You Can’t Fix Your Kid

I don't have to be more team or try harder. Strive more to attain grassland or to chase after other people's lap. I don't have to get someone else's approval in the way that I parent I love by God. Welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue the relationship that matter most and will send it on day will soon you can find us@familylifetoday.com or on our family life. This is family life today. Okay, so pretty what's the word I want to say tender moment is a dead unexpected surprising moment was sitting down with my sons who said he did was go play golf and then you don't play little golf in this graph Sunday even as we sit down. They say that we we need to tell you something and then not you read as I said, and like all I think they planned this, and I found out yet it talk to each other and they wanted to share some as adult men.

Now that it's hurt them that I had done as a dad is so sweet why can I reflect so I mean I'm I'm looking back okay in that moment I could me. I even as I bring it up now. I can feel the tension in my stomach was like you came home from that. He said well that's not what I thought I was so surprised to play golf or have a good time and that was a good time but you know what they said the days both sorta said you know we felt like you were more intimate with thousand people in our church 10,000 actually time you know in your sermons. You are more intimate with the congregation than you were with us in the kitchen the favor. I love how Betsy Larson. I remember the second it came out of their mouth. My first thought was there exactly right. It wasn't defensive that it was like you're right, I may I wish I wouldn't hearing it from them.

But I'm glad they had the courage to say it to me because it was the truth that you know you sorta hope as you parent and get to the stage. Apparently now grandparents you done it all right and I got here have conversations like that, but the other thing I thought I said to you is like well not done so I can do better. You know, I mean we still have their adult now they have kids but it does me were done. And even though that was I think a mistake on my part, I can do better and I think every parent wants to do as good a job as we can. I think his parents sometimes we think oh it's too late they're out of my house and what you're saying and it what were both saying is it's never too late to like that because our kids are always wanting a relationship with us down, so today we get to talk a little bit more about parenting and how to parent well and as I said, I think every parent there so parent doesn't want to do well will it do the best job we can, and the question we have is how you know how do we do this and how to do it, do this well. So get Crystal came back with something like today. Welcome back.

I'm so happy it's been great having you here this week. Talk about your book love centered parenting which is phenomenal and I'm not kidding. We don't say this every time you read a book.

It was like very authentic, very vulnerable but very helpful and you have any say in the sub.

That's a no fail. It's called the no field guide to launching your kids and I liked earlier Crystal when you explain what that meant that mean something else guide we really wrestled with what to subtitle this book and think is you can't fail if your faithful anything. So often we view failure and success, with the result. But as I share in this book.

A lot of times the no fail situation is. It's what God is doing in her heart. In the process and how God changes our heart and so that's why we titled the no field guide because can't fail in your faithful and when you just walk with your kids and let them well.

I was thinking the first time I heard you say that I thought only fly King David, the way God views King David and that she called him a man after his own heart.

And yet David sailed miserably, but because he continued to go back after got to run after God.

God didn't see him as a failure saw him as my son that is interesting as we've Artie said this week.

Love centered parenting is not just loving your child but is being parented by the heavenly father and receiving his love him again I'm not trying to put words in your mouth you wrote it right hassle and it totally changes the way that you interact with other people when you are coming at life from I am fully up by my creator.

I don't have to be more team or try harder. Strive more to attain God's love or to chase after other people's lap. I don't have to get someone else's approval in the way that I parent because I and loved by God and I can rest in that love and there's so much freedom yeah when you stand in that space of what other people think there are people out there that are going to think you are failing us.

They're going to question your decisions, especially someone like me who is on the Internet and you have hundreds of thousands of people who are following you and every single day people are telling me that I'm doing the wrong thing and I can't listen to those voices I can learn. I want to always be open and I want to receive if there some meaning to receive, but ultimately I can't please everyone. And that's what my job at my job is to understand how much I'm left by God to live in that love arrested not love live as lap and let his blood flow through me to my kids and everyone in my life.

