For us, the message of truly what it means to be famous at home is recognizing, like, this is the one place that I am irreplaceable. My role in this family, you can't just sub me out. Whereas all of the things, all of the accolades that the world puts out there and for mom and dad too, like we're talking about kids and, you know, activities and such. What about mom and dad?
Like all of us are chasing something. Good insights from Kristi Straub about making your marriage and family a priority, especially today when the culture calls us away from the home. Spend more time and money and attention away from our family. Kristi and her husband, Dr. Josh Straub, are back with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. Last time we shared a brilliant conversation with Josh and Kristi about what it means to be famous at home.
I love it, but you kind of can scratch your head going, okay, what does that mean? Being famous at home. And we don't often think that way because in this modern era, we believe fame and accolades come from everywhere else, not from home.
Maybe your career or friends or social media, all of that. But spending time at home with your family is the bright spot of the day. I remember coming home from Focus. I'd meet with presidents and senators and all that and I'd get home and, man, I love the boys running out grabbing each of my legs and me kind of doing the monster walk into the house and then we have a tickle fest and all that good stuff. I felt the best being in our living room playing with the boys and, you know, hopefully you feel that way too. And if you're not in that spot, we've got resources to help you.
Josh and Kristi have great advice and encouragement in their book, Famous at Home, seven decisions to put your family center stage in a world competing for your time, attention and identity. Yeah, and that forms the basis of our conversation today. And if you missed the first part yesterday, get a copy from us here. We have the audio available for you online through our app and also of course through podcasts. We also have the video at YouTube. So wherever you go, catch that first part of this discussion. And if you'd like to find out more about the Straubs and this terrific resource, Famous at Home, our website is linked in the show notes.
And now here's part two of the conversation with Josh and Kristi on today's episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Let's talk about the seven decisions to put your family center stage. We don't need to do them all, but you know, let's describe a couple of those or mention all seven and dig into one or two. Yeah.
Yeah. So we really hone in on with these seven decisions. And again, if you get the book, you'll, you'll be able to walk through each of the decisions. I personally believe, and I think as we, as we hone in on, on our children in this one, one of those decisions is prioritizing or getting, entering your child's world. So it's spending 20 minutes a day of command free time with your kids. And that comes out of Stanley Greenspan's research on floor time where you enter your child's world in a way where you're not dictating the play.
You're not commanding what we do floor time floor time. You're entering, you can do this with teenagers. You can do this with children.
Stanley Greenspan's research is on infants and in the early years, but you can do this with any of your children at any specific age. And we have seen this over and over and over again, especially if you have multiple children. Again, it comes back to feeling seen our kids want to feel seen. And this is one of those where we say, Hey, if you take 20 minutes a day and you just enter into a child's world and do what they want to do, they feel seen.
And we see behavior change from this in so many different instances. We just went through this cause we just moved and our three-year-old has just acting out. Like we got to our new place and it was just, he's also in a terrible threes. So we know that that was the twos. It's not, it's threes.
We claim, we think it's the three, at least in our house, it's the threes, but it was just like, what is up with him? Like where, where is all this behavior coming from? And I don't know, it's like, it just slapped us upside the head where we realized, I mean, we're homeschool. So I think we've been paying attention to the 11 and nine-year-olds cause we have, you know, keep coming up with their school and they're more demanding in a different way. Yeah.
And they're very much aware of the move and you know, all of the change and they're part of it with us. Whereas the three-year-old, I mean, everything in his life just changed and I don't want for the ride. He's just been along for the ride and unseen.
Yes. And then we just realized it was like, I think he just needs time with us. We realized this through an argument.
Let's just be honest. We got in an argument about his behavior because he was causing so much disruption in our home and it was like, we started blaming each other. It was his fault.
He acts like this because of you. But it was, it was like, Oh my goodness, he just needs us. And so like, let's, what if we just focus on just being with him? Like, and the 20 minutes of command free time, it's actually really hard for me as a mom.
I'll be honest. Like, cause it means they dictate the play. Like I'm used to being mom and being like, Hey bud, let's do like, how about you do this?
Like pull to the table. Let's do art. Let's draw, let's paint, let's whatever. And it's just, Oh, he wants to play trains again, again.
