Becoming a Nurturant Parent with Dr. Chris Hanson

Every parent wants to do a great job. Dr. Chris Hanson offers practical guidance on how this is done in this episode with the vital skill of Nurturant Parenting. 

Chris is a pediatrician and theologian who is showing parents how to balance authority and engagement. That is the essence of being a Nurturant Parent who offers wise direction and loving connection. The idea is founded on evidence-based psychology and love-centered theology. 

In the session Chris also shares his spiritual journey which led him to embrace a love-centered perspective on God, the ultimate nurturant parent for us all. His vision of parenting is based in the truth of God as loving, responsive, and co-creative.

Chris gives clear guidance on applying these ideas for parenting preschoolers, teens, and young adults. He has special insight into the challenge of parenting the Pandemic Generation whom he feels are still recovering from that traumatic interruption to normal life. 

These ideas will help any parent see the importance of balancing warm, supportive engagement with wise direction. Listeners will also be encouraged to ask serious questions about faith and church life to promote maximum spiritual development.  

Read for more information 

Open and Relational Parenting: Loving Parents Reflecting a Loving God. SacraSage Press, 2025

https://openrelationalparenting.substack.com/

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Tracks for the Journey in this very special episode with Dr. Chris Hansen. I think you're going to enjoy meeting Chris and talking about this work that he's produced and kind of the dual track of his life as a pediatrician and also digging into the theological background that so influences the way we look at the world. So, Chris, thank you for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Thank you for having me, Larry. I'm really excited to be here and really good for us to talk today. I'm I'm going to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

We were talking earlier about you getting an early run in today, so you ought to be all refreshed and invigorated for the interview today. For the folks who haven't contacted you through a book or a website, uh let me ask you to just share a bit of your background, your spiritual and professional journey and how it impacted this work that you've got.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah, sure. Thanks. Um so yeah, I'm a pediatrician. I live here in Memphis, Tennessee, and pretty much lived here most all of my life. Um I I started practice in 1997, so we're getting close to 30 years of practice. And wow. Yeah, that's an amazing career then. I really enjoy what I do. I really enjoy interacting with with parents and with kids and and just every work day is it's really invigorating. I um from a religious spiritual standpoint, I kind of grew up in a in a conservative fundamentalist uh kind of tradition. And I guess as one does, a couple of times through my life I've had big times that I ask big questions. Uh one of those for me was kind of in the early 2000s, and and then another one came about eight years ago, and it's then that I really started asking big questions about God and started to realize that that there were ways of looking at God that were maybe different than all of the ways I had seen God so far up to that point in my life. Wow. And during that process, I got to learn about open and relational theology. And as I did, I started to realize that this way of viewing God helped me align good parenting approaches better with a consistent theological approach.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

So I'll say that and then I'll back up just a little bit. So back early in my career in the late 90s, and when when our kids were quite little, we have two daughters who are now 31 and 27. They might or might not want me to share their numbers online. They wouldn't mind at all. Um when they were young, uh, the church we were attending decided to have a parenting seminar weekend. Okay. Very good. Trying to meet the needs of the people. They were trying to do that. And I saw some of the literature that came out that was kind of promoting that weekend and so forth. And I realized, wow, uh, this approach uh from a Christian parenting advice standpoint really doesn't align with really what pediatrics and psych child psychology was telling us were the best practices uh for parenting. So uh so there was a little bit of a conflict there. And and through much of my career, I just realized that was kind of a dichotomy. It was kind of uh just kind of lived with that, those two things not necessarily matching up. Then kind of fast forward to when I mentioned I kind of learned more about open and relational theology and started learning about that idea of seeing God as responsive to us and guiding us. And I realized, wow, this way of looking at God does align with a good parenting approach. And and I thought there was some work to be done there. So so that that led to me uh meeting Tom Ord and eventually contacting him and joining uh his doctoral program. And um, from from day one, the plan was to to work on this idea of uh God as a loving parent and God as love and thinking of ways that our parenting experience uh affects our view of God, and vice versa, how our view of God affects our parenting experience.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Okay. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

So that's what led to my interest in the area, and then eventually to the the book project that uh that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

