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.
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 genes like you're you're wanting to correct so much as opposed to I think now I see it more as calling higher. Yeah. 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. That's Christy Straub, offering ways to bring balance and hope to your parenting journey. And she and her husband, Dr. Josh Straub, are with us again today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us.
I'm John Fuller. John, we did have a fascinating discussion last time. I think extremely helpful for the listeners, the YouTube watchers. If you missed it, let me just encourage you to go to the website. You can download it, get the app for your phone, and you got access to the entire library, including the program yesterday.
Just save it as a resource when you're having those moments as a parent going, ah! You can go and listen and say, Okay, there's great stuff here. And we're going to continue to talk about those things. Last time it was about how to be joyful in your parenting. That may be a struggle.
How to slow down. How to help your kids simply become some of the themes. And today we're going to cover some new themes in your parenting style. Yeah, and the Straubs have a podcast called Famous at Home. A lot of what we talk about today is going to be coming from concepts they talk about regularly on that podcast.
We'll link over to that and other helpful resources we have for you here at the ministry. All the information is in the show notes. Christy, let's start with you. It's summertime, and I'm just going to sit there to see if moms go, yeah, or yeah, because it can go both ways. Either it's going to be a joyful time and a time of excitement because we've got time to do things, or it's going to be just another load to do things.
So, with that idea, you speak about letting your kids be bored. I kind of like that. I mean our kids I felt like Gene and I in the early days, it was about how to keep them entertained.
So she, rightfully, she had a lot of good things to do, and especially in the summertime, I've got a full day of projects, Legos, galore, those kinds of things. But it was so good, it really, the thing that Gene achieved in her mothering was building up their imagination. They had to go in the basement, which we have here in Colorado, not that everybody has those, but they had to go down there and play. And there's no screen time. No pads, no TV, and you just have to figure it out.
And she would help a little bit, but I like that board concept. Speak to that.
Well, and it seems counterintuitive because I think sometimes giving them more stuff to do feels like it gets them out of your hair for a little while. Let me add this too: if we have a program for them, we probably feel like we're a better parent. If they're bored, we feel guilty. We're not doing our job. That's it.
Is that it? It's like, don't, it feels like you're like shaping them and you're being productive or they're being productive. And yet, I mean, they just, Josh can speak to some of the research on it. It's just powerful. But when you equip them with time, Right, where they're not so scheduled, and that's one thing we've really dug our heels in is when we talk about the matrix that people are raising kids in today, it's this pace of life of like and putting them in these activities and just it fills up your life with so much.
And yes, it offers them opportunities, but it also takes away opportunity. Yeah, because boredom is actually where creativity breaks out, right?
So it says 15 minutes of boredom is where actually the creative part of the brain starts to unlock. And this isn't just for our kids, like what about for us? When was the last time legit? As a parent, that you were bored. We fill it.
Like, it just we talked about on the last show. Like, we are so apt to be busy and we just go fill it with something. And so, one of my favorite things was: we have a hammock in the backyard. I like it. And I'd never had one before.
And I will not bring my phone out and I will lay in the hammock. And it's funny how the kids just. Flock to you. I mean, we're still, we're 13, 11, and 5, our kids' ages, and they still just follow you. I find, you know, wherever, like, if I'm inside the house, they want to be inside.
If I go outside, it's like funny, they follow you outside. And they, I'm in the hammock, and they concocted this thing. Where they put the trampoline under a rope hanging from a tree so they can dive in the field. Is it safe? It's not.
Okay, I'm just going to say that straight up. I'm liking this already. They hang upside down and they swing, and if they fall, they mostly fall on the trampoline. But it has been, they're out there, just wild children, and it is. I've never seen them happier, honestly.
And the more I've given them the free rein to even just trust them, even the five-year-old, like he takes care of chickens, and you know, we do give them chores. And I think that is the productivity that gives them Some building blocks to their day. And otherwise, it's like Josh, let me ask you. I hadn't thought about this, but the resiliency is so critical in children. It's one of the Probably the biggest missing ingredients today, which can lead to anxiety because they don't have the confidence that they can push through something, which is what resilience provides.
