There is a difference between being a parent and being a grandparent. Josh Mulvihill says grandparents have to downshift, recognizing that our job is to influence, not to command our grandchildren. When we are in proximity in relationship, that just tends to happen as we go through our days with people, that we may end up being invited to speak into something just because we're in relationship with those individuals.
When that relationship's not occurring on a regular basis, it's not intimate, then there tends to be the stiff arm and the distance and that's not happening. So then we push and we push people away in that. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine.
You can find us online at familylifetoday.com. Influence matters for a lot. And if you're a grandparent, you have more influence over your grandchildren than you may realize. We'll talk about that more today with Josh and Jen Mulvihill. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.
Thanks for joining us. Have you guys established a regular rhythm for what your interaction with your grandkids looks like, either in phone calls or emails or texts or visits? Do you have kind of a pattern set out or is it just when you can? Every single day. Really? No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, we have one grandson near us.
Yes. And we don't go more than two days. We see them a lot. They only live 10 minutes from us. And so our son will just FaceTime. If he hasn't seen us in a couple days, our son will FaceTime. But the kids in Colorado, Dave and I aren't real planners and we need to be. And I've even asked, could we get a day on the calendar that we're FaceTiming at a certain time? That would help all of us.
But none of us are real great planners. And so it just hasn't happened like that. I mean, we've had a couple times, it's so cute, is our grandson near us will literally wake up and go, Nani, Nani. And he wants grandma. So they FaceTime, you know, or they say, you better get over here in the next couple hours. I will occasionally get a FaceTime at about 5.30 in the afternoon from my son. And I recognize what's happening. It's 5.30 in the afternoon and they've exhausted all forms of entertainment.
They're just at their wits end. Let's FaceTime with G-daddy and talk to him. I think what we're talking about this week, the whole idea of being intentional about grandparenting is something that we do have to get on our planners and have to figure out what our rhythm is going to be.
And then get into a regular sync of how we're going to interact and when we're going to interact and make that a part of the program. And we've got friends joining us here this week to talk about this. Josh and Jen Mulvihill. Josh, Jen, welcome back.
Good to be here. These guys are not yet grandparents. In fact, you're a decade away, don't you think, from being grandparents? We pray. Your oldest child is 14.
So you don't know. He could get married early. You could be grandparents within the decade.
But this is still a ways off for you guys. And yet, this is something that in your study of Scripture and your interaction with families, you've recognized grandparenting is an untapped resource within the body of Christ and within the family structure, something that can be used for G-d's glory in a powerful way. What do you recommend to grandparents about developing the kind of intentional rhythm I was talking about? A big one right now is just how much time do you spend with each of your grandchildren. And it's an easy impact. So limited time equals limited impact. And there's been quite a few studies done on the amount of time that grandparents spend with their grandkids.
And so here's the findings. One out of two grandparents is considered a detached or a disengaged passive grandparent. One out of two. And that means that equates to connecting with your grandchild less than once a month. And so when you don't have time with someone, obviously there's a limited impact that can happen. And so one out of two is active.
That means they're very engaged in their grandkids lives. So if that's true for any of our listeners, a simple thing is you talk about being intentional, increase the frequency of impact. And sometimes it's as simple as a priority issue or it's just a planning issue. And so we're all busy and late gatherings and last minute gatherings are hard.
So let's put them on the calendar. Our family, what we did, we started to put the fourth Sunday every month on our calendar. We just blocked it off from four to eight p.m. and we would rotate into different homes. And that was how we saw our family. Parents came over, grandparents came over, cousins. And we just rotated home that we all live obviously in the same city.
So that worked for our situation. But whatever that looks like, that time component is a big one. I think kids spell love.
T-I-M-E. So we want to get out of just the holiday grandparenting that a lot fall into. We see on a couple holidays of the year, recognizing those big days, the birthdays, the big milestones. The technology that exists today provides a lot of opportunity to interact and many of us don't use it to the degree that we could or many grandparents are slow adopters of some technology. And so our encouragement is to use that for the relationship building that happens. Be willing to travel. Sometimes it's easier to go to children, especially with young kids, that it's sometimes harder to travel or more expensive.
We have five kids, so flying somewhere with seven of us is pretty prohibitive. So it's a blessing to have sometimes coming to us. And so there's lots of things that can happen just to build and develop those relationships. But other than Christ, obviously, that's the cornerstone that makes discipleship possible. The relationship doesn't exist.
