Real Parenting Mistakes And What We Learned About Faith

Parenting can humble you fast, especially when you look back and realize how many moments you handled on autopilot. We’re Troy and Amy, and we get real about the parenting choices we’d change if we could rewind. No glossy “perfect family” story, just honest parenting mistakes, what they cost, and how God’s grace meets us in the chaos when we’re willing to own it.

We talk through the small moments that turn into big memories: a child’s hard question about God after a difficult Bible story, the regret of backing away from Scripture instead of wrestling together, and the patience we wish we’d shown during early learning struggles. We share what it was like navigating dyslexia and ADD, how easy it is to expect schools to fix everything, and why advocacy, encouragement, and strength-based support matter so much for a child’s confidence.

Then we zoom out to the pace of family life. We unpack missed connection from too much screen time, the power of simple routines like family dinners and better questions, and the way youth sports and travel ball can quietly take over finances, weekends, church, and emotional health. We also go into heavier territory: parenting teens with fear, rebuilding trust after overreactions, healthier discipline that explains the “why,” and how we wish we’d handled pornography exposure with calm truth instead of shame or avoidance.

If you’re trying to do Christian parenting with more peace, better communication, and stronger family relationships, we hope this conversation helps you feel less alone and more equipped. Subscribe, share this with a parent friend, and leave a review so more families can find Kingdom Chaos.

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Transcript

Welcome And Quick Requests

Troy 0:07

Welcome to Kingdom Chaos, a podcast for anyone trying to live a purpose and faith-filled life in a loud and messy world. Jesus said his kingdom in another story, yet here we are navigating real life and real struggles. I'm not a guru, just someone learning that God's grace meets us even in the chaos. This is Kingdom Chaos, where faith meets real life, and purpose is still found in the mess. Hey, welcome back to Kingdom Chaos. My name is Troy, and I have Amy with me today, and we are going to talk about parenting. But before we do, if you don't mind, give us a rating. Give us a five-star rating would be great. Also, write us a review, it helps us out a lot. And also follow us on Instagram, my KingdomChaos. Uh, we'd really appreciate it. It's a good way to communicate with us as well. So we're going to jump into parenting and we're going to do something a little different. We're not going to tell you, hey, here's the five steps to be a perfect parent. What we're actually going to do is walk through some of our parenting faux pas. And we don't want to actually really paint the picture of us just being these horrible parents and like we didn't have good times and fun and family time and all that. But we do want to make sure we don't paint a picture of this perfect life either. We want to kind of give you some idea of uh the things that we messed up on, and maybe even some things we would have wanted to do differently. That's what we'll do. We've got some notes here of some stories of what happened with us and our kids, and we'll just kind of walk through that.

Amy 1:40

Hi, it's good to be here again. Thanks for having me.

Troy 1:43

Absolutely. Anytime, babe.

Amy 1:46

Okay, so the first story that popped into my head when you asked me to think about everything we would have done differently is I remember when Ashley was a little girl, and before bed we would read the Bible, her little children's Bible. And when it came to the Abraham sacrificing Isaac story, um, I remember Ashley saying, That wasn't very nice of God. He's not he's not very nice. And so it kind of shocked me, and I didn't want her to think that God wasn't kind. How old was she? She was probably five-ish, maybe four.

Troy 2:26

I mean that that's that's funny to me looking back because we it's not like we were going to church. That were we going to church? I don't think so. Well, we were church.

Amy 2:32

Yeah, we were going to the Catholic church.

Troy 2:34

Okay.

Amy 2:35

Yeah, I remember her saying that, and I didn't, of course, absolutely, I didn't know the Bible. I didn't know why that story was in there like I do now. Um, I just remember not having a good response or a way to explain to Ashley God's character in that moment. I stopped reading the Bible to her at night before bed. Completely. Yeah, we went to different books. Right, yeah.

Troy 3:00

So what what would you have done differently?

Amy 3:02

As parents, I I don't think we need to have all the answers. I think we can be okay with wrestling with that kind of stuff with our kids. So I wish I wouldn't have just withdrawn. I wish I would have stayed in it and maybe learned with Ashley and just kind of done more research and and I wish we would have prayed more. I don't think we were praying at the time. So just praying to God, saying, asking God to explain the story to us and to kind of show us his love and why it was in there.

