supposed to be the parent and not a friend.
You have to do the hard things. You have to be able to say no. You have to be able to pull the reins in. I'm sure Will has spoken on this multiple times that had we allowed him, he would played every sport there was, football, basketball, you name soccer, everything.
Because family was important to us and we wanted to train up our children. We said, hey, you get to pick one, one per year. And even with that, there were certain restrictions and limitations. And so, you know, be the parent, say the hard things.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Hey guys, just wanted to tell you about Dr. Brad and Melinda Harab's new book, Arrows in the Hands of a Discipling Children toward Heaven with God's Grace. It's a great book for couples to read together or for churches to study in a Bible class setting with a 13 week plan. We also give bulk discounts if you buy it through focuspress.org or it's also available on Amazon. So check out Arrows in the Hands of a Warrior today.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Well, I was, you guys, you go ahead. You guys have been bombarding me with questions. Let me, let me, let me throw one back on you.
And, and you guys were not prepped for this, so it may take you a second to think about it. But do you feel like children are a reflection of their parenting?
[00:28:15] Speaker A: Children I've, I've had.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: And by that I mean.
Yeah, go ahead.
[00:28:21] Speaker C: No, go ahead, give your clarification. Then I'll go.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: I, you know, if you see a 20, 25, 30, 35 year old who is faithful and growing, is that reflective of their parenting versus a kid who, a 25, 30, 35 year old who is just going through the motions or maybe has walked away from the church, is that a reflection of their parenting?
[00:28:52] Speaker C: I think we're probably gonna go three for three on this one. I've actually, I've had this discussion before with people who will try to argue and it's something we can view it sometimes in the light of the eldership discussion, the eldership qualification discussion of the kid's faithful up to 18 and then at 27 leaves the church. Is the, is the elder so qualified? And we've had many discussions on that before in this podcast, but that's typically the type of conversations where the, where this question comes up and the conversations that I've had with people, to me it is pretty straightforward that what a, a person does even after they leave the home at 18 is a direct reflection of, of parenting in some way or another.
It's a direct result of parenting. And some people say, oh well, they, they got in with the wrong crowd after they left the home. Okay, your parenting should have had an influence on that. Oh well, they, you know, just married the wrong person and then they okay, well, your parenting should have had an effect on that. Like to me, this is, is very cut and dry. I tend to take Proverbs 22, 6 literally train up a child in the way you should go when he's old. He will not depart from it. Oh, that's a promise. Oh, you can't take that literally. I take it pretty literally. I do think if you, you can see a again, a 42 year old faithful Christian. And that is a positive referendum on their parents.
Take a 28 year old feminist or you know, somebody who is living however they please, living with their significant other, whatever. Somebody not really going to church. Yeah, I think that's a negative referendum on their parenting. So yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty clear to see. And I think maybe sometimes where you get the we didn't do anything wrong mentality we were discussing earlier is from people who believe that once, once that 18th birthday hits all they are abdicated of all responsibility. Anything that happens after that is not on their shoulders. And I just think that's a very, very unhealthy attitude.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: I think Luke 6, 40 or so. Jesus says every student when he is fully trained will be exactly like his teacher. And it's funny that you'll see obviously like you look like your parents, right? Kids grow up and you can just see the physical resemblance, but they also pick up mannerisms, they pick up sayings, you know, things like that of, you can tell, but you can also tell kids who had that distance from their relationship and they talk like the tv. Like, they don't talk like their parents, they talk like cartoon characters, they talk like their favorite TV shows or whatever. And like that in itself says, okay, this is who has left an impression on them. And I've made this analogy in talking about faithful children before sports teams, like, man, everybody in my family, we root for all the Colorado teams because growing up dad had them on the tv, we talked about them, we went to games, stuff like that. Like it's so funny. We think all of that stuff can get passed on but religion, well, it's just if the kid decides to pick it up, like the parent teaches what matters to the family, the parent impresses on the kid, hey, these are our priorities. This is what, this is what we do in this family. And we are Christians in this family. We worship God, we serve the church, we love each other, we, we live upright lives and strive to be holy. And this, we've mentioned, the gentle parenting thing. Well, just kind of let them determine their own way, get out of their way because they know where they're going. They don't actually. And again, in the same way you're going to impress your physical looks on them, you're going to impress your mannerisms on them and, and your, your phrases and the way you talk, you're going to impress spiritual things on them too.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: There are dads who have impressed upon their, their sons in a stronger fashion.
About what particular brand of car or truck to buy or avoid than they have fidelity to God. And what I mean by that is, you know, you pull up in a Dodge truck, lots of dads have said, man, I would rather be pushing a Ford or pushing a Chevy than ever have a Dodge. And that they've ingrained that in their kids so much that that son will never even look at a Dodge truck.
Are we passing on the same allegiance about faith and a relationship with God now?
