Justin & Lindsey Holcomb: Kids and Body Image

The first audience who would have read Genesis, they would have read this and been blown away, dazzled that this phrase would have been used. That they are a representative of some sort that reflect Yahweh?

That I am who I am? Like that God? The one who redeemed us? The one who kicked the butts of the Egyptian gods in the plagues?

And then took us to the Red Sea? That 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. So you've been coaching boys and young men for years and years. One of my joys in life. Yeah.

Do you see anything different? Because I love football so much. You do actually. No, actually it isn't because of football. It's developing boys into men. That's what coaching is all about. And you've been doing it all ages from five years old to 18 years old.

Basically to be with my boys. And has it changed in terms of how boys feel about themselves? Yeah, one of the things that I was shocked at when I was coaching middle school basketball was when I played middle school basketball, if you want to have a scrimmage, you just say, hey, you guys take your shirts off. You guys are shirts and skins.

And I remember saying that this is probably 20 years ago. Hey, let's go shirts and skins. And they looked at me like, what? And I'm like, just take your shirts off.

We don't have different jerseys, colored jerseys. And the boys refused to take off their shirts. And I said, what's going on here?

I just was naive. And they're like, we are not taking off our shirts. I do not want another person to see my body without a shirt on.

And it hit me right there in the gym like, oh my goodness. They don't feel good about their body and they're not going to let anybody. And I'm not saying we did it back in the day and it was right or wrong. I just didn't know it was that front of mind for for 13 year old boys. It was they looked at me like there is no possible way you will get me to take off my shirt.

Just give me another anything but that. And I feel like that's shifted culturally with boys because now boys and men are feeling that pressure. I feel like women and girls have felt that for a long time.

But now guys are feeling it, too. Yeah, I was shocked. I just didn't realize it was that big a deal.

But it is. And so as I went home that night, I remember thinking as a dad with three sons, how we teach, how we talk about body, not just the spiritual part, because we always think, oh, it's only spiritual. No, it's holistic and it's really big how we as parents guide our kids in understanding their body. So we've got two experts with us. They're experts because they're parents. That's right.

But they're also experts because they've written a book on this. Justin and Lindsay Holcomb are with us again back on Family Life Today. Welcome back.

Thank you. Thanks for having us. It is always good to talk about this, especially with people who are fun. Fun? I don't know about fun. All I know is you're jealous because I get to speak to Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Very jealous. And you want to do that. No, no, I don't want to speak there. I just want to be there.

I don't need to speak to them. If I could bring you, I would. Anyway, Justin and Lindsay, you're back. You've written a couple of books, but the one we're going to talk about today is God Made Me in His Image, Helping Children Appreciate Their Bodies. And it's interesting. Your qualifications for this book really are being parents. But obviously, Justin, you're a seminary prophet, RTS, right here in Orlando. Am I right?

That's right. I've been teaching there for 21 years. Yeah, an Episcopalian priest. Lindsay, you used to be a first grade teacher. Do you do that anymore?

I did. I dabbled in that for a little bit. I've kind of done a little bit of everything.

I forgot about that. Yeah, when I looked at your bio, it's like you have 12 jobs, you know? Justin, I don't know about you, but your wife- No, he has had like a bunch of jobs, too.

He does that, too. We like to keep busy. But yeah, I've been doing mostly like victim advocacy work for the last 15, 20 years. So a lot of the stories of pain and suffering have given us great motivation for these books to empower and equip parents to then help their children. Yeah, well, as I picked up this book, you know, I've looked at it and it's so illustrated so well. I mean, you're like, OK, this is a book for children to understand what it means to be made in God's image.

I want to hear what you have to say about that. But as I read it, I realized, oh, this is really a book for parents. It's a little both, but it's really a book to model and show and teach parents how do you talk about this with your kids? But talk about the title, because it's like God made me in his image.

How do you explain the image of God to a child? Yeah, I want to say something about the illustration. We wanted to make sure these are difficult topics, so we wanted them bright. We wanted them vibrant, easy to see clear, because if you're talking about issues like this, it can be really dour and shadowy and dark.

We're like no bright colors. Yeah, it's really fun and beautifully done. How did you find Trish? She was someone who was in our circle a few years ago when we started doing children's books, and we were happy to introduce her to the publisher. And she's been doing a lot of different illustrating work. She's a graphic designer. And that's part of the story, is that a children's book is half the content and half the illustrations, because it puts the words into action.