Troy 3:34

Yeah, I think that's good because I think there's probably people that listen to this that they don't read the Bible because they don't understand it. And so they just maybe they get frustrated or they read apart and it's like, yeah, that doesn't make sense to me. And they just altogether just stop reading it instead of pressing forward. And if they're reading it to their kids, they need to do that. They need to do their own research and study and prayer and connection with God and get to know him more and get to know his character and understand why certain things happened.

Amy 4:00

And yeah, and it's not again, we don't we still don't have all the answers of the Bible, right? But it's okay to tell your kid, I'm not sure, you know, let's pray about it and what and pray together. Or I don't know, that's really a hard story in the Bible. I don't have all the answers and just trust that God has this in here for a reason, right? So it's okay not knowing. Yeah.

Troy 4:25

Um and I think God reveals things to us in certain timings too, right? There's certain things we need to learn before others, and so it it works out. So that's a great Christian story for you to tell as far as like, hey, yeah, we weren't Christian Bibles.

Amy 4:38

I mean, we weren't really like following God at the time.

Patience, Learning Struggles, And Support

Troy 4:40

Yep. So I'm gonna tell you a non-Christian story that we had. So I remember uh again when Ashley was uh young in years, uh, I would say she had just well, I mean, I know she just started school, she hadn't been in a long time because she didn't she was learning her letters, right? Uh and so I remember her having uh real struggles with the letters D and B. I can't remember specifically if it was B she had a trouble with and she was writing D or what, but I It was the lowercase she would get them. Yes, correct. She would just put them opposite, right? And I remember myself just getting so frustrated, like, oh, this is so simple. Why can't you get this? And she's like, you know, four or five or whatever it is. It might have been pre-K. I don't I don't remember. But she was super small and just learning. And man, I remember I just looking back, I'm like, why was I not more patient? Why was I I mean, she had all the other letters just fine. Why was I not more encouraging in that moment with the rest of it and see the positive and stuff instead of just looking at the negative and just just drilling her about it, you know? So um that was one thing I just is ingrained in my memory of I wish I would have done that better.

Amy 5:56

Looking back as we were such young parents, I think we stayed in a lot of frustration. So, for example, I know when TJ was really, really young, he struggled in school, which his birthday is in August, and so he was a very young kindergartner. Um, we ended up starting him at four to see how he would do, and then he ended up repeating kindergarten just because emotionally he wasn't ready. Even TJ, he was ended up getting diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD, and it is so hard to watch your kids struggle with something. You want to protect them, you want to just jump in and try to fix it or protect them from that struggle. And I feel like we should have leaned into those struggles a lot more, especially with TJ. I wish I would have been more encouraging with him because he's super smart, he knows the information. If you could sit there and talk to him about something, he knew the information. It was just getting hit from his head to a piece of paper, is where he struggled. And I think a lot of the and I'm not going to um this isn't on teachers or the public school system just isn't designed for those kinds of students. And so it made him feel, I think, less than at some points because he would have to be taken out of his class, into a special class for things to be read to him. I wish I would have done more research as a parent to see how else I could have supported him and encouraged him and leaned into his strengths.

Troy 7:39

Yeah. You know, we've talked about this before as far as what resources were out there. Like I mean, YouTube and ChatGTPT and all that, you know, like this, all this stuff wasn't as prevalent. I don't remember when YouTube came out, but it wasn't, it definitely wasn't something that was mainstream that we would go to all the time to learn all these things. And uh, but it doesn't mean the information wasn't there, and that's what we should do as parents. And and certainly not putting this all on you. I was definitely a part of that too, right? I mean, like we should have um looked into it more and found out because I do think we we had parent-teacher conferences and um we did expect a lot out of the teachers at that time, and we should have expected more out of ourselves as parents. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, yeah. And along those lines, I remember uh a school project, and I think it was Ashley, Ashley's school project, it could have been TJ's, but I think it was Ashley that she had uh we had found out that she had a school project the night before it was due, and it was like building a house, or I don't remember what it was, but we were building some kind of little model. Um I I just remember staying up really late at night, and the thing I look back on that is this is a similar situation. Why didn't we know? And and not putting it all on the school system to say, oh, well, you should have told us or or actually should have told us we should have dug into their lives more, we should have dug into their school and been more present in that in those moments in what they were doing. And I know we hear from people a lot about how to dig into kids' lives and their and and not asking these uh asking open-ended questions and and making sure it's just not yes and no. And you know, we've heard from our pastor saying, hey, what's your high and what's your low to be able to say what's your high for the day, what's your low for the day, what's going on in your lives, and really be able to dig in and and do that in school too. I mean, they're in school for a good portion of the day, so that's a that's a big portion of their lives that they go through school. So why aren't we, just like me and you, being able to dig into our work lives, that's a big portion of our lives. So why aren't we digging in to our kids' lives and and knowing what's going on, their friends, their schoolwork, their classes, all these different things they're going through.

