Let Them Grow Up: Parenting for the Future, Not Just Today

Helping Your Kids Grow Up: Faith, Character, Responsibility, and Autonomy

On the Home and Marriage Podcast, Lennon and Christal Noland discuss helping kids grow up and how parents can unintentionally hold children back by constantly entertaining them, intervening in every conflict, and rescuing them from responsibility and consequences. They encourage parents to let kids experience boredom and practice conversation, coach them through normal peer conflicts without overstepping, and teach real-life responsibility with clear consequences. They outline four growth areas to cultivate: faith (church involvement, prayer, and parental example), character (praising who they’re becoming), responsibility (chores and follow-through), and autonomy (age-appropriate independence without fear-driven helicoptering).

00:00 Podcast Welcome
03:55 Helping Kids Grow Up
04:59 Stop Treating Them Little
08:19 Let Them Be Bored
11:57 Don’t Fix Every Conflict
15:15 Responsibility and Consequences
16:07 Responsibility Over Comfort
16:34 Growing Faith Foundations
19:13 Church Support
22:32 Faith At Home Practices
24:44 Building Character Not Gifts
28:11 Chores Consequences Training
31:58 Autonomy Not Helicoptering
34:13 Release Fear Final Charge
35:23 Wrap Up And Next Steps

Interview episode with Dr. Ken Wilgus 

Transcript

Lennon 0:03

This is the Home and Marriage Podcast with Lennon and Christal Noland, where we help couples become better at home and stronger Together. We are husband and wife, parents and ministers who want God's best for our home and for yours well, hello friends. Welcome to the show. Wherever you are. I'll tell you where we are. We are in the Worldwide Home and marriage studios, also known as our bedroom.

Christal 0:27

I have a question for you to start off the show today. Do you know what major event is happening this weekend?

Lennon 0:34

This coming weekend?

Christal 0:35

Yeah.

Lennon 0:37

No, I don't. What is, what is the major event? Is it your birthday? Uh,

Christal 0:45

yeah.

Lennon 0:45

Yeah. I told you. Well, I didn't tell you didn't I Made you, it made you feel like I didn't know, but then I, then I did.

Christal 0:51

No, I think it finally, it clicked. What it

Lennon 0:53

was. Typical husband. It took a minute, but it did click. Yeah. This weekend is your birthday. Mm-hmm. And we at least have to say weekend. We can't name the day of the weekend. Yeah. Because one of your great passions is having a birthday that extends beyond the mere 24 hours on which day one was

Christal 1:13

brought. Right. It's already started linen because really it started on. Wednesday because my best friend took me out to lunch to celebrate my birthday as well.

Lennon 1:22

That's

Christal 1:22

good. And so, you know, celebrations can go on. I'm up for, I mean, two weeks is great too. I mean, you know, sometimes not everybody can celebrate you on the day, so

Lennon 1:32

That's true. So friends, if you want to celebrate Christal's birthday, you can just reach out to her. Invite her to a fancy dinner, buy her fancy things. She will receive any and all gifts in the name of her birthday.

Christal 1:46

I will. I really love my birthday. And I think, and that sounds so self-absorbed, but why I think that is, is because I feel like it's just the one time of year I can accept celebration. Of myself. That sounds terrible

Lennon 2:04

because you're a very humble person

Christal 2:06

I just like all the goodies. I like all the, you know, Since I was little, I've just always enjoyed

Lennon 2:12

you have,

Christal 2:12

so I can't be the only one. I know there's other people out there that love their birthdays as well, so Right, sure they do. I know You don't care.

Lennon 2:21

Well,

Christal 2:21

you look at it as just another year of getting older.

Lennon 2:24

I do, I, I am, I am a little too bothered by getting older, but my greatest, the greatest thing I can have on my birthday is just to not have to do anything.

Christal 2:34

Yeah.

Lennon 2:34

So it's very simple for me. You're more traditional in the celebrations. Let's go to dinner, let's have a cake, and you know what? You deserve all of it. So I'm happy to do that, and that's what we're doing this weekend.