And it's been great to work with her. But the title, God Made Me in His Image, we're going straight from Genesis 1. We wanted to frame the whole conversation by a doctrine of creation, a doctrine of humanity, in the category in the Christian tradition in the Bible as humans are made in God's image.

And that means something. Every day that God created, God said, it is good. Used the word tove, T-O-V, good. Got to humans on day six and said, humans, they're good, good.

Tove, tove, very, like, this is special. We're the crown jewel of creation. An image of God means that we reflect God in a special way, like nothing else in creation.

But there's really something I wanted, the imago Dei is the theological way of talking about the image of God, is actually a tool for parents on this topic. Because the image of God, if you look at the history, so if Moses writes Genesis, he's writing Genesis to a bunch of people who were slaves in Egypt. And in Egypt, they knew that the, you know, the Pharaoh, the king, and this is common in the ancient Near East, that they had such a large domain that they couldn't be everywhere all the time to show their authority and their force. So they would make a statue. And if you dishonored this, the statue was a sign that, you know, this statue way over there in the northern side, the southern side, the western side, the eastern side, this is all the king's domain. And the statue is proof of that. And if you dishonored the statue, you're dishonoring the Pharaoh.

Do not mess around with the statues. And so when Moses is writing, humans are created in God's image, inspired by God, to write this. All the doctrine of scripture is all in order. So God inspires Moses to write, you are made in God's image. There's a little bit of humility because you're only an image of God, but there's a lot of dignity. You're an image of God. The first audience who would have read Genesis, they would have read this and been blown away, dazzled that this phrase would have been used. That they are a representative of some sort that reflect Yahweh, the I am who I am, like that God, the one who redeemed us, the one who kicked the butts of the Egyptian gods in the plagues.

And then took us to the Red Sea, that God, we're an image of that God. So to be able to take that and we actually have a page where we explain that and give that as a tool to parents to be like, hey, let me tell you who you are. You're not just a great quarterback on your team. You're not just a great volleyball player or you're not just beautiful. You're not just whatever accolade we give them.

The top identity is you reflect God in a way that nothing else in creation can do that. That's some dignity that that needs to be repeated. So we wanted to I think that's a good tool to give parents and let them explain it. Let them unpack that a little bit and apply it to how they need to as they know their kid better than anyone else in the world. Lindsay, did you ever struggle with that?

I did. Mine wasn't when I was 10. I know some of the stats are 80 percent of 10 year olds have started dieting at least once in their life. I don't have a strong memory of that, but mine was in high school. And this is before social media was a big thing. So I could imagine back then if social media had been as prevalent, it would have been earlier, like we're seeing with the youth now.

But mine was in high school, was dating a guy who was not wonderful. And I think that played into it a lot. I was living in Latin America where it's an over sexualized culture and it was just in your face all the time.

And so I struggled with an eating disorder in high school and a little bit into college. And so now as we were researching and just seeing the statistics that it's earlier and earlier that girls and boys are starting to have these conversations and questions about their bodies and their size. I think it's even more shocking because of all that they're seeing, whether it's on video games, on social media, in print.

They're just inundated with it constantly. And so Jess and I decided we were like, we need to equip parents to have these conversations, whether it's little conversations at dinner or just by reading this book. How can we give them a foundation to launch from to then have more hopefully as things come up?

This is across the board for parenting about sex, about body image, about how to protect your body from sneaky people. Those have to be frequent, well trod paths of conversation. And when should that start, you guys? Two, one, beginning.

Really early. And you talk about it's not just a one time. There's these little pockets where you're instilling and asking questions all along the way.

Yeah, you got to talk about that because so many Christian parents think even the topic of sex with our kids is a one and done. Right. You know, the birds and the bees at age 11, 12, whatever. Or even predators. Yeah.

So what's it look like to continue that? It is all the time. I mean, honestly, when our girls were babies, Lindsey changing their diaper would just be talking to them and actually just made it normal to talk about proper names for body parts. Of course. I mean, she was doing that just to make it normal to set the tone, but also she was shaping me because I thought, why are we saying this? This is weird. And she explained why. And I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.

