Guest Speaker Kevin Leman on Parenting

attitude behavior and character those are things that people want to focus in on and kids today many times get an attitude and when they get an attitude the last thing they need from you is an attitude back but what they need you to do quite frankly is to make sure that attitude doesn't get them where they say they want to go or do and sometimes you just get to a point we just sort of to an amount okay and and they'll watch how they try to engage you in battle and they'll set traps for you again they know all your soft spots okay just like when you and your husband fight you know your husband fight you know exactly what to say oh honey no you go ahead and play golf no I know yeah no you go to to back and play golf I'll just stay here with your mother now that's a spit in your soup that means I hope you'll lose your 7-iron okay and you've got to be on the same page so if you want the kids to fall in line it's really important that they look up and see mom and dad that are on the same page now if you're a single parent okay you're going it alone and I've talked to a number of you I've heard those situations and they're tough but but here's what you got to understand you're the single parent and you've got good firm guidelines of how we're going to behave in this family you stick to that and you don't waver your kid's got a good shot at making it in life especially for the mom who's raising sons especially for the single dad who's got daughters because those are the special relationships daddy and daughter and mother and son okay now we talk about letting reality be the teacher your nine-year-old doesn't clean his room and you're a neat freak okay one of the reasons he doesn't clean his room is because you're a neat freak by the way now you can close it or not look at it shovel it out once a week have him shovel it out even better okay or you can hire eight-year-old sister to quit and clean it for nine-year-old brother you pay for it out of nine-year-olds allowance once he figures out his crummy sister that's his term not mine was even in his room you got his attention okay so the consequence it's a little bit like life if you want to get your car wash go on now and have Washington Washington I knew 5ru stayed in your driveway and washes yourself so why shouldn't the home reflect what life's all about but I'm telling you kids are on the take you know it's the gimme generation America is the gimme generation take a look around what's happening in our world my goodness you know we got people on the take every place we go but it does get interesting doesn't it reactions most of us react to things we get angry we get mad okay that never solves a problem I'll pick a new single moms' for a second you live in a two-bedroom apartment okay bucks are hard to come by to begin with you're just trying to make it you're having breakfast with your nine-year-old son one morning he looks up at you he says mommy I want a pony a pony where'd you get I'm telling you there's a stupidest thing I've heard her where'd you get an idea like that she's got a deep voice I'll tell you but Burt had your brain he'd fly sideways what's wrong with you apone yes the stupidest thing I ever heard I'm telling you I live and breathe that's a reaction does that help anything no what I'm telling you you can learn to respond same situation mommy I want a pony opponent Wow can you imagine having your own pony your moyson getting up in the morning getting on that pony and going to school riding that pony by the kids at the bus stop going down to school all the kids are getting off the bus not you you're tying up your pony bell rings that at lunchtime all the kids go to school cafeteria not you you got to go check on your pony yeah but we live in an apartment we can't have a pony here kid we'll figure it out I remember one a pony when I was a kid there was contests on TV where if you sent in a box top you know you'd have a chance to win a pony I mean I really believed I was going to get a pony someday one of life's real hurts didn't get the pony but again keep in mind that these kids will work you I was in McCormick Place in Chicago Illinois it's a huge facility we had this big Parenthood thing that people from all over and and as a keynote speaker for the thing and was one of those moments in life that I'll never forget and a woman came up to me I still remember her name and this goes way back I still remember the red sweater she had on and she came up to me after my presentation oh she said this is so good she says I cannot wait for my kids to misbehave I am ready for and I tell audiences lots of times when you leave I want you to have that same thought that you're ready you can take these kids on and not feel defeated and bad about yourself and so anyway I was talking about how kids intuitively know how to get you over the barrel in situations like there's a telephone call and it's for you and somebody actually wants to talk to you on the phone it's a girlfriend you haven't talked to in ages and I don't know who tells the kids it's time for the dog and pony show to start but kids intuitively know that that's it and I was just trying to mimic what that situation was like oh hi how are you yes oh my goodness it's so good to hear from you yeah yeah yeah cookies you him but would you kids please huh shop uh Friday night yeah well Bob's out of town but what could I bring a salad well yeah could you excuse me once would you kid for I can hardly hear anything on out I'm saying you know what this is your home you're an adult young people have a conversation with your kids without going through this so I walk them through the whole thing this is pre email days and back in those days this is the time when I was doing shows like Phil Donahue they would bring the mail in in bins I got so much mail from people and I remember going through the mail and I saw this little they look like a shoebox card I had this little Chicago suburb on it and I said to myself I know who that's from I picked it up and she started her name was Lori she's a doctor I don't remember me wrong I'm right in the front row on