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141 Raising Teens in a Hyper Sexualized World with Eliza Huie Sep 29, 2019

Show notes

Do you ever feel awkward or overwhelmed with the thought of talking to your teenagers about sex? Author and Christian counselor, Eliza Huie, joins me today as we talk through this immensely practical book that she wrote called Raising Teenagers in a Hyper-Sexualized World. I found this book so helpful and insightful that I asked the author, Eliza Huie, to come and discuss what she brings to light in the book. Eliza is the Director of Life Counselling Ministry and the Dean of Biblical Counselling at Metro-Baltimore Seminary. Eliza is also a wife, mother of three, and new mother-in-law to one! Depending on what you’re dealing with right now, this podcast might be a life-saver for you. And if you’re not there yet, you will be. So, I just encourage you to take this podcast and share it with those who are there right now. Today’s episode is brought to you by my Patreon supporters, who I would like to thank and who make all this possible. Through your help, I was able to interview Eliza from a distance, upgrade equipment, and utilize an audio editor. Some recent Patreon supporters I’d like to thank are: Steve and Keisha Peterson, Brad and Robin Rogers, Sally Harris, and Nick VanGoor. Thank you so much! If you would like to help support the show, you can become a patreon, subscribe to the podcast, and sign up for my weekly newsletter. Show Highlights J: Thank you for joining me, Eliza. I do want to state that I sought you out. One of my good friends handed me this book and I think I read it in a day. Can you tell me why did you write this book, Raising Teenagers in a Hyper-Sexualized World? E: I didn’t set out to write a book. This was a thesis project for the Master’s degree that I was in and one of our assignments was to write something that was really practical. I wrote it and my professor told me I should teach it or put it out there for other people. So, I put it out as a free book online and a publisher contacted me and asked if I’d mind taking it down, and they would publish it and try and get it out to more people. This is a publisher who is really looking for books that are very readable and very practical so that people actually get through it. I think one of the biggest struggles, especially as parents, is to find the time to read an entire parenting book. So that was really the motivation behind it. J: I would love to walk through some of your guideposts for parents. Did you have a particular parent or parenting situation in mind as you wrote this? E: Yes. There really wasn’t a whole lot written to parents raising teens. It was a lot of parenting in the earlier years and so I wanted to target that audience specifically. I had just kind of started to finish the teen years myself. We have three children and I think my youngest was 17 or 18 when I wrote this. So, I felt like I really wanted to help that age group and parents raising that age group. I started with just tips for parents. In the book they’re written as “Don’ts.” Don’t do this or don’t do that. However, it’s actually a very positive book. It gives you a lot of “Do’s” in the midst of the “Don’ts.” I wanted to start with helping parents from a biblical standpoint to understand their teens. To understand that the teenage years is the stage of a lot of chaos in teens’ bodies and in their minds. I wanted to help parents understand how they’re made, and to be compassionate in light of that, especially in light of their sins, during that time-frame. J: Absolutely. Having been a youth pastor for 20 years now, I can tell you that this is so helpful as a parent. If I was talking or counselling someone else, I would say that this is obvious, but when it’s your family and your situation it feels like the stakes are so infinitely high. So, let’s get into these guideposts. Don’t overreact. Can you speak to this and why you started with it? E: Mostly because that’s our natural tendency, especially in the teen years. In the younger years, it seems like we have a lot more understanding to the fact that they are toddlers or they’re little children. As they get to be about our size, we tend to have a lot more expectation of how they’re going to respond to things. So, when they respond in ways that are still foolish, it’s easy to overreact, especially when it comes to sexual sin or even sexual exploration. If we find our children exploring certain things, having curiosity about certain things, or we catch them in certain things related to sexual sin, the easiest thing to do is overact and feel like this is the worst thing. And I think that’s really what I wanted parents to step away from. This really isn’t the worst thing that could happen, depending on what your child is struggling with or dealing with. It’s really a part of the growing up process-to become sexually curious. That’s really why I wanted to start with that because it’s easy to overreact as parents. J: It really is. I think one of the things that helps with perspective is just to realize that we grew up in a pretty hyper-sexualized world, as well. It’s not like this all just started in the last ten years. I think it’s more in their faces now. When I was young, you had to actively seek pornography out. Now, it’s chasing them. I think it’s hard as a parent to remember that because we live in terror that their life is going to be over if they go down this path. And the truth is that we’re going to flub this up the whole way through life, and the Lord is going to use it and redeem it. When parents overreact to sexual sin, they can create an environment where sexual sin seems like the worst thing possible, and overreaction inhibits continual communication. What have you seen with that? E: That is one of the reasons I put this at the beginning. We want to create an environment where we keep talking about sex and sexuality and the questions that they have. But overreacting really stops the conversation. It stops them from coming to us because we freak out and go to the extreme and lay down really hard consequences. There should be consequences. However, we want consequences that don’t stop a behavior, but actually help us to continue to engage our children. Our reaction really dictates that. I do really want to encourage parents that if they have overreacted, kids are pretty forgiving of our overreactions. J: I think that often times, sexual sin is not in a bubble – there are other sins. It can feel like an anvil put on your chest, as a parent. So, how do you not overreact to this? It seems to hit every area of life, but a lot of times those other sins are reactionary sins from the initial one. Don’t preach or lecture. E: I think this is really hard for parents because we feel like we have to get it all in. This is the conversation that we need to have, and we have to hit every point. But one of the things that you want to watch for is their eyes glazing over. Once you see that happening, you’ve lost them. So, keep your conversation small and trust that you’re going to get a second swing at this. And the truth is: you do. You get a second swing at these things. Knowing that keeping it shorter allows them to process, allows you to give them some space, and then you can revisit it in future times. J: Especially if they’ve done something wrong and they’re willing to come forward on it. That can be a hard balance because what they did might be absolutely revolting to you, but there’s a bigger principle at play here, which is that bond of trust. It’s like what does God do when I come and confess my sin? Does he vomit all over me at that point? No. He forgives. Will there be consequences? Yes. Don’t disconnect. J: Why is that so important? E: It is so important because by the time you have teenagers, you’ve been parenting a long time and it’s really easy at that point to click on “autopilot.” You feel like you’ve said what you can say, you’ve done what you can do, and it’s easy to check