This episode is supported in part by the Christian Standard Bible, a translation designed to be faithful to the original text and clear for everyday readers. And we're just grateful for their partnership in helping bring gospel-centered content to families like yours. And to learn more about the CSB, visit csbible.com. Hi.
So, classic moment in parenting world for us was when our oldest son, CJ, was three years old. Was he three? Yeah, he was three. And I'm giving him a bath, and he looks at me and he's a real analytical. You could tell it already.
And today, he's an engineer in IT with Sharper Image. But he's three years old, and he's always thinking, and he's just staring at my face. I'll never forget this. And he goes, Hey, dad. How old were you when your head started sucking your hair back in?
That's what he says. I mean, that's how he. I can tell he's like analyzing, like, what's happened to my dad's hair. 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. This is Family Life Today. I asked all the boys one time as they got a little bit older, I said, tell me what you guys think about the most. And that son said, oh, easy. I'm constantly thinking about how does that work?
How does that work? And that's totally who he is. And it always has been. It always has been. And you know, there's a part of being a parent where you can try and change that or you can celebrate that.
And the reason we're bringing that up is we have Brian and Stephanie Carter back in the studio one more time. One more time. Talking about their book, Made to Last, which is eight principles to build long-lasting relationships. And we've just had a blast with you guys the last two days. Thank you for having me.
I hope you've had fun. It's been great. It's been great. And if we would all apply the principles that you talked about yesterday, you would have amazing marriages.
So now we want to dive into a little bit of this parenting aspect. You guys have three kids. Pastor of Church, you're on the family life board.
So, you make sure this ministry's going in the right direction. Man, after listening to you the last few days, we are in good hands. I thought that same thing, Dave. Oh, I really did. I thought, wow, you know, because I'm not in a lot of those board meetings, we've been in a few, but man, knowing that that's the kind of stuff you guys are talking about, thank you.
It's an honor to serve. Thank you. And you have a really cool marriage. Oh, thank you. You do.
Now we're going to talk about kids. I bet your kids are pretty great, too.
So, we have three kids. Each of them are completely different. I think about Caitlin, and I remember just her being our oldest. And then we kept feeling like, This is so easy. This is all this parenting is.
She just sits here, she reads her little book. She's just great. And you probably thought, We're the best parents. This is all you know, what is this nightmare situation that is happening?
So then we had Kennedy. And I would say she is our strong will blessing. Yeah. Yeah. So between zero and seven, she brought it.
Really? They questioned yourself as a parent to the point where I'll never. I'll forget this. The little preschool that we had Caitlin in, the same teachers who had taught Caitlin at Kennedy, and they kind of were like, This is going to probably be her last year. And the reason why we're letting you stay is because we just know y'all are great parents because of you know with Caitlin.
Well, it's interesting too when you have a strong child. Our youngest was our strongest. And I can remember we're driving in the car. He's five years old and I'm driving. You know, we dropped the kids off at school and he's coming home with me.
He goes, Why are you going this way, mom? It's way longer. And I'm listening to it. Like, is it like, yeah, probably is. Maybe I should.
I'm thinking, how do you know how to get home? You know, the other way is quicker. He just had this natural leadership gift. He's just bossing me around all day. Listen, we had to learn through having a strong-willed child not to break that spirit.
Yeah. Through prayer, through great mentors that kind of told us because we were calling anybody and everybody because we did not know what to do. I bet. And I think the best advice we got was not to break her spirit. What's that look like?
What do you mean? What we, we. Had to learn to give our choices.
So, with the first one, you can say, Do this. Yes. And with her, right, and they'll do it. But this one, you got to say, Well, either you can watch TV or you can do your homework. It had to always be choices and let them feel empowered like it was their decision and their choice.
If you focused them and made them, it was a battle of wheels. And their wheel is pretty strong. It's not worth that battle. It's not worth the battle.
So you're constantly offering options and choices and trying to help them navigate. You're like, why am I negotiating with a two-year-old? Why do I leave this? She is so good. She is so good.
So I tell like young moms now, I'm like, that little strong will blessing that you have. And I got that term from Julie Richard, who does this great ministry with for moms called Fearless Moms. I would tell them, I'm like, just nurture that. Yeah. Nurture that.
