You Can’t Fix Your Kid

I don't have to be more, do more, try harder, strive more to attain God's love or to chase after other people's love.

I don't have to get someone else's approval in the way that I parent because I am loved by God. 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. Okay, so a pretty, what's the word I want to say, tender moment as a dad? Unexpected, surprising moment was sitting down with two of my sons who said, Hey, dad, let's go play golf. And then, you know, we play a little golf and then, hey, let's grab something to eat. And as we sit down, they say, Hey, dad, we need to tell you something. And then, you know, right as they said that, I'm like, Oh, I think they planned this.

And I found out, yeah, they had talked to each other and they wanted to share something as adult men now that had sort of hurt them that I had done as a dad. Did you say this was sweet? Well, I know, I said it was tender. You don't like conflict. No, I mean, I'm looking back.

In that moment, I can be, even as I bring it up now, I can feel the tension in my stomach. It was like, Oh, no. Because you came home from that and you said, Well, that's not what I thought was going to happen.

Well, I didn't, it was so surprising. We're playing golf. We're having a good time. And that was a good time. But, and you know what they said, but they both sort of said, you know, we felt like, Dad, you were more intimate with a thousand people in our church, 10,000 actually at time, you know, in your sermons, you were more intimate with the congregation than you were with us in the kitchen or the family room.

I love how gutsy you are to share all this. Oh, I remember the second it came out of their mouth. My first thought was they're exactly right.

I mean, it wasn't defensive. It was like, you're right. I mean, I wish I wasn't hearing that from them, but I'm glad they had the courage to say it to me because it was the truth. And you know, you sort of hope as you parent and get to this stage of parenting now grandparents, you've done it all right.

And you're not going to hear it, have conversations like that. But the other thing I thought, and I said to you is like, well, I'm not done so I can do better. You know, I mean, we still have, they're adults now and they have kids, but it doesn't mean we're done.

And even though that was, I think a mistake on my part, I can do better. And I think every parent wants to do as good a job as we can. Yeah. And I think as parents, sometimes we think, oh, it's too late.

They're out of my house. And what you're saying and what we're both saying is it's never too late. Yeah. Because our kids are always wanting a relationship with us.

Yeah. And so today we get to talk a little bit more about parenting and how to parent well. And as I said, I think every parent, there's no parents that doesn't want to do well. We want to do the best job we can.

And the question we have is how, you know, how do we do this and how do we do this well? So we've got Crystal Payne back with us on Family Life Today. Welcome back. I'm so happy to be here again. It's been great having you here this week talking about your book Love-Centered Parenting, which is phenomenal.

And I'm not kidding. We don't say this every time I read a book. It was like very authentic, very vulnerable, but very helpful. And you even say in the subtitle, it's a no fail. It's called The No Fail Guide to Launching Your Kids. And I liked earlier, Crystal, when you explained what that meant.

What's that mean? So The No Fail Guide, we really wrestled with what to subtitle this book. And it's because you can't fail if you're faithful. And I think so often we view failure and success with the results. But as I share in this book, a lot of times the no fail situation is it's what God's doing in our heart in the process and how God changes our heart.

And so that's why we titled The No Fail Guide because you can't fail when you're faithful and when you just walk with your kids and love them well. I was thinking the first time I heard you say that, I thought, oh, it's like King David. It's the way God views King David in that he called him a man after his own heart and yet David failed miserably. But because he continued to go back after God, to run after God, God didn't see him as a failure.

He saw him as my son. Yeah, it is interesting, as we've already said this week, love-centered parenting is not just loving your child, but it's being parented by the heavenly father and receiving his love. Again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. You wrote it.

Yes, yes. Well, and it totally changes the way that you interact with other people when you are coming at life from, I am fully loved by my creator. I don't have to be more, do more, try harder, strive more to attain God's love or to chase after other people's love. I don't have to get someone else's approval in the way that I parent because I am loved by God and I can rest in that love.

And there's so much freedom when you stand in that space of it doesn't matter what other people think. There are people out there that are going to think you are failing as a parent. They're going to question your decisions, especially someone like me who is on the internet and you have hundreds of thousands of people who are following you. And every single day people are telling me that I'm doing the wrong thing. And I can't listen to those voices.