You do that when you mean it's one thing to receive the love and forgiveness from the father when we fail when your child is feeling. Let's say rebelling rejecting what your you and your husband were trying to teach our kids and are just they blown it big time. How do we translate your forgiven your love and at the same time, we have the tension like Willow a we could talk is for the parents. We don't want to keep living this lifestyle you live in or making these choices you make and we have to have some consequences here so there's this this balance we are due how you how you translate that in love centered parenting. I think you need to recognize that you can't save your kids and Sophie you feel like that's your responsibility and you are approaching a situation like it's my job to fix this. So I gotta do whatever it takes to fix this, then it becomes about you controlling the situation but resting in God's love means we don't have to control our kids to walk with that and self love centered parenting I talk about for life-giving choices that every parent can make and so in this situation, if you let's say that you find out that your child has done something that just goes against everything that you stand for over everything even like you have raised them up into how do you respond in that situation well before life-giving choices lean in love listen well with humility and let go.

So lean and not what is it look like in that situation will first off, I encourage you not to just lure ash into the situation with this like like the no fire alarm going off. Better thing to let's say your TV. You're going to admit that that's what you do well. I know I got that we both totally over respond but let's let's just give it a name. Let's say your teenager was out drinking and driving is so calls for.

You get pretty concerned, angry, concerned and worried. So first off, I really encourage parents to see That's hard right there and send up a flare prayer and so in the Boca was afoot.

Talk about how a lot of times we don't have 30 minutes to go get on your knees and cry out to God it because we gotta handle a situation or it could be. Maybe you have young kids and you just hear them in the room fighting and you gotta go take care of it on to stop send up a flare prayer.

God help me to lean in the left my child in the situation and just released scene your child to him and reminding yourself of how much are loved and how much you want his love to flow. That changes the way we approach our child.

We approach it from. I know how much I'm left God, let your love flow through me to my child. I notice your Senate so call future ANOVAs like never on the Q go. Have you applied to the situation to get going, but we had a call at midnight, maybe even later. It's a friend of my son uses Mr. Wilson is easily no seizures just been put in the back seat of a police car. He's being arrested and taken to the police as Dale mutual right then and it's Thanksgiving all of our relatives at our house, spending the night and so in the morning will say all our son spent the night in jail and again in that moment her standing there and we had two different responses. Yours was like what I was. I was so afraid and I thought I know him like he didn't do anything that I was like he probably did my risotto wises like okay because because our friends like we did do a thing wrong. They've got the wrong car they thought in this car was similar like you don't have to lie what you guys are doing good okay will come down yet but anyway it was that moment. We have to sort of stop and listen. Okay.

Q go so approaching it from that posture I want to lean in and love my child not I want to fix this and then listening well I think these a lot of times will go hand-in-hand. So one thing that I really changed in let's say we get a phone call or there's an email or you find out about something. This happened just two weeks ago we found out her child done something and lied about it was pretty significant thing and so instead of just jumping to okay here's the consequences let's stop and let's listen first and asking questions. Can you tell me about what happened, why, and I'm just asking those curious questions because a lot of times I found that it will be very different then what I actually assumed from the get-go.

There is something else going on there and if if I immediately just jump to correcting and consequences I'm get a miss that opportunity to hear what's actually going on in their heart and so asking them open-ended questions and letting them talk a lot since you just ask why that's a really great question. Just my end. Just let that just let them start to share and at first. A lot of times they'll be closed off, but the more that they see on mom's not get a jump to just shaming or shutting them down or just note telling them how they did this terrible thing. There's a lot that will come up and hurts, and the heartache, and whatever's going on is gonna come out and install much the time our kids don't have emotional language to be able to share with their feeling. So it's going to come out sideways in anger. It's going to come out in this bad behavior and so let's get to the root if we can so stop leaning in love listen well and then meet with humility and then that is our space to be able to, let's share about things that we struggle with.

