Parenting Q&A | Part I | Doug and Nancy Wilson

so let's pray and start father thank you for our time together tonight I pray you give us good conversation we commit this and ask you to bless it Jesus few minutes all right free-for-all any questions and we and we're starting with the sermon outline the what what the sermon was preached the sermon that was preached I'd like to at least give an opportunity for any questions about that or the core principles and then we can move out and then over the weeks as the three other sessions that we're doing we can come back and pick up on things we talked about here so hopefully it will all work out so any questions it's either guilt or your it's self-pity which is what I was talking about on Sunday or it's not self-pity and it's entirely innocent but it's still rhetorically ineffective it's it doesn't work so what you're doing so let's say you're having a pity party how do you make me how do you think that makes me feel is simply setting a model for your child to feel sorry for himself right that's what I'm learning here is I'm copying what you're doing not what you're saying so that's what's happening when it's a pity party but let's say you are saying that not because you're feeling sorry for yourself but because that's what grown-ups say that's what you heard you know adults said to you when you were growing up and you're just on autopilot and you say that and so there isn't any sinful self pity in it it still doesn't breakthrough it's not effective with your children there there are three things that said before three things I remember learning from my dad three rules in the house and this this has to do with keeping restrictions to a minimum but you know I said it the house should be a garden of yes and there's there certain knows but you want to keep the nose as limited as possible the nose that my father had for us were no lying no disobedience and no disrespecting your mother those are the three laws so when let's say that you would like to see the children more grateful are more appreciative for the meals that are cooked or that sort of thing absolutely nothing wrong with insisting on that you're insisting on that on behalf of another so when when dad is making the kids thank mom are getting them to the inn where it's a reflex now I want you to thank your mom for the dinner and I want you to be appreciative and I want you to do this they it's they're gonna see that as you standing up for their mother it's not you standing up for yourself I could throw in something I do think though you could lay a guilt trip on them that way and spoil the dinner so you don't want to do it in the midst of the meal but maybe I'll you know prepare them ahead of time or something afterwards yeah just a cheerful remember now we're going to think mom instead of you know that laying the guilt trip on the kids the other thing that I remember doing that dad helped me quit doing was take it personally like disobey it disobeying me that I would take I would be offended taking it personally and that then just really muddies the water and you're no longer disciplining for the right reasons it's because you hurt my feelings if you loved me you you know attributed motives and filling in all the blanks and and so just to stay objective I said you may not do this and you did it anyway so it's not about me it's it's about you and so I'm gonna discipline you because you disobeyed me not because it hurt my feelings the other thing is let's let's go back to your example of the kids not being appreciative enough of dinner by far and away it'd be far better for if dad notices that people aren't saying thank you as much as they all do anymore instead of saying why why are you all such a bunch of ingrates at the table and ruining the dinner that way senator set an example so so dad thank you mom this is delicious thank this is wonderful dinner don't you think so kids just and then of course if it gets us no this is terrible then that's then that's defiance that that's that's a discipline moment but most of the time when things are good and the kids are just being thoughtless dad can gather them all up and lead them in in showing gratitude I think the Merkle's have a little tradition that been started that because I feel like when we've been at their table as soon as the kids sit down they think thanks for dinner mom I mean everybody's thanks mom for dinner before they even start it's just a you thank the Lord for the food I think that's fine in another you know when you're let's say you're out of the backyard raking leaves of the boys and you're talking to them about bringing up then say then it's teaching right you're you're just explaining you're explaining why it's appropriate and good and right for them for the males in the house to show gratitude to show appreciation etc if you do it in the moment then it's conflict and people the defense's go up and people don't hear what you're saying and how well how do you think it makes me feel being lectured like this I remember my dad getting on my case about that and it was never it never bore fruit in in me it created hardness and that it was that you get out there and it helped your mom she's been working out there and you know and he was motivated all by good things but I just remember and I probably even have my memory of it it's probably skewed because of that immediate I'm in trouble or so I just think there are better ways yeah so it's either self centered self pity or it's there are better ways to get the same result if your egg the it's a great point in Galatians 6:1 and this is I hope this is going to come up on a subsequent message but in Galatians 6:1 it says if a brother's overtaken in a trespass in this case the kid you are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness considering yourself lest you also be tempted so with parenting whenever you're motivated to discipline you're not qualified and whenever you're qualified to discipline you're not motivated right so if if you're eager to let them have it or and get them to shut up or to get them to obey