Today AMBrewster discusses parenting 100 miles per hour — what it is, how it’s done, and why it’s so incredibly important!
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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back! I pray that series on Christ-honoring educational choices was more than you expected it to be.
I want to thank again the many Special Guests that were on the show. I praise God for the wisdom they have to communicate Truth and the love they have to pass it on to us. If you didn’t hear that series, I highly suggest you check it out. In fact, if you’re new to the show, please know that our episodes never go our of style and are continually relevant because they’re grounded as much as possible in God’s Word. In fact, I’ve heard frequently that many of our listeners like to go back and re-listen to favorite episodes. So, don’t miss out! And speaking of one of our listeners: A couple weeks back Lily left this review on iTunes: “This is the best parenting resource I’ve found. A friend from church recommended TLP to me. I listened to the four-part series on the parable of the soils. I love the wisdom and thoroughly biblical teaching. Since then I’ve worked my way through almost 30 of the podcasts and recommended it to many friends. We even helped our community group subscribe on their phones last night. Keep it up. You are making a difference!” Thank you so very much Lily. We’re ever so grateful for your review and pray that we will continue to be faithful servants of the Bible and to your and your family. And we still have a lot to do to serve your families well. During the month of September we’re going to discuss apps you thought were safe for your kids but aren’t. We’re going to tackle tattling, study Christian Parenting 101, discuss correction that softens the heart, and much more. But we’re also going to celebrate our one year anniversary on September 21st! I’m in awe that it’s already been a year. So, in celebration we’ve created a gift for you. We’ve put together an email-based parenting course called “25 Days to Becoming a Premeditated Parent.” It’s been written, and we’ve been testing it for a number of weeks, and I can’t wait for you to have access to that. And it will be completely free. We’ll also be starting a special group for all you premeditated parents out there called The TLP Family. It’s also completely free, and you’ll be able to sign up on our website on September 21st along with the new parenting course. When you enroll — among other things — you’ll receive a code that will serve as your invitation to join a closed Facebook group by the same name, The TLP Family. I’m part of a lot of Christian Parenting groups on Facebook, and they all lack the same thing . . . they lack beneficial interaction from the members. That’s not to say people don’t post on the group, but too often everyone’s looking for help for their own problems and they’re not interested in helping others. Well, we know this group will likely start small, but we so badly want it to be a place where people can share their hearts, ask questions, seek help, and ask for prayer . . . and the other members of the group will actually answer! Listen, no one’s perfect and no one has all the answers. I started this podcast — not because I’m a parenting guru — but because God was teaching me things I knew other parents needed to learn to. And God’s teaching you as well. You can share your struggles and your victories and be a blessing to other premeditated parents in your church, in your neighborhood, and online. We want The TLP Family to be a resource for parents by parents where you all encourage and edify and admonish and pray for each other. I hope that sounds amazing to you. But the excitement doesn’t stop there; our next series is scheduled for the month of October, and it’s possible that series will be my all-time favorite. In celebration of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church, we’re going to discuss what I call “The Merest Christianity” and — of course — apply it to our parenting. Let me tell you, it’s revolutionary. This one Truth did more for my personal relationship with God, my marriage, and my parenting than any other single biblical Truth I’ve ever encountered. That’s why I call it “The Merest Christianity” — there’s nothing more important to our life and godliness. And the last episode of that series will mark our 100th episode! If you can’t tell, I’m very excited about what’s to come in the next couple months, and I hope you are too! So let’s take that enthusiasm and channel it into today’s topic . . . which I find uniquely appropriate considering today’s intro. Today’s episode is called “Parenting 100 Miles An Hour.” Topic
Back in the 90’s my parents purchased fme an accelerated reading course called Reading Genius. It was created by Ed Strachar, and I believe it’s still available for purchase today. The program was wonderful and increased my reading speed and comprehension immensely.