That is an amazing story and a paradigm-shifting view to connect these two things. I want to go back just to connect. I think my listenership might be especially interested in the what we might call that deconstruction process that you mentioned of how you began to ask those big questions and wrestle with them. Could you tell a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Yeah, so um, so I I'll refer more to the to the more recent one, maybe a little over eight years ago. Um we uh Linda and I faced the the point in life where your youngest moves off to college and and we moved physically in our city and it took us kind of far away from our previous church community, and we took that as an opportunity to say, hey, let's just kind of explore a lot of the the areas of the groups of faith that are meeting around our new area of town, which is is actually in downtown Memphis. And so we spent a summer doing that, and and it it led us to our current congregation, which uh interestingly was really a place where asking questions uh is very much encouraged. And and so I started asking questions. And at that time, this was probably 2018, maybe early 2019, and our congregation was having different lecture lecturers come in. They there was a little lecture series that we called the rabbit hole lectures at the time. And and they invited a guy named Pete Enns in, and the the the title kind of said, uh I think it went based on one of his his books, it said how to read the Bible for what it's actually worth. I think um I may be paraphrasing that slightly. But anyway, so I didn't know anything about Pete, but we showed up to listen, and um I thought I was going to hear somebody that was going to talk about like some program of reading the Bible through in a year or something like that. And I found a very different uh person and a very different uh topic than I was expecting. So so that experience really started to open my eyes to kind of a world of podcasts and books and uh ideas that that kind of led to a lot of that deconstruction, but then then thankfully a lot of kind of rebuilding and reconstruction, or or as as uh Richard Rohr would say, that that reorder uh that that kind of follows. Um so then, as you know, sortly shortly after that, the pandemic came and the world shut down, and uh we all needed something to do. So that gave me a lot to read and and listen to and hear and and think about through through all of that time.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

I think that is an amazing story, and I really appreciate you talking about the fact that you were able to reorder and reconstruct. And I think that this can really be a vital thing to say to folks who are listening who are going through a great sense of struggle and they're reaching, they're they're searching, finding. I think today there seems to be a very powerful community that is offering some ways that puts faith together with the modern world and personal growth that are completely, well, I'm gonna say completely, largely different than past answers were given.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Yes, I think I think that's true. And and it is true that sometimes people can kind of get stuck in that that disorder and and they kind of feel like they want to move to that reorder phase, but but maybe don't know exactly what to do. Um and I think you're right. I think a lot of it has to do with with community, and I think a lot of it has to do with finding some of those communities, whether it's local or now so much online or with folks like like yourself uh and and other other ways that we can interact with whether it's whether it's through podcast communities or whether it's through uh Substack communities, or uh as you know, a lot of times those those communities now lead to uh different conferences and get togethers that where we can actually be together face to face and share ideas. And that that's really helpful for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

And you were able to find a local congregation uh that I think must facilitate and help and be that kind of environment. I can identify with that here in Lubbock as a part of Second Baptist Church, who uh has been a uh pace setter church for a long time about social issues and now inclusive issues. And one of the mantras we operate is just what you said. There's a freedom to ask questions and a freedom to discuss these things without just getting pat answers easily given.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Right. And and some, you know, it's it's it's our life circumstance, whether it's uh it's relationships that we've run into or hardships that we've run into, uh, those kind of things that sometimes push those questions too and and make us realize that maybe some of the, as you say, pat answers we've been given before don't necessarily hold up in those in those tough moments.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Exactly. And some of the big things that we have to do, like parenting, we need some answers. Uh my wife and I have four children who are all grown now, and eight grandchildren. So we've we have a sense of what's going on, even today, about parenting. Uh so I want to open or hold up the book for folks to see, and uh we'll put it in the show notes, of course. But you've really done a powerful work, Chris, that, as I said, brings these two things together in ways that many people haven't haven't thought about. Um I kind of pulled out what I thought might be more or less the thesis of the book, in which you say, I will argue that open and relational theology principles create a view of God as a loving, nurturant parent and are consistent with a nurturant parenting model. So the connection of that theology to what goes on in the home or in the car or at school or whatever it may be is a powerful one. Um was this thesis a challenge for you to develop or or had it been circulating? Uh tell us how you got to that very powerful central idea.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I think I think certainly it had been circulating. And um because uh when I started working with with Tom Ord, because he knew where we wanted to go, I think he he started throwing some resources my direction just to kind of see um I think to kind of see what would hit and what would what would stick to the wall, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