the brothers overtaken in to trespass but you're not spiritual so you shouldn't correct them if you correct them if you're unspiritual and you correct them and it's in a Christian context and you're quoting Bible in that unspiritual condition that's what they're going to associate with Scripture they're gonna associate Scripture with anger Scripture with wrath Scripture with cruelty you know sometimes emotional cruelty so you don't want to do that you want to discipline ask be calling for the grace of God for the motivation to discipline when you're qualified and it requires sacrifice on your part to get up and go do it because you're not motivated in the flesh to do it it's better to let the sin go than to discipline in an ungodly frame of mind so if if they're sending and you're sinning then it's a triage thing deal with your deal with yours first one of the best ways to keep consistency going is to reduce the number of Commandments right so let's say you've got all these things that are no touch but you've got a two-year-old and so there's this priceless figurine that's foot and a half from the that's a no and the wall outlets are no and the stairs are no and everything's that no well one of the things I would encourage parents to do is take all the knows all the prohibitions that they have and say how many of these could we eliminate how many of these could we eliminate by baby-proof it in the living room moving all the books up you know rearranging the furniture how much how many of these we just remove the commandment and then let's say you reduce them I'm gonna give a drastic amount but let's say you reduce the commands that you utter by about ninety percent okay so you now you have ten percent well then it's easier to win every time all right so you you reduce the number of Commandments drastically and then you win all all the time if if you're if you've got a multitude of regulations then it's going to be awfully hard for you to stay on top of them all it's going to be hard for them to remember them all and I've seen parents who quote quote commands like their machine gun pick up your coat put on your boots come here put that book away and and then it's just too much they overload and then there's there's going to be some sort of infraction with with those that many commands so it should God had one got a garden of yes with one command in in a house with stairs and electric outlets and that sort of thing you you're gonna have more than one for a toddler but I would say okay reduce them and then can I cluster them so I have a number of commands under one heading and then use the same instruction the same word the same phrasing each time so one of them two year old one of them should be no fussing alright no fussing we don't fuss and use the same now every every time and there may be five or six different behaviors that could be clumped under fussing but you just name it the one thing yeah I've seen the same thing of too much or what happens if parents start firing off too many commands or they're just saying it over their shoulder and not enforcing it like put your coat on but they don't watch while they wander off and do something else or but I also think sometimes it'd be better to get the coat and take it over and put it on them I mean obviously not when they're five and six years old but when they're little two-year-old or instead of come here I said come here I said right now come here and just go get them just simplify your life it becomes a birthright great and and we see that we see the nature of our dilemma right so the thing to do is here's a principle from Ephesians be not drunk with wine we're wearing his excess but be filled with the holy spirit so singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs so God says no because he has a bigger yes so it's not you have a house full of yeses to do if you're creative enough to come up with them yourself it's not like you're you're two and you could have the run of the house and amuse yourself but I'm going to say no to all the things that occur to you rather what you do what you do is you say no to a video yeah no - no to a movie but I've got a big about three pounds of play-doh that I've made for you and we're going to sit you at the table and hear say yes have at have at it or here here is a get a rolling news print from the news newspaper for lay it on the table and a big bucket of crayons and say here's my yes so like when a mom says no to a Snickers bar fifteen minutes before dinner then it's no because she has a yes she's been preparing the meal but the fact that she's prepared the meal should be obvious so no because this is what I want to give you know to a movie because I've got something better one of the things I did with our kids because this would happen I'd say okay so we're gonna practice because when I say no you can't I did we didn't have videos when I say no you can't do whatever it is you're gonna say okay mama okay so let's practice I mean I would actually do a little practice thing with them and teach them about it and then say so and then give them a heads up like alright so remember what I told you earlier you know so we just sort of run and then I can say yes that's perfect you did it other times I remember them fussing or I don't remember the exact infraction but I can remember this happening many times we say like well I'm gonna rewind the tape why don't you go back out and then come back in again with cheerful and let's see if we can't do that better and so it if they just learned how but just practicing another thing is that parents often times ambush their kids with commands or requirements is like watching a quarterback get blindsided by and so for example in the middle of a game in their backyard they're in the Piazza's they're playing hot hot and hard and in summertime you know and they're just playing and you walk out of the back porch and say time to come in you know blam yeah that's just sort of a disobedience factory you know it's it's it just introduced us into the equation right away it's like having a room full of five