how to run but you were talking about what happened you know in the kids and that's afternoon I came home and coincidence coincidence I got a phone call from a girlfriend I have not heard from in ages and my kid started with you called the dog and pony show but I did exactly what you said to do I put down the phone without comment I took Brian and Ainsley I put them outside I closed the door and locked it they went back to my conversation she said here comes the embarrassing part I forgot about them she said it was some 45 minutes later when I looked through the family room out to the back patio and I saw a little hand on the window and I said to my girlfriend can you hang on a minute I forgot something and she sent me the note the kids found an old brown grocery bag and they wrote without it looked like a dull pencil at the top and said mommy we love you then on the bottom had arrows that over OVI our I said can we come in now well this was Chicago in March so you can imagine it was a little nippy outside but she went on to say that next time and I sent this back to her I told her to put it in her scrapbook but she said the next time the phone rang that the kids came in the central area where the phone was located in satin opposite chairs with her arms folded so I'm telling you it's possible to take the little Buzzard by the bait to make things happen to maintain order okay without getting sucked in to all the things that they want to get you involved in now we live in a society where if I took a show of hands and said okay how many of you think praise is good for kids most of you have put your hands up but I don't want you to feel bad so I'm not going to ask you to do that I'm just going to tell you that praise is not good for children okay now I know that's counterculture praise God all others pay cash God is worthy of your praise your pastor isn't nor is his wife Jan as nice as people as they are they're not worthy of your praise okay if you put them on a pedestal the only thing they can do is fall off in front of you okay so we talked about encouragement versus praise on top of that we have false praise and there's a ton of that Little League game okay I'm over at Coco's on Broadway having a cup of coffee I'm reading USA Today they got a feature article on false praise I talked about false praise for 30-some years I am so vain I'm skimming the article looking for my name I know it's in there I know it's in there ah to be in there not in there I go crap somebody ripped me off so I'm reading the article and they use baseball as an example I told you I was a baseball player and I dug right in the article they talked about this little kid in a little league game was up the bat he takes three straight pitches and strikes out if you ever been a Little League game and the kid throws three straight pitches over the plate that's a minor miracle to begin with but the kid strikes out and the young parents behind the fence are yelling great at bat Matthew great at bat I Got News for You Matthew you little loser it was a lousy it back you didn't even swing now don't send me an email about calling the kettle loser okay I'm just saying what would have been helpful is at the end of that game for the parents to come up and say hey Matt rough day at the plate today I'm going to be home early on Wednesday and Thursday night if you want me to take you down throw batting practice to you in the park every more than happy to that would be helpful but now with no effort at all we believe that if you just blew smoke these kids and tell bottle lies about themselves that somehow they're going to bloom forth nothing could refer them the truth now the difference between praise and encouragement it's a Saturday morning you know what Saturday mornings are like for a lot of us you got to get everything done in one day and mom's got a dental appointment and she's driving home and she's thinking about all the things she's got to do it she thinks of her kitchen which is a complete mess dirty dishes from two nights ago still in the sink and she says his dead tired as I am I got so many things I got to do I'm gonna clean that stupid kitchen first she walks into a clean sparking kitchen and she's greeted by her 12-year old son who's got a dish towel over his shoulder in a clean sparking kitchen she can't believe it she said Buford did you clean this up sure did mom oh you are the best boy in the whole world mm-hmm here's $10 I not only appraise them but you reward them with a thin ski and some people are saying what's wrong with that at least the kid did it well okay here's the problem the next day hey mom where's my ten dollars what ten dollars ten dollars for today what ten dollars for today yesterday I cleaned the kitchen gave me ten I cleaned it again today where's my ten now if you want to create a carrot seeker you got it just keep doing if you got enough $10 bills times 365 you've got a clean kitchen okay until they want more money so what I'm suggesting is using encouragement which is a building block for positive good healthy self-image if you will in that same situation say how did you clean this up sure did mom what a thoughtful thing to do I'll tell you I can't thank you enough thank you so much see the takeaway is I gave back to the family and this goes back to the question I want you to answer am i reran my kid in a home or hotel most of us rear kids in hotels which means we give them food service you know linen service delivery service and we asked nothing of them kids need to give back all the Lehmann kids worked all the Lehmann kids had jobs and that's a healthy thing you know I have you got bucks in the back pocket it's almost worse how many of you grew up poor how many of you are still poor yeah you know what being poor is is a blessing and life I think you know there's an old song an old Johnny Mathis song called the hungry years and the essence of the song is this guy yearns for the hungry years where we didn't have a dime it was just you and me that's a great thought people who struggle people would want to have things need to rely on what each other if you got somebody who really loves you