The 4 Phases of Parenting: Coaching Kids from Dependence to Independence

[0:00] I want to give you what I call the four phases of ease, moving from dependence on you toward independence. And really, I don't care if you have a two-year-old or a five-year-old or an 18-year-old, we're moving from dependence on us toward independence. And the way for them to learn these virtues is first and foremost for us to live it out. That's actually right out of the Bible. Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9 talks about that. But these four... [0:25] phase uh phases what we call of ease is number one i do it and you watch so you're gonna this works by the way if you're teaching your kids prayer you're teaching your words any of these virtues or making their bed right i do it and you watch we don't take the time sometimes and then we just all of a sudden [0:43] realize that no, we need to train them. So I do it, you watch. I do it, you do it. So in other words, you do it together. Then you do it, meaning your child starts to learn these virtues and you actually put them in intentionally into these and I assist. So it doesn't mean you go away, but I assist and then you do it so that now they own it. And I think that's a great phrase of I do it, you watch, I do it, you do it, you do it, I assist and you do it.

[0:00] Robert Lewis, I've taken on this concept from him in Raising a Modern Day Knight. It was that every boy, but really every child, needs to hear these three things from his dad. I love you, I'm proud of you, and you're good at dot, dot, dot, right? I love you is teaching your kids courage, right? Because courageous people say, I love you. Courageous people say, I'm sorry. They say, I forgive you. They say, thank you. They say, you're welcome. Because it is... [0:29] about the communication of worth in each other.

[32:05] or others aware, you know, and be able to give a great apology. It's not enough just to know that there's different cultures out there and they maybe would be valued more to care differently than the way I would as a boy growing up in Wally Ford, West Virginia, or that, you know, that God is there. But how do we walk through and help our families understand all those types of awareness and so that we can be transformed and God can transform us in the process? [32:33] in this process of being a carey family. So, so, so good. It's actually, there's a theological term called sanctification, which is the process of growing in our faith throughout our life. And we never really reach it, per se. And that's different than the... [32:48] theological term justification, which is more about our salvation, our relationship with Jesus. But this is the process, and I really, really love the book. I am not just saying this, I really do. Thank you so much for writing the book. Thank you for being you. Thank you for being involved in the mission field, for being such an inspiration. The Clarity Podcast is awesome. I suggest people go to our show notes and take a look at how they could listen to the... [33:13] Clarity Podcast. And honestly, you've been an inspiration from the day I met you. Thank you so much for being with us. It's been an honor. Thank you so much. Well, great. Hey, before you go, I want to talk just briefly about kind of a cool principle that relates directly to what we've been talking about today. And it's really a discipleship method with our kids, but it fits. [33:35] Especially as I was saying that, you know, we want our, of course we want virtues, and we want these seven virtues in our life. And it doesn't just happen without being intentional about it, right? So, you know, I want to give you what I call the four phases of ease, moving from dependence on you toward independence. And really, I don't care if you have a two-year-old or a five-year-old or an 18-year-old, we're moving from... [34:01] dependence on us toward independence, and the way for them to learn these virtues is first and foremost for us to live it out. That's actually right out of the Bible. Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9 talks about that. But these four phases, what we call of ease, is number one, I do it and you watch. So you're going to, this works, by the way, if you're teaching your kids prayer, you're teaching your words, any of these virtues, or making their bed.

[27:55] And the bubble in my head kind of went, 20 minutes a week. How wimpy. You're a Christian leader. What do you mean you only spend 20 minutes a week? We're not doing that, but it's all a bubble in my head. And I listened to, well, what do you do? And we read scripture. We oftentimes read something kind of inspirational. We pray together. And again, none of that sounded all that exciting, but it didn't sound bad either. I mean, that's what I do with people sometimes. So as we're driving out of the driveway, we talked mainly about our kids that night with our mentors. [28:24] Kathy said, I want to do that time. I want to do that spiritual thing. We ended up calling it our closer time. And I'm challenging people today to spend 20 minutes a week in closer time. And we actually have a book called Closer. And you don't need to buy the book because... [28:42] Really, when people write us and we get more stuff on closer than almost any other book, and we wrote it together, but people just say 20 minutes a week has changed our life as we come together. And no one ever says it's the most amazing thing when it comes to your book. But again, what they say is, no. [29:02] we connected. That's a beautiful thing. And so we challenge people to do that. You might want to do that. For us, we read Closer, we wrote it, but we now have passed on from Closer, and we'll read something inspirational, we'll pray together as often as we can, but always that 20-minute time where we can kind of really get down. And, you know, Kathy says it's even emotionally healthy. It's physically intimate in her mind. So again... [29:30] Do something like that. That's a great idea. And then also rekindle romance. One person said, we are moving our sex life from the back burner to the front, and it looks different with changing libidos. I wrote that down after they told me that because I just think that's true. Your libido, as you get older, may change. Life may change. But that doesn't mean that you have to quit focusing on it. In fact, a lot of people say it's the best time in their life. Okay. And then one last principle. I won't talk about it very long, but... [29:58] do whatever it takes to make your top priorities your top priority. Here's the phrase. It's the most important phrase in that book, Finding Joy in the Empty Nest, in my opinion. Significance and a well-lived life are not accidental. So how do you want to leave a legacy? What do you want to do with the rest of your life? Well, it's not going to just happen. So you've got to put energy into this.

