Family - Mike Smart and nathan Rambeck

[0:00] We understand John Rosemond, who still appears in the newspaper here. He's 500 newspapers around the country. Been on Good Morning America, Today Show, CNN, all those.

[0:11] He's considered the number one family psychologist. He's a psychologist who doesn't believe in psychology. And that's what makes him unique. He's been there. He's been with the most atheistic profession that there is, as he claims.

[0:25] He was one of those. And he did everything. And has seen what has happened once psychology got a hold of families. But he still retains his license just to annoy the other psychologists.

[0:38] But he's been there, so his credential, his influence has been immense. Because it's hard to argue with a guy who's been on both sides of it and seen the differences. So he only got saved 20 years ago.

[0:50] We're hoping to get him up here. And I actually talked to him on the phone the other day. He's headquartered in North Carolina. And we'll try to get him up there. Several churches will be involved.

[1:02] And I want to say that will happen sometime this late summer, maybe. And then in Florida, I'm going to be his opening act for Word of Life conference grounds where my mom has a place.

[1:15] We're setting the detail July 1st. I'm meeting with the Word of Life director down there. So that's a brief update before we start our thing today for those who are interested. But like I said, stuff on the table outside or out in the hallway dealing with my ministry.

[1:30] So these are questions submitted, 20 questions. The bulletin was a little unclear, wasn't it? The bulletin seemed to indicate we're going to try to leave some time for questions and answers at the end, sort of like a la Marv.

[1:45] And so we'll do that, hopefully. Though half the time, he doesn't leave enough time, right? So we'll see what happens there. But so if you have questions, you can think along those lines.

[1:58] Maybe we bring up some stuff as we go here. First question, though, I wanted to ask Nathan. That was submitted. I've got him over here. There were really two questions similar. I'll just read them both since you submitted them.

[2:10] Here are the questions. And he's going to give one answer for the two. My son and his wife have a little girl, our granddaughter. As a mother-in-law, to my daughter-in-law, is it best not to give advice unless asked?

[2:25] I'm glad he's answering that one. And then number 20, a similar one. So how much should parents' grandparents interfere when they see their children doing wrong in parenting?

[2:36] And before he answers those two similar questions, I do want to mention my daughter is here. Of all weeks from her to visit from Australia, my notes here about bragging about my parenting may not fly.

[2:51] If she gets up and walks out, you know why. So I'm glad she's here. She came 8,000 miles from Australia. She's here to speak today. Anyway, so Nathan, go. All right, grandparents.

[3:02] How many grandparents do we have here? Yeah, more than a few. So with all of the answers to these questions, do we want to bring the Bible to bear on all these things?

[3:14] And so I have a couple of scriptures to kind of look at. And if you have your Bibles, you can open up to it. But Proverbs chapter 13. And then there's another verse in Proverbs.

[3:25] Proverbs 13, verse 22. And it just says, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.

[3:37] And, you know, in the basic fundamental sense, I think it's talking about, you know, your wealth and that kind of thing. But also, an inheritance isn't just that.

[3:48] In fact, that's probably a smaller part of what we pass on to our children, right? We're going to pass on an inheritance of money or wealth. That's valuable in some sense. But it doesn't have the same eternal value that other things do.

[4:03] And so we want to pass on an inheritance of things that are of eternal value. We have an opportunity to do that while our kids are in our home. And there's a certain we have we have an opportunity to teach our teach and train our children while they're in our home, according to the way that they should go.

[4:21] And when they get older, hopefully they won't depart from it. That's not a hard and fast guarantee. But, you know, if we're faithful to do that, that's kind of a rule of thumb. They're not going to depart from those things.

[4:32] But when you're already when you're when you're past that stage and you have kids and their parents and you have maybe some, you know, situation where maybe your your own kids aren't doing the kinds of parenting things that, you know, you would do in your home back when they were kids.

[4:54] How do you handle that? So there was kind of two parts and we'll address them both. The the first is, I think, the two things I think as grandparents that we can provide is advice and counsel.

[5:11] So we should continue to provide that. But also the second is support because it's hard being a parent, especially in this day and age. There's a lot of a lot to deal with.

[5:22] And so providing support can be great. But when it comes to offering advice and counsel, that can be kind of sticky. Right. When do you get involved? You see your kids doing things that you probably wouldn't do.

[5:35] And I talked to the I talked to my wife, Jamie, the other night and we talked through this. So I give her a lot of credit here because she knows how to put things really well sometimes.

[5:46] But one of the things we talked about was when it comes to things like your preferences, like, you know, the kinds of maybe the kinds of food you eat.

[5:58] You know, we have we we try to keep certain things out of our diets like we avoid high fructose corn syrup whenever possible. Right. Right. Caleb. Caleb is our he's our label reader.

[6:09] He reads all the labels and he makes sure that we avoid some of these types of foods. But that's kind of, you know, that that that has some value. Right. But those are probably not the types of things that we want to interject ourselves in with our with our kids as they're raising their families.

[6:26] We have an opportunity when they're growing up to try to teach and train them how we think they should eat and that kind of thing. But beyond that, it's you know, it might unless we're asked.

[6:36] Right. And we would hope that our kids would come to us for counsel on different things. I think about things like maybe your kids are looking to buy a house and don't think that they're probably financially ready.

[6:48] They might come to you and ask and you say, well, do you think, mom and dad, should we buy a house? And you might say, well, I don't think you're quite there yet. I think you might might want to rent for a while. But if they don't ask you, you know, do you interject?

[6:59] I think it might be a good idea just to, you know, let them make their decision and and and live with it. So another thing, as Jamie and I were talking, was, you know, we have the word in law kind of comes with some baggage.

