C (3:11)

Yes.

A (3:13)

The word in my mind is I want to be. We wanted to be that. I'm going to say it this way, that perfect Facebook Christian family.

C (3:22)

Gosh.

B (3:23)

Absolutely.

C (3:24)

And then life happens.

A (3:25)

And then life happens.

C (3:27)

Life happens.

A (3:28)

Yeah. Your kid gets kicked out of the childcare at church because he bit the teacher.

B (3:36)

So, Bill, what advice would you have given to my family back then? To me and my family?

C (3:41)

That's a very deep and a very important question, isn't it? Partly. I would say this. How in the world do I, as a parent learn that my faith must be real for me so that I can be real for their sake? We were hoping that our kids somehow would not demonstrate the evidence of the sin that was in them.

A (4:08)

Cross my fingers. Exactly.

C (4:10)

And that's a fallacy. See, that's a fallacy. We have a bad theology when we idealize our faith. We have a bad theology when we idealize our family. It's a really important theology for me as a Christian parent to have this dynamic God teach me how to love a child who has sin in them and teach me how to respond to the sin that they do.

A (4:50)

Aren't I supposed to just spank the sin out?

C (4:52)

Exactly. Exactly. I'm saying that very carefully.

A (4:57)

Statement.

C (4:58)

Yeah, but exactly. Saying it very carefully so that we don't make the assumption that our kids shouldn't do those things. And when they do, it shows how bad a parent we are. No, you know what a really good parent is? A really good parent is the one that reacts well to their child's misbehavior. A bad parent is the parent who is shocked by their child's misbehavior. And you know what that child learns to do to that parent? That child learns to hide from that parent.

B (5:33)

Early on. Right?

C (5:34)

Early on. Very early on. Every once in a while, not so much now, but years and years, I would go into a seminary or a Bible college and meet with the faculty. And I would say to them, this is my opinion, but the greatest gift you can give to these students while you have them for two to four years is to teach them to hide nothing. Now, let's transfer that to your question. Do you know it's extremely healthy that your children in those years actually told on themselves how screwed up they were and what they did. Now you appropriately dealt with their behavior. But we got to be really careful. How do we learn as Christian parents to deal with our children's behavior while still honoring their person? That to me, it's like, let's not be surprised. Let's not be surprised by the reality of the power of sin that is in them. Let's be amazed at the redemptive power of God for their benefit and ours. So it's like, did you and Ann do anything wrong?

A (6:47)

I.

C (6:47)

Probably. But is that the issue? No. Did you and Ann do a lot of things right? Yes. You did. How would I know that you and Ann did a lot of things right when they were little? Because I know your children as adults. See, And I know at the core of each of your five children is a genuine faith in Jesus Christ. Amen. What more could we want as Christian parents?

A (7:15)

Yeah.

C (7:16)

So that this idea that we want to make sure that our children make fewer mistakes than the neighbor's kids who don't know Jesus. No, don't do that to your kid. Don't do that to them. Help them to understand. I say this, I've said this to a lot of parents. You know what you want as a parent? You want your children to have had one, two, or three major crises before they leave home so you can help them process their crises so that when they leave home, they are prepared to not avoid crisis. Because you can't. Life happens.

A (8:01)

Okay. So you want your kids to have two or three major crisis before they leave home so that you can help them process it.

C (8:08)

Process the crisis.

B (8:09)

Learn not to hide.

A (8:10)

So what did you do to, like, enable that?

C (8:15)

I didn't have to enable anything.

A (8:17)

Yeah.

C (8:17)

It's called life.

A (8:18)

It's called life.

C (8:19)

Crisis happen.

A (8:20)

So they're just going to happen.

C (8:21)

They're going to happen.

A (8:23)

You're just watching for them.

C (8:25)

You're watching for them so that if. Back to our first week. If I'm a parent that my children trust, then my children are going to not be afraid to tell me what's happening in their reality. About the crisis. About the crisis. And if they don't trust you, they won't.

A (8:42)

They'll handle the crisis in isolation.