kids and bring in one balloon you know little little symbol ooh so you say come in right away and you're just asking for it so instead you go out on the back porch and say kids 10 minutes and everybody has a chance to get adjusted they know what's coming you're preparing them for success instead of surprising them so such that they're gonna fail one time Rachel was visiting a friend she's probably three or four and that that before school age and our neighbor had little kids so we would trade back and forth so I went over to pick her up and when I walked in she said is it time to go so I thought perfect opportunity I got her home I didn't address it there but I did give her spankin it's true I did but I just said when I come in you're gonna say hi mom you know that's how we do this so the next time she went over there I did the review now remember when I come you're gonna say hi mom you're not gonna say oh so beautiful because then when I picked her up it was just all that mom is here at laughs yeah yeah but it's just that training and giving them opportunities of practice used to train them on the way to the grocery store I did I'd say okay what are the rules when we're at the grocery store because I only have three but when they're all little people it's a lot of bodies around they're kind of this and grabbing so we had these three only three rules and I think it was your gonna think I was so mean but anyway no asking for stuff because you know and it was just stay right with me and no touching anything so I mean they couldn't have any fun when they went this Dorothy so but at the end if they made it then I always bought him a treat you know the gum at the at the counter you know just so but it was a review review because I didn't want to deal with that at the grocery store I have a list I don't want all the questions and where'd he go and what you know so they got really good at that I know our Jencks kids Rachael taught them all stations on there on the stroller so everybody had a station and she would take them to the mall just to practice especially if they were getting ready to go on a trip or something but just practicing their stations and they'd be great they loved it and they'd walk through the mall with everyone that they're holding different parts of them six kids you got it from the practice it is abused abused or done wrongly a lot I think but we did and your mom did it to you being a kind one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another just as God in crisis priest I still know ya the verses I know I think these are the first verses I memorized Ephesians be kind one to another and I learned because mom quoted them all the time another one was out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks mom we were just kidding out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and then the third one was from numbers Moses talking to people of Israel be sure your sin will find you out you brood of vipers depart you need she'd say depart from me you workers of iniquity actually that that sort of thing helps because I remember joking with my parents one time my dad was you know my dad had quoted children obey your parents Ephesians 6 and we would quote back father's provoke not your children to wrath you know basically I think it can be done in us with a severe countenance in a way that embitters your children but it can also be done this is what we do in our house we we don't fuss at each other and the righteousness of that standard is self if the kids know it and if you're not violating the standard yourself in the moment of discipline I think it's good to appeal the scripture that there's a good book by Bruce ray called withhold not correction and it's and there are a number of passages that are commonly associated with kid behaviors that are good for parents to know but be aware that the Scriptures the scripture quoting disciplinarian is a caricature for a reason so you you want to make sure you're leaning the other way to make it - you thinking you were coding home yeah this was ah yeah she was four or five Nate Nate had clocked her in the day well Nate had punched her in the nose during the course of the day and I think he was pretty young so so she she was he was duly disciplined for punching her and everything was fine with him and then and and this was a typical male thing you know so that evening Nate Nate was also in a very legalistic toddler phase which was whenever we were doing any kind of devotions or spiritual spiritual exercise at all he he would realize we were being spiritual and so he would launch into a list of rules and they were rules that he had derived from all the things he'd been told not to do you know and you know never say never say shut up never say stinky never met never hit people and so that evening I got out the Bible and to read the devotions and Nate saw the Bible saw that we what we were doing and he launched into his list of rules and when he got to never hit people Bekka wheeled on him and just said well why do you hit me then you know thou hypocrite just let him have it and it was you know Ikes you know this confrontation broken out into devotions at the dinner table and it was very apparent that back end Nate was typical male what huh what are you talking about he'd been disciplined earlier in the day everything was fine but Becca was her more than - her nose was hurt so it was a very apparent to me that she was bitter and so I shifted the devotions to talk about Jesus saying you have to forgive others and if you don't forgive others then God's not going to forgive us and so I was I went to Matthew and was talking about that but Becca didn't want to forgive him it just was and but she had gotten the impression somehow that I had gone to Paul I turned to Paul instead of it's like she's four and and so she said well who is this Paul guy anyway this was not happening because we were letting her play with theological liberals right he was happening because it was we were this is the standard for our household we're applying it and in order to apply it you've got to