Affirming Your Daughters

I remember one time, I think I was in the third grade, and I heard my dad say to a baseball player that he was coaching my daughter and maybe the best athlete in our family. It was like water to a thirsty plant. Like, I was so needy of that. And I sit and I think, oh, I was just so wanting and longing to be loved and affirmed. I mean, the power of words of affirmation is powerful.

I'm not even sure we understand how powerful. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson, and I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. It's funny, I started cleaning cars and detailing the inside of cars when I was eight years old.

And she's still amazing at it. Because here's why this is so sad. My brother used to say, who was nine years older, wow, you're really good at that. It was basically he's training me, you know, like you say anything good and I'll do it forever.

He'd bring their friends cars over and I would be like, oh, just say something positive. So why are we talking about this? We're talking about it because we have our friends, Matt and Lisa Jacobson, back with us today on Family Life Today. And we're going to really tackle today of how we affirm our daughters. And you guys, thanks, first of all, for being back with us again. Thank you.

Great to be here. And you didn't just write a book on a couple ideas. You wrote a hundred ways, actually a hundred powerful words of affirmation for our daughters. We talked about sons as well, but I know we've written a hundred ways to love your spouse, your husband, your wife, your sons, words, affirmation. You've got it all. You've written all and you've got a website and a podcast, faithfulman.com. Club31women.com.

Yeah. And so people can find you there and obviously can link through familylifetoday.com. And you're some of our favorite guests and we appreciate just how practical you are that you're really helping us in our homes. Raise sons and daughters. You're helping us have great marriages. But I really appreciate that you've kind of made a differentiation between love and affirmation. Let's really talk about what is affirmation and how do we do that? It's basically looking for that moment or that quality or that achievement in the day where you can say, I want to point out that you said, did, or are something wonderful. And as a parent, it just means today I'm going to look for something that I can build up my daughter by saying just some win that she's had something about her that I can point out that I like something she's done. Just anything. You just start with the smallest thing and you're looking for a moment to show her that she is a wonderful, valuable, important, interesting, lovable person.

I'm going to melt on the floor right now. Like if dad says that to you, if a mom says that to you, it's so powerful. Well, I mean, you had eight kids, four daughters, right? How do you do that every day? You're a parent and you do it imperfectly. But really what this book is, 100 words of affirmation your daughter needs to hear. It's essentially an aggregation of things that we've learned over time and we've tried to employ. And it's a very digestible, doable bite size kind of approach to this topic. And it's just to give ideas.

What are some of the things? Because everybody, I think hearing about affirming your daughter would say, oh, I'll sign up for that. But maybe in real time, we might not have a specific idea of what we could do or what we could say. And that's really what this is. It's a very doable, accessible, digestible resource, bite size.

And each one is small. Like you could read one of these a day easily and try to apply it for that day. Absolutely. Yeah, we have some good friends that go through each one of these and she writes notes at the bottom of each one, like how she's going to, you know, how I could do this with my daughter. One of the things I find really fascinating and practical about all your books, especially these books on affirmation, is you literally write the affirmation almost word for word. So I'm always thinking if I'm really a parent that's not very good at this, I could pick it up and literally read, I believe in you and all you will become. That's your first one.

Well, and that first one is a big one. I want to hit that one, Dave, because you guys even say your voice must be steady and strong, ringing with clarity of a single bell on a still morning. I believe in you. I believe in your gifts and this world. I like this part.

This world is in desperate need of them. I believe in your amazing abilities. You're going to have a powerful impact in this life. I can recall, even though my parents didn't say very many positive affirming things, but I was probably four years old and my mom told me this. She said, honey, you were a mistake.

You were an accident. OK, but it didn't end there. You guys, she gives me this, she says, but I always thought and I didn't grow up in a Christian home, but they believed in God. And my mom said, but I just thought there must be something that God has for you to do.