It's for our listeners, Tom Ord being a uh fantastic theologian and writer and leader in what we call open interrelational theology. So just to interrupt, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yes, no, thank thank you for that context. That's helpful. Uh one of the books that he that he pointed me toward was uh John Sanders' book uh on prodigals. And I don't know if you've read that before. I'm not familiar with that one. Oh, okay. Uh Embracing Prodigals is is the name of his book. Okay. And he in that book, he kind of starts with, or his book is all about the prodigal son story. But he really takes the idea that the way we view God affects many aspects of our life. And in that book, he kind of takes uh Diana Baumrine's ideas about parenting, which were developed in the 1960s, late 1960s, and really uh continued to dominate a lot of the parenting world and research. He takes her ideas and kind of starts to map out a view of God based on those uh those categories of parenting styles. And I kind of latched onto that and found that it really was was very helpful. Um she originally defined uh four parenting styles that she called authoritarian. Uh unfortunately, she called the second one authoritative. Um we'll come back to why I think nurturant is a better term for that uh in a minute. Um, and then the absent parent and then the permissive parent. And there are aspects of um responsiveness and aspects of uh directiveness or demandingness that that each one of those has that kind of kind of define them. Uh that idea of sh her term authoritative is very confusing, both in the in the academic literature and certainly in trying to talk to parents when you've got a term authoritarian and authoritative. So um so John Sanders proposed the idea of nurturant for that category, and I really think that that is is appropriate. Um so that's what I'm meaning in that kind of thesis statement when I talk about a nurturant parent.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Okay. Let's let's explore that just for a moment since you've brought it up. Um this idea of a nurturant parent. Could you flesh that out a little bit for us?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yeah, I kind of hinted at a couple key qualities that kind of define each one of those types of parenting styles. So one has to do with with responsiveness. So when we talk about responsiveness, really there's maybe two aspects, and I think this res this applies to parents and and nurturing parents, and it applies to God as well, in that the first point of responsiveness is to see what a child has done or what they're experiencing, to try to understand it and and maybe to sit with them in that moment. Uh that could be a a young child who's having having a temper tantrum, and the goal of the parent may be really to say, okay, why did this happen? And now that I understand why it happened a little bit, let me just come down and give you a hug and say, wow, I know that was really hard. Let's just sit here together for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Okay, so there's an interaction of responsiveness.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

First of all. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

And then that immediately leads into the second part of responsiveness, which is so, okay, given where we are, what has happened, what your situation is, what can we do that moves us forward? So what are our options for the next moment, for the next few moments for the future? And that leads into the other aspect of parenting that is so important. And that is the I call it aspirational aspect of parenting. It's it's that idea that there are some possibilities of things that we can do next, and that we want to guide and empower our children toward those possibilities. So that leads into the next moment, and that's that directorship or empowerment or guidance. And and God experience uh God displays uh both of those qualities uh in God's interaction with us. And and then my idea is that that's what parents can do as well when we uh reflect that kind of love that God is and that God uh demonstrates to us, to our children.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