Let's sit with Dan and what they're going through and let's let them know that they're not alone like we don't have it all figured out were not this perfect. We've note. Maybe you've never been in the back of a cop car but I'm sure you made some mistakes in which my son was innocent.

It was not any.

They really did have the wrong car his car match the identification of girl are looking for and it was all worked out, but so to so listeners know what you see how that situation. If you just immediate right right just jump to just know spewing anger at IM because it's all about what other people think you know and it's all about your afraid and so you just acting out of that to your child how it turned out to be this terrible breaking your relationship, but if you if you stop and you are not accusing them but you're also not saying all my child never do that, you know, it's like you have had that balance between kind of like both of you what you are. Kids are capable of making some really bad and that are not about that. But letting them process with you and so hearing for them to build a share. Whether feeling and then for you to be able to share often times I'll say to my child if they've done something really bad mistake I made when I was your age and to build a share with Dan and that often times lead into a really beautiful conversation and then we talk about consequences and one thing as our kids get older, we will often let them help us make the consequences together because I feel like now this won't work for every child, but as if if they have had some experience with allowing them to you know well something needs to be done about this. What you think. Instead of insisting that Glover taken everything away grounded for three months.

Let's work together and so allowing them to have some ownership and some they come up with better consequences than I would like okay will go with that silk meeting with humility and sometimes that also is involved.

We need to ask forgiveness because we realize in the conversation with her child that there something that we've done that we need to go to them and ask their forgiveness and then letting go. So yes, we have the consequences that that's an important thing because actions have consequences. Good or bad.

I think it's important that we very clearly communicate our kids. We know that this is the consequence or if this happens in the future. This is going to be the consequence and make sure that they understand that but letting go in in this and said that we can control our kids and we can only control our responses and our response is our responsibility.

But if we are just holding them either with art which is hobbies clinched fist and were just trying so hard to control them. Going to probably rebel because they're going to feel so micromanaged and not trusting and so creating that space of love in that environment of security and that we value them and we want to hear them and that yes actions have consequences, but ultimately we love them allows me also to have some which were peace and quietness and calmness and how I respond to situations instead of just getting super angry and then doing things that I didn't really regret at the end of each chapter. Love you have two transforming truths in the one you mentioned after lead with humility. This is so good it says some of my greatest parenting happens on my knees with open hands and trusting my kids to their creator, which obviously gets into Lico you know we got a let go and trust God will will parent them better than we will and handle them but you knows we sooner wrap up for several days with you. How you let go because it's easy to say and it's not always easy, so that your group loose when you don't know what the outcome could be with your job and maybe Crystal take us back to our first conversation when you had a child that was suicidal. That's when more than ever is apparently want to clench and hold on to how you let go in those circumstances, I think it is a continual process. It's not like you just cannot pray and let go and it's all going to get that for me it's not stopping and a lot of times it will be literally opening up my hands and breathing and then saying out loud that I release this to you and in speaking the truths back to the Lord of I know that you love my child more than I do. You are in control. I can trust you. Let me trust you in this situation, and so that you're just speaking the truth and I'm just telling that and breathing and taking a minute or two to just stop and do that and then when you start feeling.

If you start feeling that tension rising again do it again like keep doing that until you can just feel that place where you have released it and then you have to go back and constant being in that space of I trust you, God, and it's interesting because I talked about how he fostered in last year we brought home a little boy from the NICU and he was an hour home for eight months and then we got to give him back to his mom and he had he reunified with his mom and that was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life to fall in love with a little boy him as my own for eight months and then to let him go and all during those eight months.

We didn't know was he can go back to his mom when she can stay with us for something else. We didn't know, and it was such a glade exercise for me of really opening up my hands and having to trust the Lord because I had no control over this and help me to realize how much I think I have control of other things in my life when I don't. That's a great word for all of us and it's that continual surrender of our lives of our kids. I love Romans 12 one and two are some of my favorite verses in the Bible and it says so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he's done for you.

Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him, and I've always pictured giving him my life like laying my life on the altar and sometimes it's harder to lay our kids lives on the altar, but I think that is exactly where we need to be to give our lives away to give our children to him and he said good good father who loves us more than we can even imagine you are sick and as we wrote this of course would you be willing to pray for the mom's and as who were maybe struggling even there till ago really to lean in love to listen well to lead with humility. See how good it is like a rumor all those with a gentle ago. I think it be beautiful if you just not flirt for you if you would absolutely thanks Tammy father, I just think of every single person who is listening to this today and got you know what they're feeling and you know what they're going through. I don't think I just pray that each parent listening would know that they're not alone, that whatever they're carrying that they're not alone think you are with them. You are Emmanuelle God with us and got I just pray that you would help the parent right now who just feel so overwhelmed with parenting that it feels like just a bigger job than they are capable of that, they would know how much they loved by you and that they can rest in that lot that they could live as in the your love for them could flow out to their kids that their kids would see and feel you through their parent they would feel your laughter there. And I just pray for each parent listening that he played help them to realize that is not their job to fix or to save her to be the child Holy Spirit overprotected bubblewrap to release their children to you and trust you that you love them even more than they do. You are a good God and that they can trust you and walk in that trust. They don't have to constantly be correcting they can spend more time connecting and got I just pray that you would help them to choose to lean in and live to listen well to leave humility and ultimately Lico in Jesus name I pray, thanks for so it's hard for us to remember this as parents but our children do not belong to us belong to God and we are stewards in the years that we have to raise them to point them toward him, to love them, but ultimately they belong to a heavenly father who loves them even more than we do. And there's comfort for us about his parents. Crystal pain has written about this in a book called club centered parenting that we been looking up this week and it is a time when parenting is you can feel overwhelming feels complicated. Crystal's message can bring freedom and hope and healing would like to make your book available to you this week. If you're able to help with a donation to support the ongoing work of family life to the you can donate online@familylifetothe.com or you can call one 800 FL today donate what you're actually supporting with your donation is the marriages and families of hundreds of thousands of people all around the world who come to family life looking for practical biblical help and hope for their marriage and their family. You make these resources possible to help equip them and give them the spiritual tools they need for their family. That's what your donation is going to sue on behalf of those listeners who will benefit from your support. We just want to say thank you for your partnership with us in a tangible way of doing that is by sending you a copy of Crystal pain's book club centered parenting when you make a donation this week.

You can donate online again@familylifetothe.com or call to donate at 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F as in family L as in life and in the word today though I know that between here and the start of the new year. It's going to be crazy for most of us, we got the burst of a family like Dave Robbins here with us and David in the midst of the chaos around the holidays. It's so important for couples that we set aside time that we are intentional about building into our marriage relationship and and not let it just sit on the back burner and simmer know Meg and I were just talking the other week for we need to at least do one marked intentional moment during the holiday season. Everything starts moving so fast around us and it reminded me of the dates to remember box that we have that we created this year at family life to give couples you know an easy intentional date together that all the hard work done there for you it sets you up for such great conversation together and remind me of a quote of of a couple who did the dates to remember box.

They said the date gave us time to really talk about more than just the day-to-day running of our lives thought about it because man the holidays. It is nothing but day-to-day running, you know every day you to surviving the next day sadly and so we are marked off a day to really give an extended date.

In the beginning of December to to look ahead and build that time together before we enter into the craziness of the holidays and I would encourage you to do the same. Yet, the dates to remember box is a great tool to help you be intentional in your marriage.

You can find out more about this resource on our website@familylifetodate.com tomorrow we are going to introduce you to a foundling Joseph would learn later in life that he had been abandoned as a baby was ultimately adopted. He will share his story with us tomorrow. You can be here for that on behalf of our host Steven and Wilson on Bob Lapine. We will see you back next time for another edition of family life today family like to use the production of family life crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most