out. But the truth is that in the teen years (it won’t seem like it from them), our children actually need us more. Your kids actually want to learn about sex from their parents. They want to talk to their parents about it. So, it’s all the more important to really stay engaged in this season of parenting. J: Often times most of our talks with our teens happen just as we’re about to head to bed after a long day. I’m exhausted at the end of the day and that’s when my teenage daughter comes alive. She comes home ready to spill her day and I’m a zombie. But how important is it to keep engaged during that time when they’re ready to be engaged? E: I think what your saying is what I have felt and what others have felt: it’s not convenient most of the time. Teens like to stay up late and that is when they tend to get a little more talkative and more engaged in conversation. Finding the time is not going to fit our agenda as much as it did when our kids were younger, and that’s when we’re going to have to fight. Not just our weariness in parenting, but our weariness in the day. Capitalizing on those moments and being able to hear where they’re at and listen to them. Let them know that you’re glad you were able to talk, and plan a time to talk more. J: Plan a date to continue the conversation. When you get on that date, you probably won’t talk about that conversation at all, but you’re still connecting with the heart. Don’t think, “Not My Kid.” J: You don’t want to have this mentality, do you? E: No. I think that this is especially true with Christians. Believers have to really fight against this because as we’ve raised them, we read Bible stories, we took them to church and church camps, and we did all that we really could do to raise them up in the Lord. There can almost be a sense of, “this won’t happen to my child.” But the truth is that they live in a world where the average age of exposure to pornography is 8 years old. And it’s in the home. Ninety percent of kids view pornography at home. It’s easy to kind of feel like we’ve done all the right things, and that therefore, it will never be my child. But that’s not only setting yourself up for a lot of pain and failure, but your children, as well. J: How much of the “not my kid” mentality is really because I’m terrified for my child or because I think it’s a reflection on me? And it’s really an attack on my pride – the fact that my child would be involved in something. How much do you think that plays in? E: I think you’re really touching on the core of that. Ultimately, our children do reflect a lot of us. And that’s where we have to be anchored in our own identity in Christ and be able to trust that we are in process and our children are in process and the Lord is working on us. There’s a humility factor there. I think we have to embrace, especially as our kids become teens and they make a lot of decisions that are completely their own, that this is where we get to trust that our confidence is in Christ and not in our parenting. It shows how much we are using our children as a means of finding a sense of accomplishment J: I had really good parents. They loved me and I never doubted that they loved me. That didn’t stop me from doing whatever I wanted sometimes. I know my rebellion was against the Lord, but I didn’t consider it a rebellion against the Lord. I loved the Lord. I didn’t consider it a rebellion against my parents. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. We, as adults, compartmentalize. As a teen – they’re masters of compartmentalization, and so we have to watch and be careful sometimes that we don’t take their sin as a direct affront against us. Sometimes it’s just the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Don’t avoid discussing the changes that they are experiencing. J: Why is it important to not avoid? Are there age ranges that you would recommend exposing different talks? E: The reason I wrote this little mini chapter is because a lot of the times we don’t know all that’s going on in our kids’ bodies physiologically. When I wrote this book, I had to do a whole lot more study than what is put into the actual book. I found myself having a much deeper compassion towards my teenage boys because of knowing what was going on in their bodies. Part of it is just helping them be aware and letting them know that some of the stuff they’re dealing with is just physical. Not taking it personal becomes very important because you’re going to see mood swings like roller coasters in this age. Some of that has to do with the chemical changes happening in their body and helping them become more aware of that is a grace that you can give them in this season. J: Dan Scott wrote a book, Caught In Between: Engage Your Preteens Before They Check Out, on helping formulate stuff in your church for preteens and I learned so much about what was happening in the wiring of a brain. If you look at the brain of an early teenager, it looks like the brain of a toddler, where they’re making connections all across the place and that’s a lot. Unfortunately, they’re put in a holding pen with several hundred or thousand other children experiencing the same thing. No wonder middle school is so miserable for so many people. We can’t avoid these conversations, can we? E: Exactly. And it’s helpful for us to know what’s going on. It’s helpful for us and it’s helpful for them. Don’t underestimate the role you play in your teen’s life. J: I think many parents don’t feel they have that big of a role. They think that its friends, media, and all of that. What would you say to the mom and dad that feel like their influential time is largely passed? E: Yes. They will come across that way. But, the truth is that they do really want to be able to talk about certain things with their parents. I think that one of the things that is so important for parents is to recognize that their role has changed at this point. I would say that the majority of the conflict that happens between parents and teens is from parents actually not recognizing that their role has changed. You went from telling your kids to do everything, and that has to shift. What we want to do is move from authority to influence. If we can influence them, we’re going to have greater impact for them in their lives. Paul Tripp writes in Age of Opportunity a lot about that – dealing with our own hearts is a lot of what’s happening there. J: I think it’s in the book Parenting Teens with Love and Logic by Foster Cline and Jim Fay that one of the challenges we have is we give tremendous freedom in decision-making to our children in the elementary years. Then, we hit the teenage years and we remember being teenagers and we realize that the stakes of decision-making have now radically increased. So, what happens is we do this massive course correction and we suddenly restrict what seems like a natural growth of decision-making to the teen and we can come off as unreasonable and hyper-restrictive. Now, you have more of an influencer role than an authoritarian one and that can be hard. You have a massive role; it just keeps changing. Don’t send teens the wrong messages about sex. J: What’s the right message about sex? E: What I see in mainstream Christianity and in Christian circles is a real strong emphasis on sex being negative, on sex being bad, and on sex being evil. That’s just not biblical. When we look at Genesis, we see God as the designer, the creator of sex, and that He gave it as a blessing. It says that He spoke to Adam and Eve, and He blessed them, and He said be fruitful and multiply. The only way you can be fruitful and multiply is by having sex, so in this blessing was sex. I think that a lot of the reason why we make it big, bad, and ugly is because we’re afraid of them making decisions that are going to be lifelong or that affect them for the rest of their lives. But in that fear, we tend to create a mindset that sex is bad. Then when they get married, they somehow have to change gears and see sex as good. As a c…

