Hi, I'm Jim Daly. In summertime, giving to focus on the family slows down, but families in crisis still need your support. As we face a bit of a shortfall right now, we need your help to save marriages through Hope Restored, offer dignity, comfort, and hope to children in foster care through Wait No More, and provide biblical resources for families. Your gift by August 31st will make a real difference and offer lasting hope. Visit focusonthefamily.com slash support families.
One thing I've done right with my kids is giving them the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. One thing I did right with my kids was instilling the value of family. We had one rule in our house that was really important. It's okay to make mistakes.
Well, how about you? What parenting strategies and tools have you found to be really effective with your kids? Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we'll examine some better ways to raise happy, healthy children and to help you be a better mom and dad. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.
I'm thinking, take a bath, mister, and do it now. Not the best approach. But for some reason, I'm thinking, yeah, that was one of our boys' challenge. Baths are useless, Dad. Why should we do that?
He was very young. He now bathes every day, I'm happy to say, which is kind of the point. It works out in the long run. There'll be some motivation. Maybe it's girls that end up motivating them to get clean.
But today, we do want to celebrate parents. And moms and dads play such a critical role in the growth and development of their children. And it's number one, actually. Even surveys today, when you look at it, we think friends or peer groups or outside groups are going to be more influenced. No, even the teens say, my mom and dad have the most influence in my life.
So take heart. We still have a place in our kids' hearts. Good parenting takes a lot of effort and intentionality. I think you know that if you're trying to do it with thoughtfulness. And if you need help, we're here for you.
And today we're going to cover some great content about raising those little loved ones. Yeah, Josh and Christy Straub are with us today. They're authors and speakers. They do marriage and leadership coaching and host a weekly podcast called Famous at Home. They also have a book with the same title, and a lot of the content that we'll explore today comes from their podcast episodes, which I know you're going to find helpful.
You can learn more about the Straubs, their ministry, and the many resources we have for you here at Focus on the Family. The details are in the show notes. Josh and Christy, welcome back. You are fan favorites, I hope you know, here at Focus. Oh, well, we are honored to be back.
It feels like family. Oh, that's good. We love it. Yeah, the listeners, the YouTube watchers, they love when you're on because you do. You deliver great wisdom on the parenting journey, and you guys are not only, you know, teachers of it, you're in it as well.
And I love that aspect of it. Your oldest is 13 now, and your youngest is five. I'm sorry, should I laugh at them?
So you guys are living the dream. It's great. We're living the dream. Which is good. We said this, but somebody gave me great advice.
Just love every stage of parenting. And I think that's been good. Find the joy in it. Yes, even with the teenagers. And there it's like just getting connected, right?
Just trying to figure out how to stay connected to your teen. And if you've done a good job in the early years, that will happen pretty easily. Yeah. And I couldn't love this stage more at this point, I think. Like, I'm loving the relationship that I have with our oldest.
Yeah, it's fun because he wants to, he's like a sponge. He wants to soak up everything that he can to learn. And I think that's partly firstborn. I think that's partly personality. But I just want to be alongside him.
I want to be the one that is shepherding his heart along those journeys. And I don't want to ever take that for granted. Even though there's tons of questions and there's tons, you know, sometimes he's asking questions where I'm like, okay, buddy, like, and it's always at like bedtime. Right at bedtime. You know, when you're done for the day?
Like, I'm done. I'm talked out. And it's, that's when all the questions come in. That's why I'm like, Josh, I'm out of here. Yeah, I love it.
Deep philosophical questions that come at bedtime. You know, it's like, yeah, it kind of turns us right into that first question I wanted to ask you because although you've studied it, you got your doctorate in child development and you're there learning too, Christy, as you're working with Josh. But that's what I love. You guys are very open about your own struggles and the fact that I know these things, which gives me so much. Much hope because Jean will say occasionally in her sweetness to me, you sit with experts all day long and talk to them.
You don't know this. I love your wife. She is good. She's great. She just always hits me with a two by four when I need it, which is perfect.
But you have struggled at times.
So, how has that progressed? And that reality of life is life.
So you're not coming in going, hey, we've done it perfectly. Our kids are gold standards and that kind of thing, which again is great. But talk to that realism for the parent that's hearing us going, yeah, you might do it well. I'm struggling. Yeah.