And I'm always Percy. And you know, it's like, there's nothing really stimulating here. And yet it's, we have watched within like a week's time. I mean, he's a different kid and it was like proving it again. Like they just want you. And especially in such times of, you know, chaos and disruption. And so it was just a really, this was just this week. So it was a really healthy reminder. And the whole idea behind famous at home, and we talk about this all the time on our podcast is I always end with this, is the greatest red carpet you'll ever walk is through your front door because you realize you are to your children, you are famous. And that's why you hear your kids say, mommy, play with me, daddy, play with me, play with me, play with me, or, you know, and, and, and we're constantly busy, but they, we are here, we are their heroes and they just long for time with us. And I think even if we can just give into that 20, 30 minutes, you know, a day and say, you know what, this is, and for me, I've actually started scheduling it. I started to actually put it on my calendar to schedule it because I realized I was scheduling all my work stuff and scheduling everybody else, but I'm actually not scheduling them.
And I need to do that. That came home to me, not on the scheduling side, but, but the recognition of the red carpet, I liked that vision. And you know, in this role, I get to meet a lot of important people and I would go meet the president, I mean, fill it in, W or whomever it might've been, especially when the kids were young during that administration. I'd have that meeting in Washington, fly back, gather my luggage, come back to the house. And what I look so forward to more than the meeting with the president, honestly, was Trent and Troy running out of the house, grabbing my leg and me monster walking them in and they're laughing and giggling, they're sitting on my lap and we're talking and tickling. And that was far, far better. No offense to any president, but no, but it's, you know, that's, that's where I just loved it. I really, and it was genuine at the end of life. You're not going to regret that you, you know, didn't meet a president. You're going to regret that you weren't there. And I think that's the thing that for us, we really want to champion for all families is to say, let's really turn our heads inward to our greatest. Let me ask you another thing that, again, it just was a great nugget.
I caught in the book on vectoring. I love Jean and I binge. This is, should be a non confession, but we like binge air disaster. That series.
I don't know why, but I'm telling you it's always pilot error ice on the wings. I don't know, but you know, we'll watch three or four shows. Okay. You ready for bed. Okay.
Let's go to bed. But in that, I mean, there's a lot of vectoring discussion and so I know it, but describe for the listener, the viewer, what vectoring is for a pilot and how you apply that to the parenting. Yeah.
Because vectoring, I mean, what ends up happening is, is a pilot is going to vector, which means they're going to make a small degree, a turn over time that will eventually get that plane. So they're not making a drastic, they're not making a drastic like right or left hand turn that just, you know, takes the drinks and the food and throws it everywhere. And you know, you're like, it's hard, right. And I think sometimes we try to do that in our family where it's like, we make these decisions and we, we make, we come home and we have this aha moment.
Maybe we learn it somewhere. We listened to it on the broadcast and we try to make this drastic and everybody feels whiplashed in the house. Cause it's like, you know what tonight from now on, we're having dinner every single night at six o'clock.
And this is, we're going to talk about this and this and this and this. Everybody feels like whiplash, but just this whole idea that if you take just one small degree of change, you know, just find that one, one principle you heard on today's broadcast, just take one thing and just begin to implement it. And that over time you will start to see a change in the direction that your family is heading in. Yeah, that, that's really good. And I think, you know, again, so often we think we got to do this drastic thing to feel like we're actually accomplishing it.
20 minutes of command free time a day with your kids, 15 minutes a day of talking about emotions with your spouse. These things are simple and doable and they have a different destination. They transform over time. Like that's the thing with vectoring.
You end up in a completely different place. Plus it's a cool word, but it's a cool word. But I just think it gives a lot of grace. Like I'm a type a, you know, if it's like I'm the one who like I've learned the things and I'm like, we're going to do them all, all of them at the same time. Because if we don't, we're failing.
Totally. It's like I have 18 goals now and we're going to now therefore miss every single one. And so it's another thing we just start with one. If that's like emotional, like connection with your kids again, like you just want to get into their world. Let's start with that goal and vector just a little bit toward that because you can't come in all guns a blazing.
Like nobody feels safe. Relationships aren't like that. Yeah. And you know, what's interesting there though, and it catches me, how did you get there? Because you're saying, you know, I was the eight point person. When I got eight things to do, I did all eight. Yeah.
Because that's where I felt I got my sticker. But then I failed at all eight because you can't aim at eight things and, and achieve them. And so that's where we realized we talked about and famous at home is set your first goal. Like start with one because goodness knows not one single parent out there needs another thing to add to their mental load of everything.