[00:33:04] Speaker D: You guys covered it very, very well. I think this is where the ramp in individualism comes in. They're going to make their own decisions. You know, like this all kind of happens in a vacuum and you guys are breaking apart that perfectly of not everything. You know, my kids are going to cheer for the Colorado Avalanche because guess what? I'm a huge ass fan. And that's just expected in this home. You grow up, I'll disown you. If you're a Red Wings fan or something. I mean, and my kids know this, my kids know this. And yeah, it's tongue in cheek. But at the same time there's a level of expectations that, that come with it. And I think we have lost the expectation for spirituality. We've lost the high expectations for you're going to stay faithful. It just says, boy, I really hope they do. Like I don't really, you know, I, I. The way that you raise a kid, of course there's a hope. There's but, but the hope, like the biblical hope is hope plus expectation. And I think there has to be the expectation on the kid, like that's what we do here. If you want to be a part of this family and you know, we've talked about this in our family.
If any of us as siblings got four and by the grace of God, faithful kids. My parents raised four faithful kids. And if any of us went off the deep end, if any of us decided to walk away from God, there would be two parents and three siblings banging down their door going, what are you doing? You created a culture. And this is, this speaks to parenting. Parents create a culture. We've talked about it before. Husbands and fathers are the tone set or the culture creator within their home. To me that's more of the reflection is did you create a culture where it's every man for himself, this rampant individualism, or did you create a culture where we hold each other accountable and it's the same in your guys family? I know the Harrod family be the exact same way if Reese or somebody, you know, God forbid, if he were to make a decision that were just terrible, he'd have five people and more. I'd be. I'd be lining up behind you guys to go, what are you doing? What are you doing, man? Like, hey, let's. Let's talk about this. And that's the culture that you set in your home. That's the culture. My parents in the home. So, yes, we are an amalgamation of our parents.
We can make our own individual decisions along the way, but because of individualism, we think the decisions are made outside of everybody else, and that's just not the case. Like, even swinging the pendulum of, well, my parents did it this way. I'm not going to do it this way. It's like their. Your parents are still in control, then you're still going off of their pendulum and swinging it back. Even though you think you're making the decision, they're still the focal point that you're trying to swing away from. So, yeah, you're still kind of in the same situation. But, yeah, I think the individualism is killing us.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: You raised something there, Joe. I want to swing off of that. To the generational differences people.
[00:35:41] Speaker D: You.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: You had mentioned the smartphone, Brad, and so that was something that you do kind of share with today's kids. Although, you know, Will and the other kids weren't around so much when I went to a restaurant the other day. And you see this all the time. Lady sitting there on her phone. Kid look like he's about five, sitting there with an iPad propped up in front of him, eating his fries. Kid with an iPad propped up. I mean, you see things like that generationally. What do you think today's parents, some of the biggest challenges that you guys didn't have, but that have cropped up in the last 20 years or so, or 25 years since will was born.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: No, I definitely think screens. Screens are huge.
Get your kids off the screens. That's. It's absolutely killing families. The other thing I would say is just so many activities that Satan has thrown out there, whether it's travel ball, whether it's theater, whether it's whatever. There are so many different ways that kids can be plugged into something. I'm not saying any of that is bad or sinful, but they've become idols in our culture.
Whether it's, again, travel ball or band or whatever, to the point that that's. That's their identity. That's the parents identity sometimes, hey, I'm a. I'm a soccer mom. I'm a whatever. It's like, no, you are a Christian mother.
Raise and train your child. Stop sending them off to all these activities. Stay home, train them up. It's pretty simple.
[00:37:22] Speaker C: I've, I've got a question. I think that's maybe somewhat along those lines.
All three of us are parents of young kids. Kids, you know, Yalls old at Jack and Joe. Yalls oldest is six.
[00:37:34] Speaker D: Right.
[00:37:34] Speaker C: I don't think you'll have any seven year olds yet. So a lot of young kids among the three of us. And I was curious, dad, from your perspective, I think the screens one is huge. I'm the same. I'll obviously, I obviously work for, work for our local Chick Fil a here in Spring Hill. And man, the amount of parents that come in, order their kids kids meal and then just set an iPad in front of them. Sometimes younger than five. Like we're talking three, two, three, four year olds that just get an iPad stuck in front of them. I think that's a big one. But the question that I had was, what are some kind of telltale signs of some bad parenting practices that you can see from a younger age? I think we've spoken a lot to kind of the older age trying to be, trying to be buddy friends with them. You know, the smartphones, like some of the stuff that might affect all three of us as parents in a decade. But for right now, when you, when you see parents of young kids and you know, goes without saying, you're, I'm not asking you to just, you know, bash younger parents here, but I'm asking truly as seeking as somebody who has two young kids, what are some things that when you see parenting practices like sticking a screen in front of a restaurant that you look at and this is, this is where in my opinion, righteous judgment comes in. Proper discernment, biblical discernment, where you're not condemning anybody, but you're saying maybe in your head, yeah, that's, that's not a good parenting practice. I do not think that that's a healthy thing to do. What are, what are some, some, some things that you see with young parents sometimes where it just kind of makes you cringe.