as you are man you're wealthy person you got good health the Lord's given you man you're blessed and then so don't worry about these things called children but we got parents who snow plow the roads the life for children they pay for far too many things there's a pastor over in Longview you'd like this one pastor in Longview Texas the kid at age 10 decided he doesn't want to go go to church anymore the pastor's son I love it and so the mother was and they're really nice people and the mom said eight help us out Lima we got a kid who really he just hates going to church I said okay how old's he's 10 years old I said I want you to do something different why don't you get ready on Sunday just leave him home and she said what I said just get ready to church him you know go to churches leave my home he's only 10 he done he told not to stay home he's not gonna die well what happened was she called me from Longview Texas on a Tuesday morning and she said hey I got to tell you what happened last Sunday we we talked about it we were a little nervous about it but we left them home guess what he hitchhiked the church but he got the church when I was a freshman in college I hitched like 6600 miles my freshman year of college because I went to college in Chicago we lived in Buffalo not a girlfriend that was part of the problem and you know I think about how independent I was as a kid and I wrote myself off as being stupid and dumb and all those things I told myself looking back I was pretty entrepreneurial in my life and so I'm just telling you these were rearing kids and it's not rocket science we're going to take a break here in a minute and I want to I've designed this in such a way that we'll be able to talk a little something about birth order and see how that ties in we're the ones that just tell people what to do that's our idea of leadership and rules without relationship lead to rebellion so either extreme you know we talked about the authoritarian parent that knows what's best for you these are people who just rule with the iron fist you won't do what I tell you to do and you want something quiet about I'll give you something require Bob oh you don't want to take her away you stay home you know that one whether you have the father or the mother had the temper and when they yelled or screamed or did something you'd click your little heels together and your body would tighten up that's being raised reared is the proper term actually not raised weird in that authoritarian home well way over here on the other extreme guess it you got the permissive parent these are a dime a dozen all dr. Lehmann Ralph and I strongly believe that every chance you get a trophy every challenge of being a winner that's why we've enrolled Melissa and non-competitive soccer and I mean how do people think of these things you know there's something wonderful about learning to lose learning to not get your own way anybody who's ever played sports know there's a winner and a loser by the way the studies done on all these non-competitive sports and the kids keep score that's funny to me and parents do do far too many things for kids the kids can be doing for themselves when your kids turn that TV down and I'm trying to do your homework and so parents will do the science project for the kids they do all those kind of things that's crazy you know you there comes a time of accountability where you say hey enough enough yeah you have parents who just give kids things and money and again if you're blessed with money you you can you can put the golden road down there for the kid and in the process you're going to weaken that kid and if he's married and in this wife sees that this kids on the take from his old man or his mom or his aunt or his grandma who's ever got the source of money I mean that's a marriage it's not going to that's not going to make it so permissiveness reins butch what you have to understand is if you bring up your kid in a permissive way today he'll rebound but if you bring up a kid over here at the other extreme an authoritarian means they'll rebound so again little fat wise man tell us if that doesn't work and that doesn't work what works what works is being in healthy authority over your kid and you let your kids fail failure is important in life talk to anybody who's successful there's a guy named Babe Lincoln who failed a lot and people you know in terms of rank presidents you're going to find Lincoln up there somewhere in the top five and there's a guy had all kinds of failure I mentioned Robert Frost today Robert Frost the great poet the Atlantic's as we have we have no use for your vigorous verse that's not a compliment friends he was 39 before he had anything published again yours you're listening to a guy that graduated fourth and Baba's class in high school and a lot of people wrote off I dedicated my very first book to my high school counselor who told me Lehman I couldn't get you admitted reform school so you got these extremes out here but if you're if you're too authoritarian your kids going to pay for it and so are you and again husband and wife here's the deal if you got a real autocratic husband ladies hey I'm telling you this is how we're going to do it in this house you understand me you got that that parent you as a woman automatically are going to try to soften things up because honestly John I think you're internally to run for the voice and when you do you're not helping yeah I mean quite frankly it's better for you both to be authoritarian than for wanting to be on this extreme and the other on the other okay so rules without relationship lead to rebellion now you firstborn children let's start with you how many of your only children just for fun only children well welcome only children we have the perfect ones with us ah here here's the question for you only children why were your only child I mean the mom and dad take one look and say well that's enough of those I had an only child tell me one night he said well doc I think they reach perfection the first time you know that there's there's some credence to that statement now you firstborn children where are you you're the oldest