So two aspects to be responsive, interactive, and then to move, well, perhaps you know, thinking chronologically, uh to move into a more directive or option-giving possibilities that empowers the child, recognize the child has power and agency, and then allow that to perhaps be expressed, or at least guidance toward that, depending on the age.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Absolutely. Yeah. You you talked about the word power, and I think that's that's um that's really an interesting one. There was uh a philosopher Bernard Loomer, and also about the the 1960s, who wrote a pretty key essay on two conceptions of power. That was the title of his essay. And he talked about the more traditional view of power, which is linear power, the idea that that for me to experience power, I need to have power over somebody else. And and so it becomes kind of a zero-sum game. For for me to increase my power, I almost have I have to decrease somebody else's power, and I need to uh kind of will my way over them. And then in contrast to that, he proposed a different model, which is relational power, which says that the goal is actually building the relationship, and it's if I'm in a position of um of perhaps power or ability to do something that that maybe you need to learn to do, then I want to empower you to do it, which doesn't diminish my ability to do it at all, but it increases our net power, and then as a side effect or maybe as the key effect, that increases the relationship between us. So empowerment is a move for the overall to become better, not for one to become better at another's expense.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Wow, what an insight. And uh the uh even today's world in many aspects is uh seeing the difference in those two understandings of power playing out in ways that we can hardly imagine uh a few years ago. Um Wow, but to think that you were able to take these psychological concepts and move into a perspective on God and how God works with us uh that I think is unique and uh so appreciative. And some of our my listeners are going to be saying, Well, isn't isn't God so far removed? I don't feel like God pays attention to me at all uh or responds to me. And this paradigm shift that is so deeply rooted in the Bible about God being relational and responsive, uh I think is something that can really transform a person's life.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yeah, I think that I think that's exactly right. You know, sometimes w we we think about God as, like you said, so distant and removed, but then when we read the biblical stories, we find that God is actually, like you said, very responsive. Um story after story, God did something, then God saw what people did, and then God did something in response to that. And and we just see that play out over and over again. Somehow through our Christian history, uh we we kind of disconnected those two things, and we got this idea of God being this distant, unmoved mover that must be this far away entity that that kind of controls things a little bit and uh and then judges us when we don't do the right thing, and and all of all of those concepts, um, but we lost that that closeness and that relational connection. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yeah. And one of the things that Tom Ord uh mentions so powerfully is about the love connection that is essential for the nature of God. Um this is a powerful part of it too. And and I noticed in your book um there is uh a deep connection to the love aspect of parenting. And maybe you could speak a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah, absolutely. So uh one one of the criticisms that that has kind of come from uh from a couple people about my book is is the the subtitle, because I I use the idea of a loving parents reflecting a loving God. And I do think God is a loving God. I also think, and this was the criticism that I that I didn't push this this point hard enough, I also think that God is love, that that is a definitional thing about God. You know, there's those two definitional things about God in the Bible. God is love and God is spirit. And and so I I think that that's really key. But I think not only is God love, but God is loving and God demonstrates that love. In the book, I use um from Hebrew scripture the idea of chesed and um and talk a little bit about uh that view of God, which is I think so um so helpful to me, that this chesed is like this idea that there is somebody who is in a position to help someone who's in need. Sometimes this is used uh in scripture to talk about God and uh ancient Israel. Uh sometimes it's used actually to talk about different people, um, so one who's in a position to help another individual. And uh so it involves several aspects. First, recognizing that the person in need is actually in need. Secondly, kind of an empathy response to that individual's plight. Then a mode of or moving to a mode of actually helping the other individual. And then through that help and aid, a relationship forms that sometimes is defined as that covenantal love. We use that that sometimes that word is kind of translated to talk about covenantal love. But one of my favorite translations is that it's loving kindness. It's that person who's in the abil in a position to help someone else recognizes that they need help and through loving kindness gives them help and that creates an ongoing relationship. So that's just a beautiful beautiful one one way of looking at, I think, divine love from Hebrew scripture.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

That's a great perspective and goes so deeply into the biblical theology. They're show ways of living. And so let's pivot just a little bit into this parenting action. And you describe parents doing some things that are maybe different than an authoritative theology would have. So in a practical way, how would a parent who is open and relational in their understanding interact with a child? You gave one little picture, but but let's dig a little bit more and give some practical handles to a parent.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yeah, I think I think if you start with those like 10,000-foot ideas, the responsiveness and and guidance and empowerment, and hang on to those, then they they work in so many different situations. Um it works in the I we used the example of a of a perhaps a toddler with a temper tantrum. Um it it this a similar thing works with a teenager uh who um who perhaps um gets in a relationship with a with a new friend that the parents maybe are kind of not really sure about and not not really not really feeling good about. How could that ever happen? Right, exactly. Um so uh an authoritarian approach might be to kind of try to lock down that teenager and say, oh, I you can't have this friend. And uh any of us that have had teenagers in our house uh know that that that's probably not going to be the most successful uh approach. You can it certainly control behavior for a certain amount of time, but but maybe not even for very long. But uh a nurturant parent may want to kind of recognize, hey, what what is my child missing that they see in this relationship and why is that really important to them? Perhaps this new friend is really accepting in a way that some of their other friends haven't been. And then that may lead to uh to an empowering dialogue to say, hey, I I see this relationship, I see why it may be really helpful to you and attractive to you, but I also see maybe some some danger signs. So can we talk about like maybe ways that you could explore that friendship, but we can still put some some healthy guardrails around it? Like um, like you could go hang out with that person, but maybe not when their older brother is driving the car. Maybe that's a safety line that that we need to draw. So so just uh another quick example there. But as long as you look to respond to uh understand where your child is, respond to that, and then think how can how can we go forward together, I I think that's that's really the key.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

That's so essential. And uh a challenge as a child grows. Obviously, from the very beginning, the parent is completely in power.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

And yet by the time that high school graduation comes, the parent may feel that they have lost their power or having to surrender things. And that can be a really challenging thing for a parent, can it?