We're not doing quite well enough or could be doing a little bit better. So what is the one thing like we just say like, what's the first goal? And for me that was taking care of me like that was taking care of myself. And so mine was I had to wake up early. Like I know it's so simple, but I had to wake up before the kids. So I had time with the Lord. I had time to really process and get to the bottom of how I was because I really didn't know because I wasn't giving any time to it. So when I started, that's where I started was waking up early.
And as silly as that sounds, um, over time that changed a whole lot for me. So if you go back to decision number one, as Christie is talking about, you know, it's really about showing up as the best version of you because we talked about becoming like, how do we become so kind of really wraps up, okay, how, who are we becoming as an adult and vectoring? And so for us, it's just finding what is that one thing and, you know, Christie alluded to waking up early. For me, it's working out the very first thing that because I knew when I wake up in the morning, if I don't get up early enough and wait and work out first, and I don't get my stuff done first, and I'm waking up with the kids, and you know, and the toddler and everything's going like, I just am not this best version of me waking up because I in my brain, I'm already behind on everything else I need to get done.
And so I'm not waking up with this sense of, you know, whereas if I wake up and I work out first, I wake up with this sense of like, Good morning, everybody. How are you doing? How's your day?
What can I get for you? Can we get some breakfast, you know, and, and I'm, and I'm now rather than trying to chase down what I need to get done, I'm chasing down how I can serve everybody else. And I'm just showing up as a better version of me in the home for everybody else.
And it shifts the atmosphere, right? I'm laughing. The kids going, Mommy, daddy's acting fine. He wants to make pancakes. That's good. I love that.
What's wrong with daddy? He did start cooking. No, that's good. And that's been like, even that's been a revelation and it's because it's come out of us learning how to care for us. Yeah. Yeah.
No, that's all good. And it's been good. What a fun conversation with Josh and Christy Straub on today's episode of focus on the family with Jim Daly. Our topic has been, uh, the family obviously, and we've centered on their book called famous at home seven decisions to put your family center stage in a world competing for your time, attention, and identity.
Let me urge you to get a copy of this resource, but you can learn more when you stop by the show notes to find the link. And now the conclusion of Jim's conversation with Josh and Christy on today's focus on the family with Jim Daly. Another one of the seven decisions is decision three listed in the book, but it's, uh, about your emotions, emotional intelligence, uh, something I learned in business school. We talked a lot about of it back then, but what is emotional intelligence and why is it important? Yeah, for me, I really go back to what, uh, Peter Scusero talks about emotionally healthy spirituality, emotionally healthy church, that you can only be as spiritually mature as you are emotionally mature. And when you look at emotion research and you look at who we're becoming, our ability to be able to identify what it is we're feeling is a reflection of how well I can step into the shoes of another person and identify what they're feeling.
Because if I can't step into Christie's shoes and identify and see her feeling, uh, or if I can't see my own, how am I going to see hers? And so this really comes down to, and I love the way Paul describes this. I love the way that, uh, the research describes this. Our brains grow from the bottom to the top and the right to the left. So the bottom is the amygdala.
That's the fight, fight or freeze response. That's our quick to anger, quick to speak, you know, we're going to fight or flee the situation, but the higher functioning parts of the brain behind the eyes are your prefrontal cortex. That's the higher functioning parts of the brain. Uh, emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, social skills.
Yeah. Self-control of fruit of the spirit, right? It's like, you know, and so, but that part of the brain doesn't fully develop until we hit about the age of 25, which is why rental car companies are smarter than politicians. But, um, but, but as parents, we have the ability as we enter into our kids' worlds to build that part of the brain. And, and the reason is because the brain also goes from the right to the left. So the right side of your brain, that's the here now experiential part of the brain.
That's what you're feeling in the moment. The left side is your linguistic side. It's where we put language to what it is we're experiencing. And the middle part of the brain is the corpus callosum. I like to call it the binding of the book because what we're doing, we all have a story to tell, but when we fail to identify and put language to what it is we're experiencing in the moment, we have what's called a disintegrated brain and we can't identify therefore what we're feeling or how that person made me feel. And, and, and we have a lapse in judgment then on people around us, situations, all that type of thing. And so for us, this is why we have a children's book called what am I feeling and getting out feelings charts is because our ability to identify what it is we're feeling and connect it to experiences in our story is what wires our brain, not just for connection, but also for problem solving, self control and the like.
And so this is why we talk about decision number three, talk about emotions is to make emotional vocabulary common in your home, not just in your marriage, but also with your children. Yeah, that's good. In fact, Christie, I think you had an example in the book with your daughter Kennedy who was, uh, you know, kind of acting out a little bit and you put this to work.