When I've studied research and I even look at scripture and I filter it through scripture. Basically what I've come down to is that our children become who we are. In other words, our ability to show up well in their overwhelmed moments and our ability to enter into their world and come alongside them and be safe for them. Is what will lead to every major outcome that we desire in our children. And I think that if I can be a dad who, even when I get it wrong, I sit with them and I say, I'm sorry.
Yeah, that's so true. If I can be a dad who can be interested in what they're interested in, even if I don't understand it or even like it. to go teach me more about that. I'm entering into their world and I'm pursuing their heart. And that's where my flaws, I have to apologize often.
I have to go, guys, you know, you have to set your boundaries and things like that. I think as long as I'm pursuing the heart of my kids, even in my own overwhelm, that's what truly is a way to say it. As long as I'm pursuing the heart of my child. Let me talk about joy. That's something you have talked about.
Finding that joy.
Now, the problem I see with the joy factor is we're so critical of ourselves, and that spills over to our kids. And that environment, as well as our kids, are able to push those buttons in us that zap us of the joy of the journey of parenting. How do we recognize to pull that in a little bit? Don't play the game, you know, don't get overly engaged emotionally when it's you know in the wrong direction. But did you ever experience?
Trigger words that help you to say, okay, I'm the mom, I'm the adult, and you're not gonna respond with, what are you talking about? Guys, this is like, this is literally where I have focused. Pretty much everything I'm doing now, which is funny. We're talking about this right at the start because I get to sit with mostly women and I will ask them one question usually. And it was: when was the last time?
you experience joy. Yeah. And do you know that I've only ever had one woman? who is able to respond to that question. Whoa.
So for everyone listening, if that is like joy, sure, that sounds good. But when was the last time I experienced, like I felt joy? And I think there's just a weightiness to that question that. in our culture that's moving so fast, In all of the threat, because ultimately, the antithesis of joy is an experience of threat.
So, if us as parents, we're experiencing threat in any way. Worried how my kid's gonna turn out. He they're throwing a tantrum right now. I don't like it, it actually doesn't feel safe to us. And so, from like neurobiologically, we shift into a whole different system.
Fight or flight, right? It is, yeah, fight, flight, freeze, fawn. And then there's one that's actually below it's just total shutdown.
So, we call it a dorsal vagal response where we go into it's a full e-break. And I think so many, I'm gonna speak to moms right now just because that's what I know best, but I believe dads too. We're living in fight or flight, and so it's in a state where we're constantly scanning for threat.
So it's like, is this safe? Is this not safe? That's basically the question the nervous system asks. And if it finds that there's any threat, it moves us out of the state where we're most ourselves, which is where we experience joy.
So meaning like even from a nervous system perspective, we actually can't experience joy when we are under threat.
So to all the parents who are like, I want to experience joy in this parenting thing, but like, I want to enjoy my kids. Why aren't I? There's nothing wrong with you. Let me inject this because it's so important. I would call it the higher brain function for the adult, you know, the frontal lobe.
Yes. And I don't want to reduce it to just that. The Lord's in all of this. He created us. He created the brain to function.
But it's, you know, those external things that try to trip us up, our child's emotional outburst, whatever it might be. We've got to be able to absorb that. In an adult way, and say, okay, hun, what's happening? What's going on? Rather than the Full-on irritation to where you're acting like the three-year-old.
Right. But it's, and it's triggering you exactly that way. But in that way, that's the point. Like, how do we step back from being triggered on those basic emotions that we should develop an adult response to so we're not in the fight or flight and the other thing? Can we go real practical?
Yeah. I can like, we can actually do one real practically.
So I do a program called Tender and Fierce, where I get to take women through this because I realized this is what we're missing. And it's not so much about our relationship with our kids, though that matters dramatically. But it's what Josh said. If I'm not able to handle my emotion, my emotional overwhelm, that is going to, like, the kids are just the byproduct. The fire in us comes out at them.
So we have to take care of us first. And so it's getting back to those tender places in us. And there's one concept called microspace that I teach that is a way to, it interrupts the system because what happens is it's just happening on a loop, right? I get triggered and I know. Mm-hmm.
the nervous system will go back to the last thing that worked.
So if the last thing was, I blew up, if I yell, it stops the reaction and it knows next time it just is going to go back to that same reaction because it saves energy. Because it worked once, and so all we're doing is interrupting these common loops. And so, we actually do this thing where you literally just put your hands out. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll see. But if for those list listening, I'm just putting my hands straight out as if you're stopping traffic on either side, and you just say space.
