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TranscriptIntroduction
Hey, all you parents out there. I’m Aaron, but you already knew that . . . and today we’re going to see if you and I need any help in our parenting.
So, let’s get to it. Topic
When I used to tell people about Victory Academy for Boys, I met so many people who would say things like, “I wish I had known about that ministry when my son was that age.”
As a biblical counselor, I have people reaching out to me all the time with parenting questions, and though all of their kids are different ages, and their income levels are diverse, and their spiritual maturity is distinctive, and their questions are very dissimilar, they all have one thing in common . . . they all waited too long to ask for help. Now, that’s not to say that there’s no hope for them. Of course not. We serve the amazing, all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, Creator-King of the universe. There is definitely hope for growth and change. However, let’s be honest, the longer we wait to take our car into the mechanic, the bigger the job, the more expensive the job, and the better the chances the job won’t be as beneficial. Fredrick Douglas was right when he said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” So, how is it that over 90% of the people who look for help in their parenting have all waited longer than they should to finally look for help? That seems amazingly coincidental. Unfortunately, the answer is a bit uncomfortable. Some people wait because they’re lazy. They know they don’t know how to successfully deal with their parenting dilemma, but they don’t really want to do the work necessary to find the answer or deal with the problem. Others are too prideful. They know they have a problem, but—in their minds—asking for help is akin to admitting to failure, and they absolutely refuse to do that. Sometimes this group of parents struggles with embarrassment, but allowing that feeling to stop them from getting help is a result of pride. There’s also a fraction of parents who are delusional. What I mean by this is that they don’t believe there really is a problem. They’ve been told there’s a problem. They’ve even experienced some of the consequences of the problem, but these kinds of parents are the ones who say things like, “Kids will be kids,” “What did you expect, she’s 14?” “Well, that’s just the way it is,” and “It’s important for them to find their own truth/follow their hearts/be true to themselves/whatever insane parenting philosophy can be used to dismiss the fact that our kids are on a self-destructing trajectory.” So, yes, there are many lazy, prideful, and delusional parents, but I think the vast majority of us fall into a fourth category. We’re just ignorant. What I mean is, we simply don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t know enough to recognize the warning signs, we have’t seen the choices kids on this trajectory make, and when we do, we’re uncertain how bad it could really be. Most of us simply don’t know what we need to know in order to know that we need help. Allow me to give you one real-life example. And, yes, identities will be protected. To make a very long story short, I had a parent sitting in front of me who had just learned that their child had been sneaking out at night to meet up with a friend of the opposite sex. This parent was completely blindsided. They couldn’t imagine a universe in which their child would ever do anything like that. However, I could have called it a mile away. For me, all the warning signs where there. The child’s trajectory was incredibly clear to me, and it was due to my relational pursuit of the child that the truth came out. But the parent didn’t know to even be concerned for their child. Could that be you? Maybe you’re not lazy. If you knew there were an issue, you’d be all over it. Maybe you’re not too prideful to ask for help when you see you need it. Maybe you’re not delusional. You desperately try to agree with God on what is good and what is bad. So, is it possible that you don’t know what you don’t know? Before we answer the question "How to Know If You Need Help in Your Parenting,” I’d like to tell you about a service we offer. Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship exists to equip God’s people with the biblical truth they need to glorify God by being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Whether you’re having issues in your parenting or you’re giving in to addiction or your marriage is struggling or you don’t know how to please the Lord with your spending or you’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness or anything else, we are here to open the Bible and show you how you can glorify God in your situation. You can reach out to us in so many ways. You can visit FaithtreeBiblicalCounseling.com, you can email us at [email protected], and you can even get in touch with us through the Evermind App. We want to help you be the person God called and created you to be. And it’s possible that you already need help, but just don’t know it yet. So, after we talk about "How to Know If You Need Help in Your Parenting,” I’m going to remind you about how to get in touch with our biblical counselors so that you can get the help you need. Alright, how can you and I know that we need help in our parenting? 1. Are you experiencing angst in your parenting? This should be a dead giveaway, but I think we’ve all been convinced that parenting is hard no matter what we do, so the fact that we’re struggling doesn’t motivate us to look for help the way it should. 2. Have your kids started doing things that surprise you? Again, this should be intuitive. If you children—regardless of their age—are doing, saying, feeling, thinking, wanting, or believing things that surprise you, perhaps a couple things might be true. A. You might have been missing something. It amazes me when a child blindsides their parents, and yet the parents plunge forward as if they’re still not being blindsided. On the other hand, B. Maybe you weren’t blindsided, but if what the kids are doing surprises you, then perhaps it would be wise to get some insight so that the surprise doesn’t continue. 3. Are you reading parenting books or listening to parenting podcasts or attending parenting conferences? Sometimes parents—even the prideful ones—will pursue parenting help through books and podcasts because they recognize that they need help, however, we should be wise enough to realize that non-personalized help isn’t nearly as valuable as personalized help. If we’re combing the internet looking for answers from strangers about how to handle our kids, we need to recognize the fact that personalized assistance has far greater chances of helping the situation. 