Oh, my goodness. Like I would not have thought about this. It makes sense that most people just go, well, sneaky people.

You know, preventing from sexual abuse, body image and how babies are made. Those are not fun conversations because parents feel awkward. But those are really important conversations. All the more reason to have not just the talk, but have numerous talks.

And that's what Lindsey's just kind of modeled to me. So start the conversation. Maybe this is a tool for it. Don't have one conversation about this.

This is just sprinkled throughout your conversations. Be aware of this topic and be sensitive to it and have your eyes open for it. Be looking for an opportunity. You might not have an open door for a month or two. You might have one as soon as you even get close to the subject.

Because here's the thing. If you're not talking to your kids, two things. Somebody else is and they're going to hear things at school from their peers. They're going to hear things from media. So you want to make sure you're checking in and kind of giving them another perspective.

So whether you're watching a show or you hear something or it's at the dinner table, you want to be just another message of truth, of dignity, of honesty. So that if something happens, I'm talking whether it's something that's sexually inappropriate, sexual assault, or if they're called something at school, fat, you know, you're gross, whatever the word may be, they will understand, hey, this is something my parents talk about and understand. I can go and talk to them. Whereas if you don't ever have a conversation, they're not going to talk to you because they're going to think my parent doesn't know anything about this. I'm going to freak them out.

They're not equipped and they won't know what to do. So I'm just going to stuff it or, you know, go talk to my girlfriend who won't know what to say. So I think the more you just kind of weave it throughout, whether it's talking about predators and sneaky people, or talking about, hey, your body is strong and amazing what you just did out there on that athletic field, or I see you in this theater class memorizing those lines, like, that's amazing.

Like, tell me, like, how do you do that? The more that you kind of make it part of the conversation, it's not awkward and weird. I didn't know that parents just did the one time because until we had our girls, and a lot of parents would take their daughters away in fifth grade and go for like a weekend away and have the talk. And I was like, what are you doing? That's so awkward. You're thinking we have the talk every day.

And it's late. Well, yeah, fifth grade. I'm like, they already know. The average age of porn exposure is 10. You need to be talking about body image, sexual abuse prevention, sexuality by 10. And hopefully before, because they're not just hearing about the topic. They're seeing really graphic images at 10.

10.1 is the last stat that I saw. When you were talking about the conversations, I remember my dad telling me, you can talk to me about anything. I love you unconditionally. And I actually heard the word first from him.

I didn't even know what the word meant. And I asked him, he said, all the time, no matter what, you can talk to me about anything. And he said that so much.

And then finally, it was probably a few years later, I remember thinking, I'll see if he's true on this one. So I went to him. I was like, hey, dad, I got to talk to you about something. And you know how he said talk about anything? He said, yeah.

I was like, well, here we go. It was normal for him. And he normalized. Like, I had shame. And when I talked to him and the way he responded was like, well, let's talk about it.

Oh, yeah. I remember him saying, I know what that feels like. And just literally, all I needed was my dad to be like, I know what that feels like.

And it was like gone. Like he carried the burden, took it away. And parents, that's a really powerful thing that parents can do. So what do you say to the parent that's not like your dad, that's afraid, the mom or dad, that, man, it's just a scary thing. I don't talk to anybody else about this.

And they have their own brokenness. Yeah. And I know I got to talk to my kids because I wouldn't know how to do it. Maybe I'm just too afraid.

How would you coach him? A few things. The first thing I would say is you might be hurting. I don't want to assume that there you might be hurting. And I think what would be a wise way to address that?

Do you need to talk to your spouse, your pastor, a counselor? Maybe there's pain there that should be addressed. If you go in hot with like, try not to screw this up with your kid, like that's a burden. That'll crush them. I mean, most parents already feel like failure.

We already feel like that. What I don't want to do is put a brick in their backpack first. And so I want to say, was there a reason that that's happening? Was that modeled to you by your parents that they didn't do this? How did that work for you?

Did you like that or do you wish they would have been more open? Like, no, be thoughtful about yourself, be caring. And then I would say this is a great opportunity. If you do have pain, you can help steer it in different direction.

You can model it differently to your kids. And it doesn't have to be like this. Like this could be a moment that God's going to heal and give you hope and healing. And then you get to that's my parents story. My parents were abused as kids, like horrible stuff. And they just determined, like, we're going to be different.