Do kids get that through that boredom factor? Like a resiliency can be built by them having to figure out what to do? Oh, I think so because when they start figuring things out on their own, it gives them confidence. Right. They start to get self-awareness.
They have a sense of agency that they can do something. Whereas when I first started looking into this, I started noticing that Steve Jobs didn't give his kids an iPad. We created the thing. Bill Gates wasn't allowing his daughters on a cell phone. And I'm just going, if the people creating these devices are protecting their children from it, what do they know about it that we don't?
And I think it leads back to creativity and imagination because, as Christy said, there's so many research studies that it takes at least 15 to 20 minutes of boredom for creativity and imagination to kick in. And what we're doing is we are amusing an entire generation into a creative impotence. You'd put the letter A in front of a Word, it negates its definition. The word muse means to think deeply. You put a letter A in front of it, and it means to not think deeply.
And we're pushing these screens on kids. Those are a portal that are just putting all this information, all these things into their brains that I think are amusing them. And then, to your point, they're not resilient because they have all this information at their fingertips, but they don't know it. What happens when the screen's not there? What happens when it comes time for them to, and I think with AI and the growing AI and AI taking where the future's heading.
Kids who are resourceful, kids who are creative, kids who are imaginative, kids who have that confidence and that resilience are going to be the ones leading the way. And I think we as parents today need to create the environment necessary for our children to build those parts of who they are, those soft skills, empathy, assertiveness, their ability to enter into the world of another, but then also to be creative and imaginative so that they're the ones leading the way in the future. I just think we have to live differently. We have to choose the opposite. And I think that's the hardest thing in this culture.
Let me ask you about that because you did a survey of something like 700 couples. I was actually just going to show you. And you said, what was the parent struggle?
So we were just asking. We just simply said, hey, what is your greatest parenting struggle? And it was a qualitative. We left it qualitative. And over 700 parents responded.
And it was overwhelmingly the top two were, we're too busy and there's not enough time. And I was like, oh, wow, like this is, it's a reflection of where we're at in our culture today. And as I said to you, John, in the last episode, Was this sense of if we genuinely believe that God has given us enough time to accomplish everything that we need to today, why are we racing so hard? Why are we bouncing from thing to thing to thing? Chaos.
And so, one of the things we suggest is just putting, take sticky notes, take every activity you're in as a family, put every single thing on the table as a non-negotiable, and start praying through. What is life giving for our family right now, and what is draining us? What needs to go? What needs to stay? And ask God, what are you guiding us to do as a family?
Who are you guiding us to be as a family? And how is that related? I mean, you've kind of alluded to this, Josh, but how is that related to? Trust in God. I just think that as a believer, I have now come to a place where I believe that my life at the end of life, and I know you've had John Burke on the program in the past, but he wrote a book called Imagine Heaven, and he's looking at all these near-death experiences.
When you filter this through the lens of the gospel, I genuinely believe that what will have mattered at the end of life is how we treated those that were in our presence. In other words, how well did I love someone after they were in my presence? Did I see them? And did I love them? Did they feel seen by me?
And did they experience a glimpse of who Jesus is in that process? That's what I want my kids to understand too, that at the end of life, what really will matter is we have to think of this, we're living in eternity right now. That means we're never gonna, sure, we will pass from this life to the next, but where will we be a thousand years from now? And biblically speaking, The quality of our lives today, the decisions we make today, how we're building for the kingdom of God influences where we will be in the relationships we will have a thousand years from now. We don't teach our kids these things.
Wow. I want my kids to experience from a kingdom-building perspective what we're building for the kingdom of God. And if we're running ragged, what are we running ragged for? Because if we don't make these decisions, the world will make them for us. And what I find is that so many of us as families, We're letting the world make our decisions for us, and that's why we're exhausted.
And we're just saying, hey, what if we just made some decisions that were different? You don't have to raise your make the decisions we're doing. But start asking God, What is it that you want us to do to slow down? What is it that you want us to do to maybe experience nature a little bit more often? To be with our kids as opposed to being together but not with, in, see, that sort of thing.
