Transcript: Successful Parenting Within A Godly Marriage part 2

Video Transcript: Successful Parenting within a Godly Marriage Part 02

Welcome to the second class of successful parenting within Godly marriage. The goal of parenting is a child with Godly character with their dear parents. If we don't teach our children to follow Christ, the world will teach them not to. Help your child develop character. When you help your child develop character, you are addressing the heart of parenting. Character provides a toolkit of spiritual and emotional skills that prepare a child to succeed in life. You can give children all the advantages security, good schools, churches and camps. But if they don't develop character, they can quickly lose the advantage of the advantages. We're going to be talking about six aspects of character building within your child. 

The first one is called attachment and connectedness. All of the tasks of life are based at some level on how attached we are to God and others. kids who are emotionally connected in healthy ways are more secure, the connected child looks within himself or herself for what he can provide and then goes to God and others for the rest. The detached child is left to fend for himself and does not have sufficient resources to conduct life on his own. I wanted to reference this as a YouTube video. And if you'd like to look at this video, I would highly recommend because it shows example of attachment issues. It is by Dr. Edward Tronick. He is the director of the University of Massachusetts Boston infant parent mental health program. And the YouTube video is called still face experiment. And what they did is they had a it was probably a child around six or seven, maybe even nine months, and in a highchair and the mother came in and was making all kinds of connection with the child doing goo goo, and making smiles, and blowing kisses, it was very much warming to watch the interaction between the child and the mother. And the child was responding appropriately. Laughing, giggling, trying to blow bubbles, it was just precious. Well, then the next part of the experiment was the mother left the room, came back to the room sat in front of the child, and absolutely was still faced, they no expression whatsoever, and just sat there and stared at the child. First the child tried to replicate what had happened previously, tried to smile, tried to giggle, tried to blow bubbles, and actually was successful. But none of that made any difference in how the mother made her face appear she was just stoic and still face, well then the child started to get a little bit more upset. And you could tell almost wanting to reach out and try to get some type of an expression from the mother. And eventually, the child became extremely upset, crying and very distressed. Because there was no connection anymore coming from that mother. And then eventually the mother was able to reach out to the child. But that all happened in a period of a matter of a few minutes. And it was that mark of a difference for the child. Now how attachment happens, the child must experience the reality that relationship is good and that it brings the necessarily elements of life. When your child learns this emotionally he structures his or her existence to seek relationship to sustain him. He becomes relationally orientated rather than self orientated. Often it is a mother's task, because usually the mother is a primary caretaker is I'm not saying this cannot be done with a father to invite her child from isolation into relationship. This is an elementary response as responding with close attention for her child's different cries so as to meet the child's appropriate needs which are comfort, warmth, changing or safety. The child learns during these times that reaching outside for him or herself helps bring the things that are needed.

Now another aspect is responsibility. Your child is born thanking her life is your problem. During the beginning of life this is true. Big part of growing character is helping the child to take ownership over their life and see life as their problem. As a child takes responsibility over their choices. A child gradually experiences freedom and self control. The child who learns that responsibility is their friend is a child who has a head start on life. They are not imprisoned by their impulses or resentments of authority. They are free to say, no, too bad choices. Now develop responsibility with or without your child's permission. This is huge. There's a fundamental problem though, from the beginning. The child has no interest whatsoever in becoming responsibility that can just be human nature. They are by definition without self control. Instead, they are into other control, mostly by manipulating their parents into taking care of things for them. When they abuse their and thinking they are loving them. Parents often take on responsibilities for their child. Taking such responsibility for your children negates and stifles their ability to shoulder life as they grow up. Let's give another experience here. This is I'm going to call this young man Randall. Randall found out early in life that if he failed, his guilt ridden parents would by just about any excuse he made for his failure. They didn't want to be mean or harsh with their son. So when he brought home contact reports and bad grades from school, Randall would complain to his folks about what unfair teacher who had it in for him. Then mom and dad would march to the principal's office to straighten out the bad teacher. Randall developed a character weakness in the area of personal responsibility. By the time he was in high school, he was an underachiever who blamed every problem on his environment, his lot in life, his circumstances or his parents, his lack of character development was extremely costly to him. His underachievement caused him to lose friends, academic goals and sports opportunities. When you help your child, develop character, you are addressing the heart of parenting. Character provides a tool of spiritual and emotional skills that prepare a child to succeed in life. You can give children all those of ages we talked about earlier, but it doesn't give them character. 