Hopefully none of the things that me and Rachel do, because that would be awkward.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: So the, the very first thing that pops into my mind is discipline.
And this is one of those things that we've had a pendulum swing from my generation where we got spanked to, oh, we can't do that anymore. We got to move the pendulum all the way to the other side and never ever discipline our Child we have to be friendly parents and let them make their own choices and stuff. And you can tell, you can watch kids and figure very quickly which ones are disciplined and which ones are absolutely running their home themselves.
Teach them the fear of the Lord.
And part of that is fearing and respecting their parents. When I see kids talk back to their parents, I know those parents have already failed.
And the reason I say that is because a kid that will talk back and disrespect their earthly parents is eventually going to do the same to their heavenly father. And so that, that will be a huge one time. And I think yalls generation does this better but I'm not convinced. So a lot of yalls molding and shaping and stuff like that happen just organically one on one with parents.
You guys have. I say, you guys, your generation has come along and said man, we really need to be more into our kids lives and, and we need to not be afraid to say I love you and, and, and hug them and do all these things that maybe our parents didn't do.
But it seems like the amount of the time that parents today are spending with their kids is always kind of wrapped up in a, oh, today is pumpkin patch day and or today is we're going to do this day and it's always kind of this big special thing and then the rest of the time is basically kind of dropped, neglected, whatever.
And my recommendation would be don't miss out on the rest of the time. That's when I think real true molding happens.
Will like it or not, your mom shaped and molded you one on one in our home day after day with just good gentle training, correction, talking to you guys in everyday circumstances.
And I think a lot of times that doesn't take place.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: There's one other thing I want to hit on this while we're talking generational differences is the grandparenting issue. Deuteronomy 6 puts it says to your children and grandchildren like that's a really big part of it now that you guys are grandparents and yeah, now you're confusing me.
But the, the role of grandparents is something that like there's a responsibility there. But in this culture where we've got generational differences in parenting, I know a lot of times the grandparents are hesitant to plug in in an influential way. You know, they'll, they'll buy the kids snacks, they'll, they'll buy them toys, come on over and watch a movie and you know the fun grandparent thing which is great. And you know my, my kids grandparents on Both sides are good in both of these ways, but also like the, I don't know, there's so much like self consciousness that, hey, a nudge from the grandparent of, hey, you know, don't let little Johnny get away with that kind of thing, man. It's taken as like, hey, you're, you're getting in my business. And so that I think sometimes grandparents right now are very hesitant to insert themselves in that way. On the other hand, there is that, that other ditch you can fall into of grandparents are raising the kid, grandparent is dictating the family's home life. And so this is a really hard kind of, there's a balance beam here that you can fall off either side of it.
So what are some thoughts for grandparents today or parents allowing their own parents to have a say or at least chip in a little bit, give advice, things like that.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Let me first take a quick rabbit trail and just say, we got too many grandparents that are completely raising their children, especially in the church. That, that was not God's plan. And so if you are in that situation where it, you know, and again, that goes back to broken homes. We got a lot of single parents, a lot of whatever.
That was not God's design. God's design was two parents raising their child and then grandparents investing and fortifying that.
You're right. You're 100% spot on. That it is a balancing act in that the, the job of training up Jackson and Brooklyn is Will and Rachel. That is their job, and how they choose to do that is their decision as a grandparent. It is my prayer that they both know I love them and love their children so much that I want them to go to heaven.
And so that if, if and when I step in and go, hey, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that they understand. It's not because I'm judging their parenting style or I'm critical of their parenting style. It's because we're on the same team and we want that precious child to go to heaven.
Will tell you, I, I, I had my first experience of giving Jackson a pop. Just popped his hand like that.
And I don't know why I, I will to my grave tell you it was not a very hard pop. It, it was just kind of like that.
He remembers that pop was an unexpected source.
It was, I don't know if it was just because. But I can now look at him and say, you don't want grandpa pop, you know, and he's old. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, I Remember? Okay, yeah, grandpa will pop me.
It's a hard balance though, because there are, there are occasions where I look and I'm thinking, okay, I might, might have given a swat for that or the other side, I might not have given a swat for that. And so I have to really, really, I think grandparents have got to do a healthy job of walking the line and saying, hey. And parents, I think really, really should give feedback in a positive way. Again with the team mentality of, hey, we're all on the same team. This isn't a judgment thing. This is how do we best get this child to heaven.