Christal 2:44

By the way, my friend Stacy is bringing me a cake today, and she's making it herself. And so I just feel so blessed and loved and so, yes. I'm excited about this weekend, but onto more important things.

Lennon 2:58

Is there anything more important than your birthday? Let's just say other things, not more.

Christal 3:02

Okay. Onto other things.

Lennon 3:04

Yeah, onto other things. There is another important date that's coming up April 17th and 18th. That's a Friday and Saturday. Uh, we are gonna be ministering for the Better Together Marriage Conference at Grace Hill Church in Dallas. And so we have people ask us whenever we're traveling in different places, especially if we're doing ministry on a Sunday morning. When and where are y'all's conferences? We'd love to come if it's in driving distance. And so if you are in the Dallas area or you could get there, uh, make a weekend out of it, consider coming to this fantastic marriage conference better together. If you go to Grace hill.cc, look under their events, you'll see all the registration information, but it's gonna be unforgettable and we're really looking forward to it.

Christal 3:48

We are, I'm excited about it. It's a great church and a great place to have a marriage conference, so if you can come sign up. All right, so what are we talking about today, Lenn?

Lennon 3:59

We're gonna talk about helping your kids grow up. Helping your kids grow up?

Christal 4:04

Mm.

Lennon 4:05

Uh, this is something that, of course, every parent wants their kids to grow up.

Christal 4:09

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 4:09

But sometimes as a parent, we can be a little counterproductive against that end result by some ways that we approach parenting and some things that we do. Do

Christal 4:20

you know what song is coming to my head right now?

Lennon 4:22

What?

Christal 4:22

Taylor Swift's. Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up, just stay little,

Lennon 4:26

right?

Christal 4:27

That song definitely strikes a chord in my heart. I think every parent has a part of them that doesn't want their kids to really grow up because of how sweet it is when they're young. But in reality, like you said, we really do want our kids to grow up because we want them to become healthy, independent, strong adults because this world is not easy and they need to be ready for it.

Lennon 4:53

They do have to be ready for it, and they're going to grow up whether we want them to or not.

Christal 4:59

Exactly.

Lennon 4:59

And so the thing we can do sometimes is keep thinking of them as our little girl, our little boy. And maybe even worse, keep treating them. Yeah. As our little girl or little boy. And that just doesn't work for an 11-year-old, 14-year-old, an 18-year-old.

Christal 5:15

No, it doesn't. Oh. Like, okay, so now I'm getting thoughts and memories of that movie Father of the Bride, and you've never seen it, but you've gotta see it. But Father the bride was Steve Martin and there's this scene, so she comes to tell her dad, she's getting married, she met a man in Rome, and she's getting married and it's just big, it's big news to them. Yeah. And so she's sitting at the dinner table and she tells him this, and he's like. What did you just say? And then he looks at her again and she's this little 4-year-old girl with pink tails and bows saying, I met a man in Rome, dad, and I'm gonna get married. Oh my gosh. Like, he sees her in that way and it's just like, he can't think of her as like, it's time for that. And I, I can't believe she's old enough to do that. And so it's, but it is so important as parents. I feel like sometimes kids run ahead to places and points that we're not ready for. Right. But they're ready for,

Lennon 6:15

right.

Christal 6:16

And let's just get real, like this is just not easy for us as parents. I think mom and dads even have certain tendencies with us. Do you, do you see that? And usually in moms and dads, even in us, me and you, we have a tendency of Of dealing with a situation in a certain way when they're getting older and growing

Lennon 6:34

Yeah. I think classically speaking, allowing kids to grow up can be a little easier on dads than moms. That's not to say it's entirely easy.

Christal 6:43

Yeah.

Lennon 6:44

But I do think that we as men, we can tend a little more toward, they're fine, they're gonna be fine. They need to do this.