They're going to be the strongest leader. And she is. I was going to say, what's she like now?
Well, you know, we had to read, ask a lot of questions. We had to unpack. Heck. the uniqueness that God had given her. Right.
How'd you do that? Reading, asking questions. We went to a therapist. Trying to figure out, okay, how do we raise our daughter? How do we raise our children well?
How are they gifted? How are they wired? And so part of us discovering this strong will nature was figuring out how valuable it is, how the leadership gifts that are there, how this would turn out later in life if we're able to cultivate that. Our son, who was kind of, he's the baby, very easygoing, very nonchalant. I mean, he's focused.
He knows what he wants to do, but he's very easygoing.
So we had to figure out how do we cultivate each of these personalities in such a way they feel love, they feel value. We're not comparing them to their assembly. Why don't you do it like this? I don't have any problems with them.
So we had to put all that kind of language away and say, let's learn to value them, affirm them, celebrate them, coach them based on how God has uniquely wired our children. And so that's something we had to wrestle with, but now we watch them. And it's interesting to watch them as teenagers, young adults. That we've been able to try to coast them through some of those unique seasons. But early on, It was just, we were like, What is happening?
It was hard, it was really hard, and I think we had to learn just the different stages of parenting. I feel like in the beginning, it's kind of like a dictatorship: okay, you do this, you go sit here, okay, uh-huh. And then it eventually gradually comes into kind of like a coaching season, and so on. I feel like with all of our kids, we had to learn to give them responsibilities and so on, as far as like, hey, you can sort clothes. This is a color game.
So, at five, you can okay, towels, whites, colors, just helping with the wash, but just giving them some type of responsibility and accountability. Our kids grew up with social media, like social media and phones, and all that was introduced. Yeah, and at a young age, even like working through that situation, but just being really clear with them as far as these are the expectations in our house and sticking with them, but then also not comparing your kids. To somebody else's kid. With having one kid that would do whatever they were supposed to do, and then having the other kid who would be like, Yeah, no, I'm not doing that.
Like, I remember when I was pregnant with Carson, just a transparent moment. When I found I was pregnant with him, I was like, Oh, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I said the other two, I don't even know what I'm doing with those two. I'm gonna have another one. Our last child was a complete surprise.
So the first two, we're school teachers, right? And so our first child is born in June, June the 4th. School teachers, we get out in May, June, birthday. There you go. Our second child is born June 16th.
Come on. Really? Right, June, right? We get out of school. We know they had a summer together.
We had two girls who wanted to try again, but weren't quite sure. And then this third one comes, and it's total surprise that she's pregnant. Like, we don't even know. This is just, and so she's kind of wrestling with her depression. Like, what?
And then our child, it's a terrible two thing happening at the same time. She was bringing it. She had separation, anxiety.
So when we would drop her off at school or just like at preschool, she would just completely scream, completely fall out. Even if like my mom was watching, we're blessed that my mom lives like 10 minutes away from us.
So even if my mom was watching her, she'd be like, what is this crying? And I was like, this is what she does. And then you feel like people are judging you. You're the church, baby. That's what I was going to say.
And then you're the pastor. Yes. And that can be really terrible. There's that pressure.
So it was that pressure of, oh, y'all, I can think. I'm having all these members come up.
Okay, I'll tell this one story real quick.
Okay, so Brian is preaching at a church in Los Angeles. We go, I'm pregnant with Carson. Kennedy has to be like two or three. And she's in rare form. Oh, she's in rare form.
Caitlin just sitting there obedient, whatever.
So in this particular church, you had to do the offering. You had to get up and you had to walk around.
So I'm like, okay. I'm thinking to myself, this is not going to go well, but I'm just going to talk and kind of reason with this child and be like, all right, now here's your little money that you're going to put in. Kennedy was having no parts of it. She literally, as we get to the altar, she throws herself down. No.
She throws herself down. I'm like, okay, put it in there. She's like, no, no. And I was like, oh, no. Not now.
