Setting a New Rhythm for Your Family

This is where we will look back and reflect on these moments right here and so being in awe, posturing yourself with your hands open, heart open, eyes open to see the wonder that is this marriage and family. That's the way we try and posture for ourself in our marriage and ultimately for our kids as well. That's Chris Grabie and he and his wife Jenny are here with us today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. They're gonna be sharing how you can bring some healthy, life-giving rhythms and patterns into your family. Thanks for joining us, I'm John Fuller. John, we talk about family a lot.

I guess that's the title, right? Focus on the family. That's what we do. I mean I do find it humorous sometimes people say don't make an idol out of family. We get that. We're not trying to tell every single person they've got to get married.

That's between them and the Lord. But we are here to talk about family, about marriage, about parenting and we hope help you along that way so you can do it as best as you can. And one of the things that all of us tend to hit are these ruts where you get kind of out of sync and you just start doing the thing and then by the time you look up five years has gone by the kids are now seven and nine and have we been as intentional as we needed to be as a parent.

Hey every time we can kind of wake you up to that fact to pay attention. That's our goal and to give you great advice on how to correct some of the things that might help you do the parenting job better or the family job better. Mm-hmm and to do it better now while the kids are in the home if they're in the home and Chris and Jenny Grabie are really qualified to talk about this. They have five children. They host the podcast The Rhythm of Us and they have a book with a similar title The Rhythm of Home Five Intentional Practices for a Thriving Family Culture.

Learn more about the Grabies and this book when you're at our website and we've got the link in the show notes. Chris and Jenny welcome to Focus on the Family. Thank you so much for having us. Good to be back.

Good to be back with you guys. Yeah that's great five kids. So I did a weird thing the other night. Dean and I were grabbing pizza a kind of a you know one of those little fashionable pizza places downtown and this young family came in and it was awesome they had three kids one in a stroller they're you know getting pizza to go and as we're walking out the door together I said that is great you guys have had three kids that's wonderful I love seeing families and we get in the car and Jean goes that was weird. She goes why would you say so because it's awesome to see young families having children but she said that is awesome but I think it's a little odd to say that to strangers. When we show up at a restaurant people are always like that people like they start rolling their eyes like here we go we have five kids and then usually they come in like your kids were so well behaved they're waiting for us to ruin their night. Okay but fundamentally you think of a restaurant they should be ringing the bell your family of five in here ding ding ding ding you know that's money. It is kind of weird that the the culture has leaned away from having big families and see it as something negative I just there's something in me that goes wake up I don't want to see any more of your dog pictures dogs are great cats are great but kids are better.