Full show notes at the publisher

140 Chick-Fil-A Can Teach Us A Lot About Parenting Sep 22, 2019

Show notes

Nathan Buchanan is an operator of two Chick-Fil-A franchises in Martin County, Florida. He’s also a husband and the father of five children as well as a pastor’s kid and a follower of Jesus. He manages to get exceptional quality service out of a group of rotating teenagers. Join me as I interview Nathan and discuss how the principles found in the Chic-Fil- A franchise can help you parent your children.

If you find this podcast helpful, you can subscribe and click here to find past topics and free resources. Feel free to share with others, as well! If you would like to help support Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can do so by becoming a patron.

I send a weekly email called “Things for Thursday” and it includes things I’ve found helpful related to parenting, marriage, and sometimes just things I find funny! You can sign up for “Things for Thursday” by joining my newsletter on my homepage.

If you would like to suggest a topic, let me know here or on the Facebook page.

Show Highlights

J: What is the ideal culture in your restaurant?

N: First we have to define culture. I would define it as the sum of all the behaviors and attitudes within an organization. An ideal culture is one in which we have individuals with positive growth-minded mindsets, who are well-trained in behaviors that we want them to perform and have a great attitude. In management, we manage the behavior side of it. Behaviors are quantifiable. I can see your smile or your physical or verbal reactions. Attitudes on the other hand are qualifiable. So I can tell if you have a good or bad attitude, but I can’t really manage it.

J: Do you measure smiles in your house?

N: We measure behaviors. In my restaurant, I rent the behaviors of my team for the time they are in my restaurant. However, in a house it is a different set of behaviors. Children have chores and things they are responsible for cleaning and maintaining. They have to behave a certain way towards their siblings or their parents. So we manage the behavior. We say “don’t do that, but do this behavior instead.”

J: Go more deeply into what you mean by “renting behaviors.”

N: There are two types of relationships in the world. There is a conditional relationship, such as an employee-employer relationship. In this relationship the conditions are: you do a certain type and amount of work for me and I give you a certain amount of money. Then there is the unconditional relationship, such as a father-daughter relationship, where that relationship cannot change no matter how good or bad it is. In the conditional relationship of the restaurant, I rent the behavior of the team member while they are on the clock. I tell them what to do, what to say, what to wear, etc, but only in that limited context. There are some unconditional relationships where I have that same responsibility. I have a responsibility to teach my kids how to interact with others, how to dress, and how to behave. I have a responsibility to go through those same management principles in that unconditional relationship as I would in the conditional relationship of my restaurant to help my child come self-disciplined.

J: So, “renting” in regards to parenting is like: “this is the expectation and this is the payout for what you do.” You don’t have to bring any emotions into it.

N: Emotions are a tricky thing. They are really important. They are useful to convey the depth of feeling that is driving the conversation. But when you parent with emotion, your child responds to that emotion, and your child then has justification to their own actions in response to yours. They can self-justify.

J: You spend your life now recruiting and developing high school students to work in a professional environment. Your workforce is constantly changing, but in your restaurant, the service and quality of the food stays excellent. It feels like it depends on the individual that you have there, so what have you figured out in your environment that has helped that?

N: There are a couple of things that we have figured out that may not correlate directly to parenting:

1) If you choose the person that fits your job, it makes life a lot easier. We look for people with specific talent-sets or natural talents. We look for self-discipline, shared values, and intrinsic hunger or drive. All we have to do is inspire them to be better than they already are.

2) If we hire someone who can’t do the job or won’t do the job, we part ways with them quickly. But you can’t do that with your children.

J: You mentioned figuring out when people can’t, wont, and don’t know how. This is a really helpful parenting skill as well. How do you figure this out?

