[Sunday School] Practical Parenting 2

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:33

So yeah, I would say when we go home we revert back all the support kids. Um and Jennifer's way more successful than me, but in her eyes it will always still be so perception of every kid, including our kids. Um and then, oh I was gonna say maybe with your kids, something that I'm trying that I've learned as an adult and as a school teacher for a while, to try to give your kids positive affirmations for who you see them being in Christ as a child of God. So your positive affirmation would be different than yours. And when I would do this in the classroom, what I found was I'd say, Oh, um, Kate, I really like how you shared in class today. You brought up an interesting point, and then the next person would say, Well, what do you see about me? You know, like so maybe to give them each, because they can all be different. We'd be born and if we were the same. Um then another thing that John and I found with our kids was um we would call family meetings, I think I told you last week, and we approached it the wrong way because usually we would say, Well, this is how it's gonna roll, and you're gonna apologize, and you're gonna well you can't force people to do that, but maybe to take notes to your future adult self. So um when they hit those junior high years and you swear that they're not gonna turn on you, they do. Or in high school, or even when they get married, because when you add a spouse, it changes the dynamic again because there's another family and another family. Um, so write notes to your future self so that you can go back and look and say, you know what, the the narrative changes in your head when 10 years go by, 20 years go by. Well, that's not how I remember. So so that you know you did a good job.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

Oh, well, yeah, yeah, uh, and she tries that affirmation stuff with me, too. Um so I'm uh I'm uh a second child uh chronologically, but I think my uh my family was very disheveled growing up, so I effectively was just a first child. Okay. Yeah, I don't know how that's affected Kristen and I because we don't seem to have too much conflict. She's you know we're both first children, and she takes care of her stuff, and I try to take care of my stuff. Okay. Trying to get in her way, leave the cabinet doors open stuff. Yeah, so we seem to make it work pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, and the firstborn's tendencies before rulemaking can come into clash. And if you're dealing with your firstborn, you have to maybe back up. You know, because otherwise they got enough self-control and drive on their own that you don't have to add to it. You know, so the firstborn, I didn't really have to coach, you know, do better on your grades because we're sort of getting A's. And the secondborn, he's he's fairly tight wow. So he but the third one, it's like, okay, I'm not expecting A's out of you, but I do expect you to do your best, you know. So that you know you can back off on one and be more encouraging and directive on the one. The third one was a bit more casual.

SPEAKER_05 4:01

And she had you had brought up the ADHD thing because we had a son, he was kid number two, uh, who was diagnosed mental high school. Uh, and that was our bad family physician teacher. But if you were here last week, you know that we had a St. Jude kid with cancer for three years, and then you know that um he also went down with heart surgery, so there was a lot going on, so we sort of missed the ADHD thing. Um, but I think you can adjust your parenting style with each kid or do your best to, but how your children perceive you know, well, he always gets it this way, or easier, and that's gonna be a hard one because even as adults, like you said, you go back home. Yeah. So, for example, um, this week I sent to my siblings and mom and dad uh a video of our granddaughter. She was playing with those wooden peg puzzles, and my dad being a teacher, he used to pay the kids, our kids, to do puzzles because he thought it was working the brain. You know, I'll give you a penny for so I put in the text, hey, you got Grace at TJ Maxx puzzle. Do you think Papa's still paying for puzzles? And the response I got from the middle ones was, oh, he never paid my kids for puzzles. That must have been do you mean like so? So the 40 and 50 year olds were reversed or went back to a word. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

You can tell work order about how the parents deal with the pacifier. Right? The first child, the pacifier, oh yeah, and the second wash it off in the power. Second one, it's back in the mouth. Third one, just pick up and shut it up. So there is that, and and same thing with baby books. You know, the baby book has got pages filled with the firstborn, maybe an entry to for the secondborn, and the third born and beyond is just blank. So and they understand that. They understand that. Um so another question for you guys. Um, how are you treated differently compared to your siblings? Your parents treat you differently. Well, my sister now's the time for all the it's not fair stuff, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Well, it's not that, it's just my sister was older. We were both adopted, but my sister was older, and different families. Same parents adopted us. But my sister had cerebral palsy, so I intended to be more of the motherly to her to help her, even though I was the younger one. Now she didn't like that, but there were responsibilities that needed to be done physically that she couldn't do, so but I mean that was the dynamics in my household a little bit. She's fine with it now, but she always says big sis whenever she signs anything to me. So and we've discussed that, but you know, it's just the way it is, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Jeff, how were you treated differently?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, so uh well I was again I was treated like almost a single, only child. But I had a lot of freedom. I had uh uh I took on more responsibility. I think it manifested later where I was more of the caregiver like when I to my parents than my other older siblings. I had a lot of freedom as a child. I was riding my bike all over Venice Beach, Santa Monica Beach. So they trusted you a little bit more, or did your youngers have that freedom? No, they did not have that freedom. They were the first three were born back at them. Yeah, ten years later. I was closer to my dad than my mom. I was driving a vehicle in elementary school. I drove in it in 1970 at 100, 3 in the 3 in sixth grade. And it didn't help that he was drunk and I was driving him home. But it helped me at this time. But I guess I had more response. I was given more freedom to do those things.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

