Ben Pitcher - Class 5: Encouraging Responsive Young Adults

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Good morning, everyone. So what I want to do to start with is I mentioned the other day that Lisa and I, for many years, ran some parenting courses that since then other groups and other couples have and other ecclesias have run with using us as a library for the videos. But seeing this session's about teenagers, I thought I'd share with you what compelled Lisa and I to look at parenting closely because we'd used the On Becoming series of books from Curon that were recommended to us by other parents ahead of us on the journey and we found them really helpful.

2. 0:40

   And one of our friends actually encouraged us to go and investigate the biblical parenting course by the same authors. So these books have all the Bible quotes stripped out. The parenting course has all that material in it. So when we made an inquiry, we were invited to a meeting of facilitators to find out some more.

3. 1:02

   So you can imagine the trepidation with which we entered a back hall of a church one Saturday evening with a meal to share. And we were met by a handful of teenagers who took that meal from us and we went to a room full of adults and learnt some tips about facilitating these courses.

4. 1:23

   Mealtime came. The meals were all heated up and brought out by these teenagers. We ate the meal. At the end of the evening, they met us at the door with a washed, clean dish to take home. And we were just flabbergasted because it wasn't the discussion that we had. But what we saw of those teenagers who were largely unsupervised that convinced us there was something here worth looking into because we didn't have a plan or direction to get our children to be that self-directed, that thoughtful and that helpful.

5. 2:00

   So we've covered over the week the foundation of God as our father. And so from what we've looked at from there, the key really to parenting is how we go about utilising these three ingredients in our family. Communication, conscience and consistency. And we started talking about the husband and wife relationship being the key.

6. 2:29

   How we communicate to each other in love in front of the children becomes the standard. And our communication to our children needs to be just as respectful. And here's the second one again. We're developing our children's conscience. So we don't bark commands arbitrarily. Secondly, we seek, as our children develop in age, we seek to transition to training where we're giving the moral reason why and explain the reason behind what we're asking.

7. 3:02

   And so especially as our children grow older, we want them more and more to be motivated by a love of virtue rather than a fear of reproof. We want to give them a reason to do good. And again, it comes back to the fact that far more is caught than taught. So we need to set the standard.

8. 3:19

   But more than that, we need to live the standard, show the standard in controlling our anger, our tongue and our tone. Because like it or not, the biggest influence on our children is what we do, not what we say. And we're always the adult in the situation. And we need to act like it and lead the way.

9. 3:43

   With soft answers that turn away wrath, with firmness if needed, but with patience, long-suffering and mercy like our Heavenly Father. And everything has to be done in love and trust like Him. So with that as a basis, we're actually going to come back to these three principles. Conscience, communication and consistency with young adults.

10. 4:06

    But I want to just touch base again with the parenting process so you're really clear as to where we're headed with teenagers. And see, the challenging thing about parenting is that it is a process. It's like a shifting conveyor belt. You know, everything's moving along and gradually changing. So you can't parent an eight-year-old the same way you parent a two-year-old.

11. 4:30

    And it's not appropriate to give the same freedoms to a three-year-old the way you would discuss and negotiate with a 16-year-old. So the point is, your children are growing physically, mentally and morally. And so your parental authority becomes less and less of your parenting technique. And you transition over to parenting more by influence.

12. 4:55

    And it's not a switch where one day at age 11 you flick this switch and suddenly there's a whole different soundtrack to life. It's a gradual transition. And it's very much based on the development of your child. So some children have more freedoms and responsibilities in some areas than others because they've proved themselves trustworthy and reliable.

13. 5:19

    So think about this verse again. We've touched base with Deuteronomy 6 many times. But think about it with the emphasis this time on transitioning authority. So to start with, all God's principles are in your heart. The child doesn't know any. So you're the authority based on God's principles. You direct them in everything.

14. 5:41

    In fact, if you instill in your child's mind a respect for authority while they're young, it ceases to be an issue. But day in, day out, as you go through the cycle of lying down and rising up, bit by bit, it's not an instant process. Every day as you lie down, rise up and are in the way, a little bit more of what's in your heart is passed on to your child.

15. 6:05

    So that their heart starts to guide them. God's principles are still the authority, but now they're in your child's heart. And so as your children grow older, you rely less on your firmness, but instead place more emphasis on their personal responsibility. And when your children are adults like mine, it's more coaching than parenting.

16. 6:33

    So that's the process. And when you've shared everything in your heart and it's made its way and is reflected in their heart, the final result is friendship. Because you've got a basis for that friendship. So you don't start out making friends with your children. You're an authority first and you achieve friendship through God's principles and their growing understanding and their moral understanding and direction.