of your sex in your family okay and I see we got first Born's married that's pathetic is he got two people who are married you know exactly what how life ought to be your husband's driving he hangs a simple left-hand turn as only his firstborn wife can say is why are you turning here she's got a better way I got to do is hop on the interstate you'll be there in a second the great shooters and I call those firstborn women Martha Luther's because they're the great reformers they're always reforming they always have a better idea now I'm married to mrs. uppington the first corn it one day we had this conversation okay I said honey you're bossy she didn't miss a beat she's I'm not bossy honey my views are just better than yours how do you beat that one anyway first point reliable conscientious list makers they don't like surprises they're planners and organizers by their nature okay now is I described that firstborn there's firstborns here that aren't vaguely close to that description let me describe you to put it bluntly you're a slob you're procrastinator if we went to your house you have piles all over your piles a desk at work you have piles in your home someone asked you to find something you know exactly what's power to look at you can find it with these want to screw this person up move their piles now this is what I know about you this gets interesting it's uncanny because I know you grew up with a critical eyed parent in other words a parent who could spot a flaw at 50 paces again they put this in a spiritual sense God sees all your flaws and he loves you despite your stupidity you can be dumb as mine but see in our humaneness we see the flaw in other people where's the cabinetmaker here is there a guy here that's a cabinet maker 1 anybody put your hand up there's one right there alright now this guy can make anything if you're a cabinet maker I mean these guys are skilled craftsmen ok and people will marvel it would he can create with his hands and people say you made that gun rack you made that bookcase you made that whatever and he says yeah and they're raving about it ok they're raving about what he made you know what he's thinking and all probability if you only knew on the backside of that there's a flaw question is that true in your life yeah he says yeah I mean these guys they're classic example what I'm talking about that they can't get perfect enough and that's tough because these guys are skilled these guys do great things and yet you work toward perfection and perfection is slow suicide you're never going to get there so you realize that you're imperfect you realize you're incomplete but the good news is if you're a believer and you have the power God in your life hey flaunt your imperfection flaunt it I tell stories about myself where you know I had a whole pumpkin pie in one sitting you know it's a funny story I don't time to tell it but I ate the whole pumpkin pie I always tell people I say well that's my imperfection what's yours we're imperfect a lot of people think about people you really like in life I mean I've hung out with some of the big stars you know but you know the guys I really like in life Bill Cosby I hung out would cause me for a whole day I had on myself for about 40 minutes just the two of us alone and it was awesome but you know what he cared about other people he took time with other people you know he didn't see himself as better than other people Regis Philbin there's another one I'll give you the flipside barbara wawa not one of my favorite people life again she thinks her due to his raspberry sorbet but again are those the kind of people you're drawn to no you like people who are down-to-earth people who just you know that they try not to be what they're not and so you want to have that kind of an attitude you're drawn toward those people but first-born see themselves as only counting a life when they're in control when they dominate where they win they're highly competitive people okay there are astronauts and outer space too the first 2321 firstborn children our last election where they're trying to find a Republican to run against Obama there were nine of them running eight of the nine were first born or only born children so our leaders in a natural sense our first born children and their first cousins only children are little adults by age seven their joy in life is sneaking into adult company and just being able to listen they love that so then you get the first two kids in the family who are night and day difference so whatever the first born is the second born isn't but that slob I talked about that one has the critical ID parent who is good at finding the flaw so rather than risk ridicule or failure they don't complete the task these are people who are always late by the way they're always late for appointments or never on time see they sabotage themselves they're like the person is swimming in the deep end of the pool and I can by and say hey get moving and they say what are you blind you can't see since you see my legs moving in my arms moving I said yeah I see that but you're not going anywhere there's people like that in life that go nowhere they just talk a good game you want to move forward you want to see progress like playing golf you ever play golf and you hit a golf shot out there and you turn back and look at the tee do you know it looks further and you say wow did I hit it that far I'm convinced that since Elvis has to do sometimes stop and like see where we were and see where we've come and realized that with God he's enabled us he's given us these gifts whatever they are do we have frailties and flaws yeah but he's allowed us to do what we do what better to be a teacher I always wanted to teach at the University and I taught part-time and I was an administrator administration and faculty don't always get along that shouldn't be a surprise to you as an education but when I try to do full-time teaching I had the door slammed in my face in 1981 and I went out on my own I remember after the first year I turned to my wife said honey we're going to be ok because I had just done my income tax so my income went up ten