[00:46:24] Speaker A: Just to follow up on that, just let me one briefly. It's important for the grandparent when you give advice. If it's not all 100% taken, don't get your feelings hurt and don't think, well, I'll just never do that again because they didn't care. And for the parent yourself, you receive that advice, you're not bound to take 100% of it. But realize it's coming from a place of love. As you said, it's a team thing of man, I want to see this kid succeed too. So don't take it personal, don't take it as well. I'm never listening to them again. And I think you just see that sometimes of everybody gets their feelings hurt. It's like it's not about that, it's about the kid.
[00:46:59] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely. And you know, at the end of the day, open communication between parents, grandparents is an awesome thing. If I ever thought that Will or Rachel were parenting in such a way that it was going to really mess up the soul of Jackson or Brooklyn, we'd go out for coffee and we'd have a talk in a loving way of, hey, I think maybe you're, you're completely like for instance, if, if I were, if we fast forwarded four or five years and they get involved in so many activities that I'm thinking, you know, those activities are nice. And yes, maybe Jackson's talented at sports or whatever, but I feel like it's, it's starting now to negatively affect his spiritual life. We need to go sit down and have coffee together in a loving way. And in which hopefully I can plant some seeds that they'll think about it and maybe reevaluate what all they're doing.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Hey, folks, we've been telling you about Think Deeper Live, our in person event. We're excited to announce that we have lockdown where it's going to be. It'll be at Jackson Temple Church of Christ in Burns, Tennessee. It's about 30 minutes west of Nashville, not far off of I40. So we hope you can join us. It'll be Saturday, November 16, from 9 to 11:30. We'll have some breakfast snacks before we get started. And then Joe, Will and I will be discussing God's plan for gender for men and women and then a roundtable discussion to end it all off. So join us November 16, Jackson Temple Church of Christ. Go to ThinkDeeperLive.com to register.
[00:48:51] Speaker D: One of the biggest issues we talk about, the pendulum swing and such. I think so many parents are very reactive to their parenting. To their parents, parenting, that's what creates a lot of this, you know, back and forth. They don't want to take advice. Things like that is, I was spanked, so I'm not going to spank. Well, my parents were distant, so I'm going to, I'm going to be the helicopter parent to my kids or whatever it may be. And I feel like they don't know their own parenting style as much as they know what they don't want. And everybody on the podcast knows how much I talk about running to and not away from, but I think that's one of the biggest issues in. I want to shift to marriage here in just a second, but Doug Wilson makes a great point. I think I've spoken on this before, but the emotional bank account, this is where a lot of parents go wrong, I think, is the reason people don't want to be spanked today and the reason why, you know, the grandparents look down and go, boy, you just need to spank the kid. Yes, I agree with that. I think spanking is a. It can be very appropriate. You have to have enough emotional bandwidth, emotional currency basically in the bank account to cash that check. If you are spanking out of a place of, like, I haven't seen you all day, you've been in public school and you come home and I'm just tired of you already because I've been working a hard job and I spank you for nothing because you did something small or you were a little bit too loud. You don't have enough emotion in the bank account to cash that check. You bounce a lot of checks. And this is where a lot of parents look at it like young parents look at it and go, I'm never, I'm never spanking my kid. That's wrong. Spanking is okay, but you have to have the emotion there. And one of the reasons why you have so many kids in front of a screen. I'm convinced is I go off on this too. Attachment issues. I don't know how to relate to a kid because my parents never related to me. So, you know, it's a lot easier relating to a kid. Just stick them in front of a screen. That's what I did. My parents, it was different. Mine was Disney Channel. Right. Whatever it may be, I was a latchkey kid. I came home and I grew up on the tv. My kid's fine in front of an iPad. We don't know how to relate to kids because our parents didn't relate to us. And so we hide behind the screen. We hide behind church activities. We hide behind all of these things to keep life busy. The pumpkin patch day, to keep it busy. Because the times we spent with our parents were on big days when they were off of, off of work, we were off of school and we were able to go do big things.
[00:50:55] Speaker C: Not in day to day life.
[00:50:56] Speaker D: Correct. We have no idea how to live day to day with kids, but. So I'm convinced that's the case. But I wanted to switch because chapter seven in your book is about making sure to feed your marriage. I want you to speak a little bit to this on what's the importance of the health of a marriage when it comes to parenting? Because I think you have a lot of people that want to fix the parenting, but their marriage is crumbling and they find it really tough to fix parenting when the marriage is not right. Why is that? And what's the importance of a good marriage when it comes to parenting?
[00:51:24] Speaker C: And to add to that, how do you, you know, what's the importance of it? How do you keep a good and healthy marriage? Specifically, I think it's, you know, when we're talking about young kids, it is a struggle when it, when there's younger kids because they're your so much time and energy and mental capacity is spent trying to, you know, take care of them. So that's a good question, Joe. Dad, what are your thoughts?
[00:51:44] Speaker B: Yeah, so we, we saw firsthand a lot of parents who invested all of their energy into their kids and zero into their marriage. And as a result, a lot of those marriages now are dissolved.