Christal 6:50

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 6:51

And moms cont tend a little more toward. What, I'll let you speak for moms,

Christal 6:55

maybe nurturing, they're, they usually are the nurturing type or we naturally want to make sure they're okay. yeah, I think we just tend to make, wanna make sure everything's all right and they're okay. But in that, I think we can hold them back from things or experiencing, hardships or pain Or we think we can

Lennon 7:15

right This it, you know, you mentioned the father of the bride, and so my mind is gonna go to the movie The Patriot. With Mel Gibson.

Christal 7:24

Wow. Yeah. How does it go there?

Lennon 7:26

Well, because he has a son who goes off to war.

Christal 7:28

Yeah.

Lennon 7:28

And he ends up getting injured and he comes home. And so his dad, Mel Gibson's character helps him get healthy again. And he's just assuming, of course he's gonna have learned his lesson. He sacrificed everything he should sacrifice and now he's gonna stay here.

Christal 7:47

Mm.

Lennon 7:47

And his son tells him, dad, I've gotta get back to my. My troop and they have this huge argument and his son goes, I'm not a child. And Mel Gibson yells in this, now it's my turn to tear up a little bit. He yells, you're my child. And so there very much is this thing where, I mean, they're never not gonna be our kid.

Christal 8:07

Right.

Lennon 8:08

But they are gonna grow out of being a child. And so what we want to talk with you about today, friends, is some, some things that we do to hold them back in some ways we can help them. Move forward. And so let's talk first, honey, about three ways that we can tend to hold our kids back.

Christal 8:24

Mm-hmm. Well, the first way I think, is to prevent them from becoming bored or feeling like we always need to entertain them.

Lennon 8:33

Right. There's this scramble thing to keep them happy. That can start whenever they're, and what parent hasn't been at Olive Garden or something like that, and you're just trying to squeeze in a good meal and you know that you have this little bitty ticking time bomb over here that only has so many moments of contentment or so long before, you know, before the tears might start coming in the high chair. And so starting from then on, we can really sort of fall into the trap that our kids need to be happy and fascinated every moment.

Christal 9:05

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 9:06

And that we are responsible for keeping them that way. And let's just be honest, whenever they're young and the default measure that we can take to make sure they're happy and they're not bored, is giving them a, giving them an iPad or handing them a phone. Here you go. Just be quiet.

Christal 9:25

Yeah. This also makes me think about how we were raised in the eighties. Something that our parents did usually was a really good idea. Guys just go outside in play. I mean, I know there were times where my parents did lock the back door. And maybe I'm telling on them, but I feel like most kids that grew up in the eighties totally identify with this. But if we were just driving our parents crazy because we just wanted somebody to entertain us, and they're like, listen, go outside and play. It's a, it's a beautiful day. Don't have fun. Don't you

Lennon 9:57

knock on this door unless somebody's bleeding.

Christal 9:59

Yeah, don't, yeah. Unless you're bleeding or something's on fire. And if you're thirsty, go get a drink from the water hose. I mean, that's the way we lived in the eighties.

Lennon 10:07

Right.

Christal 10:08

And we turned out okay.

Lennon 10:09

We did turn out okay. Some might say that's debatable. If they had a close look at, yeah, look at me, but,

Christal 10:15

oh, what? No, no,

Lennon 10:17

no. We, we did turn out okay. But it is a thing that helps them mature to have to deal with some boredom. And I hate to go back again to such an easy punching bag, the iPad or the phone. But I, I often feel it's. I'm not even gonna dance around it. I feel like it's a tremendously negative thing. Whenever we go into a restaurant and we see, uh, either children or teens entirely disengaged from their parents and the rest of the people at the table because they're scrolling a phone or playing games on the tablet that sits on the table. Now in some restaurants, they're missing the opportunity to just be people talking to people looking around. Who knows, even engaging with the waiter or waitress a little bit, uh, this deal where we want to keep them happy and fascinated will eventually hamstring their ability to handle normal adult interactions.