N: We go through the roster and measure their actions and whether they help the team. We ask “Is it because they can’t?”And if they can’t then we ask them “How can we help you get to a better place?” The Wont’s are great but they’re immature, so we set specific expectations and hold them accountable or we get performance out of their replacement. The Don’t Know Hows are a group of people who can’t figure things out intuitively. We focus on them and make sure they know exactly what we expect. In parenting, specificity drives accountability, and accountability will drive performance. As parents, it’s our role to really get specific about our expectations with the kids. The more specific you can get, the easier it’s going to be to hold your kids accountable.

J: As a parent you don’t get to recruit your children and you don’t get to fire them. But there have to be principles that are translated back and forth. What can parents learn from the way Chic-Fil-A runs its operation?

Get on it early. Make sure your child know what you mean when you say no and then it gets easier from there. Also, celebrate the behavior that you want.
Get specific with expectations and rules and hold ramifications for those expectations. Specificity drives accountability and accountability drives performance.
You need to be friendly but not their friend because you’re going to have to hold them accountable.
You have to constantly challenge them to grow. When children have self-discipline, you can give them more trust.
You have to be trustworthy as a parent. Integrity, authenticity, and personal discipline make trust happen.
Discipline in principle and not in anger.
Be aware of who your kids are spending time with. You do have the authority to tell them what to do and how to do it.

J: Describe the culture that you think parents should strive for to have a thriving, fruitful home?

N: I want to provide a safe and secure environment where young people can grow and mature rightly. The culture that you want in your home is a safe and secure environment where people are challenged to grow and mature and are given guidance to grow and mature. I want my kids to become great adults, not necessarily have a fun childhood. You create the culture and that’s just the expectation that happens.

J: How do you think parents miss the mark in character formation?

N: It’s a twofold answer:

I think as parents we are too caught up in our own lives and, sometimes, we just want the kids to leave us alone. We miss teachable moments.
We make the mistake of trying to get outward compliance instead of an inward change of attitude. A lot of times as parents we just want compliance because then we can go on with our day. And our children will comply, but then they’re silently still rebelling in their hearts. We miss that to our peril. We are the first authority figure that God has given to them. If kids don’t learn to obey us, they’re not going to obey their boss, the police, the government, etc.

J: Parents, don’t miss that mark of how much character formation takes place in the home.

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Resources Mentioned

It’s Ok to Be the Boss: The Step-By-Step Guide to Becoming the Manager Your Employees Need by Bruce Tulgan

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

139 Marriage on Mission with Jenny Price Sep 15, 2019

Show notes

Today we are talking with my friend, Jenny Price, and an incredible, practical tool for couples to strengthen their marriage called Marriage on Mission. Jenny is a Pastor’s wife, mother of five, and coach who is passionate about building healthy marriages. The Marriage on Mission tool is one that will help you and your spouse dream, plan and sharpen your direction in a healthy way.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

No matter what stage your marriage is in, if you can get your marriage on mission, you can push toward health.

Marriage is the one thing that is definitively shaping our nation. It is not government or healthcare; it is growing healthy marriages.
You do not have to simply endure a hard marriage. Putting your marriage on mission will help it grow healthy and thrive.
Everything stems from relationships. The fruit of your relationship with your spouse will have a long-lasting impact after you are gone.

The most important concept to remember concerning your marriage is that the ultimate mission is not to stay married or have a good marriage. If your marriage is the most important thing to you, it has become an idol. If marriage is the highest priority, you are depending on your spouse to satisfy things that only God can satisfy. There is no person to complete you, and if you are looking to your spouse to do that, you are setting them up for something they are incapable of doing. Your marriage should be a blessing and an absolute source of joy, but it is not your core identity and it is not the main source of joy in your life.

Marriage should be combined with:

Ministry
Careers
Eternity

So, where should one start to get their marriage on mission? The following steps are part of the Marriage on Mission tool. I encourage you to print the full resource out as it contains additional details that will help you and your spouse get the most out of the exercise!

Ask yourself where you are right now.
- You can’t work on where you want to go without knowing where you are starting from.
Talk to your spouse about where they are.
- Sometimes, one spouse might feel they are in one place and the other has a totally different take on it. We all carry presumptions!
- It should not scare us if one feels the relationship is in a better place than the other. Evaluating where you both are should not be an exercise in ascribing worth to the other.
Do vision-casting exercises. This exercise takes about an hour and a half and is great for a date night:

- Spend 5 minutes praying and getting into context.
- Spend 20 minutes individually writing your 1 year vision. This resource provides a number of questions you can use for this step.
- Read what each other has written.
  - Pay attention to the similarities and differences you discover.

Set S.M.A.R.T goals. These should stretch us and push us.

- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Risky
- Timely

Focus on eternity.
- Long for God. He is the goal!
- Think: My marriage matters because of the legacy that God is building in me.
- Is my marriage pointing others to Christ?
Set a mission statement rooted in scripture.
- Find a scripture passage that you want your family to be about and live by it.