times in one year I look back I say you know god I am so thankful you allowed me to do what I do because now I get to teach all over the world I don't do I don't correct papers I don't give grades I just do what I love to do and that is try to teach people how to do life a little bit more simply than others so now the first Born's rule okay they're the boss he suckers okay they have to achieve they have to win they have to dominate the next one comes along ought to be like a manatee who just sort of slides through life where our middle children here you're in the middle you have same-sex kids on both sides you those are your true middles okay let me say something you've never heard in life before oh honey what do you think see a middle child doesn't hear that because the firstborn dominates and then the baby the family the thing how many of you are babies in the family little Snooki's would you admit you knew how to get around your older brother and sister we got two babies married now that's interesting did you pay me a lecture Paul I thought you planned your love affair were the candles I don't know hey you know babies Billy Crystal Eddie Murphy drew Carey Jim Carrey Martin Short Chevy Chase Ellen DeGeneres Whoopi Goldberg Jon Stewart Steve Colbert Jimmy Fallon Jay Leno the list goes on Joan Rivers all babies of the family what is about us babies of the family by the way do babies of the family do lifelike first porns do they pay by product remember I told you business people read the birth order book I meant that because the firstborn when he buys a car or she buys a car reads consumers report car and driver magazine all those kind of things they tend to be detailed oriented us babies we walk on a car lot and say such things as Chaz I am Shazam Shazam here's something for you I'm going out to Diller's to buy underwear one night and I'm walking out in park mall the year is 1980 I'm still at the University okay and this watch is under a high-intensity lab this is a gold watch it's got 48 diamonds on it it's under a high-intensity lap and I'm walking by this jeweler and it gets my attention and I go up to the showcase I'm outside I'm outside and I'm going cause I am sure I am shows I am that is a watch and I'm looking at it so intently that the woman clerk comes out of the store and stands next to me and she sort of startles me and she says isn't that a beautiful watch oh yeah I'll show you a beautiful just on sale now I want you understand this is 1980 it's on sale for thirty eight hundred and fifty dollars it's a $5,000 watch okay do I look like a person that wears a dress watch I wear this thing fishing eye word every day it's a reminder of how stupid I could be I put it on an American Express card I got a four thousand dollar credit limit okay so I buy the dumb thing I can't wait to show it to my wife so finally I get enough nerve to show it to her at her official comment she I said she said what is that and I said that's my watch don't you love it she says that is the tackiest thing I've ever seen and then as God would have it it stopped working it stopped working I thought this is my out I see babies jumping with both feet then ask questions later I got an out the stupid thing doesn't work so I take it back the lady who sold it to me isn't there but the store managers there he says well I mean I want to return this watch it doesn't work he said well let me take a look at it he says hmm I see the problem he didn't wind it I said you got to wind the watch 3850 bucks you got to wind the watch so on the back of it it's engraved for those of you who understand fine movies maybe you'll know what movie this comes from and I'm reading it to you it says can I have your watch when you are dead who knows what movie that's from can I have your watch when you are dead 1985 movie yes the three amigos finest movie ever made it says yes I love you and I told my son someday Kevin this is going to be yours he took it I gave it to him for Christmas in a package and he went like this and he put it on his arm and he had a long-sleeve shirt on he said dad I'll treasure this forever mm-hmm well you know humor stupid I've done some stupid things in life that's one of the dumbest things ever did in life what I think of what I could have done with $3,850 put it into a watch that the thing just fell out of it the whole thing you said it with you know so anyway that's us babies but see I need the firstborn to help straighten me up but mrs. uppington I'm telling you if I had you guys if I had passed her in Jan or for dinner I'm telling you it was a Saturday night dinner okay it would start on Thursday the table would be set on Thursday it's sacred it might as well say this do in remembrance of me on the side of it now Wendell Wendell and Cindy you've been to my house and my lion I mean my wife is going to have I mean she's going to have it's all there and I get in trouble for going near the table you know my big job is to wipe out the water glasses on Saturday night but she will make from scratch a big heart-shaped cookie and she'll put it on the plate with your names on it okay Zain and jam now I got to tell you that is stupid in the time that she will put into doing all that okay but but that's her but so she's the firstborn that gets all upset about these these little stupid things and she needs me but my point is that we look at relationships it's the differences that make us a couple so don'ts what the differences realize that that's what makes you a team and as the kids look up they see that the team is on the same page even though they're different that's what's going to grow those kids in the right direction as simple as that so babies are manipulative social outgoing never met a stranger I told the story about talking my way into Disney World nine free tickets for on the front part and five when I made the clothes the guy gave me nine tickets at 180 bucks apiece I talked my way into it that is a skill that a baby of the family can have because babies do their whole life getting around other people where firstborns are much more likely to just just paint playing the game of life the way it's supposed