Just that one thing. And you hung on to it. I hung on to it all of my life thinking, does God have something for me? So when you say to your kids, I believe in you and all you will become, I can remember being in bed with our kids as they're getting ready to go to sleep, saying to them, I can't wait to see all that God has for you.

I can't wait for you to discover all that he's put into you. And they couldn't even understand it at that time. They would say, is it a present? And I said, kind of. Yeah, it is a present, because when you discover why you're put on the earth, it's the greatest gift you'll ever have. And I even put in here, I said they have something in them.

And I think this is good to tell your kids. You have something in you that no other person in the entire world has ever had, has now or will ever have because God so uniquely made you. And I hope that that makes them like, what is it? Because we're all gifted. We all have passion.

We all have God loves us. And he has a plan for our lives. You know, I think sometimes we think of affirmation as like a compliment or afraid. I also heard parents say, well, I don't want to puff my kid up.

So it's not about puffing up. That's just about speaking truth and vision into their life and hearts. And can you imagine if all of these Christian parents spoke to your kids each day like this and just gave them this sense of destiny, a sense of calling like that is really powerful. You know, the enemy of our soul, Satan, there's a spiritual battle going on. Do you think he has a dialogue that he's saying to our kids? Absolutely.

Yes. There's a voice out there called 21st century values. And it's sitting right on your daughter's shoulder. And it's telling her that she doesn't measure up.

Probably never will. She's not enough of this. She's too much of that. And she doesn't have much to offer.

And she's not good enough in a thousand different ways. Everything in the culture speaks a negative message of how you are not enough, not good enough, how you don't measure up. So as a parent, recognizing the spiritual warfare of this playing field within your daughter's mind and the way she's thinking about herself, you've got to step in to that war. You've got to recognize your place in it.

And God put you in her life to raise her up to know God and to know how God sees and values her. And so that's what really is the foundation of these books is you are not going to just let the culture overrun your home like a tsunami and let all of the voices and all of the messages define who she is. But you're going to take charge of the culture within your home, the culture that comes out of the word you speak and the way you speak them.

And you're going to stand against that tide. And so that's what we are encouraging parents. That's what we wanted to do in the lives of our own kids.

And really, a lot of this grew out of our own experiences, certainly mine. I had the most negative voices as a young, young child. And I just didn't want my kids and we didn't want our daughters to have this sense of, you're diminished, you're not enough, you're not okay. Somehow God's always marginally angry with you.

And just to say, no, we're going to go on the offense. This is a parent who wants to step into the gap and stand for their kids and stand against what the culture and what the enemy has to say to them. I think as a parent, you can feel so helpless now more than ever because you've got so much going against your kids out there in the world, on social media, all of that stuff. But you're not helpless because you have a powerful voice. You need to use it intentionally, prayerfully and boldly, really. And you think about your own experience, who was the most powerful voice in your life? There's your parents.

They are powerful. And so we cannot be deceived into thinking that we're helpless because we're not. We actually have this wonderful opportunity to speak truth and life into our kids' hearts and trust God to use that for His glory.

What about the mom or dad that doesn't even believe it for themselves? Yeah, it's really hard to speak something that you're struggling with yourself. One thing I like to say is, and I have had to do myself, is I don't want to wait until I have it together before I speak into my kids' lives. I just can't afford it.

I don't have enough time for that, to be honest. And as my girls got older into their teens, I just said, you know what, I just have to tell you, I struggle with this now because of my own upbringing, because of my own struggles. But I want you to know this before I even do, that you are a daughter of the king, that you are worthy, and He has chosen you. Those are all powerful words that I am seeking to believe and receive, but I want you to do the same thing.