[7:16] Right. And sometimes we can have difficulties with in law relationships. And so I think it's always a good idea if you if you have something that you want to talk to your son and daughter in law or daughter and son in law about.

[7:31] It's probably better to talk to your your own child instead of the daughter in law or the mother in law, because that just kind of brings up a whole extra thing. You don't have as much history with them. Right.

[7:42] So if there's something that you do want to bring up that you think is important, talk to talk to your to your own child. So and then when it comes to support, there's all kinds of things we can do. But I would just say this, you know, you babysit help with with tutoring and that kind of thing.

[8:00] If you see the parents are your own kids are kind of failing in a big way in parenting, try to come alongside and support them. But also don't enable them.

[8:12] Sometimes we have kids that are just failing in major ways. And, you know, if we become those parents in in their stead, you know, we want them to be the parents.

[8:24] Right. And not not us. So any other thoughts? I will say this, though, I always have a thought. I I'm a grandparent and I have my fearsome foursome.

[8:40] That's what I call them, that I babysit for. And she I remember saying to her, how do you feel if I would give? Fortunately, she's her you know, she's good natured.

[8:51] She's laid back. And there, in my opinion, there's just very little that I would say. But she I ask you, you may just have to ask them, how do you feel about me giving, you know, unprovoked advice without you asking?

[9:08] How do you feel comfortable with that? I think asking them is important. Most of the time, I believe they would say yes. They may not like it when the time comes, but they agree. And, you know, and he's already mentioned some of the things you may not need to address.

[9:24] And but so that's one thing is just simply make that communication. So anyway. All right. You ready? I'm ready. So question for you, Mike. This is at the top of our list.

[9:37] What are the scriptures that you go to for parenting, encouragement and instruction? You know, there's the ones we've all heard of. Raise up a child and ways should go when these old, they should not depart from it.

[9:48] There's several of those that deal with being separate from the world. But I want to pick out some that we may not always connect with raising kids. I picked out four. You've heard of the first.

[10:00] No, no question. You know, honor thy father and mother. Children, obey your parents and the Lord. Those are common verses. I told one of my clients that they were believers, that you have no choice now to make sure they obey.

[10:17] You have the happiest children are obedient children. Research has proven that. Common sense would tell you that as well. But children, obey your parents, the Lord.

[10:27] As a as a an adult, as a parent, I have no choice but to make sure that they obey. If they don't, I have to I have to come up with consequences, whatever it takes to make them obey.

[10:42] Another verse that I wrote down. The Hebrews 12 11. Because the good mommy's club of today tells you that your child's feelings are most important.

[10:57] This is a verse that I mentioned to the clients who are saved that they may not have heard of. But they've got to understand these next two, actually.

[11:08] And here's Hebrews 12 11. Hebrews 12 11. Most many of you may have heard of this. For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.

[11:19] But later, it yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. In other words, there's going to be a little pain in raising your children and disciplining them.

[11:33] It'd be for a moment. It's short term. But the idea of inflicting pain on myself, having to discipline my kid or my child, not physical pain necessarily at all, but that's does not feel good in today's good mommy's club.

[11:52] That does not seem right. If our child did not have a sin nature, maybe we could get by with that. And the worldview says our child makes mistakes.

[12:03] They have disorders. But sin, really? A third one. Whoever spares the rod, and again the rod here, the rod, is the definite article the as compared to a rod.

[12:17] It doesn't necessarily mean spanking. It's discipline in general. So whoever spares the rod, this is Proverbs 13, I think he mentioned it, hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

[12:30] You have no choice but to discipline your child. If you don't, you hate your child? And that seems odd to today's parent who just wants to love and enables their child consistently.

[12:45] So those are two ideas that seem a little foreign. Not to many of you who are preaching to the choir. It doesn't seem foreign. But those are two that are foreign. The idea of consequences for their actions.

[12:57] There was, in Deuteronomy 28, if you look right, if you turn there for a second, the first 14 verses, compare them.

[13:08] Deuteronomy 28, 1 to 14, compare those verses to 15 to 68. Now, you're not going to be able to read them all, but just scan. It'll be quite apparent. The difference between the first 14 verses of Deuteronomy 28 and the rest of Deuteronomy 28.

[13:27] Look at the comparison. In the first, obedience. The Israelites obeyed. In the second half, here's what happens when you disobey.

[13:40] Ask Ananias and Sapphira. Well, you can't ask them. For a couple of reasons, you can't ask them. So, there is consequences to your actions. And parents don't want to have to deal with consequences.

[13:53] Their goal is to have a wonderful relationship with their child. And little they know that unless they get obedience, they will not have that wonderful relationship with their child. That's got to be taken care of first. But scan those two separate parts of Deuteronomy 28, and you will see a dramatic difference between the first 14 and then the rest of the chapter.

[14:15] I like that.

[14:29] A little levity is good for service. Okay. Hey, Nathan, let's move to you here. Yeah. Your next question is parental authority, it looks like, right?

[14:43] How can it be gotten through to parents that not being the authority for their children's future by teaching them the proper structure of family and teaching about God? Parental authority, it looks like.

[14:54] Yeah, so this is a question we see today in our culture a lack of respect that kids have towards their parents and a lack of parents asserting the authority that God says that they have.

[15:12] God tells us in his word, he tells parents to obey their children. And the two verses that I have here, Ephesians 6.1, Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

[15:23] And then the other one goes back to the Ten Commandments. Children, honor your mother and father. And if you do so, you'll live long.

[15:34] And, you know, back to discipline. You know, the reason that discipline is so important, whether it's God disciplining us, like it's talking about there in Hebrews, or parents disciplining their children, it's a momentary, it's momentarily painful, right?