You know, children learn responsibility only from a love state. A parent must forge an emotional alliance with their child before the child will develop any sense of responsibility. Again, this does not come from being a dictator, the child must know that even when you and the child disagree, you are for the child. The welfare of the child, the safety, the best interest, and the growth of the child. This is about being able to be empathetic and compassionate. Demonstrating these attributes towards your child who is struggling to develop responsible character is very important. The child's rage, defiance or whining may be hard on you, but your child is in lots of pain himself. And that is why the child is protesting. Your child has to give up an entire way of looking at life. The philosophy of Don't worry, let them do what is being replaced by worry, cysts does affect me. This can be very distressing for the child. I can truly say that this was something and probably because I'm a therapist that was very strong and modeled in my mothering to my children. In fact, I saw demonstrated it was years later, my oldest daughter, who now is a physician assistant and works in our medical clinic and has her own practice with many individuals for medical reasons. She started a job at a doctor's office as a medical assistant. This was before she became a physician assistant. She had just graduated with her bachelor's degree in science. And thus she really had not had any specific technical medical assistant training. But she had a lot of knowledge. So she went over to the doctor's office and based on her degree, and knowing that she was going to further her degree as a physician's assistant. They hired her. But now it meant she was going to be giving shots, she would give immunizations, she would be taking blood pressure, many things like that, which she had never been actually taught. I saw her the night before she actually started the position, being so anxious. And I remember sitting by her and praying with her and providing support, I could not take away the anxiety. But actually that anxiety and worry had gave her the edge, because she woke up that next morning and said as God as my witness. I know that he will help me get through this day. And she got through that day. There was some training, hands on training. And she was enough of a intelligent young lady that she caught on quickly. But there was no rescuing involved. The anxiety and the worry, led her to depend on the Lord and gave her that extra strength to get to that position and learn some of the hard knox and eventually become a very good medical assistant. And now a very proficient physician's assistant as well. Now how about truth love is necessary but insufficient quality to develop character is not enough to make the needs or the child feel safe and attached even though attachment is very important. 

The child also needs to know the truth of her responsibilities and duties in life in order to learn, execute and internalize. There also needs to be freedom. And this almost will seem like an oxymoron but it is at the heart of responsibility. No one who is not free to walk away can choose to follow God or you, your child needs to be free to say no to obeying you. If your child must obey her character is not growing. She may be learning how to play your game or merely externally complying, but she is not becoming or he is not becoming a person of integrity. A child who is not free to reject your rules is living in fear, if you can force your child to submit to you is probably because a child is afraid of  the loss of love, maybe afraid of abandonment, or being attacked or condemned. Lastly, a child needs freedom. So that if this child chooses wrongly and suffers a painful consequence, she will look at herself as a problem and not blame you as the parent. I remember recently I was on a little shopping trip with one of my granddaughters and we walked into a store and there were some princess dolls. Now she's into princesses. And there were also some ceramic princess figures. I tried to talk her into buying one of the princess dolls because they were more pliable. They were fabric, and she could play with it and toss it around. But she was mesmerized with the figurine that was ceramic on the princess. So I let her make her choice. I explained to her about what it might be in terms of the difference of these two dolls, but she bought with her money. I think I helped a little bit. The princess figurine. We had it in a little plastic bag. And we had out to the car and she was skipping and so happy with her bag. And she tripped on the curb, dropped the bag and the figurine shattered. Talk about tears pouring down my little granddaughters face and grandma knowing I could easily go back into that store and buy the cloth princess style. But I couldn't. Because she had made the choice. She had made the choice to buy the figurine princess. And then it was a discussion on why it might have been a better choice to buy the princess doll that was cloth and much more pliable. It was a hard lesson. But she certainly couldn't get mad at grandma. But she was just frustrated. And then I still was able to hug her and help process with her. about another example her freedom to tell a child the rules is to assume you are giving that child a choice. That's an illusion. truly give her a choice and let the child know that they have a choice. When a child says defiantly you can't make me, agree. You're right, I certainly can't. But you know in your mind that you can hold off giving any dessert until they freely choose to eat the beans. Because maybe that was what the issue was. There was that request to eat the beans. Now to force them to eat the beans, I've had children say to me as adults that they would be forced to eat, and they would end up vomiting. Or actually I have one female client that said it was probably the base for some of her eating disorder issues, because her father forced them to always eat every single bit on their plate, and even things that they did not want to eat. Now, here's another way, it's the freedom to make that choice, but the parent also has the freedom to not provide the desserts. Now let's look at another aspect of building character. 