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Everything stems from relationships.
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Your marriage should be a blessing and an absolute source of joy, but it is not your core identity and it is not the main source of joy in your life.
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My marriage matters because of the legacy that God is building in me.
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RESOURCES MENTIONED

Marriage on Mission Tool

Jenny’s Website

Jenny’s Facebook

Jenny’s Instagram

Heaven by Randy Alcorn

The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis

Jay’s Newsletter

Jay’s Email

Let’s Parent on Purpose Facebook Page

Episode 50: Depression and Anxiety in Parenting and Marriage

Episode 120: How Your Marriage Affects Your Parenting

138 Spiritual Warfare in the Home Sep 08, 2019

Show notes

Spiritual warfare is all around us. It exists in our everyday lives. However, we often overlook aspects of it because we are looking for the big moments of fighting instead of the small daily instances. So, today I want to look at a certain aspect of spiritual warfare that I believe can derail our families and our relationships with others if left unchecked.

If you like the content of this podcast and find it insightful and helpful, please subscribe. If you would like to support Let’s Parent on Purpose and our ministry, please consider becoming a patron.

For more information pertaining to the topic of this podcast, please check out this article on spiritual warfare on the Focus on the Family website.

Show Highlights

To begin, we need to understand that human beings are spiritual beings. The two aspects are not separate. Yet, we do separate them all the time by believing that we are spiritual beings when we attend church, read the Bible, or pray, but we are regular humans the rest of the time. This is not true. You are a spiritual being no matter what you do.

I want to look at a certain aspect of spiritual warfare today because spiritual beings are engaged in spiritual warfare. The aspect of spiritual warfare that gets overlooked is: The subtlety of spiritual warfare on a daily basis

We often think of spiritual warfare as big battles such as divorces or major addictions or dysfunctions in the home. But what if spiritual warfare started so small that you didn’t even realize it was there?

In my experience, spiritual warfare is:

little conflicts
little discords
little annoyances

It is death by a thousand relational cuts, and since we don’t realize that the relationship has a spiritual side, we don’t realize the stakes. Spiritual warfare often looks like relational funk between me and you.

Know this: You enemy is not your husband, or kids, or the drug dealer in your neighborhood. It is Satan. Your enemy is a spiritual enemy, roaming quietly, looking for opportunities.

One major opportunity that will destroy relationships is pride.

Pride is:

the most anti-God sin that exists.
It is anti-people as well.
It will kill your house.
It will kill your unity.
It will kill your relationship with others and your relationship with God.

There is a weapon we can use to fight this spiritual battle and that weapon is grace.

Grace heals what pride kills.
Grace is what allows us to live in a home full of sinners.

The pathway to grace starts with humility with God and with others. You can resist the devil by submitting and humbling yourself to God.

I want to leave you with three steps to help you fight this battle:

Think about the conflicts in your life and submit them to God.
Evaluate where those conflicts might have been amplified by your pride.
Humble yourself and extend grace with no expectation of return from that other person.

Try it and let me know how it works. Send me an email.

Here is an extra piece of practical advice: When you feel like you are under attack or in a spiritual battle, pray this out loud:

I am a child of God

Bought by the blood of Jesus

And I claim the blood of Jesus over my life

I claim the blood of Jesus over my household

And I pray in the name of Jesus and I command any evil force that might be around

to leave in the name of Jesus and by the power of Jesus’ blood

Remember that there is power in the blood of Jesus when you are under the blood of Jesus.

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You are a spiritual being no matter what you do.
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Resources Mentioned

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Focus on the Family

Jay’s Email

137 The Power of Addiction, The Freedom of Recovery Sep 01, 2019

Show notes

Today I am joined by my good friend, Melissa Weimer. Melissa is a wife, mother, and the ministry leader of Celebrate Recovery at Covenant Fellowship Baptist Church. During this episode, Melissa shares her encouraging redemption story, starting with how she began spiraling into addiction at a young age and how that carried into her early years of marriage and parenting. As you listen, I think you will see that Melissa’s story is Jesus’ story.

If you find this podcast helpful, I’d love for you to subscribe and share with your friends! If you would like to help support Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can do so by becoming a patron.

Finally, I’ve been using an internet filtering program called “Covenant Eyes.” It’s a wonderful, Christian-based program, and we have it on all of our computers at home. By following this link, you’ll be able to support this podcast.

Show Highlights

Our backgrounds can propel us into addiction.

Family addiction can be a potential catalyst for adulthood addiction.
Not having repercussions or consequences can escalate the problem.

What can keep us in our addictions and away from God and His grace?

Fear of God and His displeasure in us can make us walk away from Him.
Denial of our problems prolongs our descent into addiction.
Thinking we have everything under control makes us resist help.

What propels us into action about our addiction?

Hitting rock bottom can make us realize our need to be saved.
Realizing the hurt that we have put others through can fuel our desire for change.
Realizing that we have no control over our lives allows us to ask for help.

What is Celebrate Recovery?

A 12-step program with 8 biblical principles that help us dig into who we are and why we seek out certain addictions continually. The program gives us tools to break the cycle and find our identity and worth in Christ.
The program is about finding our identity in Christ and not in our problem.
The program is about connecting with others and finding healing through support and confession.

We are not our addictions!

We all have issues, but we should not be defined by them.
Christ is continually working in us.
Defining ourselves by our addictions shortchanges Christ’s power in us.

What are the effects of recovery?

For the individual:

There will always be trust issues that you will have to endure. See them as a way to celebrate and show others that you have nothing to hide anymore.
Hold tight to your identity in Christ as you pursue sobriety, grace, peace, and happiness.
Become involved in a church and give back to others.

For the family:

Realize that you cannot change the person; you can only love them.
Support them, not the problem.
Do not enable their issues.