C (8:44)

They will. And the minute that happens, we've weakened their tomorrows. We've really weakened their tomorrows. We Want to strengthen their tomorrows by helping them process the reality of what they're experiencing. You see, because again, a child is very astute. A child knows that I'm in a Christian family and I know that there are certain behaviors I shouldn't be doing and I do them anyway. So therefore, I learned to hide from my parents because they think I'm an ideal child. I mean, the kid's not an idiot. He or she knows what they're dealing with. So how do we help them be real? They're going to leave home, most of them, at 18, to go to college, we hope. Well said. Tomorrows are going to happen for them. But what if we were able to come alongside them and teach them how to trust God in the midst of a crisis? You know what they're going to do? They're going to trust God in the midst of next year's crisis and I might not be around. So I personally can't emphasize enough this whole idea of do my children know me? Or as a Christian parent, am I afraid to be known? And if my children know me and they're not idealizing me, which we talked about last week, if my children know me and they're not idealizing me, then I will be available for them because they need me. I've sat across the table from hundreds of people over my life and I've heard this. We've all heard it many times. Well, I know I'm sure my dad loved me. He just never told me he loved me. I'm sure my parents loved me. He never told me they loved me. The person is really saying, I'm not sure I was ever loved. It's imperative that our children know that they are loved. And it's imperative that their person is significant and we never measure them by their behavior.

B (10:56)

I'm a more introverted person, so I'd rather just be quiet at times and just, you know, pick up the kids from school or drive them to sports and just ask them about their day. You know, what did you do? What are you thinking? How are you doing? And the more I've come in touch with this principle of being known can lead to being trusted. And then you have influence.

C (11:17)

Absolutely.

B (11:18)

Is that I just started practice forcing myself to just talk about my day.

C (11:23)

Good.

B (11:24)

And what's on my mind and what have I been learning or struggling. Ah, vulnerable.

C (11:29)

It's invaluable for your boy.

B (11:30)

Are kids just suddenly they want to tell me more? Suddenly they want to trust me more with what they're not sure about you're

C (11:37)

practicing the very things we're talking about. Yeah, that's how it works. Mom and dad, your children want to know you. They really want to know you. They want to honor you. They want to be thankful for you. Let them. My wife and I intentionally, we have nine grandchildren. When the boys turn 16, I take them on an adventure that they get to choose. Well, I have a motive in the adventure not to just go fishing or go backpacking. Every day while I'm with them, usually seven to ten days, every day that I'm with them, I tell them one of my most significant life lessons.

B (12:16)

Oh, wow, that's great.

C (12:17)

Every day. And my oldest grandson tell me some more. One a day, just one a day. And what I'm doing is I'm being intentional to be known. I have a great relationship, in my opinion, with all of our grandkids. I have a great relationship with our children. And our oldest granddaughter, because she didn't go on a. She and I ate at a hamburger place here in Phoenix several times a year. We'd go out to lunch and get a hamburger. She loved it. Our next oldest daughter, she loves deli, so we would get a. We'd go to a deli and get a sandwich. And then our youngest granddaughter, she and I would go to lunch because she likes Asian food. But every time I would do the same thing. So our oldest granddaughter, she's now, she was there in college and she graduates from college. And my wife and I said to her, brittany, what would you like for your college graduation? And this makes me really emotional. She said. She called me Cha Cha. She says, I want Jaja to take me fishing. So my oldest granddaughter, for her graduation, went fishing with her grandfather. Wow. Up in Wyoming.

A (13:28)

You got a picture of it?

C (13:30)

I got a large picture up on the wall in my office. It's just beautiful. But to me, it's like a memorial to a relationship with this young woman because she knew me, she trusted me, she wanted to be with me. I don't know how many 22 year old girls for their graduation would go fishing with their grandpa, but that's what she did. And this is the best part of the story. I have fished at that same place for 25 years. She still holds the record for the most fish caught in one day. She caught 51 fish the second day we were fishing, which is unheard of. Scott's a good fisherman. He and I compete every year. We get up to 22 one year, I think Scott got 28. She caught 51 fish in one day. Now back to your story earlier. I think Voldemort, that there's a principle here that I want to kind of draw in midair if I could because it applies to the younger children. Let's just say this is a, the child's a baby. That's the rules. A younger child needs to be guided by rules. Over here, 18, same child. The rules go to a point at 18 where there are very few. But at 18, the guidelines are critical for their life and they go to zero.

A (15:05)

So no guidelines for the infant.

C (15:07)

No guidelines for the infant because they tons of guidelines. All guidelines, almost all guidelines.

A (15:13)

Lots of rules for that.

