I used to think that the goal of Christian parenting was to raise godly kids, and I would still tell you that, but I would put a big but on there, or except is probably the better word. It's to play out the gospel in my home, because God needs something, this world needs something more than my perfect kids. The world needs kids who know that they need Jesus.
Janelle Breitenstein is once again our guest on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. Here's something to think about, John. We want our children to be spiritually healthy, emotionally healthy, physically healthy, right?
That's kind of the norm. And oftentimes in this life, there's something being attacked in one of those three spheres, typically. And it's rare that a child is healthy in every place.
And if they are, you should be praising God for that. And if they're not, you need to think of strategies as a parent to help them. And we want to cover how to help with that spiritual development today. You might be saying, where do I start?
I don't even know where to begin. Well, our guest has some great ideas. And we talked about this last time, if you missed it, go to the website or download the app for Focus on the Family broadcast, you get access to the entire library. But Janelle, our guest, talked so well about how to keep your child's spiritual best interests in mind and how to nurture your child's devotion to the Lord in so many ways.
And we're going to continue that discussion today. And Janelle Breitenstein is back with us again. She's the mom to four. She and her husband John live not too far away from Colorado Springs here. She's an author, a freelance writer and a popular speaker. And we're talking about an excellent book she's written. It includes a group discussion guide.
Actually, it's called Permanent Markers, Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids' Hearts. And we'll encourage you to learn more about Janelle and to find out more about the book when you stop by the show notes. Janelle, welcome back. Hey, thanks.
It's so good to be back, guys. Yeah. And man, we covered some territory last time. I think for, you know, it sounds like duh. Some parents are in the groove and they're doing it.
They probably don't even comprehend the rest of us that might not think so soberly about how do we intentionally steer our little ones toward that relationship with the Lord very intentionally every day, every moment that we can, that it's not unnatural to do so. And you really raised that. Give us the quick synopsis last time. How would you kind of cover the ground in one minute that we covered for 30 minutes yesterday?
Sure. I mean, right now we've been talking about spiritual life skills. I mean, we talk about, you know, we do all these things every day for our kids, whether it's cutting hot dogs in pieces so they don't choke, you know, or helping them to clean a toilet like well and not disgustingly, you know, or helping you to tie their shirt.
What age did you start the toilet cleaning? There's the question as early as I could. Like five? I don't know.
Probably. I mean, as long as you know, they're not going to create a more huge mess after it, you know. What you're saying is you begin to do these practical teachings.
What greater practical teaching than spiritual? Sure. And as early as they can. And you're doing things that are, you know, as age appropriate as possible.
You're starting as early as you can. And that starts with your child before they're even verbal. You know, you might teach them to do, at least when I was a young mom, baby signs were a thing. So we teach them to say thank you, you know, to start cultivating gratitude in your child's heart before they can even say thank you, you know, and so we're we're praying with our kids before that or you young moms who are not getting any sleep or you young dads who aren't getting any sleep, you're laying the foundation for God's love by just responding to the cries of your child, keeping them in clean diapers, building attachment with them. Those are all foundational. So at each and every age, there are different appropriate life skills that we're teaching our kids so they can see God's face and appreciate him and follow him and love him with their lives. And I really appreciate it. We talked about even meditation, how to teach your kids how to be still before the Lord.
I mean, that can be a challenge. We talked about that. But there's good stuff last time we want to keep moving today and cover some more territory that you covered in your great book, Permanent Markers. You mentioned in the book the importance of these spiritual skills, these life skills to develop in your children. And the first one I want to bring up today is self-control. Every mom goes, yay, self-control. I mean, seriously, you're going to teach a four year old self-control.
What are you getting at and what's age appropriate in terms of expectations so we don't end up in a bad place? Oh, I think that's a great question. Because honestly, even just understanding a little bit about how our kids brains develop and how they operate under stress is very helpful. We've got knowledge now from neuropsychology that teaches us that beneath the kid's prefrontal cortex that is going to be developing until they're 25 or 30, they've got what some psychologists would call an animal brain. I mean, we've had the same designer. You're right.
I mean, we have the same designer, right? But ours is overlaid with, I will in my non neuropsychologist language say that that prefrontal cortex is a bit of the image of God parts of our brain. It gives us self-control, it gives us impulse control, it gives us wisdom, it gives us an ability to empathize, you know, all the make intelligent decisions and things like that. But that's still developing in a four year old.