[15:48] Whether it's a spanking or some other thing, some other type of discipline. It's momentarily painful. But it is so much better, right, than the consequences. Because there's always consequences to sin and destructive types of behavior that we might have.

[16:03] But if we can introduce some discipline to show, here's a consequence that shows you that this leads to pain in life. But, you know, a five-minute, five, ten-minute type of discipline is going to provide some kind of a pain, but that's a lot better than a lifetime of pain, right?

[16:26] So, but parental authority is like the bedrock of civilization. And it provides the foundation for the family unit in our society.

[16:42] And we need to recognize that the world is constantly trying to undermine parental authority, especially if we see it in, like, politics. Everywhere from, like, local politics to, like, school boards who are trying to get stuff taught in the classroom that parents don't want taught in the classroom.

[17:03] To politicians, I think of, who, Hillary Clinton. What was that book that she wrote years ago? It Takes a Village. You remember that book? And, you know, it sounded so great.

[17:13] Oh, you know, it's all about the children. But really what it was about, a lot of it, was about undermining parental authority. Because the whole idea was, oh, it takes a village, so the government has to get involved.

[17:24] And, you know, the parents need a lot of help. And, well, we're going to tell the parents how to run their families. And we're going to introduce all these services and all these things. But really what it's doing is it's undermining parental authority.

[17:36] Even all the way up to the UN. Anybody ever heard of the, what is it, the Convention on the Rights of the Child? Well, that sounds great. They're thinking about the children. But, you know, if you look and read what it's all about, it's, well, we can't have parents just teaching their children about their own religion.

[17:55] You know, we have to make sure that, you know, the children, you know, their rights to basically reject their parents' ideas are preserved.

[18:05] And, of course, when our children become adults, they do get to choose, right? And our faith is not a faith that can be forced on anyone. Ultimately, we want to teach our kids and show them the right way.

[18:20] But, and if they choose to go a different way, you know, that's ultimately their choice as adults. But we need to kind of recognize that that's happening all around us, is that parental authority is being undermined.

[18:34] And be very intentional about asserting parental authority, making sure that other people around us are not undermining our own parental authority. And it can be difficult, right?

[18:46] When you have to say, and we'll just talk about young kids, when we say no, right? Kids want something. And we, it's, sometimes it's a lot easier, right, on the surface to just say yes to everything.

[19:00] Oh, you want a cookie? Yes. Oh, you want to do this? All right, that's fine. You know, you don't have to, it's easier to deal with. You know, the kid just goes on and, but we know that kids need boundaries.

[19:14] And that's what parental authority is all about. Kids that don't have that kind of authority in their life, that don't have boundaries provided by their, by their parents. You know, sometimes our kids can look at other families and they see, oh, those kids over there, they get to do whatever they want.

[19:29] And wouldn't that be great if I could do whatever I wanted? But what happens when those boundaries are gone? They find out pretty quickly that it doesn't lead to happiness and joy.

[19:42] It leads to a lot of misery. So we need to make sure that we are providing that kind of, those kinds of boundaries and authority and asserting that. And sometimes, you know, when we're just doing regular child training all the way from two year, or one year old, you know, up to, you know, when the kids are 10 and 11 and 12, sometimes you say no just because.

[20:07] And, you know, sometimes there are good reasons and sometimes it's, you know what, today it's good for you just to obey your mom and dad today. Because you're having a little bit of trouble listening and submitting to our authority.

[20:21] So we're just going to say no because we're going to test that, right? And that's good. So practicing no, no is a good word, right? It's vitamin N. Roseman calls it, they need a healthy dose of vitamin N every day.

[20:36] They need to be told no and learn how to handle it. Yeah. And I always thought it was good in the idea of saying no to a two-year-old. You know, in a lot of the parts of the animal kingdom, two-year-olds are full-grown.

[20:53] Can you imagine giving vitamin N to a full-grown two-year-old? Yeah. Mom, for the last time, I want that cookie. And he's 6'1", 225. There's a reason for that.

[21:05] So that's good. Yeah. And it's important to establish that when they're young. It's a lot harder when the kids get older. And so, you know, in our own family, when the kids are one, two, three years old, over and over and over again, we establish that mom and dad are in charge and you are not.

[21:23] No defiance allowed. No bad attitudes. Because that's one of the things we often overlook, right? Well, as long as they're compliant, we're good. No, we want to train also their hearts, too, right?

[21:35] Not just their actions, but their hearts. And so, if you do it when they're young, you know, we have teenagers now. And they would never even think about, you know, oh, I, you know, I'm not going to do that.

[21:50] This doesn't even come up because of instituting that kind of authority early on. Ultimately, our kids, they're going to become adults and they're going to need, we're always under authority, aren't we?

[22:04] And so, it's not like our kids are not going to be under any authority. But really, the authority that we're under as parents is God's, God's authority and his standard through the Bible.

[22:16] And we are being delegated that authority to pass that on to our children because, you know, they're not old enough to, you know, read the Bible for themselves and that kind of thing. So, they just need to listen to us and hopefully we're doing what's right and pointing them in the right direction.

[22:30] But ultimately, we're going to send them off to live life on their own. And they need to be ready and prepared to live and submit themselves to God's authority. You know, two things I'll add to that is at a young age, the kid, it's pretty much a dichotomy here.

[22:47] That's not too much in between these two choices, realizes one of two things. Either it's my job to pay attention to mom and dad or it's their job to pay attention to me.

[22:59] And at some point, they learn that which of those two. And what I get most, most of my calls, thank goodness I taught high school and coached teenagers because most of my calls are dealing with teens who were, the parents will tell me, they were really good.

[23:17] Yeah, we sort of enabled them and they really didn't have too many problems. But now the second terrible twos hit around 12 and 13. And that's good.