17. 7:03

    And so can I remind you again of Abraham where he was first called to obey God like you would command a young child. And once he did so, and bit by bit, God worked with his heart so that in the end, we're told Abraham was a friend of God because he walked with God.

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    But it started with obedience, obeying and leaving earth. And so this transition at the end with coaching young adults is asking them, what do you think you should do? Rather than telling them what they should do. Where you're prompting them to use what's in their heart and by coming alongside and helping them exercise their moral warehouse.

19. 7:50

    And so this challenge of parenting being a moving process reminds me of this quote. Probably not well, Proverbs 22. Train up the child according to the tenor of his way and when he's old, he will not depart from it. And it's a bit of a difficult passage to translate because there's so many variants in the Hebrew to the word way.

20. 8:11

    If you go look at a lexicon, it goes on forever. And I think that's the point. The right way is what's right for the age of that child, their personality footprint, remember, and the stage of life that they're at. And Proverbs is all about the application of wisdom. And it takes some godly insight, some prayerful consideration at times to determine what is the right way in this particular circumstance for this particular child to motivate their heart.

21. 8:45

    So I can't emphasise this enough. Your children are growing. You can't be parenting them like a two-year-old for the rest of their life. You have to change your approach. And it's not a straight-line graph like it's drawn here. You know, you loosen the reins in some areas and then you decide, well, I'm going to tighten up on that a bit.

22. 9:04

    Maybe if they're acting like a two-year-old in that area, in that case, you go back to treating them like a two-year-old for a short while until they've learnt that. And then you'll go, OK, we'll try that again and loosen the reins a bit more. And, you know, you don't drive a car or sail a boat in a straight line.

23. 9:21

    You're constantly making adjustments for the road conditions or the wind conditions. So we need to be continually adjusting our parenting for the child conditions. And on the other hand, I don't want to make it sound like really complicated and difficult. It's mostly about finding the godly principle to apply and having the conviction to follow it through consistency.

24. 9:45

    But the point I'm trying to make is it does take effort and consideration. It doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen. So remember, we can't be a drifting lot when it comes to godly parenting. We want to get it right like Noah did, who achieved a really good result in his family despite living in a really ungodly time.

25. 10:05

    Because the thing we're struggling with all our children and that most people fear in their mind when they think about stereotypical teenagers is human nature, raw human nature. And it's in all of us. But society around typifies human nature as teenager behaviour. But we all struggle with selfishness and human nature. You know, we all have it.

26. 10:32

    But suddenly there's a point where as children go older, suddenly they become more responsible for the battle within themselves. So as a parent to a young child, you direct them in their behaviour. But as a young adult, not only do they become more responsible, not only for their actions, but also for their attitude.

27. 10:54

    And particularly their attitude toward things that might happen to them. And that's where if you've done the training when they're younger and they've come to accept that they may not always get their own way and that disappointments sometimes occur, then they're far better equipped than the child of a helicopter parent who's always going into battle for them, trying to keep all the disappointments at bay, which builds up an unrealistic expectation in the child's mind.

28. 11:22

    And then they're unable to deal with the inevitable disappointments ahead of them when things don't always go their own way. So here's something to think about in regard to teenagers. In my experience, there's nothing that suddenly appears as a teenager that wasn't there to begin with. So my appeal is you've actually got the opportunity to deal with it at an age-appropriate time.

29. 11:46

    If you ignore selfish behaviour in a three-year-old, hoping it'll go away and that the child will get better, chances are you'll end up with a selfish and self-centred 13-year-old. So we need to pay attention as parents to the traits that our children exhibit and deal with them appropriately. And remember the other day we talked about being balanced and fair in the context of what character traits we see our children need help with.

30. 12:19

    We likely know what they're likely going to struggle with because we struggle with it ourselves and they might share our genetic disposition. So that's the importance of the process. We start helping them when they're younger by calling them to attention the behaviours that concern us so that by the time they're a teenager, we just have to come alongside and coach and encourage the opposite virtue because we've trained them consistently when they're younger on these issues.

31. 12:50

    And like I said, we want them to be motivated by a love of what's good and right, not out of fear of our discipline. So hopefully you've thought about making time to discuss your children's strengths and weaknesses as a result of our talk the other day. And maybe you can, as parents, monitor their progress and check in with each other.

32. 13:15

    And maybe new issues pile up on the next ones. But it's a constant refining of their characters in the same way that God refines ours. But, you know, the challenge is that children, when they're really young, their behaviour is your responsibility. When they're a teenager, it suddenly becomes their responsibility. And that's when people look on them and judge them.