You know, a lot of folks our age, they're no longer married. And part of the reason is because they were not investing in their marriage, they were investing in their kids. We also see this by the way, with parents who they put all their energy and time into their kids and then the kids leave the home and they look around and they're Like, I don't really like you. I don't know you, who are you? What do we do now, that kind of thing.
If we get the hierarchy right, it's God, then spouse, then children. And I'm going to say that again to make sure some of the parents out there hear me. It's God first, then. Then your spouse, then children. Now I recognize because I've had four kids. There are times in a marriage dynamic where the kids do require a lot more time. If you've got a newborn child or a child who is not walking, guess what that means you're going to have a child right here all the time, because you are getting that child to the point where they can have some kind of independence. But at the same time, you cannot neglect your marriage. Whether that's date nights, whether that's writing letters, whatever it is, you have to keep feeding and fertilizing your marriage.
It was critically important to me that. So I come from a divorced home.
I did not have a great blueprint for what does marriage look like. It was critically important to me that my kids did. And so I wanted them to see, hey, this is how you treat your spouse. This is how you date her, even though you've been married for 20 years. This is how you surprise her. This is. These are things that you. You study your spouse. You. You learn what they like and they don't like. You talk to them. You go on hikes with your wife, even though you don't like to hike. Things like that that you know are going to cause that relationship to grow stronger because your kids are observing that all the time.
Also, just how you speak to your spouse.
We've been around a lot of folks who.
It's nothing for them to be yelling at each other.
I think Will would tell you very honestly, we don't. We didn't yell. We don't yell at each other.
Melinda and I, we definitely do not have the perfect marriage and blah, blah, blah.
But we never yelled. We didn't throw things. We didn't do anything like that. And part of the reason was because we always had four eyes looking at us, and we knew we wanted to give them a.
A blueprint of how to communicate and argue and fight with their future spouses. And so it's. It's one of those things where, Joe, if. If you neglect your spouse, ultimately, you're doing your children a disservice.
Yeah. And I know a lot of people like, oh, but, you know, I love my children. I have to. Do you love your Children best if you love your spouse more.
[00:55:27] Speaker C: Well, I think. I think your kids.
Go ahead. I was gonna say, I think your kids need to see what a healthy marriage looks like. They. And I also think it is incredibly important for kids and this is, you know, young parent here talking. So, you know, take my opinion for what it's worth, but I think it's important for kids to know that there is a hierarchy of importance here. Like, kiddos, sorry, you know, we're gonna. We're here to take care of you, but the world does not revolve around you. And right now it's time for mom and dad to talk. We have been at. Dad's been at work all day. It's time for us to have a conversation. Go play. That is something that, you know, I think gentle parenting and maybe other parenting forms can be guilty of. Is the kid really is. Is not even. Not even. Just never told? No. But. But kind of thinks that the parents are at their beck and call anytime they need something. Anytime that. And so the. The parents feel obligated to always go cater to the kids. And again, we'll make sure our kids are taken care of. But kids need to know adults are talking right now, or, hey, we're in the middle of something more important. That's why I've always said there's this big debate. Should. Should you as a, as a dad, for instance, always make it to every single one of your kids sporting events? And obviously you can. You can if you should, but like, you missed a lot of my basketball games. But I understood why. I knew that I was not the most important thing in the world. You worked on the weekends, you were traveling, and I understood that. And so, you know, that's kind of an angle we haven't, you know, haven't hit yet. But I think that that's very important for kids to understand is that we as parents love you. We're here to take care of you.
And like I said, we love you. But you are not the center of this family. You are not the sphere that everything else revolves around either in our family, in our lives. And I think, I just think that's a healthy perspective for kids to learn.
[00:57:08] Speaker B: Very early on, very much. And I would throw in a plug for grandparents at this point. For all the grandparents listening, hey, be. Be a babysitter. Give your children a date night and let them go fertilize and feed their marriage while you watch the grandkids.
[00:57:29] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. No, I was just going to say I've seen this before. Run into it. In therapy and such, it's really easy to hide behind a poor marriage, hide behind the kids, you know, for the mom to put into the kids, put into the kids, put into the kids.
And it all it is, is just a cover up for. I'm not super close to my husband, but I can really, you know, put everything into the kids that's really unhealthy. And once again the kids see that. And I would say that's just a call to work on your marriage if you're hiding behind the kids. And it's more of a woman, woman problem, I would say where she puts everything into the kids. A lot of times dads can feel, and I've worked with this because I work with a lot of guys, they can feel very forgotten within their own home because every bit of the mom's energy goes to the kids. The sex life is horrible. The time at night is horrible because, you know, I'm just so exhausted from the kids. Like you owe it to your husband to save some time for him and the husband has to call some of those things out and say, look, we chose one another and we're going to make this work rather than just giving it all to the kids. So that was the only thing I was going to add.
Sorry we lost you there.
[00:58:36] Speaker B: Yeah, sorry about that.