either change or challenge that and that's but that's the way it ought to be it ought to be the act of authority of the Bible which the parents are as much under as the kids are and if the kids see that and and just this brings up another thing actually the way the kids see that is if you seek their forgiveness when it's necessary so when when you violate the scripture at some point in in your treatment of them or in front of them and you seek their forgiveness kids and you quote the verse that they get sometimes you know kids you know we tell you not to fuss and we tell you we quote Philippians where you do everything without grumbling you're playing well dad was just dad was just fussing at the dinner table about work and I shouldn't have done that would you please forgive me well what that does is it demonstrates to them that their parents are as much under authority as they are and it's the same Authority and they're good with it and I remember holding back a becos first learning to talk and having this was part of the Catechism you know teaching her how to talk and I say Becca what's that and she say to the moon and I say who made the moon she say God and I'd say things like Becca who's the boss you know who's the boss and she pointed me and say you're the boss and I say that's very good I'm the boss who's the real boss and she said God God's the real boss who you know who's the true boss who's the and that's you want them to have that down well this came up particularly with our son because he was a sea lawyer so he would argue with me about something and just remember getting sucked into that none of you have sense probably you do this you will but anyway it was just Doug teaching me and saying no no you know you're in authority over him don't take it personally and don't get into don't get into an argument don't argue with them because then it's adversarial right if it's authority if it's a if you're in authority it's not adversarial it's when you get down on the you know it's the difference between I you've probably seen refs who start playing the game instead of calling the game they're they they become participants in the game well parents are refs they've got the black and white striped shirt on they're not they're not supposed to be playing the game and if you step down and start playing it becomes personal and your judgments cloud also I think I would be too hasty to say no no you can't well then they want to argue so I had to learn to maybe pause and say well let me think about it oh let me think about it maybe you can't and if I thought about it I think we'll why can't think it's just this mothers can get into at least I could get into the automatic no because it'll make a mess because it will I just bought the fruit I've just filled the bowl of fruit up you can't eat it it's just for show why'd you fill it up so people would eat it that's what I want to do yeah and most the time if I thought about it I could come back with yes instead of the automatic no and then the argue and so forth so just understanding I think that it's natural for especially boys to argue and want to debate and with mom and so from the early times Doug would remind the kids that I was in authority over them but he was sort of backing he had my back you know so that they were insubordinate to me they were being insubordinate to him and he would back me up which he did and that that goes back to what my dad taught me no disrespecting your mother when I knew that when I was dealing with my mother I was dealing with my father and I wanted my kids to know if they're dealing with Nancy they're dealing with me and that also helps her from having to feel the it would help her so she didn't feel the weight of not taking it personally she could just hand it off you know if it got intense or they've gotten difficult well first of all I grew up in in a god-fearing home that was not a real Christian home so that's the first thing so when we got married I had just seen his family from a little bit from a distance so it was pretty new and I remember the first time Doug no the first time Becca I told a light not the first time Doug did oh he did that when he was little I'm sure and it was taking him but Becca told a lie and I remember I used then I thought this was a Christian home I mean our child told a lie he just laughed like Patsy what do you think we got spanked for I mean disobeying and lying and so forth so I was greatly relieved but at any rate there were there were plenty of times I'm sure we differed on something we would just talk about it and I would I remember saying you know I want to get on your page you've got to help me get there is it differently there's a difference between the Bible tells us just all Christians are to strive for like-mindedness so a husband and wife ought to be like-minded when it comes to discipline when it comes to running the household when it comes to the standards of obedience they ought to be in agreement like-minded I don't ever recall us having to work hard at that I think Nancy was eager eager for it and I'd sort of inherited this blessing for my folks and so the like-mindedness part was not a tussle the other thing but the other aspect of it is a design feature and that is little kids need dads to be tough on them little kids need moms to not be right there's a there's a nurturing welcoming aspect that mom gives that all your kids boys and girls need and there is a suck it up kid don't bleed on the carpet aspect that the dads can provide and that's a creational that that's a creational gift and it's a design feature so what what has to happen there is it's not the if that can become the basis for a disagreement when man thinks the wife ought to be just like him or when the wife thinks the husband ought to be just like her instead of recognizing this as a body life thing and God God gave my sons a dad so they could learn to be tough right God gave and the husband needs to be thinking God gave my sons a mom so that they would not have to be tough all the time or wouldn't have to be tough sort of uniformly they