This staggering when you see what they are like as parents and what their childhood was like. That's what God does. He brings life out of death.

He can look at your story of suffering and the effects of you feeling awkward about this being emotionally shut down and being shamey. And he can transform that. That's what he does. He's in the business of that.

He loves doing that kind of stuff. So that question is, that's what God does. And go to him and ask, transform me, teach me, lead me, you know, take away the voice of condemnation. Remind me who I am, like just all the gospel promises that are there.

Just bathe them in it. That's what I was going to say, Justin, is I think to even evaluate your self-talk, what you're saying to yourself continually. I know when I was in my 30s, I can't remember the book that I was reading, but it had us write down the things that you're saying to yourself. And I remember looking at this list and they were all negative. You're not enough. You're failing. You're ugly.

You're not a good mom, you know. And I was like, wait, this is the self-talk that's going in my head all day. And it's opposite of what God would say. I didn't even know that, actually, because I didn't know God well enough to know that he's a God that speaks life.

We are image bearers and he delights in us. And I think to even talk about that with other people is so healthy and good. And I'm also thinking, I remember when I was eight and I was dealing with my own sexual abuse, I remember feeling so alone, no one to talk to, feeling so bad about myself, unworthy, full of shame.

And I had nowhere to go. And I think as parents, if we can just open those doors, a little crack of just when you said, Justin, I know what that feels like or how are you doing? Like, I remember being eight and that was a hard time for me just to open the doors to our kids' lives of letting them walk in or really we walk to them. I think those are just great first steps. And everything you guys talk about is relationship, building that relationship with our kids where the door is open. We're in constant communication. And I'm sitting here wondering what's it like right now at the Holcomb dinner table?

You've got two daughters right at 11 and 13 years old. They're walking right into a pivotal time in their life. So coach, I mean, what's it like at your dinner table? Part of me thinks Lindsey brings us up for every night. They're like, it's a war zone out there.

I was in middle school. It's just we watched Survivor with them. And so they'll equate some things to Survivor. But just going back to one thing we said, then we can talk about the dinner table is encouraging parents. You know, we do swim safety with our kids.

We have them everybody buckle up properly. We talk about driving safety and crossing the road safety. This is just another piece of that, whether it's talking about body safety or like you said, checking in with them and just asking questions. I think that removes the burden of I've got to have this huge speech where I've got to have this big conversation, ask questions, ask questions about who they're sitting with at lunch. Like you'll get insight into how they're doing and just be ready to listen.

But treat it like this is just as important as it is, is teaching them to swim and teaching them those things. But at the dinner table, we just be honest. No, no, don't be super honest. There's a lot of laughing, a lot of laughing, but there is crying, too. I mean, it just depends on the day.

It depends. Like yesterday, there was crying from our seventh grader in middle school. She's just feeling lonely. And I was able to say to her, like, I get it.

I've had some women in, you know, in our 40s that just turn on you quickly and there's no rhyme or reason. And so she's experiencing some of that. And so I was able to say, I understand.

Like, I get it. Like, do you want to brainstorm or do you want to just, I mean, just to hug in? Like, let's just cry it out.

Which is a great question. Where you at, you know? And we kind of usually give them like a good 12, 24 hours. Like, you can cry and be bummed and then we're going to move from there. Like, we're not going to just stay there, but we're going to make a plan and move from there. But she wasn't ready. She needed just to cry. But we do kind of the brownie frownie of the day.

And that gives us insight into how everybody's doing. That's huge. The brownie frownie. We did that, but we didn't call it that. What's your high or low brownie frownie somebody came up with this year?

I think that was the younger one. Let me jump in, because the reason I said let's be honest, because when you write books like this, most people listening think we sit around talking about, you know, what are your proper names to your private parts? You know, you're an image of God. And we do do those conversations. But what's most powerful about our dinnertime is that there's real honesty. We tell stories about our day and sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're not good.

I'll talk about, you know, things that happen. Sometimes I'm thrilled. Sometimes I'm not. And honesty is the key. And when Lindsay started doing the brownie frownie thing, like that's an easy way. Suddenly, if someone they need to talk, they'll let you know. The vibe at the table of honesty, laughter and crying is the best.