Yeah, and it says it's a verbal cue, it's a physical cue. And then I'm gonna do this, and it might sound funny in a mic, but I'm patting my body, so I'm just gonna like pat all the way down to my legs. And it's putting stimuli into the body that interrupts this whole fight system that is so used to operating. And it's telling the body at the body's level, we start there because the spirit even follows the natural. We like we learn that in scripture, and so we actually have to calm the body in order to get the soul quieted because we are body, we are spirit.
with a soul that lives in a body. And I think the body part has actually been the part we've missed a lot. Yes, I remember Gary Chapman was going to be on. He wrote the foreword for your book, Famous at Home, I saw. But Gary, we were talking, and then I went home and I was talking to my four-year-old at the time, Troy.
I said, Troy, you know, in four-year-old words, what do you think your love language is? Do you think it's acts of kindness, serve? And as soon as I said physical touch, he goes, that's me. At four. And he goes, That's me.
That's me, Dad. That's me, Dad. And I mean, it's still to this day. The definition of joy is being the apple of someone's eye. That when you walk into a room, you get the experience that someone is glad to see me.
That's what relational joy really is. And when you take that scripturally, We can't translate the Hebrew as well into English, into what it means.
So, you'll a lot of times hear in the book of Psalms, or you'll hear throughout the Bible, God's presence, in His presence. You think of the benediction. May the Lord's face shine on you, be gracious to you. And everywhere that there's God's presence, basically what we're finding is that that basically means God's face. God's face.
And when you look at His face, you experience, I'm so glad to be with you. And you think about the Heavenly Father, and you think about it from that relation that the Heavenly Father is glad to be with me. It sets, I genuinely believe the biblical, healthy biblical community is the safest, most beautiful place for us to be as parents. Because for us to break free of what I call the matrix, we're living in a matrix. And it's why we are so overwhelmed.
It's why last year's number one book was Jonathan Heights' book called The Anxious Generation. It's like we're living in this space where. What is the purpose that we're doing all this for? And when you pull back and you go, oh, wait a minute, I'm loved by a God who is happy to be with me. I'm the apple of his eye.
And when we start to experience that as parents and we find healthy community, now all of a sudden we're not doing this parenting thing alone. And now you take it to the micro moments that Christie's referring to. And these moments are a little bit easier because you have community that you're also doing it with. And then your four-year-olds, your 12-year-olds, your 14-year-olds are experiencing you coming home, even your overwhelm going, Oh, I'm the apple of my mom's eye. I'm the apple of my dad's eye.
And we love because why he first loved us. And it just overflows out of there. You know, before we move off of joy, and we're going to move to some ways to achieve that, you have a fun one. You've got to be intentional about this, too, but you have the lava storytelling. You've got to think about how do I bring joy to the home.
I love the lava story. Share it with me. Yeah, well, our five-year-old loves the floor is lava song. I mean, the 13- and 11-year-old do too. They'll put floor's lava on.
You know, it's a song that if you're a parent, I'm sure you've played it. And, you know, the kids are jumping up on the couches and things. And I realized I took life too seriously for a very long time. And I think I was caught in the matrix of, you know, achievement and all these things. And.
I'll never forget. I was sitting on the sidelines. Our son Micah scored a soccer goal. It was his first soccer goal he ever scored. And I have this video.
He scores the goal and he comes bolting right back to me with the biggest smile on his face as soon as he hit that goal. And. Again, getting out of the matrix, it's not even about the goal. He came running, who did he come running to? His father.
And he was so full of joy. And I had this moment where the Lord, it wasn't audible, but the Lord spoke to me in that moment. And he said, Do you see the joy on his face? Imagine how much more. I experience joy as your father.
When you're living in joy. And that was a moment for me where I was like, I have to be, when the Floor's Lava Song comes on, I have to be the first one to jump on the kitchen table. Because the trickle-down effect is real. Epigenetically, genetically, whatever you describe it as, well, there's an epigenetic reality to. how we experience life.
And that joy is being passed on to our kids. Just like we pass on anxiety or fear or whatever, we're passing joy. And if I want joyful kids, I have to be that joyful human. And so it has influenced us greatly in terms of the strategies we put into our own life to make sure I'm living that way. Yeah.
Christy, let me ask you, and I saw this with Gene. Running the home. Jean was able to be home when the kids were born. She did a biochemistry or chemistry degree. And, you know, she was in that professional lane.
But when we got pregnant with Trent, it was like, no, I think the best thing will be for me to be at home.