And if I could speak to those parents for just a minute. One of the things that we tend to forget as people who are maybe feeling the weight of those voices, and we don't really feel this for ourselves, the Bible says He's not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and a sound mind. That is what God gave you. So if you're getting something that's other than that, you're getting that spirit of negativity, fear tearing you down, that is not from God, that is from the enemy. You need to go on the spiritual attack and say, no, I reject the voice of the enemy. I am a child of the most high God. That is who I am in Christ. And so you yourself can go on a journey of receiving the affirmation that God has for you based on what the word of God says. God gets to define who you are, not the enemy, not the voices from the past. God defines who you are. And so you need to embrace that as a parent. The more you do that, the more free you'll feel to speak these things into the hearts of your daughters. And I think, you know, Matt and Lisa, what you're saying is that's not a one time mom and dad thing.

No. You know, it's like I got to immerse myself in the word of God, the absolute truth of my life every day. I mean, again, it isn't a vitamin and it isn't I'm not a good Christian if I don't. But it's like, man, I have to put truth in my mind, renew my mind, Romans 12, daily.

It's even beyond daily. I know you mentioned in your book a passage that we use in our book. We called our book Perfect Parents.

I don't know if you knew about that one. It's actually called No Perfect Parents. We got to it before we did that. We were going to write that book. Well, nobody can write it except God.

It's like an autobiography, right? God was the only perfect parents, but its kids still rebelled. There you go. You're not perfect parents.

We are and our kids aren't. But, you know, the passage that we sort of based the book on and you did on your affirmation was that Deuteronomy 6 passage, which is really interesting in terms of the rhythms of speaking words of affirmation in the morning, in the evening, as you go along the way. But as we know, it starts with love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. It's the great Shema of the Hebrew people.

This is something they memorized and was their DNA. And he says, these commandments that I give you today to be on your hearts. He's talking to the parents here.

Yes. You can't impress them on your children or talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk away unless they're on our hearts. And so if we're trying to affirm and speak identity into our children and we don't understand it or really believe it for ourselves, it's going to be very hard to give away. And again, it's not once, it's like, I've got to remind myself daily because there's a liar that I hear his voice and I shouldn't. And I said, 2 Corinthians 10, 5, take a captive immediately. There are times I don't. And it slips in and I start to feel less about myself. And then I speak that into my kids rather than, no, no, no, no, no, I am powerful. I am strong in Christ.

And so are you. And I want to speak that into you. You know, one of the things that I've been really convicted about, like our kids are older. So it's easier to find that with those really good chunks of time to be with God.

But when our kids were younger, it was hard. Like you have to fight for that time. And yet now I get maybe you guys get these notifications, too, of how much time you have logged into your devices.

Weekly screen updates. Exactly. And I look at that and I think, what a waste of time. Like if I spent that much time in God's word or prayer. You'd be glowing. I would be glowing.

That would happen. You are glowing. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Lisa.

Is it really a waste of time? Because I was just watching, you know, the fascinating aspects of dung beetles a while back. And I just learned a lot. So, no, I'm kidding.

Of course. It's endless, right? You're right, though. As parents, it's really easy, especially with little kids. You're so exhausted that you're going to go down a Netflix binge and you can do that. And you feel like, oh, at least I got my time. But there's still not this feeling of now I'm filled up and I'm ready for the battle. And so I think I'm not trying to be the Holy Spirit, but I'm just even saying in my own life, when I have spent time with God, I'm ready for the battle because it is a battle.

As you were saying, you have so many great like out of these hundred, I could go through every single one and our listeners would love the practicality of every single one. But one of the things you said is to remind them that the Father's gentle hand is directing them. And I was interested that you put the Father's gentle hand is directing you. Well, God is very gentle with us. And the message that we often get is that God is a condemning God. God is a- He's upset with you, disappointed with you. Always never pleasing him. You never measure up.

You're not OK. And he's basically mad at you most of the time. And so we are to impart the knowledge of God to our children. And we're to teach our kids the character of God. The Bible says, come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden.

I'll give you rest. The prodigal son's father is standing there waiting to embrace. And that's a child that's been totally rebellious and he's just waiting. So God's hand is there. He's directing you. You've got to listen to him because he's not going to, you know, come in with force and say, this is what you're going to do. He's calling you to listen.