Then the heart openness and heart desire is not there to receive what is being offered. I'm interested to know if your parents feel pressure since you're the grandparent expert. But what's your relationship like with them? What does it look like for your kids and your parents? Well, so both of our moms passed away within the last few years. My mom passed away five years ago of cancer and Josh's mom passed away eight years ago of ALS. And both of our parents as grandparents prior to our moms passing away were spot on, A plus, 10 out of 10 disciple making grandparents. You know, when when grandma dies, it changes that dynamic. You know, they're going through a transition. They are grieving and life has been upset. But I would say that both of our dads have done an excellent job of continuing to pour into our kids.
It just looks a little different. Josh's dad has remarried. Praise the Lord that God has given us a beautiful new grandma in Grammy Pammy as we call her. And she is a gift to our family.
And she has stepped in. She loves the kids. She is an encourager. She cooks for the kids and FaceTimes them and is hands on in a way that we love and appreciate.
And we consider her a blessing. So there, especially Josh's dad and Pam, they are very intentional to ask good questions, not only of the children, but of us. They have asked, what would you like to see from us? In what ways can we encourage you? How often would you like us to see the grandkids? How can we help you more? You know, in this age of parenting, I think parenting looks different in this generation that moms are working outside the home and our schedules are stretched thin.
And it is hard to get dates on the calendar. It is time to schedule things. But their openness and availability has been wonderful. And then also, we have been blessed by an adoptive grandmother who has stepped into our family, a wonderful woman from our church who has said, you know, I have grandchildren of my own, but they live at a distance and I would love to pour into your family. And so she's hands on with our children and spends time with them and takes them out and all those things. So we have been blessed to have disciple-making grandparents in our own family that have affected us tremendously. I mean, it sounds great that, you know, you don't often hear what you just said, a grandparent saying to their kids, how do you want us to be involved? Rather than, I'm going to tell you how I'm going to be involved with your kids. That's humility.
Or pull back, totally. My dad and Pam invited us to go out to lunch and simply said, can you just tell us what you're trying to accomplish as parents? What are your goals?
What are you doing? And how can we fit into that? And they just listened. You said, here, I got a book for you to read.
They actually wrote a chapter in one of them. Yeah. But so we had the experience. We've experienced a couple sides, which has been really interesting. So Jen's parents, we lived two hours away from them. They sold their home and moved within a mile of us. And so our kids, their grandkids were with them all the time. It was wonderful. And it built that relationship.
And there was a lot of intimacy. And death changed that. And man, it left a hole not only for our kids, but for us. And so we saw, we've experienced both sides, very hands-on and then the lack of. And so, you know, I'll just say this, grandparents, you matter.
Many times I think grandparents undervalue the impact that they have and the place that they have in a grandchild's life. And I just want to tell you, you are important both from the emotional support to the spiritual influence to everything that exists. If you're wondering, what do I have to offer? You have yourself. And that is what God intended. Nothing more is needed.
Your wisdom, your guidance, your presence, that is what God wants from you. And it is really interesting to think because, you know, before you become a parent, I'm guessing everybody did what we did. You're inhaling anything you can about being a parent. You know, reading books, watching videos.
When you're about to become a grandparent, you don't even think that way. I didn't read one book, didn't think about it. Oh, now, I mean, am I unique? I'd never, I mean, here it is. There's tools available.
I didn't know they were there. It just sort of hits you. I'm a grandparent one day and you don't think as intentionally as you should. And you just said, my grandparents really, really matter.
So we should take this job as seriously as we took our parenting job. And what a loss for you guys, like to both lose your moms. I'm sorry for that. That's so hard.
Yeah. It has been a hard season, but I think God has taught us a lot in these seasons. I mean, even in the season of my mom's death, my boys being so close to her, even in her final days.
I mean, she could say to them, I love you. And you know, I'm going to meet Jesus. I'm going to meet him. And when she died, I remember our oldest saying, today was her day that she met the real Jesus. And what a beautiful testimony just of her life. Even seeing her not being afraid. Not afraid, not afraid at all. Yeah.
So I don't know. I just think in this season where culture says to us, you know, grandparents spoil your grandkids and all the fun and all the sugar. But really the greatest gift a grandparent can give is just the gift of yourself and the gift of your time and the gift of your legacy and pouring into them. It's those day to day moments that matter.