[23:28] You want that second, that independent. They need to move on. They need to think emancipates. And so I get the most calls and they're difficult, especially if it's remote. I can go to their home, we can get a lot more accomplished.

[23:40] But I get them from teens, from parents of teens, who were pretty good kids. And because of that, the parents avoided vitamin N too often because they were pretty good. And they did all the work, the parents.

[23:53] They're running around, signing them up for classes. They orbited around their child. And the parents should be at the center, not orbiting. But they orbited and it doesn't change.

[24:05] And so they come with these teenagers who they, the last one told me, my family's upside down. And I knew what that meant. So. Got a question for me? All right, let's see.

[24:17] 12-year-olds or something. I can't remember. Oh, yeah. So, let's see, what's the number? 19, I'll look and see what it said exactly. Parenting the 8 to 12-year-old, what are some of the most important things to teach and to focus on?

[24:30] And also, what are some mistakes to avoid parenting in that specific age group? 8 to 12. Can you remember back that far? Yeah, right. I did. That's the advantage of my fearsome foursome, my babysitting now.

[24:42] They go 10, 9, 7, and 5. And I'll do that several times. It really helps me stay in touch with what I'm doing as a ministry now.

[24:53] Seven things. And I try to think of things that you don't hear all the time but are biblical and are effective. Seven things that I would do. There could be 70 things.

[25:05] But here are the seven. One, the teaching of humility and role modeling of humility and sacrifice. Forget the high self-esteem. Last time I spoke here, that was one of the topics.

[25:18] And I may have even mentioned the example of there was a day, and many of you older ones remember this, where you don't brag about your kids' achievements.

[25:29] But now you have the bumper sticker on the back of your car. Roseman says this one. The bumper sticker that says, my student is an honor student at Northwestern High School. And do you want that kid to feel that he's – and the whole idea was to up their self-esteem.

[25:47] Can you imagine, though, when he's an adult, and just Roseman relates this, of the adult coming home. He got a raise. He now makes six figures. And look, they gave me a raise, and they gave me a bumper sticker.

[26:00] And the wife puts the bumper sticker and says, my husband makes six figures. Really? That would – you know, we don't do that. But the idea of self-esteem, me at the center, and then the research – and this is great – research consistently shows those with high self-esteem, guess where they are right now?

[26:20] Maximum security prison. The ends justify the means. I deserve it. And we don't – the world has told us and the medical professionals have told us that's not the case.

[26:33] Hey, prior to 1960, 70, two or three generations ago, starting with the pilgrims and up, self-esteem, no, you're getting too big for your britches.

[26:44] Got to nip this in the bud. And there were consequences for any high self-esteem tantrums that you might have. So one, humility, self-sacrifice.

[26:56] Two, be countercultural. If there's ever a time to – you have to be countercultural as a parent, it's now. You can't play both worlds.

[27:08] Even when I was – as Brittany says, I was raised Amish by mom. Out in rural, you know, Elizabeth Township. We were a little – about 10, 20 years behind the times to some degree.

[27:20] And many of that's good. But, you know, I can remember the families next to us, saved or unsaved, of the world or not, same values.

[27:33] You know, my parents go on a vacation and throw me to a neighbor to watch us for a week, knowing full well that the values, regardless of whether you're saved and your faith, were similar.

[27:44] Our country was started that way. I can remember telling one – I don't know if it was Brittany or who, but I've said this more than once to my children – there's going to be coming a day where you don't have to make a choice. Because when we were raised, you didn't have to make a choice.

[27:57] You could still be solid in your faith and still play with the world a little bit because you were really close out where we lived and generations before that. Now, here's the gap.

[28:08] You have to make a choice. Some of these verses about the world, the ones that I've written down, stop and think about these.

[28:20] Of course, you've heard the be not conformed to the world. But friendship with the world, with culture, society, is hostility toward God. Unfaithful people love the world, our culture, and our society.

[28:34] And the world loves them. Be not conformed, I mentioned that one. And then this one.

[28:45] For there's going to come a time – this is in 2 Timothy, some of you know this one. There's going to come a time when people won't listen to the truth, but will go around looking for teachers who will tell them just what they want to hear.

[28:56] They won't listen to what the Bible says, but will blithely follow their own misguided ideas. And that's a prediction for the end times, which sounds real familiar like today.

[29:11] So, yeah, and the third thing. Be intentional. Strike while the iron is cold. Do we know what that means? That's good.

[29:22] Strike while the iron is hot. By hot, I mean heated. Your child doesn't like something, and you levy a discipline, or you tell them they can't go to a friend's house. And what do we do?

[29:33] We start defending ourselves. They argue, and we engage. Don't engage. Walk away. Pretend you have a phone call. Do whatever it takes to not allow – you know, we constantly go back and forth with our preteen, our 12-year-old, 11-year-old teenager.

[29:51] Don't engage. Learn to walk away. And, you know, it's like, are we waiting for them to say – and you know I'm going with this – what no other teen or no other 12 or no other 11-year-old has ever said?

[30:06] Mom and Dad, I won't go over there. Thank God they gave you to me. You're wise in your decisions. I don't know what I was thinking. I will obey. No teen or preteen has ever said that.

[30:18] Why do we engage? I would love that. None of mine ever said that to me. I was known for my lecturing. That's probably why. Because I engage. I allow them. I talk too much. So that's one thing.

[30:32] Striking while the iron is hot. Let's wait until things calm. The best time to strike is when it's cold. When you're doing a project together. You're doing the dishes together. You're doing a puzzle together.

[30:43] And you can talk about things that happen in school. When it's cold and calm. You've got to know when to strike. Be humorous. Be funny.