33. 13:45

    So we need to help them with that transition as they grow. So we do that. And this is where I'm just trying to appeal that it's not, you know, parenting's always moving, but it's moving in a good way. It's not complex and scary because we actually use that moving and growth to our advantage by creating milestones, like ages in your family where you get your first hymn book or Bible or wide margin Bible.

34. 14:14

    So, you know, when you're old enough to stand up to sing the hymns, that's when you get a hymn book. So, you know, there's a responsibility that goes with that privilege.

35. 14:25

    And so what we found is having family milestones at an age that they look forward to being, you know, a marker on the way to maturity and development, we also give, look out for ways that we can give responsibilities in their daily life. And like I said the other day, the key is to link a responsibility with a privilege.

36. 14:45

    So, for example, little toddlers have to ask to go outside to play. But, you know, when you're five, you might be old enough to go outside without asking now. But because you're old enough to go outside by yourself and you don't need to ask, you can take out the compost every morning. Or the next child could do the rubbish and recycle.

37. 15:07

    You know, because you're old enough to use a knife yourself, you can spread your own lunch spread. And children love to be old enough to do things. And the reverse is true. If you give a child a responsibility, and that responsibility is clearly linked to a privilege, if they fail to live up to that responsibility, you can take the privilege away until they show themselves responsible.

38. 15:30

    So your child's not always going to be pleased, but you'll come across as fair. And that process continues right up to the age of my kids. Yep. When you're talking about, as an example of the white mountain Bible, I struggle with taking away children's christianism, and the white mountain Bible, and the children are taking away life.

39. 15:51

    No, no, good point. They're milestones. And the way that I'm saying that you've got milestones as to how old you are in things like that, then have privileges and responsibilities that are also milestones. But yeah, the Bible, you don't want to be mucking around with taking away Bibles and hymn books. They're milestones that you're old enough now.

40. 16:10

    They're not linked to anything in that regard. Yeah, good clarification. So, you know, with my kids, if they don't drive my car responsibly, they lose the privilege of being able to use my car. So the same principle applies all the way up to teenagers that they've understood as very small children. So... Yep.

41. 16:42

    Are you tired of constantly reminding your kids to do things they should already be doing themselves? There is a better way. Training responsibility is an essential part of parenting. By responsible, we mean that our children follow through when we ask them to do something or take ownership of the task that we've given them.

42. 17:02

    It also means they're reliable and can be depended on. Ultimately, we don't want to have to keep reminding, threatening or bribing them to do what they should already be doing. Our helpful idea is to see the best job or responsibility as a monkey. When our children are small, we need to tell them many times what we expect or require of them or what their responsibilities are.

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    Reminding our young children is a little bit like carrying a small lump before them. For example, when they ask for something, we might need to remind them to say please. Or when they're given something, they might need a bit of prompting to say thank you. That's okay when they're young because they're still learning and it's our job to teach them.

44. 17:48

    But wouldn't it be frustrating to have to remind our 10-year-old every time they ask for something to say please or every time they're given something to say thank you? There needs to be a transition of ownership from parent to child. There needs to be some point at which our children take responsibility for their own words and actions.

45. 18:09

    Or to put it another way, there needs to be some point at which the monkey jumps from mum's shoulders to the child's shoulders so it becomes their responsibility. As our children get older and grow bigger, so do their responsibility. Annie, who's six, is expected to use common courtesies like please and thank you.

46. 18:33

    By now she's also old enough to be trusted with keeping her room tidy, following a morning routine and helping out around the house. Benjamin's just turned 12 so he can be given bigger responsibility like mowing the lawn or emptying the bin. Stretching our kids is part of our role as parents. We need to be regularly giving them new monkeys as they can handle them.

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    I need to remind myself to do this as often it's quicker and easier for me to do the job for them. It's much better to take the time to teach them and then hand over the responsibility when they're ready. It's also really important to encourage them as soon as they show responsibility in a new area.

48. 19:16

    I don't know if you're like me but too often I find myself reminding my children to do things they're already responsible for. Okay guys, we're going to be leaving in about five minutes so can everyone please make sure that you've done your hair and you need to have brushed your body. Can you make sure your beds are made and your room's tidy?

49. 19:36

    Oh and everyone needs to wear shoes on ready to go, okay? Great. What's happening here is that I'm taking back the monkeys that I've already given away. The goal, and this is quite a challenge, is to leave the monkey with the child you've given it to. Once I've taught them what to do then I can simply ask them are you ready to go?