Slowing Down For Real Connection

Amy 9:55

Yeah, and I think that's important. I think whenever you're especially in the younger, well, all through parenting, you're just it feels like you're in survival mode. And it's easier now that we're not in it, right, to look back and say, man, where did the time go? Where did the days go? Um, we get so caught up in our own self-absorbed life, like work, paying bills, getting groceries, cooking, bathing, going to bed, doing it again. Like you're just in that rut. And I wish we would have slowed down more our house at the time. We had a kids' living room and an adult living room. Most of our suppers were in front of the TVs, watching our own thing. And I really wish we would have had more family dinners at the kitchen table, no electronics, no, I mean, we didn't have food. We didn't have all, yeah, it wasn't the same. You had your blackberry, but we still had a lot of people. But we had TVs, yeah. And so I wish we would, like you said, I wish we would have slowed down in those moments and had more meaningful conversations. Ask the kids what's going on in their lives, share kind of not they don't need all the details of work stuff and finances, but I wish we would have talked to them about money more, how to handle it, yeah, and gotten their opinion, made them feel like they're a part of the family. Right. Yeah, and contributing.

Troy 11:15

And to be able to teach them that stuff because I know that we've talked about the school system, and why didn't the school system teaching our kids more about real life? Well, why aren't we doing that? Like that that's that's one thing I think we fell short on. I mean, I think we've been short on a few things, but but that's one thing I think we fell short on. We miss opportunities, yeah, and it's not like we never taught them anything or it wasn't good at times or whatever, we didn't sp have family time, but I think there was a lot of opportunities. Yeah, a lot of opportunities missed. Yeah, yeah.

Amy 11:45

Yeah, so I mean, we did, we took some family vacations, but I wish we would have done more. You know, looking back, you're always like, Man, I wish we would have done more.

Troy 11:56

Right.

Amy 11:56

We did take some really great family vacations, but a lot of our time was spent on Ashley's travel bar. Yes, we love the people that we did that with. We had great relationships. I think that took a lot from TJ.

Troy 12:13

He was a lot from our family.

Amy 12:15

He took a lot, it took a lot from everyone. It took a lot from birthday parties, yeah, family holidays.

Troy 12:21

Took a lot from Ashley and she was in it.

Amy 12:23

Yeah, you know, yeah. Ashley couldn't go to some friends' birthday parties because she would have a tournament. Um, we never went to church because of tournament ball. And I mean, not because I mean we weren't in church, but right, that was our excuse at the time, right? Everybody has an excuse. And so if I would go back, I would not have let Ashley do travel ball. Right.

Troy 12:45

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that it, I mean, she was in it from when she was pretty much eight or nine until she stopped at about 16-ish. And it was year-round, never stopped. We had, I think, August off. August was tryouts, and then we had, I think a little bit in December, January-ish for the holidays, right? But there wasn't much time. It was year-round, and we would travel a lot of tournaments. We're in Texas, but still traveling within Texas. But we went to Louisiana, Florida, Colorado. So it took up a lot of our our vacation time because our vacation time. Yeah, our finances, it took a lot. I don't even know. I Ashley loved the girls, and and she did love the sport, but I don't know if she loved it to the point where that's what she wanted to do.