to be play then there's you middle children yeah nobody ever paid attention to you you were squeezed between the crown prince or princess your little brother or sister who got away with murder or everything okay so you guys negotiate for everything you ever had in life you never had mom and dad to yourself okay you got your brother's hand-me-downs your sister's hand-me-downs okay and middle children are the toughest to pin down in birth order okay and you know if you by the way if you look at people in the Bible this is interesting Esau loved the outdoors but Jacob was a quiet man who stayed at home as the boys grew I saw became a skillful hunter why Jacob was a quiet sort who liked to stay at home Genesis 25 27 so we're all different you know we're all different treat people differently watch your expectations when you compare a kid a kid just does something for the first time your second born just did something you know how kids will say in the summer time watch me watch me watch me they do something for the first time and you say to your husband all Jack ma'am do you remember when when Johnny did that what have you just told the kid you told him what he just did for the first time his older brother did two years earlier so watch those comparisons so treat people differently but birth order have you ever ridden on Southwest Airlines I love this example you had fun on Southwest Airlines it's a fun airline they'll give you the FAA you know safety thing and you'll hear some great ones on there there's some really funny things on there well a guy Herb Kelleher who was their chairman and CEO I had the privilege of interviewing get to know he's the baby of four boys he's a hoot and a holler he's a guy who gets on the airplane and passed out peanuts to passengers and stuff his imprint is all over that airline but let's check this out at Southwest the customer isn't always right it's interesting airline I was in Las Vegas once at the counter and a guy was making a fool of himself if some people will do it they're irate over an airline thing the guy comes over who had a supervisor jacket on he handed this guy cash and he said I was there I heard it he said fly another airline they just canceled your reservation at Southwest the customer is not always right there's times is a family member is a mom or dad where you got to understand sometimes you have to do that to your kid fly another airline talk to the hand I'm not interested in your dog and pony show flat out I don't believe you okay and sometimes you have to say that when I was a Dean of Students had a young kid who was arrested for stealing a craft relish thing from 7-eleven and they nailed him he he was dealt with him the city courts and all that and that same kid came and he asked me for a letter of recommendation about two weeks after this event his name was Steve I'll never forget this kid I said Steve I'd be more than happy to put in writing that you're a thief if that would be helpful for you I'd be glad to do that and you could have taken this little freshman and blowing him over with a feather you know but that kid came back in his senior year I wrote a great recommendation for that young man he paid for his sin did he make a mistake yeah I made a lot of mistakes I mean I remember traveling across the country and forgetting to pay in any of the restaurants I ate in from Tucson all the way to Buffalo New York in my 1950 Ford okay I remember cheating in school I'd still be in Latin wonderful wasn't forgotten Carl mozz hey Mazz lower your left shoulder I've done a lot of things in life I'm not proud of but you get to a point where you know it's grace grace exists because we need it okay but look at God's family look at the family you grew up in look at your brothers and sisters look how different we all are so we get hung up because people aren't like us they're people are the same well that's by design now we sit in the first row of the airplane I've watched people get on on the airplane I love to I love to sit there and watch people and I notice how different they all are wow that's the God we serve you know the creation the universe the the closest star is four light years away from us how big is your God it's a pretty cool big God you've been around forever he had no beginning he created us in this universe and here we are twenty three and a half degrees the Earth's access I mean right now we're moving okay there we are perfect move it one way this way one out just one degree we'd fry one degree this way we'd freeze to death is God who he said he was you find his words in the cross Jesus words on the cross in Psalm 22 King David penned those words okay he's God he made all of us who you know to be like somebody else just got me you do have your pluses you do have your pluses give your minuses yes other times you want to kill your children I hope so I mean there's time people ask me if he ever think of divorcing your wife no murder several times I told my kids you find her dad I did it I mean she's done some incredible things I told you about driving through the garage door that's just one of the things she did then plenty of things like that we have one daughter that's very similar to her I remember dropping her off at school and morning and she walked out and she had her backpack on her flew came out done a book then another book and she kept walking well God is my judge he was at Grace Christian school in Pima I remember extending my hand like this and just saying Lord keep your hand on him you know she's the marketing manager for a huge ministry today in Chicago Illinois she deals with people in Zambia Africa I'm sure I'm gonna get I'm gonna get to a little African grandchildren she's I think she's gonna adopt a couple kids I told her I said fine one that looks like me not my kids appreciate my sense of humor that's all there is to it but the point is you know we're all different but let me take you to the where the rubber meets the road with this thing about rearing kids and it gets to the point that you only have a short window and you know we live in New York State in the summertime and and our daughter Holly was