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Yeah, it really can. And I, you know, I think that's a journey really through all of the teen years, and uh, and I talk to patients about this pretty often. And uh I'll use the uh the example of of Spider-Man. Uh you remember you remember Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, if I'm getting the character's name right. Um when when Peter was uh was uh uh given these special powers through this spider bite, Uncle Ben gave him the advice of with great power comes great responsibility. And so I'll flip that just a little bit when I talk to teenagers and say, with great freedom comes great responsibility. And the path from when you're 12, for example, to the time that you uh that you head off to college on your own is a path of gaining more freedom gradually over time and gaining and showing that you can handle more responsibility. And then the flip of that is that we have to challenge parents to gradually give more freedom and give more responsibility. Because if we decide to take a very authoritarian approach and uh the parent runs the show right till the point where they drop them off at college, uh, we may have um not given the ability to our kids to do practical things like uh like the laundry and figure out how to clean the room, but uh but we may have also not given them the ability to think through how am I going to make decisions, how am I going to to decide how to prioritize uh my schedule, when am I gonna study, when am I gonna uh have fun, all of those things that we want our our kids to do well when they become young adults. It's a gradual process of giving that freedom and giving that responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

That's uh that's such a balance and a difficult and challenging thing uh for those parents. Um so this f this framework um of responsiveness and determination, uh, the two main factors that you talked about earlier, is a dynamic thing, isn't it? It's it's a very personal thing. Yes. And uh a parent may pick up a good book like yours and find the the ideas. Um and yet they're gonna change in context with uh that individual child and a teenager.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Absolutely. Yeah. It's it's kind of it's kind of funny because early in my career I said, oh, I can never write a book about parenting because even what I what I advise different parents in in the office on a regular basis can be really different from one situation and one family to another. So some parenting books will kind of take the approach of, well, you should do this, and there's, you know, this the a recipe or a formula. And and I have to avoid that. And that's why I like this idea of some general concepts that can apply to specific situations. Uh and it does take, as you were hinting at, uh discernment and wisdom on the part of the parent to think, how am I going to apply these things in this particular circumstance? But it's one of those things that with practice it kind of becomes more natural too.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

Yes. Yes. So you spoke about your pr your practice of being a pediatrician right now, here in in 2026. Um what are you seeing in a that presents itself sort of over and over as some of the real and difficult challenges that parenting parents are facing right now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

You know, I think some of them are are, you know, kind of the universal ones that don't change over time, um, uh like helping kids move from one phase to another. You've got uh uh we talked about the toddlers with temper tantrums, and you've got three-year-olds that that want to do everything themselves, and we need to teach them how to start to use some choices and how to start to also understand that the family is a community and that that only one willesn't rule the house and that it it we have to live as a community. Um all of those times of of moving uh from preschool to school, a big one moving from from elementary school to middle school, which can be so daunting. Um I do think that we've got we've got some of the kids that were really affected by by the pandemic, uh, that now we're, you know, what, six years after that all uh we are six years exactly after it. And so so those kids, the ones that were born right in the middle of that time period are now starting kindergarten. And the ones that were shuttered at home in kindergarten are now starting middle school. And so so we do see, I I think, a bit more anxiety, a bit more um uh uh kind of kind of wondering about how do I fit into the world when we didn't have those kids didn't have some of those kind of fundamentals that come along in those in the kindergarten and first grade years. So I I do think that's a little bit more of a problem these days than perhaps it was before.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

I I I I hearing this also from parents, and we I think we're having trouble as a society defining how do we deal with this pandemic generation, wherever they were in their life process in 2020 and 2021. It has given a very different set of issues that a child has to deal with. I appreciate you mentioning that. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. Do you see it showing up in greater anxiety on the part of a child, or are there other things that are emerging which seem to be at least influenced by that experience?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Aaron Powell I I think certainly anxiety. I think um I I think we see it in in some of the young adults now that were uh like my youngest daughter kind of in the in the middle of college when when that hit, because uh the college experience became very, very different when suddenly you're sent home from your campus and you're you're on Zoom for for all of your events. And uh my my son-in-law actually um um was set to graduate at the end of 2020 or in in May of 2020. So he didn't actually walk for another year after that. Um thankfully the university finally let them do that. But yeah, but uh I think that created a whole different set of problems for that age group at such a key time of transitioning from from from college into young professional life, and the young professional life was just really different.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Let me springboard a little bit off what you just said for listeners in my uh group who are now the parents of adult children. Uh how can we apply this model when we're dealing with that young adult uh or who is wrestling with getting a life started or struggling even with career and relational ideas? Where uh how does a parent fit in to that life in an open and relational fashion?