I can learn. I want to always be open and I want to receive if there's something I need to receive, but ultimately I can't please everyone. And that's not my job, but my job is to understand how much I'm loved by God, live in that love, rest in that love, live as love and then let His love flow through me to my kids and to everyone in my life. Now, how do you do that when, I mean, it's one thing to receive the love and forgiveness from the Father when we fail. When your child is failing, let's say rebelling, rejecting what you and your husband are trying to teach our kids and they're just, they've blown it big time.

How do we translate your forgiving, your love? And at the same time we have that tension like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, we got to talk because we don't want you to keep living this lifestyle you're living or making these choices you're making. We have to have some consequences here.

So there's this balance we got to do. How do you translate that in love centered parenting? So first off, I think you need to recognize that you can't save your kids. And so if you feel like that's your responsibility and you are approaching a situation like, it's my job to fix this, so I got to do whatever it takes to fix this, then it becomes about you controlling a situation. But resting in God's love means we don't have to control our kids.

We get to walk with them. And so in love centered parenting, I talk about four life giving choices that every parent can make. And so in this situation, if you, let's say that you find out that your child has done something that just goes against everything that you stand for or everything that you feel like you've kind of raised them up into, how do you respond in that situation? Well, the four life giving choices, lean in in love, listen well, lead with humility, and let go.

So lean in in love. What does it look like in that situation? Well, first off, I encourage you not to just rush into the situation with this, like, we got to take care of this, like the fire alarm going off kind of thing. Let's put a name to it. Let's say your teenager- Oh, I thought you were going to admit that that's what you do. Oh, well I did. I thought you were jumping right in there like, I've done that. We've both done that.

Totally over respond, but let's just give it a name. Let's say your teenager was out drinking and driving. And so that calls for, you get pretty- Concerned. Angry, concerned, and worried over that. So first off, I really encourage parents to stop.

That's hard right there. Stop. And send up a flare prayer. And so in the book- What's a flare prayer? In the book, I talk about how a lot of times we don't have 30 minutes to go get on our knees and cry out to God because we got to handle a situation. Or it could be, you know, maybe you have young kids and you just hear them in the other room fighting and you got to go take care of it. To stop, send up a flare prayer, God, help me to lean in and love my child in this situation. And just releasing your child to Him and reminding yourself of how much you're loved and how much you want His love to flow through you. That changes the way that we approach our child. When we approach it from, I know how much I'm loved, God, let your love flow through me to my child. I notice you're saying it so calmly. You're trying to help us feel that. Because you got to.

Because you can't be like, I'm going to lean in and love my child, you know? Well, I remember, I mean- Wait, wait, let her keep going. I want to keep going.

I want to have you apply it to this situation, so keep going. But we got to call it midnight, maybe even later. And it's a friend of my son who says, Mr. Wilson, just need to let you know CJ has just been put in the backseat of a police car. He's being arrested and taken to the police station.

They're taking him to jail. And I mean, it's right then. And it's at Thanksgiving and all of our relatives are at our house spending the night.

And so in the morning we'll say, Oh, our son spent the night in jail. That's enough to freak out about. And again, in that moment, I remember standing there and we had two different responses. Yours was like, what? I was so afraid. And I thought, I know him. Like, he probably didn't do anything. And I was like, he probably did. I don't know why. I was just like, okay. Because our friend was like, we didn't do anything wrong. They've got the wrong car.

They thought if this car was similar and I'm like, you don't have to lie. I don't know what you guys are doing, but okay, we'll come down to get. But anyway, it was that moment where you have to sort of stop and listen. Okay.

Keep going. So approaching it from that posture of I want to lean in and love my child, not, I want to fix this. And so then listening well. I feel like these a lot of times will go hand in hand. So one thing that I really changed in, let's say we get a phone call or there's an email or you find out about something. This happened just two weeks ago.

We found out our child had done something and lied about it and it was a pretty significant thing. And so instead of just jumping to, okay, here's the consequences. Let's stop and let's listen first. And so asking questions. Can you tell me about what happened?

Why? And just asking those curious questions because a lot of times I've found that it will be very different than what I actually assume from the get go. There is something else going on there. And if I immediately just jump to correcting and consequences, I'm going to miss that opportunity to hear what's actually going on in their heart. And so asking them open-ended questions and letting them talk. And a lot of times you just ask, why? That's a really great question.

Just why? And just let them start to share. And at first a lot of times they'll be closed off, but the more that they see, oh, mom's not going to jump to just shaming or shutting them down or just telling them how they did this terrible thing, there's a lot that will come up and the hurts and the heartache and whatever's going on is going to come out. And so much of the time our kids don't have emotional language to be able to share what they're feeling.