Christal 11:17

Yeah, I think that one way we can really help them grow is to be able to talk to each other when we're waiting on food there's nothing that's, you know, keeping you from having conversation, but you help them learn how to have conversation with each other like you're talking about. I think that's a wonderful skill that really has changed over the years where kids don't interact with one another or adults, or don't know how to talk to adults or the waiter or waitress. I think that's a, a skill that could be so useful for so many things. In their future.

Lennon 11:50

It is. So let these kids be bored and force them to, to talk to one another, to talk to other people.

11:57

Another way I think that we can hold our kids back from growing up is by intervening in every conflict.

Christal 12:03

This is so hard too, and I think this is the area where it's really hard for moms to not wanna intervene and protect or, take care of them or do it for them and, and really. It's really outta fear. I think you're worried about something happening to them, and there are moments where we have to intervene. Like if a kid's walking out into the road, we have to intervene. We have to protect them. That is normal. But there are some situations where we're just really holding them back from developing or from them experiencing something that could help them grow.

Lennon 12:39

Yeah. This makes me picture here something I've seen before of say, a mother marching out into the road where one group of boys told another one like, no, you can't be on my team. And he ran home crying. And here comes mama holding his hands, stomping out into the street. And firing off orders to a group of 10 year olds, um, that kind of thing. There's a level of, Hey, okay, so what did you say when they said that to you? How do you think you could handle that? Or is this common for them or has this never happened before? Helping your child in an age appropriate way, figure out how they. Are going to deal with the difficulty of being around other students at school who are sometimes rude or mean instead of saying, daddy's here and no one's gonna talk to my girl like that. It's one thing, I think if you said intervention sometimes is necessary, if there's some sort of severe level of bullying going on. Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Christal 13:41

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 13:41

But if it's just normal. Like a rough edges type stuff. We just can't get in the weeds on every little thing. We've gotta teach them how to handle conflicts for themselves

Christal 13:52

and we're not gonna always be there to deal with their conflict. I have a very clear memory of myself in first grade and I was on the playground and a little boy came up and pinched my butt. And I had to stand up for myself, and I did. I looked at him and I said, you can't do that. I'm a Christian

Lennon 14:14

way to go.

Christal 14:15

So I ha I knew I had to stand up for myself because no one's gonna do that for me there. But also, I mean, I think this happens at. Every age and stage you can think of from, if they are in pre-K or kindergarten at school, they're gonna have a conflict with a classmate, something's gonna happen. Then you talk about the junior high years, all the meanest, I mean, the mean girl thing and the junior high years is so intense.

Lennon 14:38

Junior high kids are so mean.

Christal 14:40

They are, they will nitpick every little thing that they find negative about you or they'll make something up. There's like so much competition and so they're gonna have conflicts with friendships. And then in high school, they're going to have times where maybe their best friend isn't their best friend anymore and they had a major falling out with a friend. And so you can't fix that for them. You can be there for them, like you said, and you can give them advice, but you're not gonna be able to fix all the things and the hurtful things they go through in conflicts with people.

Lennon 15:11

So we can't intervene in every conflict. That's actually a negative thing. And then the other thing we wanted to tell you, friends that can, sometimes we as parents can hold our kids back when we rob them of responsibility and save them from. Consequences. So we'll go deeper on responsibility in just a few minutes. But Robbing them of responsibility and saving them from consequences. There is more that our kids need than to be left alone and not forced to contribute to these, the menial toil of helping. Contributing around the house and they deserve more as human beings who we expect to grow up than to have one warning after another, another threat, another reminder, another this, another that no consequences need to happen. And it's a negative thing whenever they don't.

Christal 16:07

Yeah. Our job is not to give them a cushy life.

Lennon 16:09

Right, because life is not gonna be cushy for them.

Christal 16:12

It, it's not.

Lennon 16:13

When they grow up, if they decide not to show up to work on time, they will no longer get to work there.

Christal 16:20

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 16:20

And so training them in the reality of responsibility and consequences while they're within our household, not only does it help them grow up, but it also makes our lives a little easier. And we can talk about that more in a moment.