very very bright she's the principal by the way over at Ford school she's married to Dean we love Holly and she's very competent English teacher by trade I mean this is a kid who was a voracious reader but she went to a place called Grove City College which is one of money Magazine's top best buys of American education but to get in the door the place you needed a CT score of 34 or more if you know any about that that's really high you gotta be bright anyway she gets in it and we lived two and a half hours north of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania where she went to school in this little town at Grove City and all summer long I sorta jab mrs. uppington with honey pretty soon you're gonna have to say goodbye to your little firstborn and whenever I brought it up she'd cry she'd go like this oh oh I don't want to talk about it leave me I don't want to talk about it and throughout the summer I'd give her a little jab once while honey four weeks and today we're gonna take Holly to school honey I know one talked about it and she'd tear up in retrospect I know why I acted like that baby the family who was tantalising big sister and by the way I woke up my sister one morning with a juicy Nightcrawler and I was just touching her nose as she was sleeping that's one of her vivid memories inspect she's at my house over on the east side right now but anyway the day comes when you have to take that daughter to college it's an interesting experience how many you ever taken a kid to school it's an interesting ride because it certainly bring that precipice in life when you realize hey this is a new journey this is a new chapter and we took two cars to get all the freshmen stuff there we pull into Grove City and they have big sign men this way women this way you pull it mixed to the dorm and it boys about 15 or 20 of them emptied those cars in seconds and and these boys all had blue button-down shirts on and I figured how quickly these guys are checking out the freshmen fillies you know who are coming into the female dorms I'm sure they were just service origin people helping the university but being a man that thought did cross my mind well anyway if you've ever done that you meet a lot of people you're welcome by far too many people you forget half their names but then you get to the point where your kid is going to live in this little cubicle called a dorm room and you meet the stranger that your daughter is going to live with and then you meet the strangers parents and then you get to this point and I'll never forget it because Holly began the process of saying goodbye and I found myself all of a sudden just saying I freaking out I felt claustrophobic and I said not here not here I said and I ran out of the out of the dorm I just had to get out of there I didn't realize at the time what was happening to me but I knew it was coming that we were going to say goodbye now I'm the one that's kidding my wife all summer long about saying goodbye and all of a sudden my heart starts fluttering I feel nervous I don't know what's happened to me and so I'm walking like this typical male 50 yards in front of my wife and daughter who are walking in harmony like this on the sidewalk okay then they come up behind the dorm where the car is I'll never forget this moment because now they've stopped moving and now they're both five nine and they're doing this thing back and forth just a gentle rock and the Sun is in my wife's face and I can see the tears streaming down her face I remember thinking don't come here stay right there because I can't handle any of this of course as soon as I had the thought she released her mother and made a beeline for me but chicas done to me like this is daddy I love you so much and she puts her arms around me and all of a sudden friends I lost it and I started to cry and my whole body gentlemen have you ever cried like this your whole body does this sort of jerking motion and she looked up at me and she said daddy I don't think she ever saw me profusely cry like that in the weird thing about it was people asked me what was the strangest thing that ever happened to you in parenting this is it you're about to hear it and I'm sitting there and I'm crying okay and my tears are falling on Holly's front okay and it's amazing what you think about in this moment but I'm sitting there I'm just gutting it out the tears are flowing down my face they're falling on her and all of a sudden when I thought it was Holly Lehman's bra not the bra she had on but the bra that I stepped on one morning when I'm getting ready for work I'm getting ready for work I'm in my room I stepped on someone it had some metal thing in her something caught my attention my foot and I thought what the heck is that and I kicked it and I picked it up I don't make these things up I didn't know what it was I figured it was my wife something but I couldn't imagine where it would go so I went around the rack and my wife's in the work isn't honey what is this she said honey that's how he's bra she's 10 years old I said Holly's got a bra this is her hair girls are gonna grow up and become a bra someday it was that they call a training bra and again she had nothing to Train and I want you understand I'm holding my my 18 year old daughter in a parking lot my tears are falling on her and I'm saying to myself you can't be all grown up I taught you everything I need to teach you about life are you really ready to be on your own in true male fashion I said Holly you need to leave and I took her little waist she's built like her mom and I just sort of twisted her like this you know what she did she took off for the dorm and she didn't turn back and she didn't look back and just before she disappeared I yell honey cause tonight honey she never looked back she did this over her shoulder like seeing and disappeared I looked at mrs. uppington as those get out of here we drove up I 79 was miserable there was a part I felt like somebody just stuck a knife in here and give it a little twist turned for a fact we drove up I 79 and for 20-25 minutes of time we wouldn't speak a word to each other I'd cry she cries said give me