Yeah, Christy, let me just ask that question that John posed. What is the typical response when people say, parents say, well, You don't know my situation. This sounds great. I'm too busy. I can't do that.
You know, my job gives me a lot of responsibility. I manage. You can hear that. And you guys have asked that question.
So what do people say that feel like this, it's not attainable? And well, and I think it comes down to choice. I think we've forgotten that we have agency over our own lives and we get to choose. And a couple years ago, you know, we were praying, and I just felt the Lord say, jump. And I knew what it meant was it was time to sell the house in the neighborhood with the cul-de-sac and the sidewalk.
And he was actually asking us to move to Pennsylvania.
So we live in near Nashville, Tennessee. And Josh's whole family is in Pennsylvania. And we have a 900 square foot little cabin there in the woods. And we moved our family, and the Lord was just like asking us in obedience to go. It put everything on the line.
Like, I mean, the kids lost the outlaw community. We, I mean, even to work from a little 900-square-foot cabin in Pennsylvania. But I don't regret it a moment. It was hard for the kids, actually. It was really hard for them.
It was hard for Josh. I did better. I think I needed the pace. But here's what I think it taught us. All of this can burn up in flame.
The lifestyle, the thing that you think you're so attached to, it's just because it's familiar and it feels safe. And what if God had something far Far better. I say better, it doesn't mean more. It might mean choosing. You know, a lot of families feel finances are like if you get down to it.
Finances are the top priority.
So it's because it's my job, it's my identity, it's the funding of the family. We lived in 900 square feet in this little. I mean middle of nowhere Amish country. And Guys, it was great. Yeah.
We don't need all of the things and all of the extras. And the Lord did lead us back a little while later, and now we're still. Still in Nashville, but with the goats and the chickens, and that's been such a gift. But I know that if he asked us to do it again. We could because our identity isn't in our jobs, it's not in what we do, or even like financially, what we're bringing in.
But I find so many people. Are so stuck in the way that they think it has to be, and you have so much agency over your life. And do you trust the Lord to lead you into like it's a grand adventure? We only get to do this once, you know. And I've heard it said: like, what if you thought that you were living this?
This was your second chance. Yeah. Like, what if this was your victory lap? Like, you get to come back and do it again. What would you do?
You probably wouldn't sit in that job that has kept you stuck and limited all your options. I bet you go find something else. I would say to Christy's. Our kids become who we are.
So, if we're staying stuck in fear and we're living in fear, our kids are picking up on everything that we're living our lives on and around versus giving them adventure. And you can give them adventure today where you're at in the job that you're in. And again, this is why I think we have to walk closely with Jesus. Yeah, because you just can't just up and do this. This is a walking, it's Eugene Peterson's A Long Road, a Long Obedience in the Same Direction.
And to me, that's what it's about. And I would just say this to. Just, it's not that you necessarily might have to sell your house. But just put the sticky notes on the table and ask God, what do we need to cut out that might feel like a big thing? Maybe it's a sports activity.
Maybe it's a group that you've been, whatever it might be. But just try something different. That you might get the sense of and just try it and just see what happens and see if it brings more peace into your home see if it opens up a new opportunity for you just start slow and start to make some shifts if nothing is happening right now Christy you you had an experience walking I'm not sure which property but you're walking with one I think a son and it led you to something that you said the pressure of all the shoulds So how did that spark and what was that discussion? We have our oldest son, he's 13. He is a firstborn, born to two firstborns.
Bless his soul. I feel like higher that guy. I feel like we have to unparent him because he's too responsible. Yeah. Yeah, no kidding.
So somehow he's absorbed all the shoulds. Like, I should do this. I should do. It's this. Is it cultural?
Yeah. Is it personality? Sure. But it's also this as if there's this ladder that you just have to should keep climbing, just should, should, should. And the pressure of that is.
Oh gosh, I think it's what we were just talking about. It's like takes away your choice of agency. It's like, I don't get to actually choose because I just, I should do this. And I think breaking out, it was just a sweet conversation with our son where I realized it's not just him, it's me. He's absorbing it even from me.