[30:53] I can remember. And Brittany probably remembers this too. Michael, my son, loved when. I'm an English teacher. So I would create crazy stuff at bedtime. To get them all laughing and worked up and couldn't sleep.

[31:06] But he would say, Dad, do twas the night. Well, I would do twas the night before Christmas poems. But I'd change the wording. You know. Twas the night before Christmas.

[31:18] As we're in this castle. You better go to bed. Don't give me no hassle. And he'd chuckle. You know. Or twas the night before Christmas. We just teethed our floss.

[31:30] I used to twist words around just to be dumb. You just teethed our floss. Your dad's a hero. And you're just a wuss. And he would laugh.

[31:42] But those are the greatest times. Because he's chuckling. He's having fun. He's close to Dad. And we talk about stuff. That's striking while the iron is cold. Don't engage.

[31:53] Fourth thing. You can delay consequences. Our psychology professionals have told us. They need to be swift, smooth, and done quickly. Eighty percent of the time when something occurs.

[32:06] Where discipline may be necessary. A consequence may be necessary. We're not able to. Because we're in the heat of the moment. The iron is striking hot right now. And we can't quite think clearly.

[32:17] And the emotion may be too much into it. Psychologists would say, don't say this. Because I said so. You mentioned that. Or wait until Dad comes home.

[32:28] No, we're not supposed to do that. In the last 50 years, that's what we've been told not to do. Of course, you can see what the behavior of students and children have been like in the last 50 years.

[32:39] So, yeah. That's the third thing was, or the fourth thing was delay consequences. Where you can think. Waiting until Dad comes home. That's a consequence. The waiting is a consequence in and of itself.

[32:50] I did that in my school, my classes. You know, hey, Bill, you're talking. I'd never yelled. Bill, there's something going on there. Bill and Jay, you stay after class.

[33:01] And I'd keep on teaching. They'd have time for them to respond. Plus, they knew if they respond, what might happen after class. And I would tell them after, hey, I may be in a good mood. I may not be after class.

[33:12] Let's just see how it goes. And I could give them a warning, which was rare. But early on, especially. But I wanted to establish it. So, delaying consequences is good.

[33:22] It gets your mind clear. You can think through it. We don't always view things that way. The fifth thing, don't do their homework for them. You ever watch Everybody Loves Raymond? That's one of my go-to old comedies.

[33:34] Have you seen that? There was that one, you know, we were taught by psychologists and medical professionals to help with their homework. And get them a good grade. That's our goal, is to get them the A.

[33:44] Well, is our focus to be on their achievement or manners, you know, individualism, self-sat, you know, those kind of things. Or it's achievement, accomplishments, showmanship.

[33:56] Is that our goal? But on that show, there was one episode where they were upset at Miss Purcell, the fifth grade teacher, for giving so much homework. And the two dads who went to the PTA meeting had just finished doing this underwater biosphere in a shoebox.

[34:15] They had done it. It hadn't been the kids. And the two dads were saying, hey, that's yours? Yeah, that's mine over here. And, well, I see you're using one of those crackers for fish. What did you use for shrimp?

[34:25] And the guy goes, shrimp. And Raymond says to him, in a few days, that's not going to smell too good. And he goes, yeah, a little time bomb from Miss Purcell.

[34:36] And I remember that. But it just reminded me of the tendency to do their homework. That's short-term parenting, not long-term. You know, short-term is let's get to the A.

[34:48] Let's do well. And the short-term kid will do better because mom and dad did it for you. They'll get the better grade. But in a year, when it comes to when they have to do things on their own, the long-term parent is wise enough to know that their child will do well.

[35:03] Two more things. Never allow the three Ds. That should be last, actually. But never allow disobedience, disrespect, and defiance. When I get called into a parent's home, that's what I deal with. Fifty years ago and more, you never dealt with that.

[35:17] So never allow the three Ds you've got to do. And we work with that first. Forget the wonderful relationship that will come. Once you can take care of the three Ds. You know, to add on to that, I think one of the biggest things that I see with those three Ds is just expectations.

[35:33] If you just have an expectation that your kids will obey you and not be defiant, I mean, that's like half the battle. There's so many parents I hear, oh, you know, I can't wait.

[35:45] You know, your kids are eventually going to become teenagers. And then it's just going to all go down. I mean, I hear that so often. People expect my kids when they become teenagers to just be defiant and disrespectful and, you know, and hate their parents.

[35:58] And, you know, if you just have an expectation that how they're going to treat you, that's half the battle right there. That's good.

[36:09] And the last thing I had was fix one meal. Fix one meal. I don't know how much I have to explain on that. I will briefly is here's an example.

[36:21] If they don't like the broccoli, whatever, put five of the, let's say you have five different items on your plate, small amount of each item. You can make the rule that says once you eat, make it a small amount.

[36:35] Once you eat each of the five items, you can have anything of anything of everything or whatever you want, as much as what you want. They may gag on the broccoli or the tapioca pudding, which is my thing.

[36:48] But have a little. If they don't, you don't have to eat. You don't have to eat. I'll just wrap it up, put it in the fridge, and when you want a snack, you know where to go.

[37:00] And tomorrow morning, if they still haven't eaten it, put some fresh broccoli and fresh tapioca on the plate. Right? And so eventually, in a week or two, they'll know what that means.

[37:12] Because right now, the Good Mommies Club tells the mommies, too, what do you want to eat? You don't like this, so I need to do this. And first off, that's bad manners to your neighbor.

[37:24] You're being rude to your neighbor. When you go to someone's house, are you not going to eat that? And they put all that time into it? So, next question?

[37:36] Sure. I got one for you. All right. Let's see. I really want to get to your last one, too, so we'll try to speed things up. Let's do that. Okay.