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Resources Mentioned

Covenant Eyes

Celebrate Recovery

Find a Group: https://locator.crgroups.info/

Life’s Healing Choices by John Baker

136 Picking Your Battles Aug 25, 2019

Show notes

Today, we’ll be talking about discerning which battles are worth fighting with our children, teenagers, and our spouses. How do we know which battles to pick and when to let go? Together, we’ll look at some really helpful questions to ask as we seek to navigate these challenges with wisdom.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

When do I let my kids make their own decisions, and when do I stay involved? This question applies to so many areas of life: grades, dating, friendships, a clean room, respect, their relationship with God, work ethic – the list goes on. How do we know which battles to pick?

Here are some principles to remember:

Curiosity—what is the reason they are doing what they are doing?
Correlation—people, especially our children, are a bundle of contradictions
Don’t let things slide that will be detrimental to them later in life
- Don’t let your kids do things that make you dislike them.
  - These are things that will cause other people to dislike them.
- Some things don’t matter as much as we think.
  - Get some feedback—outside perspective. Ask other parents, for example.
  - In our house—”We speak highly” of one another. This creates an environment of safety.

Some things matter more than we think.
- Example: Girls, watch how a guy treats his mom. Guys, watch how a girl treats her father. Lying, disrespect, etc. are not small things.
Eighteen is not the finish line for parenting or developing as a human being.
- Think of yourself at 18, and now. How much have you changed? Don’t judge your children’s current character development by your character development today.

How to Pick Battles with Our Children

Messymotherhood.com has four excellent questions to ask:

Will this hurt my child or someone else?
Will this cause property damage?
Will this go against our family’s rules, values or beliefs?
Will this interfere with other plans (does this prevent us from moving on)?

If the answer to these questions is “no” and the behavior is still bothering you, ask yourself this final question: why do I feel like I need to stop this behavior?

How to Pick Battles with Our Teens:

Here are some helpful questions to ask:

How can I get to the heart of my child?
- Get them to see the why behind my heart.
Is this issue ultimately for their good, or a matter of my pride?
- Am I more concerned about the way it reflects on my parenting ability? This is not the type of criteria to be using.
What will be most helpful for their life and character?
- Sometimes, suffering and facing consequences is most helpful.
- Does your teen fight you over going to college? There is wisdom in holding back on incurring debt for an education they have no interest in immediately after high school.
Ask yourself: Am I stepping in the way of God?
- Consider that God may be teaching them through the tough consequences.
  - If they have trouble being on-time to work as a 16-year-old? This is the time to let them fail, let them get fired.

How to Pick Battles in Marriage:

Have as few battles as possible.
- Are you evaluating your perception of their love for you by tasks that aren’t in their wheelhouse? Maybe they’re expressing love for you in a way you aren’t recognizing.
- Be careful about entering into battle.
Is this battle truly over the heart or a mechanical function?

Ultimately, when picking your battles—choose wisely, choose rarely, and make sure they actually matter.

Thank you for your positive ratings and reviews! Your feedback is encouraging and appreciated, and really helps promote the podcast for others!

Thank you to my Patreon supporters – you helped me attend a podcast convention this past week, and it was amazing. I am tremendously grateful for your partnership!

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Resources Mentioned

Youtube: Lets Parent on Purpose

Covenant Eyes

Episode 32: Boulders, Backpacks & Boundaries

Episode 46: Behavior Should Make You Curious with Bradley McAlister

Episode 51: Prioritizing Your Battles

Cone of Responsibility

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson

www.messymotherhood.com

135 You Are Not In Control Aug 18, 2019

Show notes

We’re going to change things up today. We’re going to do a little devotion about a big truth. Walk with me through my favorite Psalm, 127, and learn how we can apply it to our lives.

Show Highlights

This was a song they would sing as they were marching up the temple steps in Jerusalem each year. It beings as a powerful reminder that, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”

Think about the protective measures for our families we have put in place-health insurance, home insurance, car insurance, savings – all to treat our children well and d protect them from the unknown.
No matter how many safeguards we put in place, we are just not in control.
- This can be terrifying, but, it should also be freeing!

We are responsible but we are not in control.

What does that mean? Wouldn’t it be better if being responsible meant we were in control?
We are responsible to be faithful with what God has put in front of us.
We are not in control of the outcome.
We are responsible for our own:
- Decisions.
- Intentions.
- Reactions.

We are in charge of duties given to us by God, but the outcomes are often a mystery.

Eternally, we know God works them for good, but in the day-to-day, we don’t always see how.
According to Psalm 127, if I’m not in control that means God is. We should rest better at night knowing this!
- Be in awe of God’s power!
- Rely on God to keep your family together.

Children are a heritage from the Lord

Do you look at your children as arrows?
Do you see your children as objects of power and influence for the Lord? Arrows for you to gather, sharpen, and launch into the world on behalf of Christ?
Do you value each child as their own unique arrow for God to mold and shape?

There is freedom in having no control.

Trust in God to preserve your family.
There will always be that “one thing.”
We require daily dependence on the Lord.
We are built for eternity.
God will be there, no matter the outcome.

Be encouraged to memorize Psalm 127. It should be a continual grounding force in your life. Look at your children as precious arrows given by God. Invest in them as you would anything that could radically shape and change the world. They are the Lord’s arrows. Owning this brings freedom.