So she chose that. But it's busy. It's CEO mom. I mean, you're running a little company there, right? You got to do all the meal stuff and keep everything in order, not to mention the laundry.
She was good. She trained the boys to do their own laundry at 10. That was a good thing. Jim, we've done it. I don't think the five-year-old doesn't know how to do it yet, but the other two.
The other two are good. I don't think we ever ended up with pink shirts either, which was amazing. You know, the red and the white thing. But just that pull. Constantly pull, pull, pull.
I mean, all moms are going, yeah. It just feels like they're sucking from you. And how do you find a place where you can go, okay, first of all, I get it. This is going to be this season. Yeah.
And I just need to, you know, kind of. Bow up for that and know this is going to be that way, especially in the early years where it is really dependency that's driving the relationship. They need you to feed them, they need you to burp them. And you've got two other kids. You've got three kids, five to 13, so you're living it.
Just speak to the mom about that, how to organize that in my mind to know that it's there. This is going to be a reality, but it's okay because you're doing the most important work anybody could do, even dad going off to work. I think, even hearing those words, right? It's like the pressure you feel. It is the most important work.
And there's so much work. And it's physically taxing. It's emotionally taxing. It is like a CEO where you're like trying. I mean, just like the merchant in Proverbs 31, we're talking about like the merchantships.
I feel like, I feel like a merchant ship half the time where I'm like, it's like Amazon, grocery order, like it's like coming from toilet paper. Right. Then add maybe a job, part-time, full-time, what? Kids' schedules, like all of the things. It's no wonder.
Go back to what we just talked about. We live in threat. Like it's actually it's a real threat because we know even these kids' lives actually are dependent upon how well we execute this. Like we have to do well. And so I hear so many moms who are living in this constant state of hurry, rush, overwhelm.
And overwhelm is scary because overwhelm is like the true belief that like I don't have what it takes. Like the demands on me are too much for what I can, I have the capacity to handle. And sometimes that feels really true. Like it's like, I know I'm depleted. Like I don't feel like I can actually do this.
And so one thing that I have learned that I, and I hope this sounds as an encouragement, is to actually prioritize your rest. By slowing down, and I know that sounds so counterintuitive. You're like, Yeah, yeah, Christy, cool. That sounds great in theory. I can't, ain't gonna happen.
But I actually would posit the other way: you can't continue this way either, right?
So, longevity, you cannot sustain this. And, like, I mean, for me, I hit the bottom rung of life. And I know I've shared that even on this podcast, but I want to share it again. Like, I hit a place where I was the worst version of me that I'd ever been. I was snapping at Josh and the kids.
I remember one time he. He dropped something in the kitchen.
So it was just the added noise. It fell to the floor, and I burst into tears. And I remember thinking, I am not okay. There is something like actually wrong with me.
Sounds like PTSD. Yeah, it was like an almost nervous breakdown, which now, now that I've actually come to understand how the nervous system works, it really was because you could only live in fight or flight for so long. It generates so much energy that is required that eventually the body pulls a knee break and it drops you into this state where you're numb, you're disconnected, you cannot find joy. And I was like, what's wrong with me? I can't find joy.
I'm mad all the time. I'm also numb. Like I, I was just numb. And it's been a lot of years of pulling myself back up the ladder. And it was the Lord who did it.
And he taught me. And that's why I think I care so much. Is like, I know how bad it was. It came out of me physically. I couldn't walk.
I had seasons where I was unable to walk. From a back injury, but it's just, it's chronic inflammation that just spreads through the body because your body is in threat. Oh, yeah. And so, going back to what I say about rest, it's not just like a sweet little anecdote, it's real. And actually, if we slow down even just our movements, because so many moms, like, we're just racing through.
You're just like even in the kitchen or doing laundry, like you're doing it fast because we think, well, the body's just basically trying to outrun a bear is what it really is doing. But if we could actually just slow down your movement.
So, you put the dish in the dishwasher just a little bit slower. You'll notice you'll probably sigh, you'll take a deep breath, and that is a sign your body just moved out of threat and into a form of safety because you're telling it, actually, we're okay right now. Even though you don't think you are, your movement is. And so, you will not always want to do that. You're going to want to race again.
But when you start to catch it a little bit quicker, it's just like that interruption. You're starting to show your body a different way because you actually really do have everything within you to raise those children. Like the Lord has equipped you. But I do believe, and we could even talk about screens, like it's just different now. The amount of stimuli we're absorbing is so much that we have to do something a different way in order to interrupt it.