And if he hasn't had a snack, and he's got low blood sugar, and you're in the housewares aisle, you know, I mean, you might be looking at a meltdown if he hasn't had his nap, you know, and and that's that kind of makes sense. But if we're going to try to teach self-control, that's an issue of in that circumstance, to me, that's mostly a childishness issue, not a rebellion issue. You know, when you look at self-control, boy, you look at the culture broadly, and it's as if it's unleashed. Oh, this idea of lack of self-control, whether we see it on social media, or cable news, or popular virtue, per se, you know, but it's in such volume today that our kids are absorbing it, you know, this lack of self-control, especially around what you think is not necessarily what you should say. I mean, because we just say things now because we have this autonomy, especially in social media. And how do we begin to teach our children who are going to be saturated in social media in the internet and all the other things that are, you know, digital natives are now born into how to how do we help them demonstrate self-control at an early age and then maintain that through teenhood?
Well, and I would definitely say start earlier than when their teens is point number one. You have to. You really, you really do. It's a skill set.
Yeah. And we're in that, you know, before they get to be teenagers, hopefully we're teaching them skills like, number one, counter to what the culture is telling us, that being yourself, we have associated that with honesty and virtue. But the reality is, we're all curating constantly what we're going to put forward, you know, what parts of us we're going to put forward. And there's a part of this that the Bible says very explicitly that it, you know, Ephesians 429, we're to say what is only gracious and is building up that's not destructive, you know, and we're only supposed to say things that are full of grace and that are appropriate for the occasion.
Wow, does that restrict if I put that rule over my mouth, that restricts a lot of things I can say. So I'm learning that to be yourself is actually to be more in the image of God, not the image of me. And I'm learning that my identity doesn't come through what others think of me, or what I do, or what I have, you know, including my reputation.
And if we can solidify that sense of identity, it's a whole lot easier to have self control when they get older. Well, now, and this is I appreciate your authenticity in the book, the yell jar. You know, now I'm thinking, is this a jar you put to your mouth and go?
It's not that kind of yell jar. Oh, no, I mean, I talked in the last episode that we had here that a journey of parent anger has been part of, of my testimony, God showing me that how I identify with my kids in conflict is a chance to replay how he worked out his conflict with me, you know, and so I needed to get my anger under control with my kids. And so we put a yell jar in our house, where if the kids yelled, they had to put a certain amount in the jar.
And for my husband and I, we have to put in $5 if we yell, you know, and I mean, I don't know, I'm financially motivated. But you know, there's other things that like, like push ups, I there was one summer where I decided if my kids lost their cool, they were going to need to do push ups. And I had to get down and do some push ups. And it was funny because my son and I are doing push ups together.
And he goes, I'm gonna be so ripped by the time this summer is over. That's not the goal. That is not the goal.
You can do push ups on your own, too, right? Yeah, that's so funny. But the big question is, how do you dispense the dollars? Well, I mean, good question.
But I mean, I think as a family, we we could decide, you know, on a non profit, or Haagen Dazs, or Haagen Dazs, there we go. Another of those great life skills is simplicity. Now, you're talking and we could run up the train here from toddler to, you know, elementary school, junior high, high school kids. But yeah, teach me simplicity, mom.
What does that mean? You know, I mean, it's, this has been so changed from my experience living in Africa that sometimes it's hard for me to understand what it really looks like. I've lived among the way that 60 to 80% of the world lives. And it's with a whole lot less stuff.
And actually, they were people who in my experience, granted, it was only for five years, but they were a lot happier than Americans. Oh, I saw that firsthand. You know, yeah, it's convicting. It is and it is and but it's so in line with Jesus is teaching that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. You know, so how can we continue to just choose simpler with our kids, whether it's, you know, we're going to have maybe meet at fewer of our meals, because a lot of the world doesn't have this or maybe we just need to have one side dish or not to, or maybe we have a one in one out policy with our kids closets. That that, you know, yeah, if we get one toy or we get another shirt or something we we get rid of one. Are we good enough for the garage? Oh, my one thing you throw out there.
Oh, it's thrown back on the ground here. I'm just letting you know about their garages. You know, but there are so many ways that we can just choose less things. And just really think, do I do I really need this? Because it's it's confusing to me, even coming back from Africa, I get confused with what I want and what I need. It's very easily confused. And we're just being fed marketing constantly, whether it's on Pinterest or whatever, we're being fed the idea that if I just have this, this beauty product, or whatever, man, will my life sing?