And this is aspect number three. It's called reality. This character trait deals with the ability of your child to accept the negatives of the world around them, friends and parents will let them down. The child himself will let other sounds the parent will need to assist the child in dealing with sin, loss, failure, and evil in the world. Not only in the child but in others. And like I said in the world. How about losing well, losing well with the ability to continue on is one of the most important character traits a parent can develop in their child. Reality is a place where things do not always go as we would like when we fail or when circumstances did not turn out as we had hoped. We have to keep going and try to make the best of a bad situation. Your child's ability to do this will be a factor in how well their life goes on. I can remember I was working with a young man he was a teenager and he was in the letter years of his high school, I think it was a senior at the time. And he was so much hoping that there would be some awards that can be given to him. He was in the band program for the accomplishment of how well he played his particular instruments. Well, actually, that year, the band instructor institutef a program where the seniors were going to be mentoring the freshmen and these were the new freshmen coming in to play in the band. And my young man was so upset, because he wanted to be the best. I think he played trombone. Trombone player that there possibly was, he certainly had no desire to have to mentor a freshman. He wanted to work on being first chair. Well, he ended up being assigned a freshmen, and did a fabulous job. And this freshmen ended up really enjoying band and continuing all four years in the program. At the end of the school year, when awards were given out for the best accomplishments in the band program. One of the awards was for the best musical accomplishment, and for the first chairs, my young man did not get that. But another award was an accomplishment for the peer counseling. And for the best senior that provided peer counseling to one of the freshmen and the young man I worked with did get that, and it wasn't what he had hoped for. But he definitely ended up having something instead of being the first chair. How about an opportunity to fail sometimes parents are so overprotected of their child that they cannot blow it, they don't have the opportunity to find out that they can do everything that they thought they could, that really will set up a child for failure. 

Appropriate risk taking, and freedom to attempt new skills give children the chance to find out, they do not know everything, nor do they know how to do everything. new experiences can humble us, they can produce faith muscles, the best gift that we can give our children as a confidence to see that we believe everything is filtered, even the bad stuff through God's hands. We need to release the control of our circumstances, we need to start looking at those hard things that happen in our kids lives as things that God wants to use to refine them. And then we need to walk with them perfectly, and model for them how they should respond in grace under trial. You know, I have a very specific example of this. When my middle daughter was age 13, she started to have severe headaches. And after a CAT scan, and after some medical diagnostic workup found out that she had, it was a arteriovenous malformation. And this was an abnormal. Well, actually, hers were veins and capillaries that had formed in her brain to cause bleeding, almost like a hemorrhage of a sort. And of course, she ended up having to go into nine hours of brain surgery. Now, to then have to produce face muscles. I mean, this precious daughter of my heart, at age 13, she had to have part of her hair shaved, she had to undergo something that was extremely scary. We ended up as a family coming around our dear daughter. And as we prayed around her bed the night before the surgery, there was a peace and a presence of the Holy Spirit that came and settled. And it was amazing enough that you can't even put words to something like this. The next morning, when she was awakened for her surgery, she looked into my eyes and said, mom, I need you to know that last night after you and dad, and it was actually her grandma and grandpa and a few other very close family friends that had prayed. After you prayed, I saw 12 angels and circle my bed. And one of the biggest angels came to the head of my bed and had a septor and put it upon my head and I felt this warmth go through my whole body. And I was no longer afraid. And actually the surgery was successful. She ended up recovering. And what was so amazing about this experience is it became a base for this daughter to want to go into teaching. And she had a special desire to work with junior high kids because she understands what it felt like to go through something so difficult, what it felt like to feel rejected from some of your peers, and to have to have an experience that went beyond what her physical emotions almost could handle and to become an excellent teacher, for middle school, children. 