could receive the gift that she has to give the other thing is if we did if I thought Doug was too hard on somebody or that or he let something go or we if something we wouldn't bring it up in front of the kids we would talk about it later out of their hearing so we would present a united front and the other thing was a spanked Abul offense would be if one of the kids asked me and I said no so they went to ask Dave that was automatic you don't you know trying to get and their dad divided yeah they're not respect therefore trying to get what they want there's thanked for sowing dissension well because we told him you know if one of us says no it's the other one that's it but what was the other thing I was going to say about um well keep going maybe it'll come back the thing I was gonna say is dad tend to be harder on the boys softer on the girls and the women the moms are harder on the girls softer on the boy you know so knowing that is helpful so that you can't ride it correct and and be more judicial across the board right and talk about it and this goes back to your point about preparation when things when you're especially when you know you're in the trenches with the little kids look at the game film right when you're when you're done with the evening the kids are all in bed and they're washed and you successfully got them into bed Tok Tok how'd that go how did they go how how are you feeling about your relationship with so-and-so how how did that incident play out I you know that go over it review talk about it and say okay next time our plan is going to be this yeah try this next time great preventative ly and then when you get the certain number of kids you have to move from a man to man to his own defense some of this we won't be able to remember I was thinking the same thing what we do I reckon a bunch of different inks but I can tell you some things we did I can tell you what we're doing now but it's it's but now doesn't count right because we're MST empty-nesters sort of which means that we go from we have three kids they've 16 grandkids so there are eight adults and it was there's 24 of us when there's no company and so we're the kind of empty nesters that go from 24 to to within 10 minutes and then the next night out to 24 again and so it's the kids your terry Hooton and then down to but first thing in the morning now we can it's it's easy for us to read together and that we read our Bibles separately and we read together and we you know it's a it's pretty soon pretty simple first married day one he opened up the Bible and start reading it but then when kids start coming and schedules get disrupted and that sort of thing you we shifted I know that we did we had a pattern of having dinner to our devotional time was dinner time and it was usually whatever was we were doing whether it was reading the Bible or sometimes using a catechism to discuss or story book we did leading little ones to God you know different things we'd read between dinner and dessert so we would do the reading then when the kids got older and were in school and I hesitate to call it devotional because it was not all that devotionally but the entire dinner time was taken up with biblical ethics and talking about what to do when if this happens on the playground tomorrow this is what you should be doing it was and the kids were all eager to tell their stories and and asked about ask questions and it was a clamor so we just spent a lot of time talking about that at the dinner table and then we did a lot of reading of books together as a family Narnia stories in Lord of the Rings and things like that where I would maybe read be reading The Lord of the Rings at the dinner table read a chapter and then nobody would let me finish so I'd read for two hours in the evening you know just it was that kind of thing but we didn't have what we I think it would be too inaccurate to say that we had family worship you know Uncle Joe we had regular and ongoing interaction with the Bible in the Word of God and and different things that brought our Christian faith to bear but it was not sing to him opening prayer reading and that we didn't do family worship proper but we did do a devotional time interaction Q&A when they were little soon as they could read and we got him a Bible and then sometimes I would read them Bible during the day and we all wait the two of us have always had evening like prayer together forever pretty sure so it's been it's been nice because it sort of changed with the kids and when they hit junior high he started a Bible study for junior high kids that then became high school kids and then became college kids you know so it was flexible it's really idyllic right now no interruptions we didn't really check up on it it wasn't like a chore that you checked off but it was I remembered Nate for a lung for quite some time he would go to go to sleep listening to Bible tapes and you know we think he was conked out and then there'd a voice from the bedroom dad why does it stay in one place that Judas hanged himself in the other place that says that his bowels gushed out why what's that and then then there was a time you told back who was had the grumps or something and yet yeah she was she was feeling blue but this is elementary age I don't remember how to us but anyway she I said Beckett might you go get on your bunk and read your Bible for a bit you just need to cheer up so she said okay she went in and got up on her bunk and pretty soon she hollers to me where is that part where that big fat King gets somebody stabs him and his knife goes all the way here you little little inspirational reading very ver rainy day I mean they were and like Dec said Nate listen to the New Testament on tape for years I think and just every night it was on and we just started doing that for some reason I don't know it just got in there and we but we took it we discontinued it after time because we didn't want that to become a superstitious attack we're like a security blanket or something like that we we wanted we wanted the devotional habits to be thinking interactive