[37:48] This is dealing with the schools teaching, the worldly influences. And the question says, how do we counter our schools teaching and education system? Yeah, this is tough. You know, we homeschool our kids, and so we just try to avoid it.

[38:02] You know, it's, but this speaks to me to just the worldly influences in general, right? There's so many things. It seems like, in a lot of ways, the world is, like, going after our kids actively.

[38:18] And so there's a lot of things that we need to be very, very proactive and intentional when it comes to keeping our kids out from the clutches of the world.

[38:35] You mentioned some great things. Being countercultural, I think, is so important. We have to be intentionally countercultural and realize that the culture just does not align with our Christian values. Like you said in the past, maybe, I don't know, whatever number you might put on that, 60, 100 years ago, there was a lot more alignment in values between Christians and those who are not.

[38:55] But in today's day and age, the gap is so, so wide that we have to be intentionally countercultural on how we live. So there's scriptures, the two scriptures, 2 Corinthians 6, 14, do not be unequally yoked to the unbelievers.

[39:12] And then the other one is Psalm 1, 1, which is blessed is the man who walks not in a council of the ungodly. We need to surround ourselves with a community of people. And the four things that I wrote down are, one, just avoiding worldly situations.

[39:28] When our kids are put in situations where they are just surrounded and inundated by the world, it's such a ferocious battle. And so the public school system, I think, is the hardest because there are a lot of other things that we can avoid because they're optional.

[39:46] But schooling is not an optional thing. It's a required thing. And so the other options, besides public schools, homeschooling and Christian school, and I'll tell you from personal experience, homeschooling is really hard.

[39:59] It's not the easy button. You know, if you want, oh, our kids need an education, we'll just homeschool. We'll push the easy button. That's not how it works. Homeschooling is, like, intensely difficult.

[40:11] And it's a lot of work. You know, a lot of times, you know, you need the time. So that means usually one parent is working, so you're living on a single income, which that can be difficult in this day and age.

[40:22] Or if you have two parents working, I have actually a buddy at work. They just started homeschooling their kids. Both of them work. But his wife works as a nurse at night.

[40:32] They split up their time, which means they don't see each other very much. But they've committed that they want to go that route for their children's sake.

[40:44] So there are optional things. Like, you know, one of the things that's kind of been in the news a lot lately is the Boy Scouts, right? And the Boy Scouts, great history, but things have gone south really fast lately.

[40:56] And there are other organizations. Trail Life is a new one that kind of has an intentional Christian kind of perspective on how they do things. And there are other Christian type things.

[41:09] My boys and I have done a thing called Alert Cadet, which is a father-son discipleship Christian organization around similar types of things. Training.

[41:21] So just training, training your kids. You know, just read through Proverbs. There's a lot in there about training. But teach our kids about looking for good friends. What's the difference between a good friend and a bad friend?

[41:32] And a friend that's going to pull you down and a friend that's going to lift you up. Oh, there's so many things in here. But I talked about community.

[41:44] Having a community of people around you that's a Christian community. Just in this day and age, like, we live out in the country now, but just for the last year.

[41:55] And we lived in a neighborhood. And we got neighborhood kids. And it used to be, right, back in the day, you just sent the kids out to play. They played with the kids in the neighborhood. And usually things were okay.

[42:07] But not anymore. And so, you know, we make sure that we know all the parents in our neighborhood, what they're about, you know, what their background is.

[42:18] And sometimes we have to say, nope, we're not playing with those kids. At least not unattended, right? And so, you know, if we're going to play with them, they need to be over at our house or while we're around, that kind of thing.

[42:32] But then just building a community of friendships. We try to provide a pool of friends for our children that we think are healthy and strong.

[42:47] So our kids can, like, choose who they want to hang out with and their best friend or whatever. But it's within a boundary that we have kind of set. And that takes work.

[42:59] Sometimes it feels like a lot of work. I mean, parenting, this day and age, feel like it's a second job. But you have to be intentional. And then finding a good church.

[43:11] And not all churches are good churches. We love Grace Bible Church. But a lot of times you go to some churches and they don't really look much different from the rest of the world.

[43:24] So we have to be intentional about that as well. Anything else to add? I don't think so. There we go.

[43:36] Maybe I'll respond to one more thing that they asked. Yeah. And then we'll have a little time if you have questions. I may come up with this. So before you ask the question, I won't let them ask it. I'm going to ask you a question.

[43:48] That is this. What is the number one activity now, based on obvious common sense and research, number one activity for the average teen? Where are they?

[44:00] Where do they? Let me change that. Where do they spend more time than any place else? Where would that be? In their bedroom. Hold up in their bedroom in the fetal position with a device.

[44:13] As compared to when I was a kid, where to be with your buddies, so you don't have to be with your buddies nowadays in the same room. You can be with your buddies online.

[44:25] And my day, you played sports. That's the way you were with your buddies. You had to go be in something so you could be with your friends. But now, their number one activity is being holed up in their bedroom, all curled up with a device.

[44:40] And that refers to screens. And dealing with that. If there's any, the first thing we ask in the questionnaire that we send out to families who are struggling with teens, tell me about what devices you have, what screens, what's TV, iPad, iPhone, Xbox, Fortnite, other video games.

[45:00] What do they do? And the second thing is, are they on it? And the second thing is, how much time? And inevitably, when they do the week worth of keeping track of how much time their kids are on their device, I talked to my daughter Mallory about this.

[45:18] And she's right there, right here with me now. But how much time they're on their device, they always underestimate. I mean, the one lady from Illinois who has eight children, she came back and said, I had no idea after I kept track for a week that my son averaged three and a half hours a day on a device.