Did you guys catch the hey grandparents, y'all need to watch and babysit the grand kids so the, the parents. Okay, good, good, good, good.
[00:58:47] Speaker C: I, I fully that point. Sorry.
[00:58:50] Speaker B: Let me, let me throw something out at you guys and see if, if this is a true statement and let's talk about how do we, how do we solve this, how do we get around this? So I think there has been a major shift away from disciplining and training children to more this friendly, I'm your buddy kind of parenting. And in, in the meantime of doing that, we've taken away discipline, spanking, which by the way, I do want to point this out because Jack mentioned spanking just a minute ago.
Children are different and as a result of that, discipline may be different. There were times where one of my children was a little more hard headed than others and maybe required a different form of discipline than somebody else. And so it doesn't, when I say the word discipline, I don't mean swatting them or taking a belt or whatever, but at the end of the day, here's, here's my question.
You go to a church camp or whatever today seems like there is a massive, massive amount of kids on medication that didn't happen. When I was a kid, you know, you went to camp, there might be one, maybe two, maybe somebody had epilepsy or maybe somebody had whatever today, man, it is like having a camp nurse that every morning is doling out all these pills.
That's the standard. That's the norm.
Is there a correlation? So it's twofold question. Is there a correlation between parents not disciplining their children and all this medication?
And part two would be, then how do we fix that? How. How do we convince your generation and younger generations that maybe the friendly parenting thing is not the answer?
[01:00:58] Speaker A: I think we did a critical theory episode a few weeks ago on that philosophy, and it's obviously that, well, there's just a lot there. There's a whole episode. I think is. Is very key to listen to, but that's part of it is kind of the lesser the minority. The.
The one that doesn't have power in a relationship is the one who's right. And, and the worst thing you can do as a parent is to say, I know the truth and I'm going to teach you the truth. It's kind of, well, you've got your own thing. And I'm. I'm here to not get in your way. And you see this applied to the church. You see this applied to so many things like, oh, I'm not here to tell you what to do. Yeah, you are. Like, you have to say, I have the truth. I'm not a perfect person. Yes, I'm not God, but I do have objective truth that God has placed me here to teach you. And the other thing is, our anthropology is so messed up where we think people are basically good. And, you know kids, they're just. They're going to kind of go in the right direction. No, they're not, actually. They're going to go in the wrong direction if not pointed in the right way. That's why it says the train of a child in the way he should go. And so I think there is that view of it. And you brought up the medications and things like that. That factors into it of, well, this kid's misbehaving. Well, it's. There's just something off. We'll just give him a medication. No, he's a human being. That's why he's misbehaving, behaving like that. Where this comes from is not some chemical imbalance in the brain. It's in almost the overwhelming majority of these cases, it's the kid. The disciplinary issues are a lot of times a reflection of the Parents, as we talked about earlier, it's that they're a human that has shortcomings. And those things are starting to manifest themselves as the kid gets older. Deal with it that way. There's no pill that solves the human problem.
[01:02:40] Speaker D: That's such a good point. My wife has pointed this out of the fundamental shift from kids are sinners to kids are. Kids are great until we mess them up, right? And this is where you get into therapy world and internal family systems and such where it's like sends a trauma response and, you know, we are inherently good as individuals until things, you know, mess it up. And me as the parent, I just don't want to mess up my kid. Like, no, they're already sinners. They're already messed up. We, speaking of pendulums, that's my favorite word, I guess today is we take it from the Calvinists and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not going to believe in original sin. Like, yeah, but my kid is a sinner. We have to believe that kids are sinners who need Christ. And the idea that we can medicate some of the behaviors away rather than seeking relationship. All of this is an overreaction to we have no idea how to have relationship with kids. I've spoken on it before. I've, you know, drilled this point home. Jack and I have talked about this a lot. You look at the McDonald's and it went from bright red and yellow to these coffee shops and, and the rich espresso colors and the, you know, we've lost whimsy, we've lost things for kids. Nobody knows how to have relationship with kids. This is all attachment. This is. I'm sorry, but your generation, really, the one before that, completely cooked us like they have. They have taken America and they've caused us to hate kids. This is where the abortion comes in. We have no concept of how to have relationship with kids. And so what do we do when we have a problematic kid? I don't know how to have the relationship with that kid. Here, here's riddling. Let me just dumb the kid down. Let me, let me slow him down so much that he is now more accepting of whatever I tell him to do rather than let me get into his life and realize what's going on. And how many times would you come up with the right answer and realize, man, the kid's being bullied at school. He can't tell you that because he has no relationship. So we'll just stick him on meds and let's, let's get the Schools to be safe spaces. So if there's any bullying, the kid gets put, you know, the bully gets put in juvie and this kid gets to be safe. And now we wonder why our kids are trans. Like this is. The fundamental issue is we had no idea how to have relationships with kids these days. And I'm not coming from someplace on high. My kids are young. But this really speaks to the past generation, devaluing children all the way through. Going outside the home, working outside the home. And kids learn, okay, the point of childhood is just get to adulthood so you can make money and make your own decisions. No, it's not. There's a beauty to childhood where there's wonder and whimsy and magic and everything else. We've lost it for the sake of money, for the sake of ease. This is where medication comes in, is let's medicate you until you can get into adulthood. And then the medication gets really real. And you know, that's we have people on the medication spectrum for life with big Pharma and I could go and all that stuff, but I'm not going to. But again, fundamentally, not to beat a dead horse, it goes back to we don't know how to relate to kids these days. If we have any hope of changing America, we have to start protecting childhood because it matters.