And is that because parents buy the third fourth child or energy? I mean that could happen too, that the third child usually doesn't get as much.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

I think you're just so busy, you're so busy attending to all the different schedules and all the different little people that you have that it's you do what you can for each one of them, but you know that that one's gonna be okay if their pacifier falls on the floor and they just pick it back up and put it in their mouth. You just know. You know, you just become more aware of things, and even walking and crawling, you're not as attentive. Well, if they fall, they'll learn not to do that again. Yeah, okay. Just get like that.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

So maybe as Barthora goes down, parents maybe agree or disagree, parents um are more careful in choosing their battles.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yeah, exactly. In time, you still love them all, but you're just you just are more reassured in your parenting, whereas when you have your first child, you're all around them when they're first walking, and then by the time they get there, you know it'll be okay. They'll get up there.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yes, okay. Um Tammy's younger sister still says she was broken for life because the two older sisters forced her to walk before she even walked. They push her back and forth until she catches right on the water. It was too early for her to talk. Okay. Um let's see. All right, let's just take a quick break for you guys to talk couple to couple. And let's ask that that first question. Um, how has birth order affected your personality traits? Okay, so just two minutes for you to talk amongst yourselves. Your birthday.

unknown 10:29

So, but there's also a big gap like both my brothers and I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Well, I think like I was I kind of picked out that we could turn the fact that like the parents were more lapsing for me and my brother.

unknown 10:51

And I think that's that's a lot of that kind of proof myself like my help.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

All right, let's bring it in.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Let's bring it in. Um, you guys, uh couldn't do this.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

In your family, how has gender played its role as far as birth or like I gave the example of me being a little bit of both because I was the firstborn son? Have you noticed anything as far as differences in gender? You know, firstborn being a girl versus firstborn being a boy, or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

Well, for me, um, my sister's older, but uh she was kind of strange at a young age, so um different things second chronological post always the firstborn.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Okay, okay. Okay. And how about with with uh your kids?

unknown 15:00

Our kids. Well, gender kind of, you know, I I keep thinking about it as we go through this, but I think with our, you know, John's is definitely our firstborn son and fits that all into a D.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Then, you know, I can see him being in the second middle child kind of thing without a problem. He would uh kind of complicated by the ADHD. The third child, does she she's the strongest willed person and she intimidates me. They call her the bulldog.

SPEAKER_05 15:36

She's about to say that like it, good or bad.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

She likes the majority of that.

unknown 15:42

I guess I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

She never she's one of the team. So I think for her, it was a survival thing. She had to find some way to get control over the stuff going on around her. And so I'm having a hard time remembering what it happened in three, so I had to try to remember the fact of her call and what her personality was. She was she was a boss. You know, I think these tendencies are good, but I mean you just have to, you know, you're gonna things are gonna change, they're gonna make them adapt.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah, I'm convinced the strong-willed child can happen at any point. Yeah, and I think for her, I think it was a defense vector.

SPEAKER_05 16:21

Yeah, Ginny, the third one, he's talking about. Um I was a public school teacher, but we were in a rural community at the time, and it was a small town doc, so everybody knew him. Um, and we tried to go interview at a Christian school, and um Ginny, of course, dressed herself. This was she's what three and a half, four. She put on a plaid pleated skirt, um, boots, some t-shirt that probably I don't know if it was Jonas or something. And then her brother Ben was really into Woody and Buzz at the time. And so he had those toy handcuffs, and she put handcuffs like on one of her. John and I just looked at each other like she is not gonna fit at the Christian school. This is not gonna work. Um she came with a fisherman. Oh, she and she was around tumble because she had two brothers. So if they had boys over and they were playing baseball or whatever in the side yard, she was in on top of the pile and like just and then Georgia the baby, um, very witty, very funny. She's a people person, but she's actually an OR nurse, so she likes them knocked out as adults. She doesn't want to have to talk to them, but um, she was always like the hey, see me, hello, hello. Um, so she fit the yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Um in my wife's family, the uh the two oldest with Tammy and her sister were good grades and had a great reputation in the school, and the third child came along, and she actually said, I'm gonna ruin your reputation. Yeah, she didn't do anything bad, but she was you know loud and boisterous and and not fitting the mold and just breaking apart the family reputation.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