Like he's absorbing this idea that there is all this heavy expectation over us of the things that we should accomplish, what it should look like. We were talking before, like how our kids should turn out. And what if we were able to actually believe that the creator. of the universe who like intimately knows us. Has specific directions for us.
That is not a should, like Cultural says, but is a get-to. It's an invitation into the more that he has for us. And that has been such a. I think just a gift to like out of my own frame of thinking, where you know, we I came here as a student. Back in the day to the focus on the family institute, and we're so glad you came.
Oh, guys, it marked me. But it was in a season where it was like I should do the next right thing, right? Like, I went to university and then grew up in Canada. And so, I say university, and you know, and then it was like, I should do this, and then I should go to grad school. And I followed it because it was like the only model that was put out there for me.
And it was like, I remember talking to some of the professors here, and they would pray with you, and it was like. It opened me to realize that there's another way of living that is, it's gonna look so unique. You're not gonna look like anything else. And if anything I'm proud of, when I look at our family and our kids, people will. We're unique.
And I'm really proud of it because I came, I remember when Landon, same one, was little. I remember sitting in a g you know, it was a group of friends at a play date and they're like, Oh, yeah, I'm putting, you know, Billy in soccer and I was like, Oh Oh, okay, is that what we should do? Like, literally, should do. Like at three, like it was like, oh, oh, you have to do that. T-ball, t-ball.
Got it. Like, cause then you get behind, and it's like, oh, I didn't know that's what we should do. Like, that was the level of insecurity I felt as a parent was just like absorbing from the people around me. I guess we should do that. And there's nothing wrong with soccer.
Our little guy loves soccer and plays soccer. It was this. I'm not following any model. I'm not following any divine direction. I'm literally just following.
Let me ask something controversial. I think people will respond to this. We always love to hear from you, so let us know. But there are political pundits who have said this. Tucker Carlson's one, who has Kind of chided.
Corporate America for the heavy recruitment of women into the workplace. You know, and I'm just trying to. grapple with that model a little bit. Kind of that explanation is they're so desperate for labor that we've convinced people to overspend. To be consumers, and therefore it requires more salary.
And I'm not going to get there. And so, mom has to go to work, and she's got to earn something. And I think it's really what you're saying. If you take the inventory of all that, where are you at the end of that? You know, without connection to your kids, maybe even greater trouble in that regard.
And I know it, you know, we get all the Christian community gets all the kickback from the culture, like you're just handmaidens and all that stuff. But we're saying, wait a minute. Our kids will be healthier. And that means something to us, even if it doesn't mean something to you. We're not willing to sacrifice our children for the altar of materialism.
And that's such a better argument than we're simpletons that don't get it. We want to keep women barefoot and pregnant. I mean, it's so ridiculous. And I, again, I admire Jean, who was professionally capable. She had her degree.
She could have gone on to do other things. She was pre-vet at UC Davis. Yes, she got in. She could have done it. But she said, you know, the most important thing.
I can do is raise the help, you know, be the primary caregiver for the boys. I so admire that because that's sacrifice. Yes. And that is Christian. Yeah.
Yeah. And I would say to our point, you know, for us, we have chosen, you know, Ephesians 6 says, Fathers, do not exasperate your children or do not provoke your children to anger. You know, Tim Keller actually said this that, you know, had that verse been written in post-Industrial Revolution America, it would have said mothers, because that was the first time really throughout culture, throughout history, that a father was not intimately involved in the raising of the children. He wrote to fathers. Paul wrote to fathers because fathers are intimately involved in the raising of the children throughout history.
And I wanted to be, you know, I've seen the breakdown of this, I mean, the fatherlessness and the whole nine yards. But it's like, if I'm going to raise children who Pass-along family legacy, and we see this. I mean, the health of a child. You said this earlier is consistent. It's not the peers, it's the parents.
It always comes back to the parents. You know, we've made specific decisions in our lives for me to be intimately involved with. I mean, just from my level of homeschooling them to we're a team. Right. You know, we're a team in our business.
We're a team in our ministry, our organization. We're a team in how we parent. We say we do home everything, and we are unique in that regard. But we've made sacrifices to do that. We've made specific decisions to do that because at the end of the day, I want to live my message.