Amy 13:33

Yeah, I think now talking to Ashley about it, and again, this goes back to talking to your kids and having those meaningful relationships in the moment, is because now when I talk to Ashley, um, she didn't want to disappoint us or the coaches. I think she did it more as a people-pleasing type of situation, and it caused her a lot of stress and anxiety, and I didn't see it at the time. And that just is heartbreaking.

Troy 13:59

And I think I think if we would have known more and and dug in more, and we would have said, you know, Ashley, we'll let you play in league ball, but we're not doing travel ball anymore, she would have been fine with that.

Amy 14:10

Yeah, she would have been fine with it. League ball's great, right? I love sports, don't get me wrong. Me and Troy was raised playing sports. I love sports. You can learn so many life lessons from sports. Yes, it makes it build your character.

Troy 14:25

I just love sports. You work with teammates, like you learn a lot. You learn winning and losing, you learn a lot.

Amy 14:30

Yeah, you but you don't have to do travel ball, you don't have to take it's not a serious, it's not serious. You're not going to make a living off of it.

Troy 14:39

No, especially if you're talking about something like softball, and even if you're talking about baseball and football, where there's professional sports that you can get into, it's less than one percent of the people that are gonna do that. And even if you're talking about college, we learned that we spent more on travel ball than we would have paying Ashley's College.

Amy 14:53

I wish we would have just put that money towards a college fund.

Troy 14:55

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Amy 14:56

So and then with TJ, he played, they both played soccer, he played baseball, he played football. Football got pretty serious for him, and he did that for a good portion. And then but he played sports to have fun.

Troy 15:11

Yeah, it was for the fun of it, yeah.

Amy 15:14

I love that about him is that he truly played it just to have fun. Um, he could have he didn't like he loved winning, don't get me wrong, he loved winning. Um, I remember he was on a baseball team and the coach was not real good, and the kids kind of just went out there and just completely embarrassed embarrassed themselves. And he didn't like that. He liked structure. And so learning that about him with his ADD, right? ADD kids, they need structure, they need organization, and so he thrived in football because football gave him more of that structured environment. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So there are great things about sports, but when it starts consuming two, three nights a week, every single weekend, it's too much. Yeah, it is too much.

Troy 16:04

Yeah, I remember talking about TJ uh and and doing things for the fun of it, just loving life, laid back. Uh, I remember one of his friends came over to play video games, and they were playing this video game, and his friend was playing to win. And I can't, they might even they were on the same team. Yeah, and um TJ was just messing him up the whole time on on the game, you know, and just having fun, laughing, and this kid was getting so mad because he wanted to win, and TJ just wanted to have fun, and that's what that's what this is TJ, just you know, living life and enjoying it.

Amy 16:37

Yeah, we could all learn a lot from TJ.

Making Church A Family Standard

Troy 16:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So moving back into the the the spiritual faith realm, uh, I wish we would have I obviously I wish we would have taken church more serious. I wish we would have found Jesus at an earlier age and introduced our kids to Jesus at an earlier age and and been more consistent in that and all that. But also, once we did, I wish it would have been more of a this is what we do as a family, period. End of story. There is no, well, I want my kid to make their own decision. I don't want to force it on them. I don't I don't want to do this. Here's my advice to anybody out there that thinks that they're letting their kids make the own their their own choice. Somebody's forcing something on them. If they're around friends, their friends are influencing them in some way. If they're at school, their teachers are influencing them in some way. They are getting influenced. Do you want them to be influenced by someone else or by you? So for me, I wish we would have said, okay, once we started going to church, this is what we do. This is important. We don't miss church. You don't have a choice to go because this is important, this is why. And and that would give the opportunity to tell them about God, about Jesus, and why we don't miss church.

Amy 17:55

And about just having values, having a standard, having expectations, right? I think that's really important. I wish we would have I know we knew Ashley's friends really well because they were mostly softball players, so we spent a lot of time with them. I wish we would have spent more time getting to know TJ's friends. Um, we knew a couple of them and a few of them would come over to the house, but he went over to friends' house a lot. And I think he was exposed to a lot of things that were not good. And so I wish we would have we were so busy in travel softball that we thought TJ going to hang out with friends would be a good outlet for him because he was the younger brother who lived at the softball fields, and that wasn't, I mean, of course, he loved the concession stand and playing with all the brothers, but it got boring after a while. So I wish we would have I know it would have separated me and you, right? Because we were always at the ball field, but I wish, I don't know, I wish we would have focused more on TJ and his friends and what was going on in his life.