Well, and then you mentioned gender. So my growing up family was three girls and then a boy, and there's nine years between me and the boy. So he has some of the first born, and we lived on a street with older adults. So Tod would be the first to be mowing everybody's yard at hedge clip, and he knew all the adult older neighbors. Um, but with sisters, we we would dress him up sometimes and paint his nails. Um, and we said, you know what, in high school he's gonna be the sharpest dressed guy. And so Todd has a lot of handyman qualities, and he is, you know, but he's the cook in their family, which I think is interesting. So he has all my mom's recipes so he can um fix the house, but then he makes a mean like guac salsa margarita and bakes an enchilada, and yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yeah, they just refuse to be uh put into a mold. You guys on the table is that is special needs is obviously a thing that affects how the family rotates around that, but with gender, I think since I was a boy, it did give me a lot more freedom.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Um with our own kid, our oldest is a boy, he had the responsibilities, but he also had more freedom than the next two girls. Because he was a boy. Because he was a boy, okay. And my daughter, Samantha that comes here, she's the oldest daughter. She has more of those characteristics of being driven and very articulate, locked early, all of her notes from the teachers as she was social. My son is 6'2, and very he's a lineman. He does a very physical job, but he's very gentle. He doesn't have, he's not prideful at all. You have to force him to talk. And the youngest girl is you're talking about, she's 5'1. And boy, is everybody scared of her. She has the strongest will. But I don't know how that plays out. We read this, these characteristics, and it didn't generally match. But there are traits. This whole parenting thing is scary. Because you you have a baby and then they kick you out of the hospital and you're okay go take care of it. Where am I supposed to wait? What? And you're looking for an adult. And there can be a lot of times as you're raising your kids and you're gonna be looking for an adult. I gotta do this. I am the adult. They're timing you don't know. Why are they doing that? Why do they make that noise? And you're at least for me, I'd be up at late at night, kid's broken. There's something wrong, and it's just like they're always evaluating and you know your concern. But God's providential hand is working through these covenant children. You know, rest in him. There's a lot of stress in parenting and marriaging and being an employee and being a sibling and being a child of your older parents, and you gotta take care of your senior parents. There's a lot of stress, as you know, there's all these stresses all over the place. And uh just love your kids, hug them. As I look back, I asked all my adult kids before we came here, I sent them a questionnaire about parenting. What did you think about this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing? And one of the bigger things that came back was kind of what you touched on is a time when you ask them, hey, how are you doing? You know, ask the kids at dinner what's going on with you, give them a chance at all, say what they want to say and read them. Um I wish I'd spent more time looking, paying attention to my son, that I was spending more time doing all these other, you know, career. Things and my son, when I would tell him to do something, he would scare. I thought he was being disrespectful. It took me a lot of years to realize, oh, he's processing it. I wish I would have had more patience with him in those times. But there'll be a time when you're up here and you're reflecting, like, oh, I could have done that better. So there's a lot of things to think about, but just trust God that he's gonna be a way better parent than we are. These are his covenantal children. There'll be ups and downs will be the values that we share.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Well, that's why God gave that child to you, because you're the best thing for him. And, you know, one of the things I used to tell my boys at bedtime, just a couple times a year, I would say, remember, you're having a good, happy childhood.

unknown 23:30

I told them we're having a happy childhood.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

So if we ask them now, if we have a happy childhood, they'd say yes. Well, if this dad told me it was something wrong with a little brainwashing going on. Don't be afraid to tell them that.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

One more thing. As parents, I mean I know this is in the class, but as parents, one thing that my kids consistently upset is that they couldn't, they knew that they couldn't go around to her or to me to get what they wanted. We would be, even if we disagreed with each other, we'd have to weather that storm. Man, I wanted to go do that thing. I'm just saying we can't go do that thing. Neither do we say.

SPEAKER_05 24:40

We have a wedding coming up, and there are all these wonderful things, but then there are all these relationship things and birth order things. So I sat down on their bed and I just asked them for some wisdom. So if your parents are still around and you have a good relationship with them, you can talk to them, ask them. Because I'm sure they tell you. Just love on them, or like you said, try to give them time. Anyway, just like throw that in.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

It's a way that we continue to honor our parents.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Pray with them, pray for them.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Is it what no matter what age? At 18, my parents didn't know. No matter what age. But by the time I turned 21, I was surprised how much they learned in three years. That's where they're at. Alright, I'm gonna pass out some things here, but let's uh let's close in prayer first. Uh oh God, I pray that this uh discussion would bear some fruit and that uh would give us a little bit of wisdom and understanding into uh how our the dynamics of our family works and our things that might be traveling through our kids' minds. Help us to be the best parents we can be, knowing we're not perfect. Um but it's through grace that you raise other children that belong to you. We have just the privilege of having a hand in that, in forming these children. It's a great responsibility, and uh we take that seriously. But we pray that it's your Holy Spirit that does the work and we just plant the seeds. So we pray your blessing on this week as we as we continue to parent, uh whether our kids are are one year old or or in my case uh 492 months old, uh, and we just ask that you would just bless us and tell us about that. At some point you stop counting at months, but my son is 400. 400 and uh 78 months old? So we pass this out?

unknown 26:59

Which one do I give it?

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Oh that's weak is just a justified because we're like, Yeah, yeah, that's true.

unknown 27:29

That's true. Yeah, but that were the inbox. I think that's where uh we've got the first order. I got it. Yeah, so we can use it.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Okay, so