SPEAKER_00 34:16

You know, I think that's another time where where listening becomes so valuable and and being there to listen and try to hear what what are the the struggles that that that generation and that those folks are are really feeling. And I think they are a little different than the the struggles that perhaps our generation felt when we were there. So I think one of the keys is don't imagine that they're a a carbon copy of us or that the issues that they're that they're going through uh in any way are the same as as what we were going through. Then obviously uh we need to let them move into uh uh their own decisions, their own path, but then offer support and guidance. Um I I've got an upcoming perhaps challenge in in that regard, in that our our youngest daughter and her husband uh need to do a little bit of a bathroom remodel. And they're asking for my help, but I need to uh I I need to balance what is what is I don't want to be overbearing. I don't want to do it all. Um, but on the other hand, I want to make sure that I'm there to support and give them uh skills and things that maybe maybe we've done in similar remodels ourselves. So it it sometimes it's just that practical of just being there to help and support, but not being that overbearing uh parent of adult children. We need to let them have that freedom.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Yeah. So let's let's probe into that just for a little bit to say, how does a parent do that when the child is going off into poor or dysfunctional or threatening things that a parent with a lot more experience can see down the road might be a big problem. How do we apply this kind of gentleness and responsiveness to that situation?

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Yeah, that's a really good question. Uh you know, I think I think as we have opportunity to speak with wisdom and experience, then I think we can. Um however, that can't come as um as an authoritarian because I've done this, I know what you need to do, it needs to be responsive. And the really tough part is um our kids are gonna fail. And they're gonna get into a situation that that um that causes suffering, they're gonna have a physical problem that causes suffering, they're gonna lose a job, um, they're gonna have a medical, a medical emergency, all of these things. Uh and I think there, if we are able to sit with them in that moment, then that's really valuable toward building those relationships as they go. And and that that may start with even some of the small failures that happen in in college or young adult life or just small frustrations. But if if we build trust through showing that we can sit there and we can say, man, this sucks. I'm sorry you're going through this, and I love you. And then maybe start to point toward a path forward, then um then that builds trust that can then delve into deeper problems as they show up.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

That sounds like a lot of theology in my mind, uh, reflecting a God who not only um is present, but also is full of grace and mercy as a part of love. And I know Tom Ord uses the phrase non-coercive love as a vital part of his uh expression. And I think that is a unique phrase that has a lot to say to parents in a non-coercive love.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Yeah, that's one of the one of the big um kind of differences between an authoritarian parent and a nurturant parent is that idea of of coercion versus persuasion. Unfortunately, because we're parents, sometimes we we have to coerce. Uh if you're if your four-year-old is headed out to the busy street and is about to get run over by a bus, uh you you have to step in. You have that responsibility even to step in and physically restrain them so they don't f fall into the street and get run over by the by the bus. Um and it it's interesting. Uh I think it was John Cobb that said this. When we have to use that kind of coercive love, it is with sadness that uh that's necessary, but it still is. And I I think that's kind of an an interesting idea that that there's this necessary um sadness that we have when we have to step into that because we would like to always be able to be that non-coercive uh guidance effect in our child in our children's lives. But sometimes we do have that responsibility to protect them either physically or or from some other uh uh threat or danger that may be coming their way.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yes. Yes. Um and it's it's that balance, of course, that we're talking about all along this. Uh that we see throughout scripture the way God works in myriad different ways to express love. And parents are in that same responsibility. What a challenge for us. And we're not even divine. We just have to muddle through on our own. Well, Chris, I I've really pestered you with a lot of questions. Uh what what would you want to say that we haven't covered, first of all. And then maybe a thought to leave these parents who have dialed in today thinking about their role. Um where would you like to go to help us understand?