[01:05:31] Speaker A: Sorry.
[01:05:31] Speaker D: Thanks for letting me go off.
[01:05:32] Speaker A: This is a great point. We, we are starting to run up against our time limit here. Will is going to have our Think fast. I do want to give a plug. I forgot to say at the start every month we are doing an episode in conjunction with that month's Think magazine, which this is. It's a parenting magazine this month that are an issue that Brad has put together in conjunction with his book. We're kind of doing a synergy thing, podcast, book magazine, all at the same time. And if you haven't heard, if you didn't miss or didn't catch the announcement last month, Think magazine is now digital and free. So go to focuspress.org think and you can get the first episode or the first issue digital issue free. October and shortly on the heels you number one, you go get that issue. Number two, join the email list there. The parenting issue is any day now about to drop. We will email that to everybody on the list and it'll go along. He got some great topics on parenting to cover in that episode issue. This is the episode that's the issue. Sign up
[email protected] think yeah, looking forward to that as well. But Will, you've Got our Think Fast for this week, so we'll wrap up with that. Go ahead.
[01:06:41] Speaker C: For sure. And I did want to say too, with this being a topic that affects so many people, let us know what you think, give your comments, give your questions. We will be doing a deep end, of course, as we always do, and so throw your questions at us. This, once again, this affects a lot of people. Okay, so for, for dad, did you have something real fast?
[01:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to throw in a 30 second thing.
There's a lot of, a lot of parents who don't like their kids.
Melinda and I love our kids. We truly, honestly love being around our kids. If you don't like your kids, and this may be hard for you to hear, but I think you sometimes good, strong medicine helps. It may be because you haven't put in the time. It may be because you haven't molded them the way they need to be molded. And so if you have a child that is misbehaving and problematic and gets on your nerves, rather than blaming the child, maybe look in the mirror and ask yourself, have I done the job I need to do? There you go.
[01:07:43] Speaker C: Good point. Good point. All right, so for Think fast. So obviously this episode is coming off the heels of one of the most significant events in our, you know, I would say nations, at least last 20 years or so. Obviously the election results are in. Donald Trump will be our next president. As much as I would like to get everybody's reaction to that, I'm going to. Jack did a cultural breakdown on it, I believe, and you know, maybe we'll discuss that another time. That's really not the time and place. I had one more parenting question I wanted to ask, so I'm just going to make that my Think fast. We'll have to very much limit our everybody's answers. I want, I do want to hear from all three of you guys. So maybe say 60 to 90 seconds per answer here. But what if I had to rank my biggest concerns for my kids and kind of like things that worry me, it's how am I going to monitor their influence, the kids they hang around, their friends.
Obviously I won't have public school to worry about, but you know, still sports teams or church or whatever it is, like, they're going to have friends, they're going to have influences. And I've said before, even when it comes to like college and stuff, I'm less worried about the content that they're going to be learning. And I'm far more worried about are they going to be influenced by the wrong types of people. And so I guess my question was, was mainly for, for dad here, but I again I'm curious, Jack and Joe, your guys thoughts of how do we monitor our kids influences? Obviously it's a little bit less, I'd say it's important right now, but it's less important right now when they're you know, three, four and five years old as opposed to when they're 10, 11, 12, obviously in their teenage years. But I just, I think that's one of the biggest things that determines whether or not your kids are going to be faithful is who do you allow your kids to hang out with, what level of supervision do you give them, what level of input do you have? And again, kind of who their influences are. And so yeah, again kind of gonna have to leave it to about 60 seconds per answer here but what thoughts do you guys have on monitoring kids influence specifically as they get older and what are some good practices? Dad, I guess we can start with you.
[01:09:34] Speaker A: Well, let's let him get the last word, finish it off to cap off the episode.
Since I'm already talking, I guess I'll keep rolling. I look at it as kind of like food. As the kids are young, they're eating what I give them and, and I'm not. No, every cereal in the store, they're like, daddy, I want that one. No, this is going to eat this. As they get older, it'll be, hey, here's the options mom and I are providing you. You can choose from these options. You're not going to get anything else. But you've got to get to the point as they grow into their teenage years and into adulthood where they're picking their food for themselves and you hope you've set them up to make wise choices. And there's going to be certain things like yeah, no, we're not, you're not having that. You get less and less input, but you really need to know and curate the options that are available to them. And as they start to get on the Internet, as they start having things like that, you got to limit their time, limit their access. Software, things like that are really important.