[45:36] I did not know that. I thought it was an hour. Other things to understand, too, especially as grandparents, those of you who are grandparents out here, and parents, you will not know how they're able to weasel around your parental controls.

[45:52] I told Nathan, there are a lot of parental controls that can shut off devices, all the devices in the home at a certain time. One's called Net Nanny. And I told him, you know what the latest thing with this Net Nanny parental control of your devices is?

[46:08] It keeps track of the number of times your child has looked up the word suicide. Is that sort of sad? 2010, 2011, right around there, the suicide attempt rates for teens and the suicide rate for teens took a spike up.

[46:28] What do you think happened around 2011, 2012? It's hard for me to believe it's coincidental. What started to become ubiquitous among teens around that time?

[46:41] Devices, iPhones, smartphones, social media accounts, they started getting them. And of those, of the spike during that time, 71% were girls.

[46:58] Which is sort of sad, too. I had three daughters that I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that. But think of that. You know, the girls looking at the social media getting and realizing it's not a real thing.

[47:13] And what they hear and the bullying and all that. You know, you've heard this, chewing gum, cutting in line, talking 50 years ago in school. Now you're dealing with bullying, mental health, teen depression, cutting, suicide.

[47:29] I never heard. In little old Miami school district, I just never recall there ever being a suicide. Or the thought of it. So the mental health of teens has, you know, hit the depths at this point.

[47:48] But cell phones, I got it, and I'll do this quickly. I had a question sent to me. I answer questions online. It's a site called parentguru.com. I guess I'm a guru. I need to run a mountaintop or something.

[48:00] But the question was, my 11-year-old exhibits an addiction to computers. And that's the first thing we check. Are they addicted? And we restrict his exposure because of this.

[48:11] Currently we have just one computer in the house, which is a shock. And use of it is heavily monitored. However, the public school issue iPads to all the students. And he uses it each day to access textbooks, books, supplementary materials.

[48:25] When he has completed his work, he also browses YouTube, plays video games. And during the summer, his behavior was good.

[48:37] Once the school year began, his behaviors, temper tantrums at age 11. Temper tantrums, according to research and testimonials, before 1960s, pretty much stopped by age 3, 3 1⁄2.

[48:49] Not anymore. Temper tantrums. Lack of self-control, deceitfulness, and all-night computer games started to crop up.

[49:02] He's even downloaded VPNs to bypass our blocking programs and figured out how to unlock our computers. At 11 years old. We were free of these behaviors before school began.

[49:15] So now some of the issues with school. She finally said, I do not want to keep feeding his addiction, but the school's iPad, he's got to access it. I'm not sure if he's monitored how he's able to jump on the other stuff.

[49:29] But I didn't ask that. I don't want to keep his brain. I want to wait until his brain can handle technology better. How can I help my son who truly cannot manage this addiction?

[49:41] And I put this. She would have said this if I could do it in four words. I said, you can't manage this addiction, and neither can he. And I said, you're wise and you're concerned.

[49:57] Here was part of my answer. I will stress something that needs to be done now. I also said a public school should have accommodations, modifications for those parents who want a somewhat screenless education.

[50:11] I said there is one thing about which you may be wrong. His brain may never be able to handle technology. I have friends my age who struggle with handling technology.

[50:23] We don't have enough generations who started on, matter of fact, I don't know if we have one, really, who are now 40, who have been through many years of adulthood, to see the effects.

[50:34] And I wrote down the effects that I told her. Some of the examples of the harm that we do know. Obesity. Avoidance of family members.

[50:46] No longer attending social functions. Depressed, irritable, anxious tantrums. Meltdowns. Lying deceit. Back problems, eye discomfort, early onset of myopia.

[50:57] The viewing of pornography, violence. And, we forget this, the worldview. The pornography, violence may seem insidious to even the child and the families.

[51:09] But, the part you don't see is the social media. That doesn't seem so bad, but the whole view is a view of the way the world thinks. And, that becomes theirs because of the vast influence.

[51:20] So, the viewing of that. What else did I put here is my response. Less time given to exploring, creating, using their imagination. Negative effects on brain development. I'm not a scientist at all in that stuff, that neuro, whatever, neurosciences.

[51:35] But, I've read enough. I could go on and on with that. The effect on brain development. We don't know. The extent of the effects. It's too new. Decrease attention span.

[51:49] So, and I gave some other advice about dealing with the school. Going on a screen fast. One of the best ways I tell my clients is, go on a weak screen fast. See how they respond. If they lose it, and they will if they're addicted.

[52:02] And, half of what I do, half of what I do is truly addicted. They'll lose it. They'll be irritable. They'll have tantrums. They'll scream at you. Usually, after a week or more, they have to adjust.

[52:13] If you stay, if you don't cave, they have to adjust and learn how to handle life. And, they get their boy back many times. They get their real girl back.

[52:25] And, those are exciting times when we see that kind of advancement. So, anything you want to add before we open it up? As grandparents, there's lots of grandparents in here. You know, I think it's easy.

[52:35] You know, grandkids are over. We've got the iPad. You know, little games on there. You know, even my parents, you know, have a tendency to kind of do that. But, you know, I've said, you know, let's not do that.

[52:47] You know, we want to try to avoid that. We've been very device-free. We've experimented with a few things early on. And, just, I don't have to deal with it. Guys, you have to be mean.

[53:00] I tell them, that's an area. You can't be, you know, latitude. My kid, that's how they communicate. It's by texting, okay?

[53:11] You know, you can still buy phones and put minutes on them. That you can't get online with. You can do that. It's hard to find them. But, you know, parents cave because everybody has it. Well, there's a segment that's not doing that anymore.