Christal 16:34

Well, let's go into the four areas on how to help our kids grow. So what would be a way that we could help them grow?

Lennon 16:41

I think one of the ways is we want to help our kids grow in faith. We want to contribute a good example to them of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. we want to model taking our faith seriously, but not only in the sense of getting them to church. We want to help them pursue the Lord themselves, or at least encourage them in ways that we can. We can't make that happen for them, but we can encourage them toward that.

Christal 17:10

Right. It's really the foundation for everything else. So as parents, if we can encourage them to grow in their faith and we can show them how to grow, we're really helping set, the foundation. For everything else. If they know who to run to, who to turn to when they are going through things, that would be a great accomplishment as parents to be able to contribute to that. It's such an important deal. Actually. We were, I was talking with Ethan, our son the other day and he mentioned, I don't know how some kids grow up without a mom and dad that don't believe in God and have faith in their home and talk about the Lord he was really. Valuing that and how important and how much of a blessing it is to have parents who believe in the Lord.

Lennon 17:55

Yeah, this was really on my mind this past weekend. I spoke at a church in the Austin area in Liberty Hill, The message I brought was from Colossians chapter one, where the Apostle Paul is celebrating the new faith that has begun among a group of people in a church that was planted by his friend Aris. And Paul basically says, I'm so happy about that, and ever since I heard you met Jesus, I haven't ceased to pray for you. And then he lays out all of these things concerning. Growing in faith that he was praying for. And ultimately it was so that he said, you can walk worthy of the Lord fully pleasing to him. And sometimes as adults, we stop in our walk with God. In the beginning stages of learning to walk, we're like toddlers that are wobbling. taking our first steps, but there's still so much more growth to happen. And so our kids need to see that in us, a growing reverence for God, and we're talking with them about the faith and we need to show them that there are more places to go with God than just going to church or just going to youth group.

Christal 19:06

So how can we, how can we practically help them learn to seek God themselves? That's one thing we need to know. First of all, I will say, just to go on what you just said, but is to take'em to church. Take them to church, get involved in a church. Let'em, see the value of learning the scripture with other kids at church. Now here's what I will say about that too. We can't expect our kids pastors and youth pastors to teach them everything they need to know in their faith spiritually, right? We as parents. Need to teach at home as well, and we need to talk about those things, and we'll talk about it in a second. But first of all, I think getting your family to church consistently really will help your kids grow in their faith because they're there with other believers. They're seeing other people that have that faith as well and growing with them. So that's really important to do.

Lennon 19:57

That's a really good point, and honestly I'd kind of overlook that because I said it's important to do more than just take your kids to church. But that's assuming that most parents are taking their kids to church or if they are, that they're doing it on a regular basis whenever the truth is now someone really involved in a church will likely go to church once, maybe twice a month.

Christal 20:21

Yeah. I think the, the norm for a family is once a month now, isn't it?

Lennon 20:26

It's somewhere between once and twice a month.

Christal 20:28

Wow.

Lennon 20:29

Yeah. For people that consider themselves involved at church.

Christal 20:31

Right, right.

Lennon 20:32

And youth groups are, can be an important part of formation too, don't you think? I mean, for you, wasn't youth group growing up very important to you owning your own faith with Jesus?

Christal 20:44

Yes. For me it really made a difference. Also, we had a youth pastor who really encouraged us to grow and helped us grow in our faith, as well as some friends that I made that I think we encourage one another in our faith because when you do go to school in high school or, or junior high, but mainly in high school, you may not have a lot of friends. There that belief like you do, but having that group of friends at church that do is wonderful to know that you have those people in your corner and you're not the only one who's living for the Lord.

Lennon 21:21

Yeah. So you found Godly friends and with your youth pastor, pastor Wally, who. You've talked about so much over the years. He was another godly adult influence, he and his wife Judy, in your life. And one of the things we value as parents is other adults who love Jesus and will speak, um, life and godly things into the life of our kids.