How about another aspect of character for your child It was called competence. Children need training to develop their God given gifts and talents. They need to develop their skill not only in specialty areas such as art, sports or science, but also in everyday matters such as decision making, judgment and work ethics. God designed us to not only be in relationship and to connect, but they are productive in the world, to contribute meaningfully to others in a very significant way. This is about developing real self making children feel bad does not motivate them to do better, nor does making them feel good. guard them from all of life's pitfalls, please, parents give them a combination of grace and truth. And they will feel safe enough to be real, your children need above all to develop a real self, they need to know that it's okay to fail to hurt or to be less than perfect. They need to feel secure, and bringing their bad parts to the relationship. If they can be real, their pains and problems can be cured. There is no problem that the grace and guidance of our loving parents, especially a godly parent cannot get them through. You know, I got thinking about one other thing too, that was very interesting in terms of grace filled parenting. I was at an art fair this past summer, and I was with my daughter, and her youngest daughter, my granddaughter. And we had went by this particular booth. And the woman who had put out her wares, had a couple of stuffed, one, I think when he was a little monkey, and one was a little dog and my little granddaughter wanted that so badly. But she had already gotten a couple things from the first one, her mother said no. Well, we ended up kind of walking away and she was kind of struggling to keep up with us. So we turned around and she had her little purse, and she caught up with us. When we get done. And we were heading back to the car, my daughter had to put a couple things in the purse of her daughter, my granddaughter and found that the granddaughter had taken a little monkey and it shoved it into the purse. So she actually stole that. Well, she didn't really even understand what stoled meant. But my daughter was quick to understand that she was not going to shame her child. But she was going to teach her about the pitfalls. And really what was more a character builder. So she sat her down. And she explained to her that there had been no money given and then my daughter showed her what money look like. She was like four years old at the time, my granddaughter, and she said all sold a lady that made that monkey, she worked for a long time to make that monkey and spent many hours making that monkey and needed to be paid for that. And that lady would have a very sad heart. If that didn't happen when all my granddaughter started to cry, because she didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. And she was trying to understand about money. So then the mother said and plus mommy did say that you had picked out she picked out a ring and some other little items that that was enough for today. So they went back to the lady and my granddaughter gave her back the monkey. 

That was amazing watching that happen. And then the mother was able, my daughter was able to say how much that meant to her to have the granddaughter do what was right. Now the results, be real and honest about who you are let go of failure and losses, forgive and be forgiven that. That was an example my granddaughter was forgiven. And actually the lady at the booth said, I forgive you. And thank you so much for bringing the monkey back. Then reconcile with others, she was reconciled, faced failures and learn from them saw problems and persevere, enjoy life and the process without the pressure to be perfect. Love people who are real and imperfect themselves hold on to and pursue ideals even when they have not reached them. This will be your child or fail them. You know from an early age children will benefit from what is called a stimulus, rich environment. Lots of different activities to get engaged in at appropriate developmental levels. So before school age, invest in interactive toys and art supplies that will help children imagine and create as they get older expose them not only to school, but to sports, the arts, the sciences church involvement in helping others. These play paths are the beginning of what will ultimately become worked task. Your child is working by playing. Help your child see that commitment, investment practice and energy all translate to expertise in a task or talents. Give them the long term experience. Don't let them quit team sports or other activities and lessons, before the end of the season, unless there's a serious problem, this teaches commitment and integrity. My oldest daughter was a great softball player. And she was actually given a scholarship at a college. But it was much different playing softball in college and trying to maintain her studies. And she was going to quit the very first semester. And I remember her father said, and I said, no. You made a commitment. And now if you decide at the end of the school year, because that's what the scholarship went to, that would be fine. You are not going to quit before the end of the school year. And that was a very valuable lesson. And actually, she ended up playing a couple more years, because as she went on for the rest of the year, it went very well. 