50. 19:57

    It's then their responsibility to run through the list in their head and if there's something they've missed they can quickly go and do it. I find myself doing the same thing. Often the kids will come to me and ask Dad, can we please go on the computer or play outside? I run through the list.

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    Is your homework finished? Is your room tidy? Are your jobs all done? Instead of the list it's far easier to ask one simple question. Do you have the freedom? Do you have the freedom to go on the computer? That way they have to think through their list of responsibility and make the decision themselves.

52. 20:33

    This is training them to be responsible. Once we've handed the responsibility or a monkey to our children and they choose not to use it there needs to be a consequence. Let their younger children forget to say please when they ask for something. It's too easy for me to remind them to use their manners.

53. 20:53

    Instead what I've found works well is to wait and not respond to their request until they remember to say please. Our children soon realise they've forgotten something and can then ask again politely. This also saves me having to say what's the magic word a thousand times a day. With older children the consequences of not being responsible can include the loss of privileges rather than us reminding them and taking back those monkeys.

54. 21:23

    If their responsibility was something like emptying the bin then the consequence for not doing that needs to be more than just making them empty the bin. The idea is to motivate them to remember the next time. Possibly the most difficult consequences to allow are the natural ones. I remember one day when one of our children forgot to take his backpack to school.

55. 21:47

    That meant that he didn't have his shoes for sport and he didn't have his lunchbox. It took everything in me not to hop in the car and take his backpack to him. But I knew that his brother and sisters would share their lunch with him so he wasn't going to starve. And I also realised that the relatively minor discomfort he experienced would actually help him to remember to be responsible.

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    It's far easier for children to learn responsibility at home when they're young rather than later in life as adults. Once they leave home they'll need to be responsible for their own health and finances for their possessions and relationships. Lack of responsibility at this age can be fairly costly. As Christians we also have a spiritual purpose for this type of training.

57. 22:35

    One of our greatest desires is to see our children establish their own relationship with the Lord. Once they've made that decision with God's help they can learn to be responsible for their thoughts, words and actions. This is the ultimate expression of responsibility. Okay kids we're going to be drawing in about five minutes so can everyone please make sure that they've done their hair and that you've brushed your teeth and you need to make sure that your rooms are tidy and you've made your bed and everyone's going to need shoes so can you please all make sure that you put shoes on as well.

58. 23:11

    Thank you. That's great. Thank you. Okay so you know as your children grow older these responsibilities are going to become more meaningful so you know being able to go out shopping or go out to supper with friends but they have to be home at the agreed time or else they don't get to go out next time they're invited.

59. 23:40

    So the aim for your children and teenagers particularly is that they understand they're always privileges and never rights and that way there's always a responsibility and a maturity required in exercising those privileges because what we're doing in the coaching phase with our teenagers is transitioning them and so our key tool becomes that which is our foundation plank communication and the thing I'm going to appeal to is that we have to make sure that we have time in our schedule don't be too busy to talk and with teenagers their schedules become pretty full pretty quickly so we need to make be aware of that and you also have to make an effort with different children so for example unlike girls who will generally communicate face to face boys will communicate alongside and they'll actually feel more comfortable communicating while they're doing something else so we have to find time to take them fishing or get under the car with them or work on some hobby or project together take them camping do the dishes with them so generally that's how boys will open up to you and you can have a conversation with them so boys want to be working alongside girls are comfortable chatting over a hot chocolate and children won't always initiate the conversation so here's some really useful openers if you notice one of your young adult children is upset what happened how do you feel about it what are you going to do about it these questions are on page 70 of your handbook and there's also an even more detailed pointer list on page 72 of your handbook for talking to teenagers

60. 25:38

    so positive communication in your family picking up on when they're upset and coaching them through their feelings and helping them to work through their issues and there's other character attributes that you're going to be focusing with your children stage by stage as they grow older using kind words using manners thinking of others some things are not for an individual child specifically but they're sort of a whole family attribute so how do we change as a group and develop the fruit of the spirit in our family so one suggestion is to use family rewards to encourage positivity growth and change so you know start with small family celebrations make it a point that everyone rejoices with the one who rejoices so brother bob lloyd suggests that if one child wins an award take them all out celebrate the family highlights as a family and create a fellow feeling between your children where they're pleased when each other does well rather than rivalry and competitiveness another thing we would do when transitioning to coaching to move on from the family rules and to encourage principles we would have a chart on the fridge where for example anyone in the family could note down kind words that they heard others use to highlight that as a culture that we're trying to encourage so there was an exercise going on in the family and so for a while our whole fridge was covered with encouragement that we continually gave each other and kindness you know you can have a bowl of marbles and a jar and each time someone witnesses a kind act in the family they can get