He's calling you to believe in his goodness, regardless of what you might be facing right now. Do you feel there's a difference in the words of affirmation that you give to daughters compared to sons? Is it the same thing or is it a little bit nuanced?

Well, there's certainly a lot of crossover just because they're people. But I think there are some specific ways in which you would affirm a son and you would affirm a daughter that are different. One of the things is in terms of the son's need to grow into manhood and a daughter to grow into womanhood and to speak that identity into them from a very young age.

You're informing them. Now, the culture and the society wants to take the image of God and say it doesn't matter. It can be totally messed with.

It can be turned around upside down and backwards. But if we're going to be biblical Christians, we recognize that male and female, he created them. So you're speaking identity into their heart and life for the kinds of things that are natural to them. And again, these are not things that are across the board, always a hundred percent the same, but they're inclinations. For instance, sons tend to males, tend to be more aggressive. That's not a negative statement about one gender or the other. It's just the reality. Generally speaking, it's the truth.

Men are more aggressive than women. Well, when you see those kinds of things in your son, you can look at it and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold off, buddy. Or you can recognize that as a God-given distinctive for your son, and you can direct that in a positive way. All right, so that would just be one example of a difference in how you might affirm a son in a different way that you would affirm a daughter. Maybe you have some thoughts about that too, babe. Well, I was just thinking for a daughter, I had read an article that you shouldn't tell your daughter that she's pretty because that is too much focus on the physical. So I took this article to heart because I was just trying. It was on the internet, so it had to be true, right?

It's something like that. And so sure enough, one of my daughters, who happens to be very gorgeous, which is obvious. I mean, you just look at her. And she was about 15 or 16, and she said, Mom, do you think I'm pretty? I thought, oh, honey, you're beautiful. How could you not know that? She says, well, I don't know. You've never said anything.

I got a stupid article, you know. And she needed to know, not in a fluffing up kind of way, but just you are beautiful. And she did need to hear it from me. It's not that she was getting her identity from it. No. She just wondered what you thought.

Yep. And just in an authentic, genuine way. And here she's got all of Instagram and Photoshop telling her not that. You don't measure up. And so what a powerful word from a parent saying, a mom saying, no, you are beautiful, as in just the way you are, the way God made you. I love how you look. By God's grace, our girls are very confident with who they are and how they're made. And I never had that.

Me neither. That's so good. I really wanted that for my daughters. And I know as a husband, I didn't have a daughter, but I have a wife who was a daughter, is a daughter. And I've learned over 40 years to speak that. I like to even tell her how pretty I think she is because she sometimes doesn't know. And she's also told me how I say words of affirmation.

It's a lot better when they're gentle and not harsh. Because when we were first married, I could not believe she did not see her physical beauty like I did. I would even say something like, do you think I look okay tonight?

And he goes, well, of course you look okay. And I was like, oh. Did you notice how she did that?

That was how harsh I was. And I couldn't hear it. Because I literally thought, you've got to be kidding me.

You obviously think this. She didn't. And now I know why she never heard words of affirmation. And she's asking me for that. And I'm like, oh, duh. And I learned, oh my goodness, even this woman doesn't always know and needs someone that she really trusts to say, you're amazing.

Just like our kids. Yeah. That's the power of words of affirmation.

I shouldn't get into another one, but I just want to hit this last one. You say that to encourage our girls and to affirm them by saying, you're not a victim. You have the power to act. And I was intrigued by that because you have a daughter in a wheelchair.

And I think it'd be really easy for our kids that have really struggled or suffered or gone through things that it's really out of their control. How do you relay that truth? Well, actually with words.

You know, we speak it. And it has to do with if you are a believer, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That means that you have the power of the Holy Spirit in you. The world wants to make you a victim, but we are not victims. We are people empowered by God to walk with him in a way that he loves and approves of.