Don't throw the spinach down. Please, Jesus. And the older saints are looking at me like, I mean, you better spank her. And I mean, get her up, spank her. And I'm like, spanking her is just going to really energize her even more into the incredible hawks.
So no. Incredible hawk. I was like, and then Caitlin is just looking like, and then Brian is sitting there. And he's just looking at me like, I'm so sorry. And you got to get up and preach.
I have to. I had to. His daughter right there. Oh, man. And we're having another one.
Oh, my goodness. Nothing like parenting to keep you humble. I just think the Lord gives you kids to keep you humble because you just never know what you get. But I mean, we've been blessed. Our kids, oh, man.
So we've got three. They got total different interests. Our oldest is a dancer. She did dance, ballet, modern much of her life. Our middle one did gymnastics, then she did cheer.
Cheer is kind of her thing, right? She loves to be a cheerleader, competitive cheer. Our son, he does basketball, so he loves basketball. You're tired, right? You're tired all the time.
I think at one point we had three kids, three different schools. Yeah, we had extracurricular stuff going on. It's crazy. It's just, it's so demanding. In that season between the time of their infants to the toddler stage, no matter what, it's hard.
Yeah, potty training. It's hard. I just want you to stay encouraged because it goes so fast. I just talked to one of our daughter-in-laws. She sent some pictures of their four-year-old.
Talking very close to his two-year-old sister. My daughter-in-law says, Bryce, our son, is telling his sister that today's the day she needs to be potty trained. She can hear him saying, Now, today's the day, Autumn, you're going to go potty, and whenever I go, you can go. And she's listening to him, like, Okay, she's never had an accident the whole day. Wow, this little boy has a teaching gift.
He's a teaching gift. He is a teacher. He's a teacher. And so we asked him late last night. I'm like, So, how did it go?
They said, Well, our four-year-old just potty trained the two-year-old. He's a magnificent easy gift. Yes, he is. He's a trainer. But you guys talked yesterday about how you sit down as a family and make goals.
Is that once a year? Yeah. That you sit down?
So you must have done that with your kids, like parenting goals for your kids. Did you do that for each child? You had goals for the year? We do. We kind of sit down like right before school starts, and we just talk about goals.
Goals that you might have. It's helpful for them to set their own goals, but realistic goals, not my goals. Like I had one friend, she was like, I set my goals for them. Like, no, no, that's not you. But you did when they were little.
When you do when they're little, but like middle school and high school, no, you, my goal, as a parent goal, my parent goal could be, yes, they're gonna be a 4.0 student, they're gonna be this, they're gonna do this, but realistically, Let your kids set their goal. What's that look like? You're all sitting around the table. They're in middle school, high school. Before we have the meeting, we say, hey, you know, we're coming together to make goals.
So what are going to be your goals? What could be your friendship goals? What could be your academic goals? What could be some like your social goals? Because sometimes you might have a kid, like at one time, our son, he's kind of shy.
And so our girls are leaders.
So they were like student council, they're this. And they're like, listen, Carson, this is what we do. We lead.
So we're the garters. You need to, you need to run for something. And so then when you're a senior, you can be the president because that's what we do. This is last year. This is six months ago.
This is a conversation of his oldest sisters with him. And I was like, hey, no pressure. Was he looking at you, Brian? Like, don't be down. He's like, okay.
He's like, okay, okay, I got it. I got it. I think the goals is designed for the kid.
Sometimes we do them one-on-one, right? We may go to. Panera restaurant, sit down one on one and let that child just kind of talk about Canon, what are you thinking? What do you want to do? What do you kind of see happening?
Do you want to play sports? Do you want to do this club? Like, where do you kind of see? And just trying to help them set those goals, coach them along. Because sometimes they're going to need help to get the goals accomplished, right?
Whether it's academically or they may need some additional help, athletically, or even spiritually. How do we help you? You're going to have to get involved this year.
So, what are you going to do at church? I mean, that's one of the questions. You can pick whatever you want, but we need you to do something at church, right? Either this or that group or youth group.
So, but it gives them. The space for them to be able to talk about how they see their lives being, how they see God working, those kinds of things. And so, that's that's kind of what that looks like. And so, when they get to college, they do the same thing. This is what I'm thinking about.