This is the fifth aspect of building character within your child conscience and morality, an internal sense of right or wrong is a growth process and children God has granted within a person, this awareness for developing moral standards, which include the following and awareness of right and wrong, the morals that will guide the child an internal ability to weigh moral decisions and the ability to self correct, a proper internal response of violating the standard and a desire to do right. Pretend for a moment that you are spying on a group of kids who are considering doing something against the rules. Something all of them know they should not do in this discussion. That is what this is what is heard, I'm not going to do that my mom would be super upset. I'm not either, I would feel really bad. I don't even think I'd enjoy it. No way. Am I going to do it either, we might get caught. I don't think it's a good idea at all, we might get hurt. Me neither. It's wrong. I really don't want to, I think it would make my parents sad. Now, as these kids are discussing the potential consequences of their upcoming choice, which child would you like to be yours, all of them have decided not to break the rules, but for different responses, and for reasons. Some are keeping the rule because of fear of punishment getting caught, or getting into trouble with the parents. Others have internal reasons such as how it might make them feel or how he would like to keep the rules. But another one is concerned about the effect of his behavior on the parents, their parents were not even there. Or were they, because of what they were saying in their own minds and some of the things that they had learned. God has wired us to internalize our parents guidance, value of interactions, so that these things become part of us and guide us through life. As Proverbs says, train a child in the way you should go. And when he is old, he will not turn from it. So to some degree, a parent is always in the room with a child and that the parents training stays with a child. And as part of the child's internal guidance systems, or townships. I'm going to give you another example. And this young man's name, there was a son tour of mom is Brandon. Brandon was 15. And he loved to skateboard. He spent hours every afternoon skating through parks downstairs and find the perfect spot for the perfect trick. Now the mother often plays sofer, for Brandon, his friends and they scouted out the toys, areas for this thrill and risk. Occasionally, there were issues of discussion that happened in the boys as they were doing this skateboarding. And the mother knew about this. One night, the mother said I dropped off the boys. And then my son and I, this was after they were done, went to dinner. I was thrilled. She said to have my son all to myself. Now in the world of teenage boys, one word grunt usually service for communication. Now this will really sound familiar for those of us who have had teenage boys or have a teenage boys. Are you hungry? And grunt? Do you have homework? Grunt. Do you have fun? Another grunt? Now that's a gripping exchange of ideas. We're out of conversations. So the mother said that they sat down to eat, and her son grunted again. She said he was hungry, though. But it was good because he was grunting with her. The mother said, I wanted him to know though that the fact I was asking questions, I was interested in his life. And all of a sudden the son looked at me said, hey mom, does it bother you when my friends are swearing? Well, would it bother you if I use some of those swear words? Oh my goodness. The mother said she knew at that very moment that she didn't want to blow it. She has just set a really quick prayer and thought of the actions of what she should to say next. 

Option one she wanted to say of course it would bother me to know that you would cuss her swear. Don't you know who I am? You wouldn't want to embarrass me at church. Would you? Beside is just so horrible. Case closed. That the drill sergeant bear option to Brandon, she said what I'm most concerned about is your heart. This is what God is most concerned about too. So I don't want you to use bad laying simply because everyone else is doing it and you want to fit in. But I also don't want you to not swear only because your father and I say not to, you're old enough to determine what is in your heart, and then to speak words that are in congruent with who you are. Then my son looked and he said, that's what I thought you'd say, I don't want to swear. It became absolutely an idea now and a belief inside that young man. How about some good values, here some values that are good to instill in your children, love, honor and obedience and the pursuit of God, seek Him first and everything lovingness derivative, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, Grace, kindness, my son, and again, being a probably a pretty compassionate parent. My son had had an issue in sixth grade. And the principal had just lost his mother to cancer. And he was going to be gone for a couple of days. And during an assembly, the principal got up and he made an announcements because many of the students at the school knew that his mother had been suffering from cancer, that he would be out of the building, and now the office for the next few days, because he was going to be going to be with his family and attending the funeral of his mother. And then there was just quietness or silence for a bit. The principal called me at the end of that school day, and said, I just need you to know that your son was the only sixth grader that came up and said to me, I'm really sorry about your mother. And I'm going to be thinking about you. And I'll even say a prayer when you're at her funeral. That was amazing. Because certainly compassion and forgiveness, or some of the things being modeled in our family. How about honesty, integrity, directness, taking moral stance, confession, respect for reality, humility, faith, abstenance, and ordering life on things and scenes, faithfulness and loyalty. 