[53:23] They're realizing it. And, remember, well, that's how they're social with their friends nowadays. And, here's a line. I think it was a Roseman line I got or I found somewhere. Social skills, you know, being social with friends.

[53:34] Social skills were determining if children will have true friends. And, there's no way you're developing your social skills in your bedroom alone with a device in your hand.

[53:45] You've got to get out. You've got to play a sport. You've got to do that kind of thing. So, do we want to? Do we have five minutes? Five minutes? Any questions? We'll take one or two questions. And, then, while we're seeing if anybody wants to come out, there's one thing I wanted to add.

[53:59] And, you had talked about some scriptures. The one scripture that I kind of thought about was, while I was studying the Bible a few days ago, there's a proverb. What is it? Proverbs 14.4.

[54:11] And, you might think, well, how does this relate to children? Here's how it goes. Where no oxen are, the trough is clean. What does that mean? Anybody here a farm?

[54:22] Yeah. You know, if you don't have any animals on your farm, the trough is nice and stays nice and clean. And, I have in the margin, you know, this relates to children.

[54:35] Because, raising children is messy. The trough gets messy. You know, there's messy in, like, an actual literal way. Like, the house is messy. But, also, just like there's, you know, teaching and training and, you know, tears and emotions and hormones and all these things.

[54:54] It's very messy. But, you know what? The second part of this proverb is, but much increase comes by the strength of an ox. And, you know, children are such a blessing and such a joy.

[55:05] And the number one, my number one priority, you know, there's all these things. And, we kind of tended to focus on the negative things, you know, protecting our kids from this and that. And, there are, we need to do that. But, the number one, our number one priority with our kids is to enjoy our kids.

[55:19] To have a relationship with them. And, grandparents too. Enjoy your grandkids. Spend time with them. Talk to them about life and about, you know, their expectations for the future and all those types of things.

[55:31] Any questions? You know, all right. Roger's going to fall on the sword.

[55:44] Just more than a, is it on? Just a comment. I was a week away from my computer. And, I got a couple sites I get on.

[55:57] Try, and that week, it's nice to be away from it. You know. Yeah. After a day or two, you forget about it almost. If you're not really addicted.

[56:07] And, you know, I spend maybe an hour, half hour to an hour a day on the computer catching up on news that I won't watch TV for. And so, it can be done.

[56:19] My boy will say he's addicted to his iPhone, though. Yeah. I take polls. I substitute teach whenever I can. I take polls with students. How many of you, let's admit it, are addicted to your iPhones?

[56:32] And, usually 50. 50% of them raise their hand. Yeah. And, they will. Yeah, I guess I am. And, they have full access. No parental control. I was at Shawnee High School last time I did it.

[56:44] And, a fairly conservative big high school. But, most of them had cell phones. Almost all of them did. These were juniors. Juniors and seniors, as a matter of fact, who I asked. So, they all did. And, I said, are they full access?

[56:55] What kind of controls? Do you have to turn them in at 9 p.m. every night? Do you take them up to your room? And, that's a conservative with a good Christian element in it. Although, it is a big school and they have a variety pack there.

[57:09] But, a lot of them, yeah. They have their phones upstairs. They have their phones with them. So, that's fairly common, even among Christian communities, unfortunately. Anything else?

[57:23] Uh-oh. I'll let you answer this one, Nathan. Uh-oh, Mom. Just a comment. I would. Just a comment about one of my great-grandchildren, who is 12.

[57:37] And, he keeps wanting to have a cell phone. Well, the answer that parents give is, well, do you have money to pay your monthly bill?

[57:50] And, that sort of ends it. That ends it right there. That's good. And, I agree with that. Do you have it? But, understand this. What if he does? Yeah. That's true. Good point.

[58:00] It's like, you call an escort service. I paid for it. Yeah. Your teenager paid for it. She's upstairs. I paid. No. Even if they paid for it, it's your home and your call, even if he can't afford it himself.

[58:16] Still your home. Still your call. You don't want to have negative, harmful things come into the home. If you view it as harmful, you've got to deal with it then. Yeah. And, I mean, there's so many reasons, right?

[58:27] One thing, pornography, right, is just so rampant. It's horrific. Average age today that somebody, a child, is exposed to pornography is 11 years old. And, a lot of that has to do with access to these, you know, to computers and devices.

[58:40] You know, it's just unfiltered. And, there's lots of things you can do. If you have any questions about that, by the way, ask me. I've actually done radio programs where I've talked about how to protect your kids from harmful stuff online and that kind of thing.

[58:53] So, if you have any questions as a grandparent or a parent, please ask me. I run a discipleship group at the college of guys my age. One of the guys works with college teens at Cedarville University.

[59:05] College teens, college and their, you know, 20-year-olds. And, of the 16 that he worked with in our D group, we keep it confidential, obviously. 15 of them were struggling with pornography.

[59:16] Of the 16 at a Christian institution. So, if you don't know, think, believe is pervasive, you need to believe that. So, one more question? Then we'll. Question or comment?

[59:32] I think that's it. All right, cool. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for giving us life and relationships. The relationships that we enjoy with our children, with our parents, with all of our families and the kinds of joy and life that we can have in these relationships.

[59:53] We ask you to work in each and every one of us to give us the wisdom to live the kind of life that is pleasing to you. As parents, as grandparents, as children, show us the way that we ought to live from your word.

[60:08] And help us. There's all kinds of difficult situations, but your word always has answers. And we know that we can always look to you, to your standard, to your authority in our lives, and find answers for any question, no matter how difficult.

[60:23] Thank you for this community of this church and the greater body of Christ that helps us along the way. And we bless your name.

[60:36] In Jesus' name, amen. If you're interested in parenting out smart at all or know someone who could use it, there's material out there on the table. So thanks.