I want to get in this. I want to do this.
Next summer, I want to do this.
So, we're trying to help them to think before we're thinking. And they didn't roll their eyes or like these dumb goals. No, I think our son initially was kind of like, Oh, what's this about? But I think seeing his older sisters do it, and I think the example is you have to model.
So, as parents, we have to model, we have to model prayer. They have to see us praying. And so, sometimes we can be doing so many other things that they see us doing. But if we don't model how to pray, if we don't model how to forgive, if we don't model these things for our kids, if we don't model how to communicate and talk to people when we have a conflict, like They're going to have problems. They're not going to know how to do these things.
If we're not showing them, who else is going to show them? Yeah. Just giving them those realistic expectations, and that's the key, realistic expectations. I like how you said, like, hey, what are you thinking? It's not like, hey, what are your goals?
Let's say, you know, it's more of a conversation. It's a conversation. Like, what were your wins last year? Or what were your wins this past nine weeks? What would you like to see moving forward and so on?
So, for each kid, it is different. With my son, his sisters are about to be in college and so on.
Well, I said, Okay, Carson, so he's a sophomore.
So, what are your schools that you're thinking about?
So, now his dad. Is like, oh, I want him to do this. I want him to do this type of major.
However, my son loves marine biology. They don't get paid very well. And so I had to tell him, I said, Brian, you have to let him. I'm going to let him. But I'm also going to expose him to math, some engineering experiences.
Because sometimes if we don't know it exists, then we don't know to even choose it. See what else might be.
So I'm going to send him to a marine biology camp. But then next summer, I'm going to send him to a couple of engineering camps so he can at least learn there's a world out there because he's gifted in math and science. How about the spiritual area? Yeah. You know, how do you guys, as parents, develop?
I mean, every parent probably listening is like, man, one of my top goals is that they're walking with God when they're men and women. And, you know, we've just, we've done several programs recently with the epidemic of our kids walking away. It's an epidemic. It's never been seen at these numbers in history.
So parents are afraid and they're like, what's our role to help see that happen? What do you? Get to? I think spiritually we try to get them cultivated in the church. We try to get them connected to church.
We pray with them at home. We pray before we leave for the day and we drop them off. One of the things I miss when they start driving, if we miss those times in the car where you can talk about your faith, talk about those things.
So I miss that. One of the things we often do is we try to put them in spaces.
So we often see them in the Christian camp each summer, which really gives them a good foundation. And then we also try to figure out what are your gifts and how can you use those gifts in the life of the church. Our girls, they've both been on leadership councils.
So that's allowed them to use their leadership gifts in the context of the local church so they can see that connection. If it's mission trips that have happened, we try to get them connected there. And then also at the home, our talk time is also counter our family devotional time.
So that Sunday night is also the time we may talk about prayer. We may ask them to pray. We may ask them their prayer needs so that they get a connection there. The other thing I've longed to do, but I haven't done, is I've loved to do a personal Bible study with my kids. It's something I've wanted to do over time.
I haven't been able to do it like I would have liked to have. I've got a sabbatical break, so I've got margin to do it, to do a Bible study with them. And I'm super excited. Matter of fact, one of our Kids, she decided to be a counselor at a Christian camp that she had gone to for a number of years, which was shocking that she would want to be this counselor for six weeks here.
So she left college last summer. And I told her, I said, man, we're so proud of you, man. I mean, there's a lot of places you could have spent the summer, but you went there and you invested in those young girls. As hard as it was, as challenging as it was.
So then when she got back to campus, she says her friends asked, said they wanted to start a Bible study. And she said, They've asked me to start the Bible. I said, I'm so proud of you. She said, Dad, this is not what I do. I don't know how to do this.
Then it clicked for her. I said, I'll give you all the stuff. If you need help, I'll give you a Bible study. She says, and it clicked for her. She said, you know what I can teach him?
The same material I taught last summer for six weeks. I said, that's a great idea. You already have the workbook. She pulled a workbook out. And so she was able to be able to leave that Bible study for the first time.