SPEAKER_00 40:38

That's good. I think, you know, uh we didn't talk a lot about it, and I'm I'm actually almost glad because I don't want to d dwell too much on the the oh, what's not good out there. But, you know, I I hinted at it when I talked about the parenting seminar that our church held back in the 90s. Um there are quite a few and have been quite a few parenting resources that have been been kind of kind of pushed out in the Christian world that pr presents a parenting approach that's based on an authoritarian view of God. And and it says that we have uh some of those authors will say even that parents are ambassadors of God's authority to their children, and that their role as parents is to teach their children to uh submit to authority so they will someday someday submit to God. And uh and that's kind of a scary approach in my mind. It doesn't align with with what um with what pediatrics and what child psychiatry says uh are um the best practices in parenting. And I think it's a misunderstanding of the theology. So that's what I'm hoping to give people uh the ability to say there's a different way to look at God that does align with those healthy parenting practices. And we naturally think about God in the, at least in the Judeo-Christian world, as as a parent. And Jesus so famously referred to God as Abba, which is such a close parenting name, uh close fatherly name. Um but if we're gonna think of God as as a parent, then we need to think of God as that nurturant, loving parent.

unknown 42:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

And a word of warning um about these voices that come from a very different perspective. And I'm going to say that we're talking with Dr. Chris Hansen, who is a pediatrician and trained in the most evidence-based uh analysis that psychology and medicine has to offer. Uh and that brings a perspective that says we can link the very best of science with the very best of theology. Yes. And and many of those voices uh that you spoke about that are dangerous don't have that kind of connection to the very best of evidence-based psychology. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

This is a good word. So uh once again, I interrupted you. Uh-huh. And uh how would you how would you like to leave parents today with uh some guidance or word or encouragement uh on what they're doing?

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Boy, I you know, we talked about we talked about love. I'm gonna I'm gonna jump in, you know, sometimes and especially in Christian circles, we talk about uh words for love, um agape and eros and filia, uh and and w often we've heard a myriad of sermons on those words and their their different aspects. But um, but I think um I think those words have a lot to do with uh with ways that parents can love their children. Um Tom, without going into too much of a long explanation, Tom uses some interesting ways of talking about those words. So Eros becomes because of love. So because of who my child is, that I love them. And that starts, I think, the moment we see them, as soon as they're born, and we say, Wow, just because of who you are, I love you. Um and Philia uh he defines as alongside of love, so doing something alongside of our children. And we all experience that when we um we do a project together or we're or we ask them to join us in making cookies or learning a skill in the kitchen, just and so much of life is alongside of our children and enjoys that kind of love. And then agape um, he defines as an in spite of love. And boy, don't we have that a lot of times with our children, in spite of the fact that they made a huge mess on the floor or or ruined the carpet or whatever has happened. We love them in spite of that thing. And I think that I think that those three words just relate so beautifully to parenting. And if we can just think about them as we walk through lives with our children, I think they're helpful.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

What a great way to land this plane that we've been on. So exciting to hear uh a very practical message that you have presented and grounded in the very best of human science and the very best of theology. Uh so once again, I'm gonna say open and relational parenting is a book that is really important for our world today. And and you've got a website going uh and maybe future projects. Anything you want to share about that?

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yeah, I I I continue to write on Substack. I put something out uh two or three times a month. So um the I think I sent you the link there, but it's just open and relational parenting on Substack. Uh and uh the the next project is to take this book, which was a a bit, it does have a bit more of an academic uh kind of approach to some sections of it, uh, I think out of out of out of necessity. And and then make the next book, I think, will be one that's a little bit more accessible and uh a little bit smaller chapters, and uh hopefully is something that we can really uh get out to parents who need to hear these kind of things. So that's that's fabulous. And some of the snippets from that book are probably coming out on Substack, even though they're not labeled as that. So yeah, hop in on the Substack and and folks can get a preview of some of that kind of writing.

SPEAKER_01 46:43

That is an excellent resource. And and yeah, I'm sure as you uh work to apply all of this, there's going to be a lot of information coming. And so relevant. You know, books are great, but they're they're a year old or two-year-old or whatever. And uh the uh the online presence of blogging on Substack gives a great opportunity to create a community. Yeah. I'm sure that talk about responsiveness is people can join the community on Substack. Absolutely. They'll find a great resource. Well, Chris, thanks so much uh for your time and effort. And we look forward to connecting and seeing what's going to develop to help parents in the future. Thank you so much, Larry.