61. 27:26

    you put a marble from the bowl into the jar and when the jar is full you have a family treat or a ward you know treats don't have to be lollies or amusements or going out to dinner it could be visiting a wildlife sanctuary or a national park and they don't even have to cost money what about a family water fight or building a blanket fort in the lounge room or a family sleep in where you all drag your mattresses and sleep together in the lounge room so you know enjoy the family that God's blessed you with have fun with them and these are the memories and fun that build the fabric of family I saw this somewhere families it's not just about sharing a last name it's about sharing a life together and while you're having fun keep a mindful eye out for lessons you know your parenting purpose is to teach your children about God and you don't just do that for a few minutes around the readings we need to be switched on parents taking an active role rather than being laid back parents and this brings me to the point of tying everything together with teenagers we've talked about communication conscience consistency and the idea of coaching and while they're all isolated they're all key mechanisms they're not isolated concepts but they all are wrapped up in something and that's your family culture your family identity and so we've got an opportunity to think about what does our family culture consist of well here's a start I keep coming back to this because this was such a touchstone for our family

62. 29:04

    and it's so important with teenagers particularly that God's word needs to be seen in our hearts there can be no hypocrisy with young people where we say one thing and in our lives live something else so the Bible needs to be seen as our life manual you want it to become their life manual so as you become a fit so always keep the readings sweet and light don't make them a burden and as you grow into a family of teenagers you're going to find that the schedule makes it difficult to fit the readings in so in our family I'd always read one of the readings aloud at breakfast as a good start to the day to all of us so they're eating their breakfast and I'm just reading one of the readings but these days you can get audio Bibles on your phone where you can download the Bible and you can play it the schedule so full you've taken them somewhere just play a reading along the way in the car if you're that busy the point is that we make a point of taking in God's word together and that we share the lessons from it as a natural part of our family life and make sure that we do make time to sit down and discuss moral purity and social issues with our teen like we discussed the other day but don't make that all our readings all the time but remember out of the Bible come all the issues of life so we need to allow time for that to happen and the challenge of being a teenager is really that

63. 30:28

    life is all about choices not just the choice of what you're going to wear or who you're going to be with but the big life choices what kind of person are you going to be what kind of job are you going to have what do you believe and you can't make these choices for your child but you want them to make wise choices so remember those privileges and responsibilities we talked about well if your child's a teenager hopefully they've learnt that they can make choice but every choice has a consequence like not choosing not to put your bike away means you lose the privilege of riding down to your friend's house and the real challenge is that teenagers don't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex so they're really not great at seeing consequences so one way to help our children in their growing prefrontal cortex and thinking ahead is that as parents try as much as possible to cross the bridge of trouble ahead of time so it starts when they're younger we talked about preparing them you know coaching your children in the way you know you're on the meeting on the way to the meeting or to visitors or if you're having people home for lunch on the way home you talk about what chores you need help with because the visitors are about to arrive so as a parent you're mentally preparing them for what's next so that they can respond more easily with the right mindset so that's younger children we talked about that with older children you also want to use your forethought to cross the bridge of trouble ahead

64. 32:06

    of time because they've got trouble seeing the potential consequence in their still developing brains so for example when our children are older and off to youth groups or camps you can use your past experience as a young person to communicate and build a relationship with them at the same time you're also preparing them for decisions and choices that they might have to make ahead of time so you talk about looking out for those that youth group who might not have friends you might talk about the types of clothes that are appropriate for certain types of activities at camp what would be appropriate what wouldn't be and who else their group they might have to consider feelings and sensitivities about certain things you know you might talk about what might happen when a group of boys get together in a new car and all these discussions might lead to new rules which I'll talk about in a minute but you know getting back to the idea of readings that's a really good opportunity for discussions because there's lots of examples of young people making good and bad choices in there so you need to bring them out highlight them and discuss them with your young people and so this talking of of God in the way I've referred over the week as parenting in times of non-conflict so you know you're setting the ground rules and having a discussion without anyone yet being emotionally invested in it and this is a really important principle with teenagers so getting back to young lads with cars we had a rule after a discussion about what might happen with young