So it's going to come out sideways in anger. It's going to come out in this bad behavior. And so let's get to the root if we can. So stop leaning in love, listen well, and then lead with humility. And then that is our space to be able to, let's share about things that we've struggled with.

Let's sit with them in what they're going through and let's let them know that they're not alone. We don't have it all figured out. We're not this perfect parent. Maybe you've never been in the back of a cop car, but I'm sure you've made some mistakes. Which by the way, that son was innocent.

It was not him that did anything. They really did have the wrong car. His car matched the identification of a car they were looking for and it all worked out.

So just so listeners know. Well, and you see how that situation, if you just immediately just jump to just spewing anger at them, cause it's all about what other people think, you know, and it's all about you're afraid. And so you're just acting out of that to your child, how it could have turned out to be this terrible break in your relationship. But if you, if you stop and you, you're not accusing them, but you're also not saying, well, my child will never do it. You know, it's like, you have to have that balance between kind of like both of you.

One of you are like, yes. And one of you know, you kind of have, you know, our kids are capable of making some really bad choices and, and they're not above that, but, but letting them process with you. And so hearing for them to be able to share what they're feeling and then for you to be able to share, I oftentimes I'll say to my child, you know, if they've done something you want to hear about a really bad mistake I made when I was your age and to be able to share with them.

And then that oftentimes will lead into a really beautiful conversation. And then, and then we talk about consequences. And one thing, as our kids get older, we will often let them help us make the consequences together. Because I feel like now this won't work for every child, but as if, if they have had some experience with this, allowing them to, you know, well, something needs to be done about this.

Well, what do you think? Instead of us just being like, well, we're taking everything away and you're grounded for three months, you know, let's work together. And so allowing them to have some ownership and sometimes they come up with better consequences than I would, you know, and I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, sure.

We'll go with that. But so leading with humility and sometimes that also is going to involve, we need to ask forgiveness because we realize in the conversation with our child that there's something that we've done that we need to go to them and ask their forgiveness and then letting go. So yes, we have the consequences. That's, that's an important thing because actions have consequences, good or bad. I think it's important that we very clearly communicate to our kids, you know, that this is the consequence or if this happens in the future, this is going to be the consequence and make sure that they understand that. But letting go in the sense of that we can't control our kids and we can only control our responses and our response is our responsibility. But if we are just holding them, you know, we just have these clenched fists and we're just trying so hard to control them, they're going to probably rebel because they're going to feel so micromanaged and not trusted. And so creating that space of love and that environment of security and that we value them and we want to hear them and that yes, actions have consequences, but ultimately we love them. It allows me also to have so much more peace and quietness and calmness in how I respond to situations instead of just getting super angry and then doing things that I'm going to really regret.

Yeah. At the end of each chapter, I love you have two transforming truths and the one you mentioned after lead with humility. This is so good. It says some of my greatest parenting happens on my knees with open hands and trusting my kids to their creator, which obviously gets into let go. You know, we've got to let go and trust God.

We'll, we'll parent them better than we will and handle them. But you know, as we sort of wrap up for several days with you, how do you let go? Because it's easy to say and it's not always easy to let your grip loose when you don't know what the outcome could be with your child.

And maybe, Crystal, take us back to our first conversation when you had a child that was suicidal. That's when more than ever as a parent, we want to clench and hold on to. How do you let go in those circumstances?

I think it is a continual process. It's not like you're just going to pray and let go and it's all going to be good. But for me, it's that stopping. And a lot of times it will be literally opening up my hands and breathing and then saying out loud, God, I release this to you.

And speaking the truths back to the Lord of, I know that you love my child more than I do. You are in control. I can trust you.

Let me trust you in this situation. And so that you're just speaking that truth and just doing that and breathing and taking a minute or two to just stop and do that. And then when you start feeling, if you start feeling that tension rising again, do it again. Keep doing that until you can just feel that place where you have released it.

And then you might have to go back and do it a few hours later. Just that constant being in that space of, I'm going to trust you God. And it's interesting because I talked about how we fostered and last year we brought home a little boy from the NICU and he was at our home for eight months and then we got to give him back to his mom. And he had, he reunified with his mom. And that was one of the hardest things that I've ever done in my life to fall in love with a little boy, to love him as my own for eight months and then to let him go. And all during those eight months we didn't know was he going to go back to his mom? Was he going to stay with us with something else?