Christal 21:46

Yeah. As a parent of teens, we start to see how we are not the only, or cannot be the only influence in their lives. They really need other godly influences, adults, um, people that are a little older than them that can lead them and be there for them when they're going through something because. As you know, when we were teenagers, we didn't go to our parents for everything.

Lennon 22:08

No.

Christal 22:08

We needed another godly adult to go to, to talk to, to pray with. So it's really important that our kids do have those people in their lives.

Lennon 22:16

Yeah, so parents are the most important spiritual influence, but if you have a good church and good pastors, you don't have to worry about being the only. Spiritual influence.

Christal 22:26

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 22:27

So like that's the role of kind of the church in the life of helping our kids grow in the faith. But what about at home?

Christal 22:35

first of all, I think we can talk about the Lord with each other. We can open up these times of conversation about God and about scripture and making it normal in our home to talk about these things.

Lennon 22:47

That's a big point. We repeated a lot on this podcast and it can't be underestimated, I think asking our kids to pray.

Christal 22:54

Yeah, that's a good one.

Lennon 22:55

If it's common for you to pray over a meal, sometimes, hand that off. To hand that off to one of your children. Make them ex or give them the experience of calling out to God them themselves. Mm-hmm. If you pray for them at night, ask them if it there's anything they would like to pray for.

Christal 23:13

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 23:13

There were some really special moments when I, whenever our kids were younger that were just like that.

Christal 23:18

Yeah, I remember too. They loved to pray for everybody and everything they could think of in that moment. Such a sweet time, right? Yeah. Do you remember that?

Lennon 23:27

Oh, yeah. Because the longer they prayed, the longer we were in their rooms with them

Christal 23:31

and they didn't have to go to sleep.

Lennon 23:32

Yeah.

Christal 23:33

But yeah, I think starting young is so important and it really does establish their faith in God and that they can talk to God and that it's a normal thing to go to God and pray and to ask him for help.

Lennon 23:46

Yeah. And the biggest deal, mom and dad is just gonna be over time your example. If you'll just be steady, keep loving the Lord, let them catch you. We don't do things for show, but we do do things to be an example. Not gonna, not a negative thing for your kids to see you reading your Bible. In the morning.

Christal 24:05

Yeah. I know for me, even growing up, seeing my family or my, my dad up early praying, reading his Bible, having his Bible open, and my mom as well, that's right there. That example spoke so much to me because for them to rely on God in that way and that it was so important to them to be in the word and to be in prayer. Really made a difference in my life and with such a good example. So I think that is something, just being that example to our kids is a huge thing and living it in front of them.

Lennon 24:37

Yeah, so that's, that's the first area to help our kids grow. One, we wanna help our kids grow up in their faith. And secondly, we want to help our kids grow up in in character, honey, one of the most impactful quotes I've ever heard on raising up young people came from a guy named Tim Elmore has written some great books on influencing the younger generation. But he, he said something one time where giftedness in young people is often mistaken for maturity. And he was talking about the importance of helping young people grow in the type of person they are. Not just into skills they're learning or what they do. And so an important thing for us to remember as parents is that we want to praise character traits and not just giftedness. That if, if we have a beautiful daughter and we have two, beauty is a gift from God, they didn't earn it. Sure. They need to hear me. Tell them, you're so beautiful. That's a good thing to hear from our parents. But beauty for all of us is gonna fade.

Christal 25:42

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 25:42

And so if, if a young woman builds her identity on being beautiful, then she's gonna lose her identity when that beauty fades. And so we want to help them grow up into things that are. Unshakeable and it won't leave like their character. The fruit of the spirit.

Christal 25:59

Yeah, I do think parents can tend to put so much value on performative things, maybe because it's something that they would just really love to see because they were that way too, or, yeah. Yeah. You know, we can really put a lot of emphasis on that. Not develop the person that they're becoming. And so, do you remember anything, um, maybe an example from our kids growing up that maybe that was a, a lesson we got to teach them?