I mean, I'm home for dinner. We did that as well. And we would have because we had sons, we had them put a feeling word with it. Oh, I like that. When they get married, I want them to be able to tell their wives what they feel. Yeah. And that was difficult as little boys, you know, like I felt I was angry or how was your day?

Fine. You know, so to getting them to express what did you feel about your day and put a feeling word with it. Those are my favorite parenting moments because you really get to know your kids and their fears and their joys. And this is what you do in all of your books is you bring Jesus, you bring God into it because of the image, you know, you're made in the image of God. And so bringing God into it. I remember our kids saying, Mom, I know you love me and I know God loves me. But, you know, sometimes I feel like nobody else loves me. The honesty of that is brilliant to me. I haven't thought about this before.

One of my pastor friends has talked to me, but when he's preaching, he does story, emotion, desire. Like, what are the facts? How do you feel about it? And what do you want God to do about it? You're out of your desire. Wow. And so he he said, when I'm listening to my kids, I'm just passing this on.

And this is what happens naturally, mostly because of Lindsey. But I'm aware of it, too. At our dinner table is sometimes you'll hear a story in the emotion. And the question I have is, OK, what's the prayer out of that? Or sometimes you hear the desire in the story. But like, well, what's the emotion? That's the question you ask. Give me a feeling word or they'll be communicating what they want with emotion. But what's the story that happened behind it? And so I think having parents listening to their children through what's the story, what's the emotion, what's the desire and seeing what peace might be missing, because that gives you a question.

And that's why as soon as you said, what's the feeling? I thought, that sounds familiar. It sounds like my pastor buddy. There's a power in that. And when you were talking about identity, about the negative self-talk, I just want to go back to that, because the words in the Bible that are used for us. I mean, image of God is really impressive. And that's for everyone. That's men, women, Christians, non-Christians.

Every human is an image of God. But if you're in Christ, the words that are used, if you're in Christ are berserk. They're crazy.

They're mind blowing. Go through it, Justin. Remind all of us. Righteous. You're the righteousness of God.

Pure? Like, that's not a word I'm picking for myself. OK, I'm smart. I'm a pretty good husband and dad. I'm a good teacher.

Like, I'll come up with, like, some really neat compliments. Pure, perfect, holy, righteous, without spot, blemish or wrinkle. Like, I'm not going to make those up about myself. But that's what the apostle Paul, he says, if you're in Christ, pure, perfect and righteous. Like, that's what people need to hear.

I mean, regardless of their story, whether they've sinned or been sinned against. Those are the words people need. So that negative self-talk. I mean, talk about that.

I mean, if you don't have that, if you don't have the gospel, the best you can come up with is to counter the negative self-talk that you have. And you're going to come out with something that's an equal. Like, I'm damaged goods. No, you're not. You're stupid. No, you're smart. You're ugly.

No, you're beautiful. But then when you can realize it's way better, pure, perfect, righteous and holy in Christ, and it's not coming from you, but it's coming from the creator and redeemer. Then that has authority behind it.

That has some staying power, I think. And if there's anything I've learned from you, and I've learned a lot in these two programs. One of them is huge, is what he just said, is that whatever we as parents are saying and dealing with and believing is passed on. If I'm obsessed with my body every single day, I shouldn't be shocked when my daughter or son starts saying the same kind of things. But if I'm understanding my Imago Dei, image of God, I am literally righteous.

I'm pure in Christ, and that's how I live. That will be passed. I've got to be very careful what I'm inputting and watching what I output because it will pass on to my kids. So parents, you're going to want to pick this book up for your kids, but also for yourself. Yeah.

God made me in his image. Thanks, you guys. You've been listening to David and Wilson talking with Justin and Lindsay Holcomb on family life today. We'd love to send you a copy of their children's book, God Made Me in His Image, when you make a donation of any amount this week at familylifetoday.com. You can do that online or when you give us a call with your donation at 1-800-358-6329.

You can make that a one-time gift or a recurring monthly gift as well. Again, the number is 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word TODAY. And if you know anyone who could benefit from today's conversation, you can share this podcast wherever you get your podcast. And while you're there, it'd really help us out if you could rate and review us. Now, tomorrow, we'll hear from musician and author Andrew Peterson on what the resurrection of Christ means for us as we go through both good times and bad. And of course, that's applicable since Easter is coming up this Sunday. We hope you can join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll 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.