Yeah. Let me ask you right at the end here, and let's come back next time, keep the conversation going, because this is good stuff. I'm thinking of the formula. problem. And I think we in the Christian community particularly, we want to apply a parental formula that gets us the product we want, a Christ-following son or daughter.
And so if we do A and B and C, we get D. It doesn't work that way. I mean, the way I say that is that's a good way to have a predictive outcome, but it's not a guaranteed outcome. And I think so many of us as parents, when we have a child that's wobbly, spiritually or what have you that We get a feeling of dejection, like, Lord, how come I did all the right things? Speak to that, and then also.
Having the long view. which in that context is so critical that you're going to be talking to your 25-year-old even though they're 15 and you can't stand them right now. But think of them as 25, 30 in what that relationship's going to look like. I'll give a real quick thought and then I'd love to hear Christy. I just think that it's the same thing in our relationship with God.
I don't want to just know about God. I want to live with God. And you know, Paul writes, I pray that you might know beyond knowledge the love of Christ for you. You know, Jesus actually says there's a moment in scripture where he says, you know, you did all of these things in my name. But then away from me, I never knew you.
That's one of the scariest verses in scripture because it's like: am I doing, doing, doing, but do I know him? And I just don't want my kids to know about me. I don't want to just know about my kids. I want to live with them. I want them to experience withness with me, relational connection.
But the bigger vision for me is. When we come to know Christ, Dallas Willard talked about this: the difference between disciples and Christians. Do we know about God or do we live with God? And the bigger vision for me is when my kids come to know Jesus, I don't want them to just know about God, I want them to learn to hear from Him, I want them to learn to Build for the kingdom of God. And that gives us a purpose so much bigger than anything that the world would have to offer.
And so when we start there and they have a bigger vision, now all of a sudden I'm coming alongside them with them, trying to help them discover their gifts, their talents, so that at 15, even though they're annoying at 25, at 30, they're starting to make the connections of, oh, God was with me in that. He was with me in that. He was with me in that. And so that's what I hope to do is help my kids understand and see the timeline of how God has been with them and learn to hear from him now. I would just add, I loved your word wobbly.
It comes from experience. Wow. Like, I think what I've seen, we have three children who could not be more different. We have one who is like all Physical sports, and one who's artsy and free as a fairy, and one who is just driven and so functional. And the hard part is.
I can't even love them the same way. Like, they're so unique. And I think that's true for every parent. Like, we just have to be given these unique things. But the one thing I think I know to do is to speak identity into them.
That's good. Because I think the wobbliness comes from a search for identity. And they're trying to do it on their own. And I don't know exactly what the Lord will call them to, but I see things in them and I can speak things over them. And I can be so careful that I do not speak critical things over them.
And as a mom, like that, that's hard for me because it's just like you're talking about Jean. Like you're wanting to correct so much, as opposed to, I think now I see it more as calling higher. Like glory to glory. Like, I call you higher as opposed to cut you down lower. And that's a challenge because so often I think that's how we treat ourselves, right?
We cut ourselves down. And the Lord's like, no, no, daughter. Like, I'm calling you higher. Do the same for yours. Yeah.
It's so good, man. This was great content, a good discussion today. We're basing this on a lot of your podcasts, Famous at Home. We've got the book for you, Famous at Home. Get a hold of us.
If you can make a gift of any amount, make it monthly or one-time gift, we'll send it as our way of saying thank you. We also have the parenting assessment, John, which is free. It just takes about 10 minutes. You can take it, it'll show you the strengths and maybe some areas for improvement, and then all the resources that'll get you there. Yeah, we've got so much for you.
And as we've mentioned before, this is kind of a lean season for us financially here at the ministry. If you're able to help us out with the generous gift today, that would mean so much and give us some hope for the coming days. Donate as you can when you call 800 the letter A and the word family. 800-232-6459. or you can find the links for everything we've mentioned in the show notes.
Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time as we continue the conversation with Dr. Josh and Christy Straub. And once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ. Hi, I'm Jim Daly.
In summertime, giving to focus on the family slows down, but families in crisis still need your support. As we face a bit of a shortfall right now, we need your help to save marriages through Hope Restored, offer dignity, comfort, and hope to children in foster care through Wait No More, and provide biblical resources for families. Your gift by August 31st will make a real difference and offer lasting hope. Visit focusonthefamily.com slash support families.