65. 33:46

    lads in a car we then had a rule that while they're on the P's they couldn't use their car stereo while the car was in motion on top of all the existing rules about how many friends are allowed in the car and you know that was for safety so there's no distracting buttons while they're learning to drive but it was also to keep things from getting carried away as a big group of friends in a car and you know if you've got teenagers who are interested in someone that they've met interstate it's more helpful to talk about your expectations and what they are and getting their agreement in advance before they come and visit and not trying to start setting restrictions in hindsight when they're already here and expecting compliance so it's a similar principle to the five minute warning that we often try to use to help them when they are younger children in getting them ready to comply getting them ready to comply rather than getting them arced up and defensive about what they're already emotionally invested in and you're trying to come in and change so as parents we've got the benefit of a fully developed prefrontal cortex and the benefit of experience and godly wisdom so we need to use these in forethought set the expectation and ground rules in times of non-conflict when our children can talk about it rationally and that they're then prepared to comply rather than when they're emotionally invested in it the blood rushes to their prefrontal cortex they don't have enough ability to control their emotions and they just get upset and frustrated so along

66. 35:33

    with discussing other daily principles as the need of having good friends being true friends to them in return the harmfulness of words the way people might act towards you at school and the way that you could choose to act in response you know these kinds of conversations can all happen around god's word and are a core part of coaching our children but getting back to family culture you've had an opportunity this week to think about the family that you're building together as parents what kind of family environment are you creating hopefully you're working together on some ideas to build an interdependent family which will cultivate a sense of belonging in your children and we spoke yesterday about the investment in the things that you do as a family cultivates a sense of ownership and directly influences their contribution to your family where if you create the fun times they'll generally carry out their chores more willingly and family times and holidays are a great time to introduce responsibility so our children first learnt to wash the dishes with the camping cutlery when they were little and when they were older they first learnt to heat up simple meals in the same way and then at home they were then ready for it as a regular chore and they were committed to doing it for the sake of the rest of the family because on holiday together it showed them the value of family and it was their contribution to it when they first learnt that chore you know I've got friends who travelled round Australia in a van and every child had a job as soon as they

67. 37:15

    got somewhere you know the oldest had to help with levelling up the van and setting that up and setting up the barbecue and the kitchen for the next one but even the five year old their job was to go and set up all the camp chairs so you know camping or sailing like we did are great adventures but with our young children it just started with picnics and day outings when they're younger but if we as parents value our family invest in it create fun experiences our children will value and respond to it so family identity and the good times are an investment in your family so it means something to the children else as soon as they're 16 and have got a licence they'll be off now I started with Lisa and I this morning seeing teenagers in a way that surprised us because we'd never visualised teenagers acting in that way so one of the things that we learnt was to have goals and aspirations for our children and for our family what do you want your teenagers to look and act like in their behaviour well if that's your end goal at adolescence bring it back to 12 where do they have to be how responsible do they need to be in order to make that next step where you want them to be as an end goal not too big a cliff that they'll never make it to where you want then bring it back to 9 what do they need to be characterised by doing at 6 because you know parenting sometimes just happens amongst all the things we're scheduled to do

68. 38:54

    so my encouragement is to prioritise your family project talk about it discuss it and then go off and build it together with the end goal in mind so the you know the bible principles of loving God and loving others needs to be in the heart of everyone in the family and the way that love for others is first shown is the children's contribution in the family and the thing is that when they become teenagers their contribution and commitment to family does not change it's just that their skill sets increased so if you've never expected any contribution at all from a young child and then expect them to help out as a teenager everyone's in for a rude shock aren't they so if you expect a child to prepare a meal by age 15 the stepping stone is at age 12 they should be able to boil the pasta and heat the sauce if we wind back to the clock to age 9 maybe that they should be able to prepare a simple salad to go along with the meal at 6 it might be setting the table and clearing away and at 4 carrying the bowls and cutlery or helping count the number of cups of flour or sugar into the cookie mix and this is where your patience really kicks in because at a young age you know it's far easier in the moment to do it yourself but we need to take the long term view and see that we're doing good for our child another example might be hall cleaning at a young age they're just toddling around with a feather duster

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    you know actually not really contributing anything but you're building the expectation that they are helping so you know if they're a bit older they can wipe down chairs and surfaces soon they're able to help with vacuuming or when they're young adults like my children you know they're doing our hall cleaning and catering and my older son's doing my chairmanship while I'm here with you so page 73 of your handbook is intended to help you with ideas in that regard of how you can have some there's some guides in there and if there's a link that links a lot of those activities through to a teenager and the skills they're developing so it's just an idea I grabbed from somewhere for perhaps you to look at and think about but as part of coaching we need to be characterised as parents by fairness and respect remember we're God to our children and one of the common complaints about teenagers is that they lack respect you know actually one of the issues is like I said they're in this transition to adulthood and they desperately want to be respected as being grown up too and it's often when they feel that they're not being respected that they can try to demand respect in confrontational ways so we can demonstrate these qualities of God so these look at these qualities of being fair and just and God who's just and true and in the future we need to be just so this is where we get an opportunity to develop our characters now so we can demonstrate these godly qualities by being fair and reasonable where we can