But what I loved the most about Ed was his philosophy of education. Ed didn’t only teach accelerated reading, he taught world class chess players, tennis players, hockey players and olympic swimmers. One of the tools he used to teach tennis players was to shoot one hundred tennis balls at the student as quickly as possible and require the player to return as many of them as possible. He’d do this for weeks and only slowly start decreasing the number of balls after the student was able to return the vast majority. But my favorite story is how he trained people to play chess. He’s blindfold them and have them play twenty games of chess at the same time. They’d move on one board and move to the second, then the third — all the way down the line until he’s made one move on all twenty games. And they he’d go back to the first. The student would have to remember each game. He’d have to remember where he and his opponent moved. Can you imagine that?! After a while he only played fifteen games at a time, then ten, then five, then eventually he’d play one game blindfolded. Imagine what happened when the chess player took his blindfold off. He was a machine. At that point, playing a single game of chess with both eyes able to see what was going on was incredibly easier that playing twenty blindfolded. This is the way I like to illustrate Ed’s philosophy of education. Imagine three roads all running parallel to each other. One car is driving at 70 mph on the left road and one car is driving 30 mph on the road to the right. Eventually they both exit their roads and pull onto the middle road. Now, the speed limit on the middle road is 50 mph. So, both cars are driving the exact same speed, but because the car on the left just exited a road going 70 mph, it feels like 50 is much slower. Whereas the driver from the righthand road had to speed up to 50 mph from 30, so to him 50 mph feels much faster. Isn’t this so often how life works? Two people experience the same dramatic circumstance and yet one seems to weather it with grace, patience, and peace, while the other is losing their mind. So often we learn that the peaceful individual had been through similar situations before . . . potentially even worse ones. Here’s my application for us: do you remember the Ambassador Parent from episodes 26 and 27? The only Christ-honoring parenting style is to have high biblical expectations for yourself and for your children. And it’s those high biblical expectations, those divinely high expectations that are the key to what we’re talking about today. Now, if you have’t listened to episodes 26 and 27, I highly suggest you do so because I don’t want you to misunderstand what I’m talking about when I say “high biblical expectations.” This is not some dictatorial parenting I’m encouraging here. So, please listen to those episodes it you haven’t already. I’m talking about parenting a 100 miles per hour. If we have low expectations for ourselves and our kids and we parent at 30 mph, then the 50 and 70 mph situations we encounter — that require us to parent like Christ would — seem too hard. We panic, we overcompensate, we do what Natasha Crain illustrates in her new book, “Talking with Your Kids about God.” In the introduction she writes: “When we have no discipline and no direction, we’re leaving our kids to wilt spiritually. This happens when we’re inconsistent in ‘watering’ their spiritual lives (no discipline) and when we don’t understand all that they need to thrive (no direction). It’s an easy trap to fall into when we’re busy. Our spiritual training ends up being a mealtime prayer here and there, a wishy-washy commitment to church, and occasional references to the Bible thrown in for good measure (especially when someone’s behaving badly). If guilt takes over, we may ‘drench’ our kids with more church activities or devotionals for a while, but for many kids, it’s too little , too late.” This is perfectly describing someone who’s been parenting at 30 mph and upon realizing it was no good tries to put the pedal to the metal, only to swerve spastically in their parenting — often smashing against the guard rails and spinning out of control. And the result in parenting is generally as destructive as it is in driving. But when you’re used to parenting at 100 mph then the 50 mph and even the 70 and 80 mph issues in the house seem much less scary. This has probably been the greatest benefit I’ve received from working at Victory Academy for Boys. The issues I’ve had to parent in the three years I’ve been here with all the teenage boys puts the loudest temper tantrums, fights, lies, and direct disobedience my kids can muster into a very clear perspective. Now, the concept is easy enough to understand. In order to parent 100 mph, we need to learn to consistently and successfully parent with extremely high biblical expectations. But how do we do this? Let me give you some important steps that are a little easier than moving into a home for at-risk teens.
To that end, I want to remind you of a special opportunity available for you on September 21st. To celebrate Truth.Love.Parent.’s one year anniversary, we’re giving away our first parenting course called “26 Days to Becoming a Premeditated Parent.” It’s like couple retreat and parenting workshop all rolled into one. It’s pretty intense, but since it’s email based, you can take your time if 25 days seems too short to tackle the assignments. Either way, I encourage you to parent 100 miles per hour. Daily dig into God’s Word. Daily throw yourself on His mercy and grace. Daily and vigilantly be watchful of your children. Daily parent them with Godly fervor. And Daily work to “present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (II Timothy 2:15). Stay tuned to TruthLoveParent.com. Follow us on social media so you don’t miss the announcement, and join us every Tuesday and Friday to hear how God’s Word can be applied to our parenting. Conclusion
And as you strive to parent 100 miles per hour, don’t forget our episode notes have been linked in the description.
Next time we’re going to continue this theme of high biblical expectations as we discuss “One Flesh, One Team.” Don’t miss our next episode. We can’t parent 100 mph in our own strength, but our kids need us to. Parent the way God wants you to parent for His glory and in His power and you’ll be able to praise Him for the work He does in your home! See you next time.
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