What about service and sacrifice, giving, offering a sacrifice yourself for others and higher values, stewardship, taking gifts in one's possession seriously, I know that my daughter and her husband, they teach their children to give 10% and save 10% and two ties 10%. Now when I say give that's more or less giving to themselves, so they have 10% to spend, but they have to save and they have to tithe. What about with obedience and submission to God, parents long government, self control and self discipline, courage, pushing onto fear, faith and risk taking, sexual wholeness, purity, respect for God's creation, limits embracing and celebrating sexuality. You know, dear parents, our children's innocence is under attack. And a parent cannot win this battle with just a single birds and bees talk. I'd like to recommend. This is a program called passport to purity. It is how to build that heart connection with your child and giving them a foundation of purity in terms of their sexual understanding for their sexual future with their husband or wife. It's an amazing program it is it is able to be taught to either a son or a daughter. How about fun, celebration, enjoyment of life, and God's blessing in creation, or development of talents and works can grow into with pursuing the true self that God has created. And also, lastly, furthering God's life to others, evangelism missions helping, that is so amazing. I just heard the other day it was a child in elementary school that actually made it their quest to start collecting socks and mittens. And they asked if the principal would help them. And throughout that winter season, collected hundreds. And this was for children that were less fortunate and this was started by a third grade student. And the last aspect of character within your child is worship. Your child has been created in the image of God. Certain task foster character development and spiritual growth as a parent a goal can be we are working on helping our child learn that God is a better parent to our child and we are, your child needs to see, that you are a better parent to your child by virtue of being connected to God. As you go to the source in prayer, worship and study. You receive what you need to love your child better. I know that has been certainly a legacy that I've wanted to give to my children and grandchildren and just the other day, my oldest granddaughter came over and she was taking some of the chalk and making a sign out on the sidewalk by the house. And all of a sudden she ran and said gramma come out, I wrote something that I know you will really like. And I came out and she had wrote, we believe in Christ, and she put Crist. And she said, grandma, I know you'd like that because you're a strong Christian. 

Even at such a young elementary age, she's already realizing where my heart lies. Do your parents, your faith matters to your child's faith, more than any other character capacity, spiritual development is caught. More than taught. spiritual growth involves many conceptual understandings. So your child will internalize more of what you are with God and her than what you teach. You know, God's presence is so strong in so many times and stories of my life. I was thinking about my son when he was in teenage years, there was a particular day that it was actually the evening I'd gotten out to use the restroom, my husband was still sleeping. And he was gone. He had snuck out with a friend. And we tried our best to find out where he was. And I mean, he had he hadn't taken a cell phone or anything, we couldn't even we didn't even know where he was. When he came home and snuck in an early morning hours with his friend, they'd been drinking. All my goodness, we were devastated because we certainly hadn't modeled that. We were trying to model to live a life honoring God. So there was a lot of talking about that, there was talking about choices, talking about where we go from there. And actually, he did have some very strong moral values, and was able to conceptualize that that was not going to happen again, that he had known that those were some wrong choices. The next day, there was a visit to the parents of the other friends that had stayed with him that night with apologies. And then I was led and prompted by the Holy Spirit. That was next week that I really started to pray for my son. I remember being in the car one day, and a coating and reciting spiritual warfare of Ephesians six. And I was quoting those verses and asking for the armor to be put on and asking for the sword, I lifted my hand and said, in the name and the power of the Lord Jesus, my son, will continue to serve you Lord God. And it was in that week that my son came home and said, that he was feeling so much more alive and free. He was so glad that we had found out about the drinking, because he didn't want to keep on having that temptation. And he said in the other thing Mom, I keep on thinking about these songs in my mind that I hear that I always sing as a child. They've just been in my mind all week long, like Jesus loves me. I know that was a tangible result of the prayers that I had been led to do as his mother. 

And that brings dependence on God. There is one major difference in your child's relationship with you and with God. Your role a parent is temporary. God's is not you are working yourself out of a job. If you're successful, your child will relate to you as an equal adult in life. So your own parenting has much to do with handing over more adult freedoms and duties to your child. However, this is not true with your child and God. Your child was designed to be God's kids forever. He should never leave God and cleave to someone else. While you are helping your child to need you less. You're helping him to need God more. Amen and Amen.