Lennon 26:30

Yeah. Yeah. Well you were talking earlier about not intervening in every conflict, and I remember there was a period of time where, uh, one of our daughters was having a lot of trouble with another girl in the youth group, and it was just kind of this ongoing thing. I happened to be in a part of the church one day where the youth were having a function, and I saw her. You don't wanna use the word enemy, but the other side of this conflict was sitting over on the side by herself, just kind of scrolling her phone on the stairs. And I watched our daughter leave the group of girls where everyone was talking, walk over there to the stairs and say, Hey, would you like to come join us? And to my surprise, uh, the girl nodded and said yes, and she stood up and came over and joined the group. On our way home that night, I was telling my daughter, your daughter too, by the way, our daughter. I was telling our daughter, I know that was hard. That had to be hard. I'm so proud of you for doing that. That was an amazing thing to do, and that's the right thing to do. Good job. So that's, that's character.

Christal 27:38

So really calling out those things when we see something in our kid that comes out that is just wonderful and That we can see their characters developing well and they're doing something that makes us proud. In that way, we should really call it out.

Lennon 27:53

We should. It's kind of some sort of saying what gets praised gets repeated. Mm-hmm. Or what gets rewarded gets done. And there's a little bit of that in the parenting here. If we honor them for who they're becoming, they'll try to become more, they'll be more conscious of trying to become a, a godly type of person. So what's next on our list?

Christal 28:11

So another thing would be to help them grow in responsibility. And parents, this isn't easy, but giving them consequences when they don't follow through. Because really we all contribute to the household. We wanna teach our kids that, Hey, this house, all of us, we're all a part of it and we're all going to be. Taking care of it. And so you're involved in this home, so you contribute as well. And so we start when they're little, we start when they're young with chores, different responsibilities that they can do at those ages. And even though they don't do them perfectly, it helps teach them that, hey, this is your responsibility. And it also helps give them confidence as they grow and they see, oh, that's what I do. My job and I'm good at it. I can get good at it. And they grow in those responsibilities that way too.

Lennon 29:06

And the consequences portion is, as we mentioned, so important to this, if you don't want to end up feeling like you're a nag. Because you expect them to follow through on their responsibilities. So one way that we gained victory over the tendency of the tendency of our kids for a season, for a season, the tendency of our kids to put a dirty plate or bowl in the sink and just walk away. Then whoever had to deal with dishes later had a much harder job because of them not rinsing it off or scraping everything off like they should. I finally just said, listen, if I have to clean up after you, you get to clean up after everyone so that if, if you don't take care of your dish, you automatically become the person who that night does all the dishes and so magically. That worked, and our youngest daughter actually reminded me of that recently. She said, you know, ever since you started doing that thing I have, I have really been locked into taking care of my dishes.

Christal 30:09

Yeah. I think when they're younger, they have more of an enthusiasm sometimes to help and be a part of the house and have a job, but as they get older, it's harder, and so the responsibilities and consequences is really important. I think we've seen. First of all, that, hey, what we say we mean, and we need this job done and it's important. And if you don't do it, here's the consequence. What that does is it will prepare them for their jobs and responsibilities when they grow up. So when they're in a job and they don't get something done that the boss asks them, they're not gonna be shocked that, oh my goodness, I might get like a consequence for this at work in real life. So it is important to help train them for the real world.

Lennon 30:58

It is. I, I love what Dr. Ken Wilkis, who we've had on the program here before, says about this, that, especially whenever you're dealing with teenagers in this type of thing, you are a judge, not a lawyer. Lawyers argue and so your kids argue with you and you argue back with them like a lawyer,

Christal 31:16

right?

Lennon 31:17

Trying to win. But he says the judge is different. A judge just levies the levies, the consequence.

Christal 31:24

Mm-hmm.

Lennon 31:24

We said, this is what we're doing. You didn't do it. Here you go.

Christal 31:28

Yeah, I like that.

Lennon 31:29

And it's done.