[22:25] At times, there's a phrase that I oftentimes say to parents, you're not defined by your child's behaviors or you're not defined by your child's choices, even as they get older. We judge ourselves. And sometimes we judge ourselves really hard. And many times we feel judged by others. What advice do you have for the mom or the dad who kind of feels like a failure, but kind of feels judged by everybody else because they do something that's different. Maybe they went back to work or they stayed home and they were a homeschool parent or whatever. [22:54] You can feel shame in every direction. Or their kids didn't, you know, their kids aren't doing as well in school as everybody else's kids. What do you say to the one who literally, we get so many, you know, notes by people who just say, I really, you don't understand, I'm a failure as a parent because of my kid. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I love that you're saying that, that you're not a failure. I mean, my parents, they're 76 years old. [23:21] and there's choices that you know their adult children me and my brother that they that we have made that would be different from what they would make and they're like just i can see it on them and i'm like you're not a failure like you know you loved me like you cared for me i was never wanting like those were a lot of wins as a parent right and so i would say that you have to keep coming back to what really matters [23:48] Yeah, because again, we can feel like a failure based on our kids behavior. And that is a real feeling. I don't I feel like that is not a lie. We can definitely feel like that. But it's like what you said. You're not a failure based on anything that these these things, they're just choices. They are just things that happen and you're showing up. I think that's that is one of the chapters in the book is that showing up is enough. And I think that is that is what winning is with parenting. It's showing up and that. [24:17] That makes you not a failure. No, and, you know, I love that phrase because showing up, I call it the power, sometimes the power of being there. And I actually wrote it when I read that chapter in your book. I went, oh, the power of being there. Because presence matters. And sometimes, you know, a soccer mom or a hockey dad or whoever, you know, they're like, you know, they're making most of the games or the dance recitals or whatever. But it's never good enough in them. And sometimes that's because they had that in the past.

[24:35] emphasizes in there the importance of boundaries for young children. Like young children feel safer when there are boundaries. And so like if your child is is tantruming, you might not be able to teach much in that moment. But if you aren't like teaching them to be kind to others and teaching them to to be loving and teaching them to be patient, like these are things that we can teach partly through our own modeling. And this is, you know, honestly. [25:03] This is where it is important to be spending time with your children because a paid caregiver cannot teach those virtues. A paid caregiver just has to keep the peace. And I know that there's exceptions to this, especially probably when you have a family member who's doing the care, but it's like a paid caregiver cannot hardly discipline a child. And I'm not talking about physical discipline. I'm saying like a paid caregiver. [25:31] has to just keep the child happy. They have to basically pacify the child. But when you're in a group situation, like for instance, you're in a situation where children are together in a setting and they have to, they're with another person, like even in a preschool setting or with siblings, then if one child's being mean to another child, you have to set up some kind of a boundary or some kind of a rule about that. You have to pass on a value because it's not okay for one child to be rude to another one. But there are so many situations where it's a paid caregiver and they just about have to only pacify the children. [26:04] as opposed to actually teaching values or you know one of the ways that in my restoration home group we talk a lot about modeling like okay if a child is being mean to another child or hitting a child first of all how are you connecting to that child because if they're misbehaving it's often because you haven't spent enough time connecting to that child but then secondly we have them model like redo [26:28] the action okay you were you weren't kind so this is how you be kind do a puppet show have them practice it over but all of this takes time and so having you know first of all having caregivers who will teach virtue to your children but also as a parent you know being willing to invest some time like if you come home from work if you're a working mom and you come home from work and just let your kids be on an ipad all night you're not really passing on any values or virtues and it's going to