Yeah. Well, I guess today on focus on the family is Janell Breitenstein. And we're so glad to have you joining us. We're talking about a lot of the content in her book, permanent workers, spiritual life skills to write on your kids hearts. And we'd be happy to tell you more about getting a copy of the book.
Reach out to us when you call 800 a family were stopped by the link in the show notes. Janell is a missionary family. First of all, you hear angelic music around this commitment that you and your husband made. And of course, you do everything correctly. And oh, yeah, that's that's imagery you can have. And again, I just so love your openness and your truthfulness and your your screaming jar, yell jar.
I just I think Jean and I could yell. But in that context, you're serving others, you know how to serve. I mean, you've made this big decision to be a missionary. So your children watching all this trying to teach them how to put others first. How did your kids serve in that context?
Or how did they pick it up? You know, that was part of the part of the question that my husband and I were asking ourselves at the time, because we just realized that I mean, okay, being in a McDonald's doesn't make you a hamburger, you know, and being the child of a missionary certainly does not mean you're a perfect job. Well, and in fact, I was gonna add that but I didn't want to be too insensitive. A lot of missionary kids struggle because they feel they were sacrificed over their parents vision and, and, and service very much the issues that missionary kids deal with are profound and my kids are part of those. I am not sitting here because I have perfect children, not one iota. And we had to put our pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else. And that meant that our kids also, you know, packed their sin in their carry ons just like their parents did. And you know, so as my husband and I were just looking at how can we continue to kind of need this into their souls, you know, there was an opportunity with a little lending library that was run by a couple of Korean missionaries. And I mean, what my kids could offer is that they were literate. And so we asked if we could do a Bible storytime they'd done my kids had done Bible storytime in the United States. And so we would, they would each bring a book, each of my kids would bring a book, you know, Harold and the Purple Crayon or Frog and Toad or whatever, to to read there, and we would bring crafts and we had kids, you know, older siblings hauling in their diaperless toddlers that they had been in charge of the kids are eating the crayons and peeing on the floor. I mean, it was like no other library storytime that you'd ever seen. We walked by this goat every time that I think was eternally pregnant.
I don't know if it ever gave birth. But but you know, the idea was to say, you know, no matter how old you are, not that you're superior, that was not the goal at all. But you have something to give, you know, and not only that, but that no matter who you are, there's somebody's feet you can wash. Wow. That's powerful. In that context, you kind of develop this and you outline it in the book, this idea of self righteous service versus authentic service that really caught my attention because I've never really put it into those categories. So how did you Yeah, a discover this and then how did you teach that differential to your children? Well, I had to have some help with from Richard Foster on this one, you know, his book celebration of discipline, and some of his other writings. But this is something that I've had to work at as somebody who is probably more a natural Pharisee. I'm a natural helper, natural achiever, and I can my cravings can get religion, you know, and part of that is for me to look good, you know, or to be good to God. And man, is that dangerous if this service lifestyle that we're trying to teach our kids is actually just another, you know, feather in their cap.
Yeah, on why they're more worthy to God. I mean, will be unto us again, if we if we take from the gospel with our kids serving, they need Jesus. But even in that context, you have to recognize it as the parent, and then you have to teach it in a healthy direction. So what would be some things like you would notice in your kids when they were doing an act of service, that they were maybe a little wobbly in this area, maybe when they were wanting to be noticed?
Sure. So how did you deal with? Yeah, very much. I would say, you know, noticing that when your kids prefer the big sparkly jobs, even in the sense of well, I'll read, I'll be the kid who reads in front of the story time, but I'm not willing to help with my sibling who needs a diaper change, you know, or, you know, self righteous service is going to calculate the results and expect gratitude and compensation. You know, and I know I had my son, Jack, who really does love to serve.
He was like, Well, everybody else when they're in the sound booth, they always get somebody tells them good job and nobody tells me and you know, I want to first empathize with that. I think that's important. But also, can we just find happiness and service itself and in being unseen the God who sees us, you know, I mean, self righteous service picks and chooses who to serve mostly because of their image. But authentic service is really indifferent to an audience. And they don't really notice whether others are watching, you know, there's a self forgetfulness, you know, or a that we're looking for, we don't want our kids to be blown around by their moods and their impulses, or putting others in their debt, even worse, you know, I did this, you know, I mean, kids are notorious for that thinking that that's justice.