habits not this is what we do about security blankets yeah okay okay so our children the first two no one gave me a blanket with the satin trim so no one ever got attached to a blanket then with Rachel I had and it was so cute because she would grab that thing and just do this and I said look honey isn't that cute look what she's doing he said get that blanket out of our house I mean he wanted me to get rid of the blanket and the reason was which made perfect sense after I understood it because I thought he was kidding at first but he wanted our kids to be secure in us not in an object like a blanket you know and I mentioned this when we were out of tamanna that talking to college girls it came up in different contexts and you know someone brought up that their college-age daughter still had her little piece of her you know I mean it is a real thing so it's just it's anyway it's not telling the sermon but just a heads up to be why it's about that you know here's a qualifier and then another example of this the qualifier is it's not the end of the world if your kid has a security blanket or binky or something but there are things to watch out for in things like that and I was just a week or so ago when I went to Dayton I was I flew out a moscow Pullman and early morning flight and there was a vandals girls who's either volleyball team or basketball team twenty thirty girls in their warmups they were checking in they were flying somewhere to compete and then as we were going through security this I counted just in the line ahead of me six girls who had stuffed animals with them I thought oh and there's another one there's another one and there's another one and those are just the ones that were hanging out of the backpacks that I saw or the pillows and that these girls have no security it's a sign this is a substitute for something this is not and and I'm not talking about decoration I'm not talking about the thing itself but what we wanted was to emphasize and sort of prioritize our relationship and dependence on and interaction with one another so that so if we could take that blanket away but if we saw something where one of the kids was starting to we called it their their tank was they were getting a low tank the blinking fuel gauge so they would start to act up to get attention or there was some sort of insecurity thing manifesting itself we we would confer and pour on the attention pour on the affection to fill the tank up just say okay we need to we need to address this but we don't address it by taking or giving things we would address it by giving ourselves paying attention ourselves so we had no satin edge yeah this would go back to what we about earlier on basically that's something to be settled in conference you have to be talking to each other about what your what you're doing and women this is a husband wife thing we could veer off into marriage stuff for a minute but it's a husband and wife thing women oftentimes specialize in what I call great experiments in telepathy the glass or the thought of the glass of the thousand meetings and men specialize in not hearing things that are just overtly said in English out loud you know so women pay way too much attention to the vibes in the room and men don't pay attention and after the things that are explicitly stated or said right so the thing to do is not to have that misunderstanding happen at the door when you're handing a child off or in when you're when you're in the middle of it that's not the that's not a time to sort it out that would be a good time to talk about things like that would be when you're viewing the game film when you're looking over things after the fact or if you're preparing for something we had let's say we forget the Aerith here but we did this periodically where things would start to get life would be happening to you and things would get a little raggedy around the house and so we would notice this we'd confer and talk about we need to tighten up and so I we'd get the kids together have them line up squabbling squabbling or two months for us and whatever and and so we'd have them line up and say kids we things have gotten a little loose around here but but we're sorry for letting that happen and we're gonna have a reign of terror so we would to understand so but but the whole point was we would confer we would talk this is something we need to do we would call a play and then we would run that play together and so the wife needs to be careful that she's not expecting her husband to run plays that have never been spoken to him never been said to him never been but they're just her thoughts are full of them and he needs to make sure that when they have this conference that he asks for her input on these things because if she volunteers them the chances are 8 out of 10 he's not gonna hear what she said well and wives can't gonna be in their bonnet and a project in a plan and kind of quarterback the game and so husband comes in and it's like hey I thought that was my job you know or so just maybe making but if he asked if he asked her what are your thoughts what are your plans what are your and she tells him and then he repeats back to her the things that she said and then he says out of these four things I agree with three of them let's let's go with let's try these three he initiated the conversation he's not feeling challenged or threatened he you know and she knows that he heard heard her because he repeated those things back so there was actual communication establishment of a play and then okay let's run this play it's this is Wednesday let's run this play between now and Saturday and let's confer again to see how it's going on Saturday so another thing is when the the chances are good that if if mom is home with the little ones men oftentimes adopt the view of no news is good news right and that is an error um you can you can bet your life that things are human accumulating if you're not hearing about it that doesn't mean they're not accumulating there they're accumulating and it's going to blow at some point or you're going to ask some point