How'd that go? She's our deep feeler, but she's also our, um, our one who she'll keep it in for a while. Similar to mom, funny until it explodes. But yeah, she was, there was one day she was just acting out and it was, which is uncharacteristic for her.
Just obedience. It wasn't really her thing. Um, and so what when I bedtime, I was finally like, honey, what is going on? Like I'm trying to get to the bottom of, cause this isn't you. And it just, it all came out in tears of how she had been, we'd been at a birthday party and she'd been rejected by these girls.
They'd excluded her and shut the door and not allowed her to come in. And um, she felt so rejected and I had pulled out a part of that story is I'd pulled out a feelings chart cause she was pretty young at the time. And so I was like, point to what you're feeling.
And she pointed to angry and then she pointed to sad and it was this connection where she even realized her own anger that was coming out at me was actually this, this deep sadness cause she had been rejected by these little girls. And you know, so often we just miss that because we correct or we discipline away the behavior thinking that our kids are just being bratty I think. And so often, I mean, I don't, I think we've all heard that sign. It's not, our kids aren't giving us a hard time.
They're having a hard time. And I would say there's a lot of truth for all of us. We know I'm not reacting because I'm just trying to disobey.
I'm reacting because I, I'm really hurting by, there's something hurting in me. And that's been, it was just really powerful for us as a family to recognize the power of naming emotion. We talk about it in marriage, we on the last episode, but it's just as important for our kids. But so many of us never learned it as kids.
So we're learning it alongside of them. And for some, like if this is new to you, like a feelings chart is silly. It appears silly. It's faces that just meant happy face face.
I should draw them for the kids because I didn't have the chart. I should have gone on. But I put up all the faces that I could think of embarrassment.
Yeah. I tried to embarrassment. And that's like, I mean, that's a deep one when you're embarrassed, like we react in crazy ways. And I think the point of that is I'm thinking of teenagers that are really screaming for that. You know, when we look at it, it's rejection with their friend group, with school, something that was embarrassing. And we pounce on it as parents because we're seeing defiant behavior. And what they really need is someone to hear them and understand.
And the problem with that though, Christy is they need help to be able to express it because they don't even know what it is sometimes. Yeah, even teenagers. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's even us. And that's why we will put up a feelings chart. One couple, they're like, we actually put it in our closet.
Don't tell anyone that we put it up in our closet because we're all learning this. And that's what the I think the gift is, is that we're living in a generation that's at least a little more aware and willing to talk about emotion. And I think that's really healthy. I think that's been a great thing for the culture.
You know, you go back to the builders, the boomers, that kind of thing. It's like, we don't talk about nothing. Christy, let me ask you this. And, you know, the shoe goes on either foot on this husband wife. But, you know, typically someone spontaneous in the relationship, the other ones, the kind of the planner and talk about arguing. And for me and Jean, I'm the spontaneous guy. She's the planner, very methodical.
I always laugh. People know that have listened to the program. She's a chemistry grad. So I'm the marketing grad. So you can imagine it even fit in what we did vocationally that way. But, you know, that can cause a lot of grief.
And really, in the end, we're probably some of both. Yeah. But what was your experience with that?
Yeah. Well, it was interesting, because as a new mom, I think I railed against everything that was structured, like all of the, I think my life felt so out of control that I was like, Oh, let's just go with the flow. Like, let's just be spontaneous. I can't, I can't control anything like from you in that I can't control these. They don't sleep when I want them to sleep.
They don't. So it's like, let's just be spontaneous and go with the flow. And then it was Josh came in, you know, and he's quite structured. And it was like, I think we need to develop some rhythms in this family, you know, and I was like, I don't know when I get breakfast. So like, I don't know, when I'm gonna ever get time for myself.
So it felt like a pipe dream, I guess, and impossible to attain really, really. And so that was really what happened for me is I remember going on Pinterest, and I saw this woman and she has this like organization binder for her cleaning schedule. The fact she has a binder. Thank you. So like it just and then all the shame message, all the shame alarm bells in my head are going off. Like I've, I don't even know the last time I cleaned my bathroom, but that's a difference on a schedule like men and women. I go, Oh my gosh, get a life.