That's what matters. My mom just passed away at the beginning of 2020. My mom and dad have 12 grandsons.
Oh, wow. No granddaughters. But at her funeral, all 12 grandsons, Dave had them stand up and share something about her.
And they all had stories. She was amazing. She was fun. She was intentional. She was the most giving person that I have ever been around.
The biggest servant I've ever seen. But one of the grandsons said we were out with Grandma Toot. Her name was Toot. Grandma Toot. And it was in Georgia and it started to snow.
And so snow actually was starting to cover the ground, which was unusual in Georgia. And my mom was in her 80s at that time and the boys were trying to sled down this hill. And she says, you guys don't even know what you're doing. And she runs into the garage. She comes out with this big piece of cardboard.
She gets a running start and she runs and belly flops on this piece of cardboard and goes all the way down the hill. And these two brothers looked at each other and said, we have the most incredible grandmother in the entire world. And there were countless stories of her doing that, but also just sitting there being with them, reading to them. And so I think part of it is just who has God made you to be and to let that shine out of who you are as in your identity. Your kids, your grandkids need that.
And so when we talk about who we are and even our purpose as a grandparent, as you have already talked earlier, what are some of the other purposes for us as grandparents? Psalm 92 talks about this wonderful metaphor of a date palm tree and how we are like that date palm and how date palms bear fruit until old age. And so this is actually what Psalm 92 says.
I just want to read it. It says, the righteous will flourish like a date palm. They will grow like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of the Lord. They will still bear fruit in old age. They will stay fresh and green, proclaiming that the Lord is upright.
He is my rock and there's no wickedness in him. And old age is the season of grandparenting. And unlike date palms, it's a season of fruitfulness. And so many think my fruit bearing capacities become limited and I think they become enhanced as you get older. Just as you know, we're in our 40s, as we've gotten older, life experience, wisdom, understanding God's word, all that grows. And there is a greater capacity to minister than a less capacity. You want 40 year old Josh rather than 20 year old Josh, I assume. And so grandparents have that fruit bearing capacity that, you know, don't cash it in and stand on the sidelines.
There's a lot of untapped, unused potential and valuable grandparents that aren't being utilized, whether that's in churches today, typically pushed to the sidelines or whether in families. And so that's a third one. Let me ask you this real quick before the next one, because it makes me think as a grandparent, the wisdom part, you know, lived a little longer. And you are wise. I am wise.
I'm amazing. No, but even as you watch your kids parent their kids, your grandkids, there's things you see, you know, that you did the same thing in your youth. But now you're like, oh, that's not the way to do it. What's a grandparent do at that moment? Do they step in? Do they step back?
I know you're the parents that have grandparents doing that, but, you know, coach the grandparents. Do they just keep quiet or do they like how they discipline their kids or, you know, the rules are setting or the freedom they're giving? They have different opinions. Do they bring it? Do they let it go?
It's a great question. So I think about the influence principle. If we take a commanding presence, that's typically not received well, right? And so we want to influence rather than command. And so when we are in proximity in relationship, that just tends to happen as we go through our days with people that we may end up asking, being invited to speak into something just because we're in relationship with those individuals.
When that relationship's not occurring on a regular basis, it's not intimate, then there tends to be the stiff arm and the distance and that's not happening. So then we, what do we do? We push and we push people away in that.
And so if the door's not open and we force our way through it, you know, that's probably not the best method to get the result we want, which is where the influence principle comes in. Bob, you're good at this. Share about, like, your view of that, of what you and Marianne do. We're trying to always read, always calibrate what's the relationship here, what's the dynamic, what should we do and what shouldn't we do.
And I think you just have to be in tune. You have a purpose. You want to be intentional about what you're doing, but you can't come in saying, everybody move aside, we're going to accomplish my purpose.
You've got to come in and say, I'm an invited guest into this family. I am a secondary influence, as you've already said. I need to honor the primary influence in the midst of all of this. And I need to just make sure that I'm functioning with grace in this environment. So you're not critiquing what your kids are doing in their parenting styles.
Oh, you can't do that. You do that behind closed doors. Oh, there's a lot of that that happens. No, we have to recognize that mom and dad are trying to figure it out the same way we were trying to figure it out. And I remember the decisions that we were making that my mom was looking and saying, you're going to home school your children?