and guys just don't want to ask because they'd rather rather let sleeping dogs lie everything's fine the kids are great I play with them they would put them to vet what's the problem well the problem is the eight hours when you're off you know solving the world's problems and she's stuck with your little problems and so if the husband needs to ask so how's it going with the kids any thoughts on the kids he needs to broach the subject and if he brooches it then the chances are much better that he's going to hear what she has to say if but if he just waits till blows he's going to say she's just being emotional and the chances are that's probably half right right but there's a lot of stuff in there he needs to hear would you what you do is you get it on the schedule right so you broach it so you both know it's like tell them the kids to come in from the backyard if you go if you just come up to them and if you just say to the kids time to come in you're asking for a wall of Defense to go up if a wife says he comes in from work and she says let me tell you everything that's wrong with my life right now all right he says I left my briefcase of zombies back up slowly well so there's but there's a middle way there but then oftentimes wives feel like well if that's the way it's gonna be fine I don't say anything I nobody wants me to talk around here and so then she tries to stuff it and then that comes all and stuck at some point what to do is when in a passing moment he comes home or just within the first 15 minutes honey would you mind if we talk about the how the kids are doing half of the kids are in bed can you put some can we have an appointment to talk about this and the fact that you're scheduling it and not dumping it you're scheduling at not venting it means that he thinks oh I bet we could have a civilized conversation he's it and if he says yes and you get it on the calendar then he agreed to it is he's not being threatened or anything like that it's a it's a good way to give him a heads up that that he's gonna have to talk about this and and and at that point you might be pretty emotional but that's fine because he's not blindsided with it right apologizing to the kids was again like so much of this stuff is something I learned from my dad I remember vividly him apologizing to me for something for spanking me up to see I was yeah I was he was upset he was upset mom mama told me to put my toys away and and well the I think that was the second command dad intervenes that I just put your toys away and so I picked up one block and it was something like that anyway I got spanked up the stairs dad was gonna had to go had to go out that evening lead a Bible study and and well I forget that all the details but he I was I was put in bed and he went out to the car you just go to the Bible study and I can't go to the study this kind of shape and so he came back in and and came upstairs and I remember vividly I don't remember I heard about this other stuff later and I might even be conflating events but I remember vividly him coming sitting on my bed and seeking my forgiveness now it was a spanking I originally deserved but it was a vivid sort of thing he should not have spanked you in anger that way would you please forgive me and of course I did and and he left and my mom said something that my dad liked obedience is hard you know but you know good it was a commendation you know and it was that it was good and so basically you're acknowledging the that everybody in the house holds under Authority and and that means that the kids can be can trust you so basically the I would say you apologize for the same sins that you discipline the kids for you know talking out of turn unkind word fussing you know that sort of thing and of course anything over like anger or what was your other question yeah TV we had we were pretty strict with TV issues when the kids were when the kids were sorrow sorrow on Friday night there on Friday night one time when Rachel was just a little dink Nancy put her down to watch mr. Rodgers for a few minutes and Nancy was in that in the kitchen she had to get something done so she let let Rachel watch mr. Rogerson and Nancy called me because she said Rachel was out in the living room and yelling at the television and Rachel was saying Rachel said I don't want to be your neighbor Nancy called me up to cheer surprise anyway we we didn't have a lot of we didn't have a lot of television like I said earlier we had quite a bit of reading when the kids got older junior high high school video game there was some sort of video game yeah there was the Stone Age of video games but yeah we what we did is we just said if they wanted to listen to some music or play a video game they would they would earn time in the bank we encouraged the things we wanted them to do say okay if you read a book if you read a book this will be that will be X amount of time and the video game they could just and they could store up time we and this this had to do with there's a difference between entertainment which is treated like a birthright these days as opposed to recreation which is a Sabbath thing so if you've worked hard you know if you got up early and went out and hit it and work and you've come home and have dinner and you want to put your feet up and watch the game that's recreation that's Sabbath but if you're standing behind someone at the video store for the weekend and they've got ten movies and they're gonna go watch this weekend that's not record that's not Sabbath anything that's just that's a video kind of addicted to I'm addicted to this sort of feel-good stuff and we didn't want our kids to be doing that but we didn't want to be censorious and excluded you know exclude things outright and so we said well the things that were the the reason we'd be afraid of these other things are concerned about them is we would be afraid that they would displace things like really valuable things like reading but we would be reading together as a family we listen to books on tape in the car on cross-country trips we would do that sort of thing