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    and being flexible on occasion so it's not about having arguments it's about listening and understanding and as long as the information is presented to you in a respectful way you can listen respectfully and maybe make an adjustment or exception to certain requests to certain rules or expectations based on that information now remember we're not talking about young children here but certainly by about age 12 you need to be starting to be seen flexible as the occasion demands and then I expect them to be fair in return so for example I had a rule that they couldn't put me on the spot if they wanted to do something that I was unsure of I had the prerogative to say sorry you haven't given me enough time to think through your request so it's a no this time and next time ask me in advance so I've got a bit of time to think about it so as a result now I usually get plenty of notice when they want to do something interesting and the discussion ahead of time is all about being clear on expectations and you know there are occasions where as our children grew older they haven't particularly wanted to do something that we would have liked them to do and you know what we haven't insisted on it every single time because if it's just something that we would have liked them to do or preferred them to do and they didn't we're not going to force it we're not trying to break them to our will we're trying to help them develop a conscience toward God so you know we need to

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    bring them alongside and help them outwork God's will in their life but if there's something where we think there's a really good reason behind what we're saying on those occasions on those few occasions we will insist and provide valid reasons for our children to understand but this is teenagers that I'm talking about so and we can do that with our young adults because our children communicate with us respectfully they discuss things openly with us as their mentors and because we are characterised by listening and acquiescing to some of their requests so in return if we insist generally they will acquiesce to us in return because the respect goes both ways so we're talking about instead of letting them learn to argue deliberately teach your children the skill of negotiation by your example and having them ask a reasonable request in a reasonable time that's reasonable for you to consider so you know a typical request might be to extend the curfew past midnight because there's a friend over from Perth that they will want to catch up with over supper that's an example of a reasonable request given ahead of time that I'd show fairness by agreeing to and another part of your respect is you come along to your young adults as a coach and you're going to recognise that there's times when you didn't quite react appropriately to your children and with young adults you can't brush it off or ignore it like it didn't happen remember we're trying to influence by our relationship rather than by our discipline so if we value that relationship and want it to remain strong we need

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    to apologise to them you won't lose any respect from your children by apologising in fact you'll gain it so we're not God we do fall short as parents however we do strive to be godly and fair so hopefully your children have heard you apologise to your spouse when the occasion arose that you're wrong and now you're extending the same level of relational openness and showing that you place more value on your relationship with them than your position so not only are we an example but then we create an expectation for them to value the relationship and apologise to you and seek proper forgiveness not just a flippant soz you know so our example of asking forgiveness is really important and I want to conclude with godliness and spiritual development and thinking about godliness in our children and I think the highest spiritual skill set that we can instil in our children other than conscience toward God is empathy make thinking of others part of your family identity and remember we're the example so it's really important that when you have a strong family identity that you seek to include others in it especially those without family that could really benefit from joining in with your games and activities so we want to be inclusive not exclusive that's what the ecclesial family is all about so you show empathy by example your god to your children and remember the ultimate command other than loving god is to love others as yourself so we need to teach children from a young age to think of others as they play with toys as they grow older in their

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    family with chores and responsibilities it's all about thinking of others to see things from their siblings point of view and to see things from your point of view and the aim of bible discussions about scenarios of things that other young people did in their choices is for them to be able to learn to see things from other people's point of view so you know have family projects where you think of others donate toys that they've grown out of write cards collect bottles or scrap metal for agape and action they're all ways of teaching our children to be other oriented and if we can teach our teenagers empathy then we're going to have very little trouble with rebelliousness and selfishness and think of all we talked about this the other day the empathetic things that believers are commended for in Christ's parables of the kingdom a cup of water food clothing visiting the sick you know they're all responses that are capable for your very young children to exhibit as well as your teenagers right now so that's what we want to be teaching them so my final point on the spiritual development of our teenagers as well as teaching them empathy we need to teach them to pray and I'll show you what we did so first of all our children would regularly hear us pray about them by name especially on their birthday we'd thank God for them for looking after them and ask his blessing on them specifically and when our children were really little about five or six you know after the readings I'd ask them what they would like me to