I would love to pray for you and your “one thing” that you need to trust the Lord in. Please feel free to email me at jay@letsparentonpurpose.com

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Resources mentioned

Parenting By Paul David Tripp

Camp Living Stones, Tennessee

Click here to download my free Fun Family Conversations eBook.

Want to try audible for free? www.audibletrial.com/letsparentonpurpose

134 Starting Off the School Year Well Aug 11, 2019

Show notes

Today’s big question:

How do you, as a parent, emotionally and spiritually set yourself up for starting the school year off well? I want to propose four truths to consider, and what we might do in response to these truths.

Audible credits have allowed me to enjoy books such as Free to Focus, Atomic Habits, Harry Potter books, and The Body Keeps the Score. I highly recommend Parenting by Paul David Tripp. In it are not tips and tricks on how to be a good parent, but direction on resetting your heart for what God has called you to do.

Want to try audible for free? www.audibletrial.com/letsparentonpurpose

Show Highlights

Truth #1: My children are my Treasure.
1. Is there anything in this life that you have invested more time, effort, energy, and resources in than your children?
2. Family Wealth by James Hughes.
  1. In Family Wealth, Hughes writes about how families can preserve their wealth for multiple generations. The greatest treasures in your family are the individuals in your family, as well as their ideas and their capabilities.
3. We spend so little time strategically thinking through the multiple generations that are going to come out of us. Are you thinking about your grandkids? Your great-grandkids?
4. When I take my kid to school, I am dropping off the greatest treasure God has given me outside of my personal salvation and marriage relationship.
Truth #2: My Children are God’s Arrows
1. Psalm 127:4— my favorite verse.
  1. “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth.”
  2. Your children are God’s arrows. You have your children in the quiver. You sharpen them. You launch them into the world as God’s ambassadors. They are your ambassadors, too. Kids carry your family name.
Truth #3: My Children are Excited
1. They are seeing new people, opportunities, clothes, shoes.
2. The unknown creates real excitement.
Truth #4: My Children are Scared
1. There is a lot of unknown with the beginning of each year. We do poorly to minimize what they are scared of, to dismiss it.
2. Middle school is as hard to navigate as any time of life, period. Including adulthood.
3. To the capacity that they are right now, this is as hard as they have ever experienced, and it’s going to push them and stretch them. There is pressure to succeed.
  1. In that pressure to succeed, every child seems to want to really stand out, but also fit in completely at the same time.
4. We are in a hyper-achieving culture. There is high pressure to succeed academically, athletically, and morally. Our children are scared of failure.
5. Being different is awesome except being different is awful. There is turmoil inside. We want to be great, and get recognized and be noticed, but only for that exact perfect thing all the time.
6. It’s very important to pay attention to your conversations as you get your child ready for school.
  1. We may or may not know what we are dropping them into. We do not want to add another weight to their soul as they head into school.

Your kids are your treasure. Your kids are God’s arrows. Your kids are excited. Your kids are scared. It’s good for us to remember that as we set ourselves up to enter the year as best we can, and so we can set our children up to thrive.

What can we do in response to these truths?

Think about grounding routines for you and your family.
1. Your family is more important than school, sports, clubs, and work.
2. What works for you that is regular, rhythmic, and consistent for your family to do as a grounding routine?

1. 1. I recommend my free resource, Fun Family Conversations. Use routine to invest in your kids.

1. Develop statements for your kids’ identity, mission, purpose, and affirmation.

Margin—Everything is easier with margin.
1. Leave space in your day.
2. Don’t’ allow your kids to be involved in everything, they’ll be happier.
Power of the Debrief.
1. Ask questions: “How is this different in light of the fact that Jesus died and rose from the dead?”
2. Teach your kids to apply the gospel to all areas of their life.

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Resources Mentioned

Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

Parenting By Paul David Tripp

Camp Living Stones, Tennessee

Click here to download my free Fun Family Conversations eBook.

Family Wealth by James Hughes

133 Overwhelming Stress: Unstacking the Stack Aug 04, 2019

Show notes

We’ve all been there. Life gets to be so overwhelming that we start using words like “stress” and “anxiety” to describe the way it makes us feel. What can be done about it? How do we unpack, rearrange, or maybe eliminate the heavy boxes in our lives? My friend and Christian Counselor, Brian Neal, joins me again today to share wisdom on the matter. A father of six, husband of 28 years, and Marriage and Family counselor, Brian provides a few strategies for tackling these stacks. (Click here to listen to Brian’s previous interview in episode 122, “How Can We Benefit from Counseling.”)

Show Highlights

Who is my returning guest, Brian Neal?
1. Brian is a Christian Marriage and Family counselor in West Palm Beach, Florida.
2. Brian has an office in Palm Beach Gardens, and also provides online counseling to Florida residents via True Course Counseling.
What is one of the most common areas of need for Christian counseling?
1. Emotional stress and feelings of being overwhelmed.
2. Teens, parents, families all have more and more piled on their plates these days.
  1. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America says, “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older.”
  2. This is over 18% of the population.

Is the term “mental illness” always appropriate? Isn’t anxiety something that can be chemical/genetic or circumstantial? How are they differentiated?
1. Anxiety and stress can be viewed on a spectrum. For some, there is a chemical origin, and for others, it may be circumstantial.
2. If panic attacks keep a person from functioning, you may be crossing into the anxiety disorder part of the spectrum (mental illness).
3. Differentiating is often attempted by looking at an individual’s beliefs of themselves, their environment, and their past.
  1. Was there a traumatic event? A broken relationship? Etc.