4. Are your children changing? This is really vague, and so therefore it rarely is a cue that we probably need some parenting help. What’s interesting is that we understand the significance of change when our kids are very young. We diligently track their milestones, and we research upcoming changes to be ready for the next needs our children are going to have. But as our kids get older, we become less diligent about looking forward to the next developmental stages, temptations, and possible pitfalls. There are three types of changes for which we should be looking. A. Are they changing behaviorally? In episode 442, we talked about how to know if your child is addicted. I’ll link that episode in the description of today’s show. One of the best ways to spot an addiction is to look for changes . . . changes that likely will not seem like a significant problem or even appear to related to the addiction. A simple example of this is that a child who used to dress one way, but who has recently changed key things about the clothes they wear may be purposefully or inadvertently hiding something. It might be effects on their bodies, it might be a cover for sneaking things in and out of the house on their person, or it could simply be a subconscious identifier with a certain group or ideology. Either way, when children start changing in how they relate to family members, the quality if their schooling, how they dress, talk, or eat, and countless other seemingly insignificant changes, it might be a revelation about a new addiction. By the way, yes, your child is addicted. So are mine. Their primary addiction is the same, but their secondary addictions are probably different, and their recent changes may help you identify them. B. Are they changing spiritually? This again should be one of the things that drives us to look for assistance, and it’s not just when our kids seem to be acting more immaturely. Even the morphing spiritual change that appears to be the result of maturity is something that should cause us to pursue advice concerning valuable ways to guide them into this new season of their lives. C. Are they changing physically? Again, very young children appear to change much faster, but noticeable physical changes in any of our kids is a revelation that our kids are entering new phases. They will be experiencing new influences and temptations, they will be capable of different decision making, and—in some cases—their physical changes are actually the result of poor spiritual choices. Okay, so I have two more things that should prompt us to seek parenting help, and I’ll mention these very quickly. 5. Are you finite? If you’re finite, that means that you’re not perfect, that you’re a sinner, and that you don’t know everything you need to know. And finally . . . 6. Do you have children? If you didn’t see this coming a few points back, I hope you’re realizing my goal for today’s episode. I could have made this episode much shorter by leading off with, you can know for certain that you absolutely need help in your parenting if you’re a human who either plans to have kids or actually has kids. If you’re in either of those categories, yes, you need help. But I didn’t start off that way for one main reason. The exact things that prevent us from seeking assistance when it should be super obvious that we need help are the same things that would hinder us from accepting the fact that we all need help, right here and right now. Some of us are lazy, others are prideful, there are those who may be deluded, but the vast majority of us don’t know what we don’t know. And when you layer on top of those realities that we are sinners who so often misinterpret things, are blind to others, and who sin . . . it should be obvious that—of course—we’re going to need help. It’s then that we can easily realize that our parenting angst, the surprising things our kids do, our pursuit of non-personalized advice, our children’s perpetual changing, and the very fact that we have kids in the first place are all obvious indicators that we could use some help in our parenting. Now, I want to share two more ideas. 1. I’m not saying that you can’t parent your kids on your own or that it takes a village to raise children or anything like that. I’m simply sharing a lesson that I’ve gleaned from my own experiences and the experiences of others. We all wait too long to seek help. We all should have started pursuing parenting help long before things got out of hand. But I’m also extrapolating a biblical truth. God designed us to flourish in community. In episode 198 we talked about how to create community in your parenting because it’s so incredibly valuable. The Lord wants us equipping each other, comforting each other, sharpening each other, teaching each other, reproving/rebuking/and challenging each other in our spiritual maturity. And that definitely includes our parenting. Biblical life-on-life discipleship community is something we should all be doing anyway. Unfortunately, Satan, the World, and our sinful Flesh daily tries to convince us that we don’t need other people’s help and/or that others don’t have the right to speak into our lives. You’ve probably heard me say on many occasions that you are the single best parent for your child when you are fully submitted to Christ. In those cases, no one can parent your kids better than you can. If they could, God would have given your kids to them. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t pursue help. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to continue growing into the parent who is fully submitted to Christ, because quite often we’re not, and we need help getting there. And the final thing I wanted to share today is . . . 2. Since it would be wise for all of us to seek help in our parenting, we need to carefully choose the most beneficial help. A. There is value in books and podcasts. As someone who has written books and hosts a podcast, I firmly believe there’s value in those mediums. But—as I mentioned before—the best podcasts and books are still not personalized. You may have heard me say that the best application is the most specific application—application that can only apply to you. Therefore, even the best parenting book can be more valuable as someone helps you apply it to your situation in the best way possible. Therefore . . . B. There is value in counseling from people who don’t know you. Again, as a biblical counselor who rarely has a previous relationship with the individuals who come for counseling, I totally recognize and champion the value in such biblical counseling. There is great help to be had in counseling from people who don’t do life with you. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t more beneficial types of help. C. The most valuable help is found in counseling from people who do life with you. I have been on both sides of the example I’m about to give you. A person goes to someone for counseling, but they don’t have a prior relationship and they only ever see each other during their counseling time. That’s often only on a weekly basis. In situations like that, it’s so easy for the counselee to be on their best behavior, for the counselor to only every know their side of the story, and even to deliberately withhold information from the counselor or even lie. Yeah, I know, you never saw that one coming. But when we are getting our parenting help from people who actually see us as we parent, that person has a better chance of understanding the situation and offering assistance that will be the most beneficial. However, I have one more subpoint to make. D. The only valuable counseling absolutely needs to be rooted in the Scripture. Yes, the best counsel is going to come from someone who intimately knows the Bible, lives a Christ-honoring life, and knows you well, but sometimes it’s really hard to find a person who fits into all three of those categories. There are plenty of people who know things about the Bible, but they don’t live it. And there are also many people who know and live the Scriptures who don’t know or do life with us. So, what do you do? When people come to me for counseling, I always push them back to their church. The hope (and biblical expectation) is that there should be a mature believe in their church who is better-suited to help them than I am. However, in so many cases (basically 100% of my counseling) the individuals can’t find someone in their local body of believers who knows the Scriptures, is mature, and who knows them well. And so the individual or the family comes to be for counseling. Yes, your pastor or one of your elders should be the best guy to help you in your parenting journey, but so may of them aren’t very good in pastoral counseling sessions, aren’t doing a good job parenting their kids, or don’t know you any better than I do. Therefore, a podcast that is thoroughly biblical is much better than a doctrinally unsound pastor or a close friend who’s immaturely following the trends of the world. The most important aspect of the counseling must be its submission to the practical application of biblical principles. Second to that is how well the individual knows us. Too often, though, when some people look for help, they go to the people they know, the people “get them,” but those people aren’t doing any better than they are or pursuing a biblical trajectory than they are. In a recent article entitle “The Parenting Book Too Few Parents Read,” Tim Challies started out by talking about the many parenting materials he’s consumed. And then he said, “Yet I could never shake this thought: I don’t actually know any of these authors. I don’t know anything more than what they have told me about themselves in their books. I don’t know how they have actually lived these things out in their homes. I don’t know how their children feel about them. I don’t know if they gained the hearts of their kids or lost them, if their techniques led to great success or total failure. But I knew it is much harder to be hypocritical in a context in which you are seen and known. It is much harder to fake it, to have a great disparity between what you teach and how you live or between what you say is true of your family and what is actually true. The local church proves who you really are, what you really believe, and how you really live. And so I decided it would be wise to commit to reading the “book” that I saw each Sunday, the one that was right before my eyes. Here I could see fathers who loved their children (and were loved by their children) and ask them for guidance. Here I could see parents whose children I would be proud to call my own and learn to imitate them. Here I could see the principles of Scripture really lived out. I understood that it would be foolish to spend time with a book when I could spend time with a family, to learn from a stranger when I could be mentored by a friend.” Now, I don’t agree with absolutely everything Challies said in his article, but the basic premise and main points were good. Here were his 5 tips for asking for parenting help from people who are spiritually mature and who know you. I’m going to comment on his 5 tips and be done. 1. “Do not be easily impressed by people whose children are still young.” This is not say they aren’t good parents, but if they offer advice that isn’t necessarily an application of a legitimate biblical concept, it may simply be a fad, a repurposed secular notion, or destined to failure. 2. “Look for people in your church whose older children are living the way you’d hope your children will someday live.” This is really great advice . . . if . . . you have a good, grounded, biblical, Christ-honoring vision for how you hope your children will live one day. If I don’t have biblical hopes for them, I might think many people who are living unbiblical lives could be a good model for my kid, and their parents will seem like someone from whom I could get good advice. 3. “Be wary of people whose egos are tied closely to their children.” First, this is an indication of sinful pride, and so that mostly bumps them out of the spiritually mature category of counsel-givers. Second, since their motivation for parenting isn’t biblical, it doesn’t matter if they’re encouraging you to do good things in good ways, because they’re also teaching you to do them for bad reasons. 4. “As you speak to exemplary parents, also speak to their exemplary children.” I’m just going to read what he wrote under this point. Challies said, “Ask them what they believe their parents did so well. Ask them what they have learned from their mom and dad. Ask them for the ways in which they intend to imitate their parents.” Those are all great ideas. And, finally . . . 5. “Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because older parents raised their children many years ago and in a different cultural context, their counsel is no longer valuable.” The Apostle Paul likely didn’t have kids, but his exceptionally biblical advice about child rearing still stands thousands of years later. And since the Word of God is eternally relevant and evergreen, then anyone who used those principles to rear their kids is someone who should be able to speak into our parenting. I’ll have a link in the description to the full article as well as an interview I did with Tim that discusses parental blindspots. I hope you’ll check those out. Conclusion
But more importantly I hope that you will continue to pursue help in your parenting. Yes, keep listening to this podcast and reading good books, but also be humble enough to get life-on-life help from spiritually mature believers in your church.
And you can help other dads and moms recognize that they need parenting help too by sharing this episode with them. And if you are now recognizing that you need more specific and individualized help in your parenting, but you don’t have anyone who’s wise and mature enough and who knows you really well, please send an email to [email protected] or call (828) 423-0894. And then join us next week as we answer the age old question “Is Being a Parent Really Like Owning a Puppy?” I’ll see you then.
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