So I think part of what we've learned is, as she mentioned, modeling it, helping expose it to them, teach it to them, encouraging them as they have wins in their spiritual life. In a church space, PKs, preachers, kids, they sometimes have to deal with so much. And so being a listening ear to them, but still encouraging them to be in there and learn and grow, but not feel that pressure. praying for God to send spiritual mentors in our lives. Because sometimes our voices are not heard.
But if there's somebody that loves the Lord and loves them, we've had coaches at schools step in and be those voices.
So I think spiritually, it's a whole experience, right? That you're trying to use everything that you can to try. And the other voice that's been helpful is their grandmother. Their grandmother, her mom, who lives 10 minutes from us, picks them up, drops them, this is an extra set of hands. But she would always say to our kids, have you prayed about it?
When we as mom and dad would forget to, you know, sometimes she would be there. Just like she said to you over there, Stephanie. She did. She's been a voice in their lives spiritually. Texting them prayers and texting them verses.
Other thing we did was try to make our house that house, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So for sleepovers, for birthday parties, end-of-year parties, spiritually, right? Where they just can see us and know us. The last thing we do spiritually. I started a father-son camp. Wait, four to five years ago.
At your church, really among some friends. Among some friends in our church.
So it started because my son has about four young men that were all born around the same time.
So. They were all turning 13. And we're all getting ready for the talk, right? Maybe it had been 12 at the time.
So I called the guys up. I said, listen, why don't we do it together? Let's do the talk together. They said, you know what? Let's do it together.
So we got our sons together. We spent the weekend together and we did the talk together. This started as we were talking about purity then. And it's just every year we have these conversations. We go fishing.
We hang out, play games. It is the best. I'll never forget. We're sitting there and like, they were asking all these at 10, 11 when they first start. They're asking questions that I don't know.
You know what I mean? Why does this happen? What is this? But it was the best. But again, other father, other men available, speaking into each other's lives.
I just say it's a whole community. You know what's really cool if you're doing that in 10 years with the same guys. Wouldn't that be cool? They're married men now, they still would want it. Yeah.
Hey friends, Ron Deal here, director of Family Life Blended. Did you know Blended and Blessed, the only worldwide live stream designed for couples and blended families, is free this year, Saturday, April 18th. We're going to be live in Oklahoma City. If you show up there, we're going to charge you for lunch. But other than that, it is free.
Free to live stream. Churches can bring a group of couples together and enjoy the day. Absolutely free. Gayla Grace is going to be with us. Davey and Christy Blackburn.
Cheryl Shoemake is going to be with us. Kathy Lipp and Brian Goens, our MC. It's going to be a wonderful day. I hope you can join us. Learn more and get the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.
One of our sons became friends with the grief. They were in a small group from our church. A guy that was in his 20s started leading their group. And now these guys are 37 to 40 and they still meet. Really?
They don't live around each other, but they meet for vacation with their leader, who's a lawyer. But they're still friends. They still stay in touch with one another. It's really sweet. That's beautiful.
You guys, this has been so rich. It is rich. Brian, I'm just sitting there thinking, I got stuck on the part when your daughter came home and she's saying, they asked me to lead this Bible study. And you're enthusiastic. When you say, yes, you should.
I thought, if I had a father that was just cheering me on and a mother who was saying, you can do this, like that's our kids are needing that. They don't need our critique at that age. They don't need us to tell them what they're doing wrong. They already feel the pressure of the culture, of the world. But for us as parents to pray for them, to cheer for them, to ask them, hey, what are you thinking right now?
What are your goals? Cool. For it, you guys are impressive. Oh, bless you! Thank you.
I wish you would have raised me. Oh, my goodness! Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Spend some time with you guys with the work you guys are doing. Incredible job. Thank you. That was a great day with Brian and Stephanie. That was our third day in a row.
I love them. Good stuff. Their book is called Made the Last, Eight Principles to Build Long-Lasting Relationships. Doesn't everybody want long-lasting relationships? Yes, we all want long-lasting relationships.
Yeah, so go get it now at familylifetoday.com. Just click on the link in the show notes. And thanks for being with us on Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry. celebrating fifty years of God's faithfulness as marriages grow stronger and families flourish in Him.
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