What about the socialization and all of those kinds? And I'm sure she went home wringing her hands at the mistakes we were making. But we had to function before the Lord in what we were trying to do. And we just say to our kids, you know, just keep seeking the Lord and keep trusting Him for how you're going to navigate things with your own children. Yeah, we actually got to the point, and I don't know if it's right or wrong, we actually put it in our parenting book, you know, that when you get to the adult stage, when your kids are adults, your relationship as their parent now is don't give advice unless asked. And you just wait, and if they ask, yes. If not, don't. And that is some of the hardest things ever because you're watching like, oh, no, no, no.
It's like, no, don't. Am I right? Do you just wait? Yeah. Let's get to some of the practical things because this gets fun of what we can do as grandparents. And you guys have a lot of stories. We do.
Yeah. I would say if you're looking for some practical ideas, just start by saying yes. Saying yes to being intentional. Start by saying yes to changing your schedule and reevaluating how you spend your time and who you're spending your time with. Grandparents are busy, but sometimes we're busy with the wrong people, and the primary influence should be our families.
So start by saying yes, and maybe, you know, this might not be intuitive to a lot of grandparents, or maybe you're coming out of a season where you're working full time and, you know, retirement is on the horizon. You're going to have that time. But choose a way that, you know, we're all built differently. We're all designed differently. But choose something. Choose a springboard.
Maybe it means you're going to say, all right, it was Johnny's birthday last week, and I'm going to take Johnny out. You know, I missed the mark on that. And start by just choosing something and doing it.
That would be the first. You love books. I love books. Talk about how books have been an important disciple-making tool.
Absolutely. So books are a gateway. Books are a tool that can be used to disciple. They are a conversation starter.
They become the language of your home. So we love to encourage grandparents to build your grandchild's library of good books, to use books as a disciple-making tool, whether you're reading the same book at the same time or you're studying a book of the Bible together. But we love just to encourage a lot of books. And you can purchase books throughout the seasons. There is a book for every topic. There is a book for every occasion. But books are a gateway to your child's heart, and we love to encourage grandparents to utilize books as much as possible. Now, what about gifts? Do you ever say no?
Because I'm married to a woman. I don't know what our grandparenting budget is. There's a budget? Yeah, right. It's like, let's get them a trampoline. Let's get them a jungle gym. Let's get them a, like, do we? Yes, but there's got to be a no sometimes, right? I mean, you want grandparents to help out and give gifts, but, you know. Are you trying to get help?
I'm just trying to get a little coaching for her. Just trying to get Josh Graham on your side here and say, can you tell my wife that we have to put a budget on this place? Well, we all love good gifts, right? We do. And God loves to lavish good gifts on his kids.
Oh, yes, Josh. But, there we go. But we want some intentionality with those gift-givings.
So, how can we give gifts that help a young person grow into a godly man or a godly woman? And what kinds of things could that look like? A trampoline. A trampoline, yeah, right. Actually, you know what we did?
What did you do? Which is my dream is, yeah, we wanted to get Bryce our 18-month trampoline. Wait, 18 months old, you're buying him a trampoline? This woman was a gymnast. There's a reason why.
She could do flips at 18 months. We already got the other kids. So, I'm like, you know, here's me, Mr. Tightwad, I'm like, hey, our old trampoline is under the deck.
She's like, what? It's under the deck. Which means it's been rained on for decades. I'm like, so we pulled it out, it's all there, sprayed it, because it was rusty. I first scrubbed the whole thing. That's true.
Yeah. And then sprayed it, got the mat out, and had a few holes, but hey, Bryce is jumping on that trampoline. Had a few holes. Cost us like $8. That's great.
For a little spray paint, but that's the way, and it's a great gift. Our 18-month-old is on the trampoline with a few holes, but hey. That's good for our beauty. So, folks, pay no attention to anything you hear on Family Life Today.
Child Protective Services will be at your home soon. Hey, the holes were a pinhole. Okay, all right.
Maybe a little bigger than that. But the trampoline's great. I think it's a great idea. It's a way to spend time. But also, you know, what kind of gifts can you give for birthdays and Christmas that, whether it's books or whether it's opportunities to be together with different activities, what kinds of things can build into, beyond just some of those fun memories, which are good. Something meaningful.
Yeah, something meaningful to that. The thing we remember. We think food's a secret weapon.