Troy 19:05

Yeah. And encouraging you more. I mean, uh from my standpoint, like from or my perspective, I should say, uh, I remember uh there was a time where TJ wanted to be a game designer and he wanted to design worlds and all these different places for people to game in. And I remember being so discouraging in that moment because I was like, yeah, so it's everybody wants to just play games for a living and not have to, you know, really do work and this and that. And I wish I would have been why why not him? Somebody does it. Why can't why can't he do it? Like what what why? And he's got that creative mind, and he like you said before, he's extremely smart. Why why not him? You know, and so yeah, I wish I would have been more encouraging and for both kids, honestly, and even Ashley, whenever uh I I think I was encouraging Ashley and maybe in the wrong ways because I was trying to motivate her a lot in softball, and and I wish I would just encourage her in life. And uh, you know, I I yelled at her a lot because I was as her coach and and all these things. So for both kids, I wish uh I you know I just would have been more encouraging in their lives.

Fear, Trust, And Repairing Conflict

Amy 20:18

Yeah, me too. So Ashley was about 17 and she had asked if she could go to this duck dance club. It's called Johnny B. Dalton's, and I had said no, because a week earlier um a group of kids had gone to Johnny B. Dalton's and on the way home, they got in a car accident and passed away. So I told her, no, it's just too soon, not a good time, I don't want you going. And so then she was like, Okay, well, I'm gonna go spend the night at Cody's. And so um it was one of her little softball friends, and so she went over and I was like, Okay, that's fine. And so she went over there, and around 10 o'clock at night, I tracked her and she was at Johnny B. Dawn's. Now, if you talk to Ashley, the situation happened a little bit different. Um, she says that she told me that she was going to Johnny B. Dawn's and I was okay with it. I do not remember that part of the conversation. And so, um, but regardless of what the conversation was, the fear in me, it just man, I just got so mad. And I remember to wake you, I don't remember if you were asleep yet, and I was like, we have to go get Ashley. I remember calling Ashley, texting her, saying, I'm on my way to come get you. I don't want you at Johnny B. Daunton's. I'm coming to pick you up. And I remember she was so embarrassed. We got to Johnny B. Daunton's. I got her, I brought her straight home. I remember just being so mad and not even mad, I was more scared. I was the fear. Fear of what could have happened just because of the previous um situation that had just happened, I just let fear dictate everything about me. I didn't, I mean, I had all the trust in the world of Ashley. She never lied, she never did anything without permission. And I feel like the way I reacted, it broke all it broke so much trust between us for a little while. Um and I just wish I would have calmed down and just kind of talked to Ashley and not overreacted so much.

Troy 22:41

I just I I don't remember uh, you know, details. I I don't remember a ton about it. I I remember the big picture of of the event. I do remember just lighting her up when we got home. I I remember just laying into her and her crying, and I do wish we would have taken our emotions down uh you know several notches in that and I I do remember apologizing to her um and that helping a lot in that to be able to apologize to your kid because you're you're the parent and you're supposed to be the authority and you're supposed to know all. And I mean into a in a kid's eyes, a lot of times until they get to teenage years, I guess you you they think you know, they think you know, right? And they think you you are the authority, and so you uh sometimes they might place you on this pedestal that you're you're up there, and to say I'm sorry or apologize to a kid for them, I think is huge. To admit that you are wrong, that you're not perfect, and I think that was a I think that was big um for us to do in that moment, and it helped a lot um in the healing of that. I mean, was she wrong? She was wrong in what she did, but the way we reacted was a drastic overreaction on our part in the way we handled the situation, and and also leading into just the way we handled TJ and Ashley in general throughout their years, I wish we would have because we were yanking spank parents, like you know, like you know, you messed up, we would you know knock you up a little bit. No I mean spank you, you know what I'm saying? Like we would we would give spankins, right? And um, I wish we would have been kind of met in the middle of having the conversation and and spanking, right?