They're pretty great yeah. And you guys are experts on that having five kids yourself. Alright Jenny, yeah I'm sure this gets right to it like some days you had to be going crazy. Oh absolutely you know we always joke that you know after that third kid it just starts getting chaotic you know and after you know after your you know third week without sleep you're like what were all those things we said we were gonna do someday what were all those things we said were important and that's really where the book came from was just this really deep desire to be intentional like you said like we don't want to just forget all those things we said we were gonna fill our family life with we want to be intentional we want to make sure that these rhythms we're filling our home with are lining up with our values and we're gonna have to sit down and put some thought behind this or we're just gonna drift along with the culture around us. You know about half the listenership and the research that we've done have kids in the home so you're talking to moms and dads that they're at where you were at how do you even know that you need a rhythm in your family when you have three kids four kids five kids and rhythm is like the farthest thing from your mind. Well the truth is we all have a rhythm of home right we have a set of habits that are carrying us that are shaping us to become a certain kind of family so the question really is do we like that rhythm do we like those set of habits are they in line with our values do we like who they're shaping us to become as a family and if not how do we make some changes so that we can head in the right direction as a family. You know Chris I'm a terrible fix-it guy around the house I'm pathetic I confess it you know Jean does a lot of it I can't believe I'm saying this but it's a safe place but I you know in that context let's start with the YouTube video about what is a rhythm tell me what it is. Well I mean you know when people say we ask you all the time are you in rhythm or out of rhythm pretty quickly people can go like oh I know where we're out of rhythm right and so the idea behind us coming up with this book is saying okay we started with our first book the rhythm of us that was about marriage this one's like okay how do we take these same rhythms and and bridge it to families the same principles apply but this idea of these five practical rhythms where people can go like hey what do I do today to get started right what are the five rhythms I can put my hands on. That's awesome and we're gonna that's what we want to unfold starting with speaking life so let's describe that one that one first of all so important speaking life over your family over your kids. We always we look at that rhythm as almost like a cornerstone between the other ones because you can focus on serving and some of these others adventure but if you're not speaking words of life to each other it nothing's gonna work it's like cool I don't hear what you're saying because you haven't said the things that mean the most to me and so for us we just we've as a value in our marriage that we started off early and now we do that with our kids and we love this I mean for me I'm a I'm a words guy I love when Jenny will talk to me and share with me and tell me how much she loves me and all the things right I'm an affirmation guy but our kids are the same way and so I think if you can cultivate this atmosphere speaking life into your kids and into your family there's a massive amount of free though yeah Jenny I don't know if it goes with gender generally I would think moms are pretty good about speaking life over their children I I don't know I don't have any data but I think men can struggle more so for us it's really the opposite it could just be personality type like like you said Chris is really good at this for them you know if he saw a family at a pizza place he would probably say great job raising three kids he would he just everything he thinks he says out loud which is a different conversation Jane would say yep I know that yeah yeah it sounds like Jean and I are a lot of like but I have really had to work on this you know especially early on in our marriage it wasn't that I wasn't thinking nice things I just wasn't in the habit of speaking them out loud which is a really different thing you know we if we don't say them out loud they don't really count because the people that we love don't get to hear those wonderful things we're thinking and Chris really had to say after a while like hey I'm gonna need you to tell me that I'm awesome like I need to hear this from you like this is really important to me and he was right and over time it I really did learn by his example that just speak it out loud when you see when you think something nice just take a moment speak it out loud you know it's amazing when you look at you like our counseling team we take a look every month at the tally of what are the big headlines that are coming in just so we're aware and you know that that breakdown in communication and marriage is always present in the top 15 and the reason I'm bringing it up when you look at repairing damage in a marriage this is one of the fundamental things can you just show appreciation for one another and when you do that it's like the human heart blossoms it just opens up we'd like to hear these things yeah one of the things we we discovered we were doing a retreat and we were sitting there with these couples and they were kind of walking through these rhythms and I asked them I said we asked the question how many of you saw speaking life modeled from your parents when you were growing up specifically mom and dad saying positive things about each other in front of the children which also trickled down 98% of the room said they never saw it never saw it and people go I never even saw it I didn't model it how do I do this and I think we all have to realize what we're doing in our marriage in our relationship is the foundation we're setting for our children and the marriage that they will have and so true we speak life to each other then also speak life to our children as well because we wanted that to reverberate for generations to come right and that's not a budget item you can do that without spending money on dinner and roses and just speak life over each other yeah there was one part of this that I was really interested in Jenny and you had a story about a dad who kind of spoke about potential I mean this is an element of speaking life the potential he saw or set I guess for