Yes, it is. Every grandparent's a secret weapon. You know, I don't know about you, but I remember the smells and the tastes going into my grandparent's house. And many of the things that grandparents did in previous generations have been outsourced to others today. And food is one of those. So, instead of going to grandma's house for dinner on Sunday, we go to a restaurant. And I'd say, grandparents, take that back and recognize that the food that you serve is important. And so, be willing to spend some on that. Have the open refrigerator policy when they come in. Stock things that your grandkids are going to like. It's one way to entice them to come to your home.
A friend of ours calls this the giving season of life. And by that, she means there's a lot of food preferences and needs today in this culture, with allergies and certain diets and eating styles. And it can become challenging or frustrating to try to meet all of those preferences or needs with families. And I'd say, be willing to do that. And utilize, when we look in Scripture, food is just central to God's people and to the spiritual growth and health of communities, whether the family or the community of God.
And so, utilize it for that. You know, what kind of milestones are special with your grandchildren, whether it's coming to faith, a baptism, a big accomplishment in life, a birthday, that you can utilize food to tell them how special they are and to recognize those special moments. And grandmothers, you know, pull out your best.
Well, I'll include grandfathers, too. But if you're guys or ladies, if you like to cook, pull out your best recipes. Pull out those recipes and make them and teach your grandchildren how to make them and carry on that tradition as a family.
I'm not sure we were intentional about this, but we are now. One of the gifts we can give our grandkids is their parents' marriage. When we go out to Colorado and spend a few days there, we're like, get out of the house, Mom and Dad. And of course, we want to be with the kids.
But even in overnight, go away. Work on your marriage. You need to, and the grandson that's local, almost every week we're like, Cody and Jenna, go out for a date. We got Bryce. We'll put him down.
Don't worry about it. Get somewhere. We got him. That's a gift to say your marriage matters. That is a good gift. We're your building babysitters. We want to impact your kid anyway, our grandson, granddaughter.
But we want your marriage to be better, and we'll help you do it. So what a gift. We had five years, or maybe it was even a little longer because of death that we didn't have. We had five kids. And so it's not like you just say to somebody, hey, can you come watch our five kids overnight? So we had about a five-year stretch where we didn't have that.
And, you know, it matters. And so, yes, don't underestimate the value of simply saying, well, let you guys get away and spend some quality time together and work on your marriage. Your book is really almost an appetizer to everything else you're working on to try to help cultivate grandparenting, the events that you're doing, your website. This is something that if grandparents begin to recognize we understand we have a calling.
We just need coaching. That's what you're here to provide, right? Correct, yep. And I would say to folks, start with the book. Make that where you begin. But then we've got a link on our website to your website where folks can get more information about upcoming events and all that you've got available. We are so grateful for you guys being here and for the engagement on this subject and hope that a lot of our listeners are saying, okay, we've got to start taking this a little more seriously and a little more intentionally than we have before. Thanks for being here.
Thanks for having us. Thank you. I would, again, encourage people to go to our website, familylifetoday.com, first to get a copy of the book, Discipling Your Grandchildren.
You can order it from us online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to order a copy of Josh's book. And then click the link for the Legacy Coalition. Find out about the grandparenting summit that Josh and his team are putting together for March of 2021.
And let's hope we can gather together by March of 2021. Information about the Legacy Summit is available. Again, go to our website, familylifetoday.com, and click the link to find out more about it or to order Josh's book, Discipling Your Grandchildren. Again, order online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-358-6329.
That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. You know, before we ever disciple our grandkids, all of us as parents disciple our own children, and we can all use a little help in that. Earlier this week, we had the opportunity to talk to Adam Griffin, who together with Pastor Matt Chandler has written a book called Family Discipleship, Leading Your Home Through Time, Moments, and Milestones. We were impressed with this book and thought this is going to be helpful for a lot of moms and dads, so we're making it available this week to those of you who can support the Ministry of Family Life with a donation. Your regular support of this ministry is so vitally important for us to be able to reach more moms and dads, more husbands and wives, to bring practical, biblical help and hope to marriages and families.
You make that possible when you support this ministry. Can I challenge you today to go to our website, familylifetoday.com, make an online donation, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate? When you do, feel free to request your copy of Adam Griffin and Matt Chandler's book, Family Discipleship. Again, it's our thank you gift, and we do appreciate your partnership with us here in the Ministry of Family Life today. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together in your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us back on Monday. We're going to talk about what real love in a marriage looks like and why if there's no love, there's nothing.
Love is the foundation for everything, and we'll talk more about that Monday. Hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team.
On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapeen. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.
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