and then we would even he was more of a family event yeah TV was a family event not a not an on-set and you didn't have a TV going in the corner regardless of what was that whether anybody's watching it so we were suspicious of it but not I think we got one he didn't ever want to have one so we got a TV it was a good one too you you you stick a table knife in there we've got it a goodwill or some of the the thing and turn it on right yes there is we and we did that with our kids and we see it being done with our grandkids and I would say if you have a pattern of consistent discipline especially when the kids are little then and I'm gonna just ballpark something here let's say between the child's birth and their when they leave for college when they're 18 I would say ninety ninety percent of their spankings should happen before they're five right and then then the rest of them spread out over between five and twelve you know just a handful smattering in there and then as they're getting older high school at that point you ought you need to be at the place where talking either real-life consequences or a heart-to-heart talk does the business it accomplishes it so there's a difference between discipline and punishment so punishment is just retributive it has nothing to do with the you know when you've punished when you execute a murderer you're not trying to make him better it might make him better but it's simply a question of justice so so parents ought not to think of spankings as justice it should not be unjust but it's disciplinary meaning that you want to get to a particular response and in effect and if you get that to that place without the spanking I don't see any reason to go through this go through with the spanking automatically because we have a rule right does that make sense because it's discipline not punishment but it's also going to be the case that if you're if you're in that era where it's 99% of the spankings are occurring and you're showing mercy every other time all you're doing is confusing the kid he doesn't that's that's where the consistency has to to be and then later when they're older and you they know that they deserve the spank they know that you've been rigorous and consistent throughout the course of their life and that means that if you just have a talk with them and you let it go they know that it's mercy not laziness on your part or something like that right that will realize that they're still under the pile of sin they're still dealing with guilt they're not cleansed there they're not cleansed yet so take that factor that in to account the other is you don't necessarily have to talk to be in fellowship right you can say because one of the things I would suspect and I'm not asserting this here but if if the child is feeling that the talk afterwards is just adding insult to injury you know I got spanked and then I got lectured you know I'd rather I'll take my licks because I know I deserve it but I'd rather not have the insult because it when you're talking it's easy for a parent to devolve into now the reason I did that is because you were a jerk to your mother and you know yeah et cetera and it comes across to them like lecturing so if they don't want to talk you could just say all right but I am gonna hold you and we're are we are gonna be good with each other we don't have to talk right yeah I remember when I was spanked the place of execution was the basement that was at least on North Cherry Grove maybe in the other place where we lived - and afterwards dad would say everything is completely forgiven it wasn't a long talk afterwards it was everything's completely forgiven you are either welcome to rejoin the family at any time these things sound you know usually happened at dinner and I can hear the happy clink of silverware upstairs and fellowship going on and stuff and and I could stay in the basement as long as I wanted or I could be pleasant and come back up stairs and that was always the the thing sometimes words help restore fellowship sometimes if they get in the way dispense with the words but insist on the fellowship if a child spanked and they responded with I hate you I hate you I hate you and there they run away then that tells you that the when when you're the normal condition is fellowship and then they're spanked it's disrupted and they want back in the garden that's the way you want it to be and one of the thing there are times up so one other thing let me just say about about these I'm out of town this next Sunday so we're not doing this next Monday night but then the three Sunday's after that were doing this and I'm not sure if the crowd will be different or the same or you bet back and forth feel basically let's feel free to have the same questions come up again if either if you were here and asked them and you weren't satisfied with the answer and you didn't get through bring it up again and and if someone else is here and they asked the same question that's fine too so or brand-new questions geared off of what the sermons are going to be about they're gonna we're gonna get into the nuts and bolts of discipline we're going to talk about Christian education the the role of Christian education and how how that ties in and and also if there's anything that you know is a sort of a pressing thing for you or any of your friends that you are dying to see addressed in the sermon just drop me an email and say would you please make sure to cover this or this or this okay alright let's thank the Lord father thank you for your kindness to us we are very grateful for the privilege that we have to meet and talk about these things I pray you bless all our children all the children that are represented here and we ask that you'd be kind of that for Jesus sake you

Channel: Canon Press

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Keywords: canon wired, canon press, why children matter, children, sermon, Q&A, Question, Answer, Doug Wilson, Nancy Wilson, discipline, kids, spoiling

Id: xMUVkc6jBuA

Length: 61min 22sec (3682 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2013