You go, okay, where did I miss it? And I was just, so I think I was railing against that. But what basically happened over these last, you know, those decade of years, we realized we really did need rhythms, like I needed rhythms, I needed some sort of rhythm of predictability, because you go crazy, if every day looks different, and you go crazy if every day looks exact same. And so this has been the process of putting into practice rhythms in our weeks. And that's been the probably the saving grace of our family of of giving the kids especially you know, when the world went crazy. When we've switched to homeschooling, like just so much instability. It gave us this sort of pattern to our days and our weeks.
And I've come to love it now. Yeah, I still do not have a cleaning binder though. I will tell you that.
How big is your cleaning binder? It doesn't exist. Hey, Josh, in that regard. I mean, how I mean, being a structured person. I can't imagine what that's like.
Yeah, yeah. But I mean, in that in that seeing that and applying rhythms and talking to Christy about it. I mean, that's got to be a bit of a dance.
Yeah, when you have unstructured and structured coming together. Well, I think it took a little bit of time because you know, some of this rhythm stuff for me came from a group, you know, same, you know, Jeremy Pryor, you know, group of guys that I do life with, who really started mentoring me in this whole idea of rhythms going back to Genesis chapter one, I mean, rhythms were God's idea. I mean, you know, you you even look at every single day at the end of the day, God is saying it is good. He's looking back on what he did and what he created and celebrating every single day. I mean, there's so many rhythms in life in nature that he created so many rhythms and, and the first one that we really started honing in on as a family was Sabbath, because that was the rhythm that he created. As soon as he created Adam and Eve, what did Adam and Eve do the first day they were alive, they rested, you know, God allows, he gifts us rest, it's a gift from God. And yeah, I don't think we're taking it in our culture.
We don't take it seriously. We're like, well, that's an Old Testament type of thing. And, and in reality is, is I think it's been the single greatest rhythm we've implemented in our family is is Sabbath.
And we started there and it took some time to implement and do. But now we were at a point where and if you read this in the book, we have every single day of the week named because we have this rhythm in our home, where it's almost like a bell curve where it's like, we go really, really hard Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, by Thursday, we start to come down off of it, we schedule Thursday nights as our date nights, you know, Friday is coming down into Sabbath and then Saturdays when we Sabbath, and then Sundays start and ramp back up again. And we do that so that our kids are, they understand what the rhythm is, they get a rhythm, they get a rhythm, they have a rhythm.
And, and it's just something and of course, there's times where, you know, it gets botched a little bit, but we always keep defending the rhythm and we keep coming back to it. Because it's what brings our family life. It's what keeps our family sane in a lot of ways.
And it's what also keeps us connected to be very honest. What name would you give Tuesday? Tough Tuesday. Tough Tuesday. That's a good name.
It's the biggest it's the height of the bell curve. It's the day that we are, if I'm working late or if I schedule any meetings late, the kids know like, that's the day that that's the tough Tuesday. That's tough Tuesday. That is really good. Again, like I'm the one who railed against it because I was like, this just feels like a cleaning binder. But it has given us so much life. And I've realized because now Fridays, we clean on Fridays because we have a Sabbath on Saturday. And it's really nice to be in a clean home on a weekend where you can, for a mom, all the moms are like, you can't rest. And so it's just changed how we've structured our life.
But it's what it's done is it's grounded our kids and us. Man, that rhythm concept sounds like a great idea, don't you think? I think it provides structure and it's the kind of thing that Yeah, I wish we had more of as a family. Well, there's so much good stuff in Josh and Christy's book famous at home, seven decisions to put your family center stage in a world competing for your time, attention and identity. So get a copy from us here at the ministry when you make a monthly pledge of any amount to focus will say thank you by getting this book right out to you.
famous at home is a great tool for your marriage and for your parenting. And I hope you'll partner with us. So we can share this tool with even more families. We'd love to hear from you and a monthly pledge would be great or one time gift, whatever you can afford. Our number is 800 the letter a and the word family 800-232-6459.
Or of course, you can donate when you stop by the show notes, you'll find the link right there. We're also going to have our free seven traits of effective parenting assessment online. This is a terrific tool to help you determine what's working well in the family kind of a pressure check a pulse check. It's going to offer you suggestions about how you can improve the relationships where it matters most in the home. And then finally, we'd love to have you stop by our Colorado Springs campus.
If you happen to be coming through Colorado or anywhere near a swing by the springs and say hi to us and enjoy time in our wonderful Welcome Center and our terrific bookstore. Thanks for listening to focus on family with Jim Daly. I'm john fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be redeemed, even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years, no matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a hope restored marriage intensive. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you pray with you and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915