Amy 24:30

Explaining why.

Troy 24:31

Explaining why, because it was just uh you did something like that.

Amy 24:33

It's not just because I say so. There's a reason behind it. Yes. So taking the time to explain that to the kid, right?

Troy 24:39

Yeah, yeah. And I so too often we would yank them, spank them, and and don't do that again. And well, what'd I do wrong? Why? What was the you know, and to be able to, like you said, explain the situation and why we don't want you to do that. Yeah and to be able to sit and talk to them and have a conversation. Uh this isn't, hey, I'm gonna treat them as an adult and they're six or seven, but it does mean to give them information so it helps them for the next time not to do something.

Amy 25:07

Yeah, you know, and it gives them a perspective, right? We have a perspective as a parent, they have a perspective as a child. So if they're getting pressure from their friends about something, being able to talk to them, you know, I really don't want you going over there because the parents are drinking or whatever, you know, explaining like I don't want you to put put yourself in that environment because things can happen. Or talking to the kid, okay, if you go over to that friend's house and you get in a situation, text me a safe word or something, right? If you know you need to get out of a certain situation, text me a safe word, I'll play the bad guy, I'll call you and say, you know what, you didn't do your dishes before you left, I'm coming to pick you up, right? So having something to where um your child knows the expectations, understands the why behind it, and then having an outlet to be able to remove themselves from a situation, right? So it's all about having those conversations, building that trust and that understanding between child and parent. And then if your child makes the right decision and uses the safe word to come home to remove themselves, encourage them and praise them about that. Yeah. Now if they get into a situation and they don't, then taking the emotions down and just talking through, okay, let's talk about this could have ended up really, really bad, or let's learn on what we could do different about that. And just having that because as adults, when they get into college and adulthood, learning how to slow down and make a wise decision and not so emotional based is so important, and we don't teach that a lot. Yeah, we didn't.

Troy 26:54

Yeah. All right. So we're getting pretty lengthy in this podcast. We have one more that we're gonna talk about. So what's our last situation?

The Porn Talk We Mishandled

Amy 27:03

So this is a big one too. This was TJ, he was probably in middle school, and I remember um he got caught on his phone watching pornography. And so I remember just the mom and me. I just flipped out. I this was my baby boy. I did not want him seeing that, and the way I reacted, again, I reacted, I just I remember I saw it on his, he had fallen asleep, and his phone was still on, and I went to go check on him, and I saw it on his phone. I woke him up screaming, crying, like it was ridiculous. Like, and I remember I was wanting to protect him, I didn't want him seeing that kind of stuff. Of course, poor TJ, he felt shame, he felt embarrassed, he felt he was the only, you know, he felt alone. He felt like he was the only one that had ever done this. Um, it's very normal, right, for that age to be curious, but I wish again we would have slowed down. And I remember telling you, Troy, you're guy, you go deal with it. I did not agree with the way you dealt with it. Um, but I wish again we would have slowed down, talked to TJ what's so devastating about pornography, um, that he's not different, that it's you know, yes, we don't want him watching that and being exposed to that, but going back to having value in a marriage covenant, understanding that sex is a good thing, but not in that manner, right? And just just talking to him. Um, I wish we would have explained so much to him.

Troy 28:47

Yeah, and I I took the opposite route. Um, I I said, hey, just just don't let your mom and sister see this because honestly, I just didn't want to deal with it. I mean, I I didn't want to deal with that, and it wasn't right. Uh, you know, uh again, we should have explained to him what the dangers are and how that can really be destructive to to him, his mind, and what he thinks sex is going into a relationship, and it it just wasn't good. And yeah, so you you did the explosive thing, and I just did the sweep it under the rug thing, and we we we handled it two different ways and two wrong ways. We should have met in the middle and been able to have a conversation with him.

Amy 29:31

And just like you said before, I wish we would said sorry more, asked for forgiveness more from our kids. We messed up a lot, and I just wish that we would have been more open with them and explaining, you know, we're doing the best we can, we're doing what we think is right in the moment, and sometimes we get it wrong. Okay.