Well, I did this, why doesn't he have to do that to me, you know, but instead, authentic services is this lifestyle of building community and being unpretentious, you know, putting nobody under obligation. Those are great things to just keep an eye out. We're looking out not for again, just the just the outer work with our kids. What's going on in their heart?
What's their heart landscape like? You know, the three of us, john, we have together 12 children, right? I mean, all three of us, you have four john has six, I have two, I think my mind feels like six. Does that matter? Mine feels like six.
Yeah, that's the multiplier effect. My question is this, though, with 12 children in our mutual nest, so to speak, is this something when it comes to sacrifice to service toward others? Have you seen it be more of an innate attribute or one that is crafted for the child by the parent, I could just say between my two kids, one of them leans more into this naturally, they're looking for that opportunity, it just comes to them more naturally, I could see it doesn't diminish the other who's more objective, more kind of scientifically oriented. But the other one, his heart is just open to this. It's like, what can I do? How can I help you? And so I'm asking that question, how do you nurture it in the natural bit? And then how do you nurture it in the unnatural bit? Like, let's go and then not make those comparisons to belittle the one that doesn't possess it?
Sure. I mean, what a great question, because you definitely don't want to be like, well, if you were only more like your brother, I mean, wow, that's a, the whole book of Genesis is like, please don't do that. But, but I do think, okay, in the childhood, naturally, we're gonna say more thoughtful, you know, because that's a lot of times where the service comes from, they just have eyes that see, or maybe they're that firstborn who loves to, you know, they're, they're a pleaser, you know, what a wonderful gift to praise in them. And at the same time, you know, pull them aside every now and then remind them of the gospel to them, that they are not what they do for you, that they your identity does not rest on them. You know, as a parent, you don't need them to be the star, the shining star of the family. I mean, it's hard as a firstborn personally, I probably, it's always good when somebody's like, hey, just a reminder, you're not what you do. And you're not what others think of you. You're not your label.
You're not that. So just be more cautious of the of the inner world of the other child. For the child who doesn't do that more naturally. I mean, this is a habit that we're building in kids to be thoughtful and to just see others. So I mean, maybe that's as simple as when you're going out of the bathroom at the airport, and somebody's there cleaning up the paper towels, you thank them for their service and thank them for what they do in the community, you know, or you that grocery cashier, you strike up a conversation with them. And, you know, you're just showing value to every socio economic level. And then you could just you model service and you ask your child. I mean, at some point, we are conscripting our kids into service.
There's just no way around it because their hearts are not naturally going to want to serve. But again, before they go into a situation, hey, grandma, I bet she's in a stressful situation because it's Thanksgiving Day. Do you want to see I know you're really good at helping clear the table.
Would you want to do that after dinner today? You know, just kind of calling that out and setting kids up for success in that way, helping them see the needs before they even happen. So they're like, Hey, that's my cue.
Yeah. Janelle, lastly, and again, we haven't been able to cover everything because your book is so full of great stuff. And typically, we're just scratching the surface.
So people get a hint of what's in there. And, and hopefully, they'll pick up the resource and we'll give you details of how to do that in a minute. resiliency is always talked about by child psychologists, Christian, non Christian doesn't matter. This is a common, important characteristic that your children possess. I feel like somehow the Lord got that into me as an orphan kid. I was really resilient, probably because of those valleys.
You have to learn who you are pretty quickly. Yeah, and you got to decide, okay, how do I survive? Yeah, that's resiliency. You're gonna do what needs to be done in order to be able to wake up tomorrow and do what you need to do tomorrow. But in that context, I think your son will had a little bit of a struggle and develop strength and resiliency. What happened with will and speak to the importance of resiliency?
Very much so. My son will, when he was 13, came down from a shower one night, and, you know, his skin was all warm. And, and he said, Mom, feel this. And he had a, he had a hard lump in his neck. And just context in our family, we had just lost a toddler friend of ours to cancer, a three year struggle with cancer. And, you know, the worst things go galloping through a mom's heart at that point.
But we, you know, obviously, on the exterior, I'm thinking don't add to drama, we just, you know, that's interesting. It's really good that you showed me that let's just make an appointment so that, you know, we can just figure out what's going on and how God made your body right now. So it was that was the beginning of a six week journey. We did get an MRI, and they said that lymphoma was a primary concern. And so we took him up to Denver Children's, and he had to do an MRI with contrast, actually, excuse me, the previous test was an ultrasound. And he had to do an MRI with contrast and man, were we scared, but it ended up being that my son had, I'll give you a spoiler alert, he had an extra bone in his neck. And he has named it Eve since Eve, Eve.