some more Kleenex I'd blow my honker I mean it was miserable we stopped at a Red Lobster had a dead fish nothing helped nothing held drove home to our summer place in New York and and I like a darn fool I'm sitting there I know she's going to call me she knows I go to bed early ten o'clock I'm done I'm sitting there waiting for the phone to ring it doesn't ring doesn't ring the next day either long story short doesn't ring for a week next Sunday the following Sunday the one thing I did write former dean of students I didn't call her I waited for her to call which was a good thing but you know that Sunday afternoon when she called I heard that little voice emotionally I could have crawled through that phone wire I mean I was so excited to hear little voice we heard all about freshman week three rivers what you know what pittsburgh's like at night when you compute the tunnels and all that we got toward the end the conversation is how I got to ask you some money when you walked away last week what were you thinking about she said Oh daddy it's funny I was thinking about that this week I saw what were you thinking about she says I was thinking about the fact that you mommy had me up right and now it was my turn to go and do it in life now I ask you isn't that what training up a child is all about and aren't they all different you know as little kids holly if you gave her a treat we'd sit there and she'd study things she'd read the back of the labels at age six and seven she'd look for the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval her younger sister Chrissy the first rubber lizard she saw she had to have it these kids are night and day different they still are night and day different well about I guess it's been eight or nine years I was closing a seminar in Phoenix in an auditorium with about 3,000 people in it and we're coming to this this point where you know this is what parenting is all about and I was sharing with this audience this very story and a woman young woman star walking down the side way down the very extreme part I gave a quick look and I thought to myself that looks like Holly that was my first thought that that kid looked like Holly and I kept talking and and she kept coming closer and I don't guys it it's Holly highs here when she was in Phoenix I didn't know she was in Phoenix she know I was speaking she was in the audience and she comes right up on stage and I got a lapel mic right here and she gets up to me on stage and she gets on stage everything is her standing ovation I've been working like a dog they're sitting you know what I'm saying she walks up it's how I hear they all get on their feet and applaud how he's coming was they can hear every word she says and she says his only a firstborn daughter can say she said daddy you need to learn to tell that story right I said honey I did tell her right what do you talk about she said no she says there's something I have to tell you I've never told you I said what she said I've been turning around because I was clowning and I didn't want you and mommy to think that I couldn't make it in life then that doesn't that hit home here see your kid needs you to believe in your kid and their dreams and aspirations are all in different areas some of you got kids I've talked to you break time doing elec so I just smoking weed sixteen years of age they're cool they watch some TV you don't hover over them maybe they're going to get it someday maybe the Marine Corps is gonna help that kid who knows but we all grow differently and God's timing is unique you need to pray for those kids for their protection because they're so stupid and when they're in that age group and I mean stupid because they'll drink and drive and they'll do drawing I mean they run it'll get people pregnant I mean all kinds of things can happen think about it but isn't this what training up a child is all about that you let them go and I'll tell you there's nothing better than understanding you gave it your best shot are you going to do this thing called being a parent perfectly no but none of us are perfect that's the cool thing about it and then you let go and let God you know I never been a bumper sticker person there's certain bumper stickers just driving me up the wall things like caution in case of rupture this car will go unmanned I would personally to punch that Christian out who has that bumper sticker of course in the Christian loving way cool but I love the one that says Christians aren't perfect they're just forgiving so with everything we do with raising kids forgiveness reigns Grace reigns why because the Bible teaches if we don't forgive other people guess what God isn't going to forgive us so you train them up you do the best you can the reality is that God gave your kid and my kid free will they can say stick it your god I want to party it or they can say Lord I need you in my life I spoke here Sunday morning in second service we had what 25 people come down here whose lives are going to change because they made that life-changing decision that Lord I am going to follow your way and all of us come to that precipice in life where it's either your way and you're going to do it by yourself or you're going to be submissive to your Eternal Father and in the flesh Jesus is Lord life well listen for five minutes over we pride ourselves on starting on time attending on time we do our best but my thanks to pastor Zane and his staff and the people who've been great here those of you who missed the national championship tonight especially you managed to be applauded ladies if your husband is a sports freak he's given up this game to be with you tonight not to tell you what to do but it seems to me in a very natural way not being one who really believes in rewards per se but I'll just plant that little seed in your brain as I say good night in god bless each of you good night thank you for being here

Channel: Victory Worship Center

Views: 88,099

Rating: 4.8317308 out of 5

Keywords: Kevin Leman, Victory Worship Center, Parenting, Marriage

Id: ZHz2PDPCxT8

Length: 52min 22sec (3142 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2013