We didn't know. And it was such a good exercise for me of really opening up my hands and having to trust the Lord because I had no control over this. And it helped me to realize how much I think I have control over other things in my life when I don't. That's a great word for all of us. And it's that continual surrender of our lives, of our kids. I love Romans 12, one and two are some of my favorite verses in the Bible. And it says, so dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. And I've always pictured giving him my life, like laying my life on the altar. And sometimes it's harder to lay our kids' lives on the altar, but I think that is exactly where we need to be to give our lives away, to give our children to him.

And he's a good, good father who loves us more than we can even imagine. You know, I was thinking as we wrap this up, Crystal, would you be willing to pray for the moms and dads who were maybe struggling? You've been there to let go, really to lean in and love, to listen well, to lead with humility.

See how good that is? I can remember all those without ever looking and to let go. I think it'd be beautiful if you just say, not a flare prayer, but you know, prayer for them if you would.

Thanks. Dear Heavenly Father, I just think of every single person who is listening to this today. And God, you know what they're feeling and you know what they're going through.

I don't. But God, I just pray that each parent listening would know that they're not alone, that whatever they're carrying, that they're not alone, that you are with them. You are Emmanuel, God with us. And God, I just pray that you would help the parent right now who just feels so overwhelmed with parenting, that it feels like just a bigger job than they are capable of, that they would know how much they're loved by you and that they can rest in that love, that they could live as loved and that your love for them could flow out to their kids, that their kids would see and feel you through their parent. They would feel your love through their parent. And I just pray for each parent listening that you would help them to realize that it's not their job to fix or to save or to be their child's Holy Spirit, to overprotect a bubble wrap, but to release their children to you and trust you, that you love them even more than they do, that you are a good God and that they can trust you and walk in that trust. They don't have to constantly be correcting.

They can spend more time connecting. And God, I just pray that you would help them to choose to lean in and love, to listen well, to lead with humility and ultimately to let go. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Thanks, Crystal.

Thank you. It's hard for us to remember this as parents, but our children do not belong to us. They belong to God. And we are stewards in the years that we have to raise them, to point them toward Him, to love them.

But ultimately, they belong to a Heavenly Father who loves them even more than we do. And there's comfort for us in that as parents. Crystal Payne has written about this in a book called Love-Centered Parenting that we've been looking at this week. And in a time when parenting can feel overwhelming, feels complicated, Crystal's message can bring freedom and hope and healing.

We'd like to make her book available to you this week. If you're able to help with a donation to support the ongoing work of Family Life Today, you can donate online at familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. What you're actually supporting with your donation is the marriages and families of hundreds of thousands of people all around the world who come to Family Life looking for practical, biblical help and hope for their marriage and their family. You make these resources possible. You help equip them and give them the spiritual tools they need for their family. That's what your donation is going to. So on behalf of those listeners who will benefit from your support, we just want to say thank you for your partnership with us. And a tangible way of doing that is by sending you a copy of Crystal Payne's book Love-Centered Parenting when you make a donation this week. You can donate online again at familylifetoday.com or call to donate at 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now, I know that between here and the start of the new year, it's going to be crazy for most of us. We've got the president of Family Life, David Robbins, here with us. And David, in the midst of the chaos around the holidays, it's so important for couples that we set aside time that we are intentional about building into our marriage relationship and not let it just sit on the back burner and simmer. You know, Meg and I were just talking the other week that we need to at least do one marked intentional moment during the holiday season.

Everything starts moving so fast around us. And it reminded me of the dates to remember box that we have that we created this year at Family Life to give couples an easy, intentional date together that all the hard work's done there for you. It sets you up for such great conversation together. And it reminded me of a quote of a couple who did the dates to remember box. They said, the date gave us time to really talk about more than just the day to day running of our lives. And I thought about it because man, the holidays it is nothing but day to day running, you know, every day you're just surviving to the next day, sadly. And so we have marked off a day to really give an extended date in the beginning of December to look ahead and to build that time together before we enter into the craziness of the holidays. And I want to encourage you to do the same.

Yeah, the dates to remember box is a great tool to help you be intentional in your marriage. You can find out more about this resource on our website at family life today.com. Now tomorrow, we are going to introduce you to a foundling.

Joseph would learned later in life that he had been abandoned as a baby was ultimately adopted. He'll share his story with us tomorrow. Hope you can be here for that. On behalf of our hosts, David and Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you back next time 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.