Yes. But at that point, I mean, we had already been planning surgery and everything. There were a lot of things that were, were just very scary for our family. But there were these moments sitting with my son, our faces so close, my husband, too, we couldn't tell whose tears were whose. And he just said, Mom, what's the worst case possibility if I die, I'm going to be with Jesus. And he said, you know, our of our toddler friend, he was like, You know what, God had a purpose for Henry's life, and God has a purpose for mine. And he said, he's not the kind of person who goes around giving people tumors for fun. And this is like 13 year old. And I was floored because at that point, I was like, Okay, he may have surpassed me at this point.
Yeah, you know. And I looked at my son's life. And I looked at the fact I was just like, Where does this come from this faith, like a lion. And I realized that he is my son, he has three learning disorders.
And that has made life incredibly challenging at different points. And I remember sitting at a local donut shop because and this is a big deal, because I'm a sugar Nazi at our house. And he's holding this, you know, maple flavored donut the size of a planet, you know, and, and he was crying because he had they had advanced band tryouts at school, and only three kids could make it out of the four saxophonists.
And he was number four. And, and he was just saying, you know, I feel like I have more setbacks than wins. But at that moment, I mean, I realized I had a lot of things that I wanted to do a lot of options in my card deck as a parent, things like throw that band teacher under the bus and let him know that he could have I'm sure she just sounds like a sports dad, you know, that doesn't know what they're talking about, or, you know, all these things that I wanted to do, pushing the obstacles out of my son's way, because I just wanted to stop the pain. But a lot of times when I want to stop the pain for my kids. It's that pain and that, that shaping that God is longing to do in their lives.
That's what I'm pushing out of the way for this temporary benefit. It's kind of like, you know, in the Bible, they call it the sin of Esau in Hebrews, this idea that Esau came and he had an appetite and he threw away the birthright that would have given his generations after him would have reaped the rewards. But he could only think in that moment for what his stomach needed. And it was a profound need. He was hungry. We've all been famished. But I have to think beyond the bowl of chili, so to speak, I have to think about the son that God is creating.
And I'll give you one more example. I just had a friend of mine whose husband did pass away from cancer. And I remember talking to her mom after her mom came to pick up my friend's kids. And she said, I can just still picture my, my daughter running around in footy pajamas. And I guess my point is, we don't know what God needs to prepare them for in their future.
Hopefully it isn't a spouse who dies of cancer. But we have to cultivate strength in our kids that last so much longer than the band Triumph. Well, that's good stuff.
And great insights. You know, I'm not sure where everybody is at today. You might be that parent that just got that news that your child has cancer and our heart goes out to you. I think the key point here is we have caring Christian counselors. We would want you to get in touch with us. We've been able, because of the generosity of support from people like you, we've been able to keep a counseling team here for 45 years, you know, about 20 to 25 counselors who can call you back and talk with you and, you know, provide resources and support, prayer, certainly, and even referrals to other counselors in your area who are Christian counselors. So if you need that kind of support, don't hesitate to get in touch with us. We live and breathe for that opportunity. And down to this wonderful book by Janelle Breitenstein, it is a great resource for parents, especially when they're still forming. That's when you got to get there.
I'm thinking, boy, I really could have used this with Trent and Troy. We did an okay job, but I think there's some things we could have benefited from out of this great book, Permanent Markers. And we want to get it into your hands. If you can make a gift to FOCUS of any amount, we'll send it to you as our way to say thank you for being part of the ministry. And you get a great resource in your parenting journey.
Yeah. Stop by the website to connect with a counselor and to order your copy of Permanent Markers. Our contact information is in the show notes. And you can always give us a call. Our number is 800, the letter A and the word family.
That's 800-232-6459. Well, join us next time as Heather Avis helps us to be more accepting of people with disabilities or who are just different than us. And we have opportunities all around us to step into spaces with people who are different than us in an intentional way. Is it going to be messy? Of course. Is it going to be hard? Yes. Is hard bad? No.
Not always. On behalf of the entire team, thanks 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. The Adventures in Odyssey series already provides your family with trusted entertainment.
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