The stressors in our lives can be likened to 20lb boxes. Each box contains a different area of stress.
1. If a person is figuratively carrying multiple 20lb boxes, and then given an additional one while being expected to carry out their day-to-day tasks, they’d feel overwhelmed. The pressure would mount, and stress and anxiety would begin to take over.
The first strategy for managing stress and anxiety is to identify what your boxes are and what is making them so heavy.
1. Most often the boxes have labels like work, children, family issues, illness, finances, etc.
2. Sometimes, the heaviest box cannot be changed (terminal illness, for example). However, the smaller boxes can be rearranged or eliminated by dealing with them intentionally.
The next step is to begin looking at each box one-by-one. Can the box be dropped from 20lb to 10 or 5lb? If the load is a little lighter, carrying the boxes that can’t be changed will be more manageable.
1. Take a piece of paper and list all of your daily activities.
2. Next to each activity, list how much time you spend on it.
  1. This will give you a picture of how busy you really are.
3. Look at the times you’ve written down. Now identify which of those activities you think negatively about.
  1. Quickly, you’ll see where your heart is and what is hurting it. This is what defines a heavy box.
4. After you’ve identified a box, take steps to address the problem. Do you need to have a conversation with someone? Say “no” or step down from something?
Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
1. Be intentional about living in community with others (like a church small group). These are the people you can, and should, ask for advice.
  1. Remember, while you don’t have to take the advice you’re given, it’s better than not asking at all.
  2. It’s best to seek advice from multiple people, and include non-family members.

A second exercise for identifying and managing stress and anxiety is to create a timeline of positive and negative experiences.
1. Get a piece of paper. Make a line that starts with “childhood” and ends with “present.”
2. Then, list all the positive experiences you can think of on the top of the line, and all of the negative experiences on the bottom of the line.
  1. This exercise is great for helping individuals identify the potential root for current stressors.
  2. Find someone to talk through the timeline with – often times this will result in remembering additional details. Sometimes, these critical details prove to be the key to it all.

Recurrent areas of stress and anxiety: finances, sex, in-laws, and communication.
1. Identifying the issues within these categories won’t solve them, but all it takes to get started is intentional communication.
Seek balance in your life, and actively prioritize “margin”.
1. Is your day maxed out with errands, obligations, extracurriculars for the kids? When you look at your boxes, is Jesus in one of them?
2. With no margin, no room to breathe each day, every day will be a struggle.
3. Jesus should not be one of your boxes. Instead, you need to prioritize time with Him; abide in Him.
4. Jesus, and our time with Him, is to be our source of rest, not a source of stress.

Thank you to my patreon supporters! You are making the show notes and production of the show possible! If you believe in Let’s Parent on Purpose, you can support the show for as little as $1 an episode.

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Resources Mentioned

Click here to download my free Fun Family Conversations eBook.

Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt

132 Helping Husbands with Communication and Empathy Jul 28, 2019

Show notes

Today, I’m talking to the guys. But ladies, I think you will be blessed by the conversation today, too. I hope you’ll join me as I talk about ways husbands can help their wives when they’re overwhelmed. I’m going to provide tools and solutions that you can implement right away, and I encourage you to share these with others. This is the next podcast in my You Ask It, I Answer It series. To view the last episode, click here.

Show Highlights

When your wife says she’s overwhelmed, listen first without jumping to a solution.
1. Men and women have been designed by God to communicate in distinctly different ways.
2. A study was done where the brains of men and women were scanned while a story with a problem was told.
  1. For the women, the empathy section of their mind remained engaged throughout the story. Women are able to work out problems by verbalizing, sharing, and receiving emotional sympathy. Able to fix it themselves, often.
  2. For the men, the “fix it” section of their mind lit up rapidly. Men are wired to provide solutions and fix things.
3. Men, stay engaged. Don’t jump to problem-solving mode.
When your wife says she’s overwhelmed, ask questions.
1. Ask your wife about the specifics of the situation.
2. Often, women are able to work out their problems by verbalizing, sharing, and receiving emotional sympathy.
When your wife says she’s overwhelmed, acknowledge the emotions of the situation.

1. You can positively impact a conversation, and encourage her, by expressing thoughts like, “I bet that is really frustrating” or “You must have been really hurt by that.”
2. Try to imagine the feelings you would have if you were walking through the situation.
3. Emotions are 100% accurate in telling us how we’re interpreting the situation. They are not 100% accurate in describing reality.
4. Acknowledging her emotions can help to diffuse them.

When your wife says she’s overwhelmed, encourage the good you see her doing.

1. Share observations like, “I know you’re overwhelmed, but I see you doing [fill in the blank] really well.”

When your wife says she’s overwhelmed, and you can’t help but think of a solution:
1. Ask your wife this question: “Would it help you for me to listen and talk this through with you, or would you like help in finding a solution?”
When your wife says she’s overwhelmed, pray with her.
1. Before you do anything, pray together.
2. Pray the peace of God on her life, that she would see where Jesus is working and moving, that God would intervene, for strength, endurance, and Jesus’s glory.
When your wife says she’s overwhelmed, memorize Scripture.
1. Specifically, Matthew 6:25-34.

As always, thank you to my patreon supporters! You are making the show notes and production of the show possible!

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Resources Mentioned

Fun Family Conversations eBook.