Christal 31:30

Yeah. It's such a good way to look at it because it helps you, it keeps you from becoming a parent who you do just be, you just get into an argument with your child about it, and you're kind of on the same level with them about it. That's a very different thing to think of it as a judge, because you're not having to argue. You're not having to make a big deal about this, Hey, that was the deal. This is the. Basically repeating what you said.

Lennon 31:54

I love it though,

Christal 31:55

but I agree.

Lennon 31:56

You said it so good.

Christal 31:57

I think it was so good.

Lennon 31:58

Well, and then the last thing, for instance, we begin to wrap up here, help them grow in autonomy. And what we mean by this is let them have a life. Age appropriate apart from you, where they experience some things without you hovering, without you advising every step and every problem. Don't rob your kids of confidence that they can function in the world by helicoptering over them every moment of every day.

Christal 32:27

Yeah, I was about to say, this is what we call the helicopter parent. Nobody wants to be a helicopter parent these days. It's, it's looked at more of a negative thing than it used to be, but it still can be a tendency for us as parents to get too involved to get to, you know, I'm gonna take care of it for you. But we need as parents to be able to let them try things, let them take risks. You know, we, like we said earlier, we may not be ready for that risk. We have, uh, one of our kids is about to go on their very first mission trip overseas to a third world, world country. And so that's a new thing. And there could. Easily be some fear that comes up and would make us wanna say, you know, maybe they shouldn't go in that because there's all these possible dangers. But honestly, I feel like if we did do that, we would be holding them back. And so giving them that. Freedom of you need to take some risks in life and you need to try things, and some things may not be a hundred percent safe, but it's it's wise still.

Lennon 33:29

Yeah.

Christal 33:29

And we can let them go take those risks and try those things,

Lennon 33:33

right? Yeah, you may say, well, I would never let my kid go on an international trip without me. You have to weigh what you will accept and what you won't for us strong church group, strong oversights, adult involvement, all that kind of stuff. And we are not being fearful, but we're still a little fearful.

Christal 33:51

Still, oh, there's, there's definitely some little, a little bit, little fears that can come up. I mean, the, the fear thing is not gonna go away. As a parent, always, I think we're all gonna struggle with fears. We're gonna do things scared. I mean, we just are, we're gonna do things that we know, Hey, this is a good idea. It's still a little scary.

Lennon 34:10

Yep.

Christal 34:10

And so for them. Really releasing them to the Lord. And I think really all this is a process of continually releasing them to the Lord and trusting that we have a God who can take care of them as well. Yes. And we don't wanna be the type of parents who are ruled by fear. By the way, if you do wanna hear a great episode on fear, we had Dr. Ken Wilas with us and I'll, I'll link that in the show notes, but he did a great. Um, job just talking about fear and parenting, and so maybe go back and listen to that. I feel like it's something I have to listen to over and over. So yeah, we can't be led by fear even if we have some fear. I think that's pretty normal as a parent to have.

Lennon 34:51

It is so friends, that's the encouragement today, help your kids grow up. Your primary job is not to, in the words of Dr. Tim Elmore, again, to prepare the path for them. Your job is to prepare your kid for their path, so you can't make everything perfect. You can't make everything painless. You can't make everything safe. What you can do is do your best to raise a young boy. Into a man and a young girl into a woman.

Christal 35:23

Well friends, don't forget to follow or subscribe, so you never miss an episode. We drop new ones every Tuesday. If today's conversation encouraged you, would you take a minute and share this episode with someone you know it really helps more people find the show and join our community. You can visit home and marriage.com. For more resources like our Six Habits of Happy Couples Course, and if you'd like for us to come speak at your church or event, you can schedule us through our website. You can also follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. All of the links are in the show notes.

Lennon 36:01

Thank you for joining us for the Home and Marriage Podcast. We really do believe that home can be your favorite place. We'll be back again next week with more encouragement and wisdom to help you become better at home and stronger together.

36:13

Okay.