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    pray to God about and they might just say animals so then I'd say a prayer that would include the things that they said so I might thank God for his creation and his marvellous creatures so but you know that's how they get an idea of how those thoughts get put into a prayer when our children were old around eight or nine I'd change it so that I started with prayer and then I'd pause and we'd move around the room and they'd each say a bit and when they stopped the next person would start until it came back to me and I'd wrap it up and try and tie all those concepts together you know you can have a young child pray aloud and give their own thanks for a sandwich you've made them and I've explained the holidays on the boat what we started to do on one trip when the children were around about 15 we changed it again and we had a special holiday time where each member of the family took turns saying one of the prayers throughout the day so that's how we thought we would teach our children to pray and learning the Lord's prayer saying that together at the end of the day that's a really good idea as well so I hope that gives some ideas to spiritual development in your family the responsibility you have as transitioning your children to be children of God so just that's it for parenting teenagers I've just got a few minutes where in conclusion I want to tie together everything where we've been over the week so if you could just

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    freshen up we've just got another five minutes and I really need your attention because this is for the logical people so some people this is charts and it's going to be like yeah whatever but there's some people where hopefully this everything we've talked about I've tried to put in a logical structure so maybe for those accountants that get discriminated against this might really help so the summary of parenting teenagers comes back to our beginning statement with children God's the moral authority and it's about transitioning from us as the authority to the point where they understand that their own actions are in accordance with God's standard not our standard so it's about understanding where you are in the parenting process after recognising that it is a process there's no instant answers here and like everything godly it's relational so those key areas are built on the family foundations of love and trust right so we talked about God as love and the areas that we work on are communication conscience and consistency and we've talked about our project of parents to define what family looks like and to develop our unquestioned commitment to family and along the way we want to create a strong stance of family identity that the children can wear like a badge they're a team part of a team so you know might be that we're the pictures and we get dragged out sailing that's our identity but because you've demonstrated that family means something the children respond and so we have their commitment to the family culture and values but it doesn't stop there because our children's contribution to family is demonstrated

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    sorry the children's commitment is demonstrated by their contribution what they're bringing to the family and their service to the family and out to the ecclesia so we started off with discipline or discipling but think about it like setting the child's direction we had the arrows in Psalm 127 we equated that to training plants or trees and it's crucial for the gaining of self control in our children so we're teaching obedience at this stage and that's after that we move on to training where we expect obedience to be a given but training's more outwardly being aware of others and we're highlighting respect and kindness and more external responses in a child as they grow older and develop an awareness of others in their cognitive development we're also developing that morally and the key thing that when transitioning to training we're giving moral reasons along with our instructions we've talked about developing the conscience of a child so that's the difference between discipline and training where we're trying to reach their heart give them the moral reason why and develop in them a conscience and then we're looking for opportunities to link a responsibility with a privilege to both motivate a child because they like being old enough to do things but also provides a training consequence where we can remove a privilege if they don't live up to that responsibility and the key change to coaching is that we're seeking to get them to exercise their conscience activating their moral warehouse getting to draw out of their heart what you've put into it by asking what do you think is the right thing to do because if

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    you keep telling them what they should do it can turn into a battle of wheels and then they can deliberately not listen just to prove how grown up they are so that's the path we're on with our children so in our family we can value encourage encourage and provide opportunities for our children contribution whatever their age but in our young adults especially we'll seek to activate their conscience come alongside ask what they think they should do rather than telling them all the time and we can help them to develop a spiritual prayer life and provide opportunities for them to be empathetic and contribute to others and encourage them to demonstrate their commitment to family through their contribution so I'm hoping that wasn't too complicated and was an easy to follow overview and I know over the week I've packed in lots of tips and suggestions I can't help myself and so we had a chart with arrows going in and out but I hope I've been able to encapsulate your parenting journey in such a way that you can look at it in its entirety and say yes I can see where we're headed and yes I think I can see some decisions and changes we could do to influence in a godly way our family and hopefully you've now got another discussion topic as couples not in just what you want your family to look like but what do you want your teenagers to look like and so put some steps and development plans in place to get them there and it's my prayer that God would bless us to do our best to act

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    like him in long suffering patience and in faithfully parenting his heritage so I want to come back to God's view of parenting to close I said that God just requires committed and consistent parents and you've demonstrated your commitment by being here this week and I hope that you've got some motivation and some tools and tips for consistency so my prayer that I'll leave with you for all of us is that we fulfil our family potential and demonstrate our heavenly father's character to our children Philippians 1 verse 6 I'm sure of this this is what I'm sure of that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in the day of Christ and it's my prayer that your love as husband and wife may abound more and more with knowledge and discernment so that you may approve of what's excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ that your families may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God the the