The same thing with the tablets we talked about earlier. People plug their kids headphones into YouTube and the kids just all over the place, you just don't know. You have to be providing the options and limiting the options in the same way with food. Your kid would eat ice cream 24, 7. You've got to stick, really put your thumb on the scale there and make sure the options are what you're okay with, Joe.
[01:10:44] Speaker D: Yeah, I very strongly agree with that. The other only other thing I would add to that is something I'm working on. My parents worked on this with me a lot. I was a big follower. And so the. You're always going to have kids at church. And look, that doesn't mean that the kids are horrible, but there are going to be bad influences. And I had some influences at church that were kind of influencing me in the wrong direction. And they weren't bad kids or anything like that. I think they're both faithful Christians today. But I had some friends that pushed the envelope a little bit and my.
[01:11:10] Speaker C: Just pick up bad habits from them. Like it doesn't have to be awful things, but yeah.
[01:11:14] Speaker D: And my parents took me aside and were like, you have to lead, you know, and they pushed me into leadership, leadership, leadership. I have three boys, one girl. I'm going to protect her with my life because it's a lot harder to have her be a leader. I want my boys to be leaders. I want them to be the ones that are willing to be countercultural, willing to stand up to peer pressure, willing to say those things. So I am already spending a lot of time with my 6 year old talking about, you have to be the leader, you got to protect your younger siblings, but you got to be the leader with these things. If someone so and so asks you to do something, no, you know, you have to be willing to stand up against it. And so I think helping them realize they can make their own choices. Jack's speaking this right about the choices, but that they can lead themselves and they can be a leader among their friends and they can stand up to the worldly influences and know that that's okay to stand up to peer pressure, but that comes from creating a strong sense of self internally, that their world doesn't revolve around what their friends and everybody else thinks of them. That's what I hope to curate in my kids. And that's. That's easier said than done. Again, my oldest is six. We got a long way to go, but that's something that I hope to do. Brad.
[01:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm gonna go back and tell Will that, hey, I think even with young children, you have to watch this and be careful because you guys have already pointed out the children around that are giving behaviors, word things that you don't want. And so the influence things are very, very young. A couple of real quick things that I jotted down here, have the home where everybody welcome and we tried that with you guys as far as, hey, you can always have people over the house. We wanted to have the home where, you know, it was kind of a fun place for kids to come. One, because it would be fun. But number two, because we wanted to know who you guys were interacting with, how did they treat adults, what was their worldview, that kind of thing. And so we were very plugged in as to who was influencing you. So I, you know, number one is parents figure out who is influencing them and what direction they're influencing them. Number two, make sure your kids have a relationship with God.
I can't stress enough because if they actually have a relationship with God, then a lot of what we're communicating and talking about right now as far as bad influences and things like that, they're going to be able to stand and do what they need to do, train them to train themselves.
And this kind of goes. It's, it's a mixture of what both Joe and Jack said. We did not allow bad words, cuss words through our tv. We started out with the original TV Guardian. Then we went to Clear Play and you know, all the, all these different things which was great. It kept it out of our home. But at the same time we also tried to train our children. Hey, go to kids online in mind or plugged in some of these things and look up and see if that movie is appropriate. See how many bad words are in it, whatever.
Because we knew there was a time where Will and Reese and Claire and Luke were going to meet, leave our home and we weren't going to be there to have the Clear Play or the whatever. And we wanted them to be trained in such a way that they would say, hey, I need to go and check and see if this is appropriate for me and, or my family.
Last but not least, communicate regularly.
So speaking towards teens and college age kids, how do I protect them and make sure about influence? I've got to be communicating with my kids. I have to know what's going on in their life, who is their best friend, who are they, what are their passions, what class at school do they really love and why? I have to be invested to where I understand what is shaping them and molding them.
[01:15:20] Speaker A: All right, great stuff. Well, thanks for coming on Brad. I just. Lots of good info here. Just as a parent, plenty of notes to take down and things like that. If you're listening and you enjoyed this, you got something from it. If you're a parent or you're a grandparent and want to have some of those discussions with your kid. Absolutely. Please share this episode podcast spread by word of mouth and I think there's a lot of useful info here, so please do if you enjoyed it and tell people about Think Deeper and particularly this episode. I want to remind you. Again, sign up for the think mailing list focuspress.org think you'll get that Parenting Digital Think Magazine issue free as soon as it's available. And I think that's all we've got for this week. So again, thanks to Brad for coming on Pick Up Arrows in the Hands of a Warrior, Focus Press and Amazon from him and Melinda Harab. There's the book right there. Absolutely. Go grab yourself a copy and we'll talk to you guys next week.