C (15:15)

And there's a very interesting dynamic at the middle. At nine years old, a man named Bob Beale has done years of research. It's one of his pet dynamics is this. He has all this research that says the most important year in the life of a human being is nine. And partly the dynamic is at nine years old, the transition for the child should be less rules, more guidelines. So they are participating in the choices of what's best for them. If Christian parents make a mistake, they have way too many rules to dictate the pattern of behavior. Let the child at nine years old before them by taste. But at nine years old, let the child begin to make choices. Children are harder on themselves for screwing up than you are. If they get to participate in the guidance, they will. And so I put it in the back of my Bible today. So a lot of people ask us, okay, all your kids are 18, what were the rules? There are only five, but didn't start at 18. When our children turned 13, we'd sat, we would take them out to dinner and we'd talk about what has been and what's going to be. And then we would have this conversation with our kids at 13 now, starting today, and they'd look at us like, what? Starting today? We want you to know that for the rest of your teenage life we have only five rules. Every other decision will be made on an agreement with you as a guideline. Interesting. Of what you should or shouldn't do. Now the five rules are so simple, but they really guided our teenagers. Rule number one, you're 13, you're going to start dating. And all the way through your dating, the rule is you cannot date someone more than two years older than you. That's the protection of you because some 21 year old guy's going to want to hit on you when you're 14. So just going to tell you rule number one. Rule number two, you're going to need to be in a team. When you get to high school, you're going to go on a team, some kind of a team. I don't care what it is, but we want you to learn to participate in a team. So our son joined the tennis team. Our oldest daughter joined the track team. And Wendy, she was so embarrassed that I was her father because I like to, when I'm at an event, I like to cheer and I like to get up and yell. And she would say to me, dad, please don't. Don't do that. This time when I go to the line, please don't say anything. Please don't say anything. So she'd get to the line, she ran the 440, and she. And then she had always looked to make sure I was in the stands. I just loved it. I just loved it. And our youngest daughter, she's like her mother, very non athletic. And she came to me one day, she says, dan, is choir a team? I said, it is now. So it was a rule. Why? Because we wanted them to be part of something that was beyond themselves. The third rule, which was hard for them, was at 16, they had to have a job. They had to have a job. For their sake, we didn't need the money. We wanted them to learn the responsibility of getting a job, et cetera, et cetera. We know all the value of that. The fourth thing is this. You're a teenager, you got friends, you're going to go out. And we always knew where they were going. But there was this rule that if you ever change location, if you ever started at A, but everybody wants to go to B, you had to call me. I don't care if it's 10, 11, 12, it may you just call me. And because calling me gave me an opportunity to protect them. And our youngest daughter was especially good at this because I could tell by her tone whether she wanted a yes or a no, right? I could just tell when I knew she wanted to go, no, you can't go. And she'd laugh, and then she'd go to her, I can't go. My dad won't let me go. I became the bad guy, see? But it was a way of protecting them from something that could be dangerous. And the fifth thing is that there were stages to their dating. In our opinion. All of this, you can have any rules you want. But these were ours. Well, what about the rest of life? That's only five simple things. Because the rest of life, we sat with our children and talked with them. About their life choices and what did that do for them? Well, it included us, but what it did for them is it gave them ownership. I'm going to say that's a really critical Remember what I said last week. When our children are compliant, they will not own their choice. They'll make you responsible for their choice. But when our children participate in the consequences of their choice, they will mature. Now, by God's grace, all of our children love Jesus and are involved in ministry of some sort. But that's not the goal of all of this. Our goal is to be the parent that is available to help them so that when they leave us, they can practice life.

A (20:58)

Well, Bill, thank you. That was amazing. I kind of think we need to talk about parenting a little bit more, but maybe older kids, because mine are in their 30s and 40s and I still worry about them.

C (21:12)

Mine are as old as you.

A (21:13)

Yeah, I know. I'm the age of your kids. It's pretty crazy, you know. Hey, if you're listening and you're a parent or if you're listening and you know a parent man, this episode would be great to share and we would appreciate if you would do that.

C (21:29)

Amen.

A (21:30)

Thanks for joining us on Living Influence. We appreciate you so much and we hope to see you next week. Thanks again for listening to Living Influence. We appreciate you. We'd love it if you'd go to livinginfluence.com, contact us and send us an email. We'd love to know what you're thinking. See you next week.