And this is who you are. So if the world wants to make you a victim, it wants you to have a mentality and a mindset that is against what God wants you to be. And so we just speak those words. But there's sort of a double-edged sword aspect to it, too, because if you're not a victim, that means you're responsible to make decisions. And we just want our kids to be empowered to think that, no, I have the responsibility and the power to act.

And so that's why we speak that message, because we are not interested in the message the world has for them on that level. Yeah, I just wish I would have had more of those kinds of words spoken over me, that I'm not helpless and life is not happening to me, that God will enable me to do what I need to do and to step out and to do things that are right, that are helpful and that are edifying, and it's not just happening to me. One of the things that happens when you start thinking that life is happening to you is you remove yourself from the aspect of responsibility for what's happening. But if you're trained not to think that way, then you recognize, no, I need to make a decision, I need to move forward, I need to, you know, if you're in a rut, get out of that rut. God is calling you to act based on what He has, who He has said you are and what He's given you to do, and He always makes a way for us. And so it's really about a positive path forward.

I like what you say. You say no one's life is defined by the good or bad things that happen to them. Your life is defined by your reaction to what takes place.

Your chosen response to your life circumstances establishes who you are and the life that you will live. Those are wise words to say to our kids and good reminders for ourselves. That's really our job as parents, to do that and send them into the world with that.

So thanks for helping us train to be with you guys. Would your son or daughter say, my mom and dad are my greatest cheerleaders? They are always cheering me on. They're always encouraging me.

Or would they say they hear more discouraging words from you? I think as parents, all of us can do a better job of speaking words of affirmation, words of encouragement, words of life with our children. And Matt and Lisa Jacobson have a tool to help us do that. In fact, we're making the books that Matt and Lisa have written available this week to Family Life Today listeners who can help us advance the work of Family Life Today. When you make a donation, you are pouring into the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who every day come to us for practical, biblical help and hope for their marriage. And if you're able to help with a donation today, we'd love to send you a copy of Matt and Lisa's books, a hundred words of affirmation your daughter needs to hear and a hundred words of affirmation your son needs to hear.

Very practical tools to help you be the cheerleader that your son or daughter needs you to be. Again, you can request copies of Matt and Lisa's books when you make a donation of any amount. Go to FamilyLifeToday.com and donate online or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a donation.

Ask for the books when you do, and we're happy to send them out to you. You know, the reason we have conversations like the one you've listened to today is because it's really our mission here at Family Life to effectively develop godly marriages and families. David Robbins, who's the president of Family Life, is here with me, and David, we want to not only help moms and dads win at home, but we want to help you help others in your sphere of influence to succeed in their family as well. Yeah, Bob, I love hearing you talk about our mission statement because we're passionate about building into families because we know the home is a conduit to build the kingdom of God. The work of parenting, like we've been talking about today, has a compounding effect, and we are passionate about helping families experience Jesus and pass it on to their kids and into their neighborhoods and community because we're passionate about that second part of our mission statement that you said, that we know that a people of God living in surrendered lives to Jesus can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, impact their corner of the world and change the world one home at a time.

That's what we do. And I want to just invite you, if you aren't signed up for the email that we send out regularly a couple times a month, it is meant to encourage and equip you to live that out of growing in oneness with God and in your own home and moving toward others around you and impacting others for the kingdom of God. That's what we're about at Family Life, and it's another great way you can be resourced to keep growing. Yeah, if you'd like to receive our Help and Hope e-newsletter, it's free. You can sign up online at familylifetoday.com.

We've got a link on our website. Sign up and get extra Help and Hope sent to your email inbox each month. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow when we're going to take up the subject of purity.

Certainly that's a biblical concept, but there have been times recently when folks have done a poor job of communicating what the Bible has to say about purity. It has not been handled well. Ron Deal and Julie Slattery will be with us to have a conversation about that, and I hope you can join us for that as well. And if you have friends who you think would benefit from that conversation, point them to the podcast. Family Life Today is available as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.