And if we're not living our message, We have no business sitting on this show right now. And so that to me is: I'm going to come alongside her and I'm going to support her. You know, the Proverbs 31 woman, yes, her children rise up and call her blessed, but she considers a field and buys it. And so just to be able to support Christy in every area, but we have to keep Jesus at the forefront. What is God guiding our family to do?
And I think that's the way to come together in it is how are we coming together in it as opposed to then it becomes when we're so stressed with finances and then we're arguing, well, you have to get a job.
Well, I don't want to get it. And then it just becomes tension in the home. I just think pray unity in your home, pray unity in your marriage, and let God guide those decisions uniquely for your family. Yeah. In the end here, we got a few minutes.
The idea of Giving ourselves grace as parents, because I have not met a perfect parent. I mean, the Lord created Adam and Eve, and then they rebelled. And he was the perfect dad. That's right.
So I'm not saying we just, you know, keep trudging ahead, but there is a need for parents to give themselves grace when they blow it emotionally, whatever it might be. You said, I think last time, Josh, how important it is to apologize. I think that's a great tool. I remember doing that with Trent for the first time. He was probably six.
And I went, I'm so sorry, I was emotional when I was disciplining you about that thing. And he smiled. And I said, Why are you smiling? He said, I didn't know mommy and daddy had to apologize. Isn't that sweet?
I mean, it's such a precious response.
So, obviously, to that point, we hadn't done a good job. But speak to that idea of grace for you as a parent. And maybe I think you even had some research from John Gottman that spoke to this. Yeah, I'm going to let Christy in on this word for sure because she's got so much wisdom on it. But yeah, I'll just say John Gottman's research, he found that if he studied emotion coaching parents, emotion coaching and parenting.
And what he found is if you get emotional safety right just two out of five times, you'll still get the outcomes you desire. Isn't that nice of God? 40% of the time. We could do a C. 40% of the time.
I mean, you're just like, wow. And the reason was because he found that repair, and he quotes it in the research, is the ultimate of relationships. The Bible calls it forgiveness. And Jesus tells us to practice it a lot as much as we've been forgiven. May we forgive others.
And I just think. Entering into our kids' worlds and seeking their forgiveness when we've wronged them is the buffer for when we don't get it right. And let me set that up just so the listeners are clear: being an imperfect parent does not guarantee a bad kid or a good kid. Yeah. It's just what it is.
It just is what it is. And I think this is, we're broken vessels that have been entrusted with other little broken vessels. And if they don't see our brokenness, then how on earth are they going to learn to navigate their own? And they need to see us do it without pride. We so often protect ourselves with pride or, and usually often with anger, right?
Like we put this anger out or critical spirit, yeah, condemnation that we kind of put out toward them. And I just want to say this for this is to me and every other, it's because we feel it on the inside. We feel that condemnation and that criticism of ourselves. Like it's an internal voice that becomes external. And the only way, the only way to overcome, it's literally the love of God.
It's his grace. And we never will earn it. We will never understand it. But it is the only way that we are able to overcome that within us and therefore pour out into them the literal love of God that is compassionate, it's gentle, it's humble. And until we experience it for ourselves, we can't fake that.
I think there's so many parents that are trying to do it, and it feels false because it is, and that's why we come back to it's. He loves you so much. And until you experience it, not just know it, not left brain knowledge, but experience the love of God for you, that's when everything changes. That's when we transform. And that's when even our children transform because they watch us.
That's called shalom, right? The peace of God coming into your home. Josh and Christy, this has been so good. And the time has flown by. But you can get a copy of the book directly from Focus on the Family, Famous at Home.
And we'll attach the link to the podcast so people can listen to that. But get in touch with us. We are here for you. We have Christian counselors who can help guide you. And you can set up that consultation with them by calling the 800 number.
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This is a really lean time for us financially, and so we're counting on your partnership to enable us to strengthen more marriages and equip more parents as we've done today. and to help everyone who listens and interacts with Focus on the Family to grow in their faith. Be a part of all that ministry when you donate today. Call 800, the letter A and the word family. 800-232-6459.
Or you can find the details to donate and get the resources we've mentioned in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we 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.