Troy 29:55

I remember Ashley as an adult parent, she uh came to I think she came to you and said, after she had a couple of kids now, two two or three kids is when she has four now, but she had two or three, you know, at the time, and she said, So, mom, you guys really didn't know what you were doing.

Amy 30:12

No, no, we had no idea.

Never Too Late To Apologize

Troy 30:16

Nothing can prepare you. I had somebody ask me the question just a few days ago, young kid just got married, 20 something years old, and said, So tell me, and and they're not really um trying to have kids yet, but in preparation, he said, Hey, just tell me some advice on what should I be doing to prepare for a kid. I was like, There's nothing. There's nothing I can tell you to prepare to be a parent. It is one of the hardest and most rewarding things you could it's so hard to explain, and you cannot prepare for it. I can tell you things to do once you are a parent, like we're doing now, things not to do and things to do, but preparing, you just can't prepare for it, and you're you'll never be ready. Don't I mean you can't wait for, oh, I'll have kids when I'm ready, you won't be ready. You won't be ready. So, yeah. So I closing this out, I do want to reiterate we had some great times as a family, but what we didn't want to do with this episode is just paint this picture of oh, we had a perfect life, we had everything's great. We want you to know, just like we should have told our kids, you're not alone. You're not the only one going through difficult times, you're not the only parents that are struggling and screw up and make the wrong decisions. And uh a lot of us have and do and will. And so hopefully this podcast helped you a little bit on your struggles. Any final words you have for anybody?

Amy 31:38

And I would just say it's never too late. I think even now that our kids are older um and have their own kids in lives, it's always good to sit them down and say, look, I am so sorry. Like I wish I would have done things different. I wish um we would have spent more time talking to you guys. And um, because together and just having that open conversation, you can break the generational curses, right? Um, you don't have to be stuck in I know you don't like the word regret, right? Um, because I think we go through certain situations for a reason, but we can help our kids as much as possible, maybe not make some of the same mistakes that we made. They're gonna make mistakes. There's not a perfect parent out there. That's why we have Jesus to guide us. He is the perfect father, and so I would just say have fun with your kids, talk to your kids, slow life down, slow life down because when they're older, um it's different. And you're gonna look back and you're always gonna wish you could do some things different, but um, you know, just having those open conversations is super important.

Troy 32:54

Yeah, I think that's that that's good to be able to ask for forgiveness and just be able to communicate. So important to be able to talk to your kids and um so they know that everybody's human. They're gonna you you're gonna make mistakes. It's okay. They're gonna make mistakes, it's okay for them to to know what real life is.

Amy 33:12

Yeah, and even as they're adults, as they're making their decisions, if you don't agree with them, even as an adult, just be quiet and just support them, love them, support them. Having those conversations, they know how you feel and they know what you what your opinion is. But no matter what, we love them and we will support them and guide them as much as we can.

Troy 33:35

That's what I mean. That's what God shows us, right? He's the perfect father and he loves us no matter what. Even when we do things that we shouldn't be doing, even when we sin, he still loves us. He doesn't want us to sin, he hates sin, doesn't like it, he can't be around it, but he loves us. Yeah, right? And loves us. Let's let's pray. Uh Lord, I just thank you so much for um gosh, there's so many things to be grateful for. I just I just thank you for Amy. I thank you for uh just being able to be open and honest about you know our past and our uh our our high points, but also our low points too. I pray that this helps people. I pray people that people that are listening that are parents can start to open up to their kids and uh start to really uh share um age-appropriate life experiences and what's going on, be able to teach them what uh just how to resolve conflict, what about finances, about life, about uh right and wrong, about Jesus, uh just uh different things, but just open up and communicate and dig into their lives and be a part of it and uh just pray for parents out there. I know it's a struggle, I know it's difficult, I know there's a lot of influence out there with phones and social media and school and uh so many things going on, but I just uh I pray for protection over all the parents, uh over the kids, just to be able to have someone in their life that show them who you are, uh, to go to church and build up a church community, God. I just pray uh for your kingdom to grow through uh godly dads that are leading their uh their family to you, and uh godly wives that are being uh the partners that you created them to be to guide their men when they stray and for them to be partners in parenting. So I just thank you so much for what you're doing. Jesus' name we pray. Amen.