his child talk about that I love this story so there was a family growing up for me that was a really close family of mine and then when I went off to college at Belmont in Nashville they ended up living just a couple hours away so whenever I got you know kind of the desire for a home-cooked meal I was eating diet coke and popcorn probably they would invite me what they would invite me over and cook a nice home-cooked meal and and it was one of those nights and I had been over with their family and they had several other people in the community over as well and as the evening was dying down the other guests started heading home and there was a single woman there who headed home it was pretty late and Michael the dad I will never forget this you know I'm probably 19 or 20 and I just I was observing their family because they had an incredible marriage and family and I was just always learning from them and he he called out to his 11 year old son who just happened to be walking by after she had left and he said hey Chris will you call Miss Susan and just make sure she got home okay and I turned around to him expecting a normal you know 11 year old boys response would probably be like what I'm not doing that or that's awkward you do it or whatever it was and he just said oh yeah dad I'll do that and he went and called her just to check on her and I mean there was so much happening right right in that moment right I mean he not only spoke to the potential in his son to be thoughtful he was passing on the characteristics of thoughtfulness and kindness of thinking of somebody else he could have very easily gotten up and done it himself right but then those character traits would have remained his own but instead he saw an opportunity to call out something great in his son and teach him the the incredible value of caring for somebody else. No that's so good what and again a very easy example you can do that you just need to be thinking that way looking for those right yeah Chris let's go the next one the rhythm of serving I like that I think we tended to make that pretty complicated though you know we set up a time to go serve at the animal shelter and you know Gene organized all that but it didn't just happen it was some thought which sometimes people have a hard time getting over that that barrier if it's gonna take a lot but speak to the rhythm of serving and how you can make that a little easier yeah I think I think for Jenny and I have the five rhythms even when we looked at our marriage it was one that we both kind of was on the bottom rung for us we had to learn how to serve each other right and then you know you have kids you go okay cool and then there's the natural like you know obviously you're young we need to help you and do that but when we talk about serving there's kind of this whole other level one of the things we talk about a lot is really there's so many different ways we can serve our kids and we say enter their world one of the best ways you can serve your children is just by listening to what they're saying they're saying more than we can ever possibly imagine but sometimes we don't just stop to listen to what they're saying when you enter their world and you can serve that okay what are you saying what do you need right now okay great great example one of our daughters she was just she she loves to read and be by herself and so she asked Jenny if she could clean out the bottom of one of our closets so she could go and have a reading corner I need to create a space yeah so she she listened to her entered her world and she cleaned up the space in the closet she had a flashlight in there and she was reading her book and the flashlight kind of see something sparkly in the corner and just a little backstory at the time Jenny had lost the diamond on her wedding ring and we had no clue where it was yikes well she had lost it doing laundry and it turns out five months later it was at the bottom of this closet and our daughter comes back in she goes what is this mommy diamond for her wedding ring would you just go okay we entered her world we served her and God blessed us by bringing that back around and so serving doesn't necessarily mean just doing the laundry and giving them food and running them to the thing it's it's listening entering your world and discovering what God's doing in them right now yeah Jenny let me ask this question the difference between enabling and serving I I think when I assess my parenting I may have been a bit more of an enabler you know to rescue them a little too quickly yeah but speak to both of those sometimes you need to lean one way or the other but speak to the danger of the enabling yeah I think what we want to be careful that we're not communicating is that you do everything for your kids because then you are enabling and you're also harming them because we're robbing them of this opportunity to learn to do things for themselves right so there is a difference between opportunities to care for my kids and serve them and listen and dignify them there's a kind of help and serving that dignifies them and then there's a kind of help that harms them by robbing them of the opportunity to do things for themselves what is the motivation for a parent who is over enabling I mean what what's happening for them they see that as I'm a great parent it gives them some kind of satisfaction I would say sure I I would think so as well and I think that there's probably all different personality types with different motivations for doing that but I think you know the times where I've caught myself doing that it's usually just it's easier right faster easier to do it myself you know and it's it's I'm probably gonna do it better because I'm a little bit older I've had some more experience yeah but when I remember like oh my goal here is to build that character like we talked about you know to see those opportunities where okay yeah I could just do this myself or I could give them this incredible chance to grow into the person I'm praying they'll become then I can take that extra minute and let them do it themselves let me ask both of you to respond to this one the third one seeking adventure I think that sounds like fun that's where I would like I just Trent sent me a note the other day and he said dad I'm just feeling nostalgic I just love the fact that we shot rockets off at the park nighttime and no lights nerf fights and just all those things that was fun I enjoyed that so much but do you define it what does it mean to seek adventure oh this is by far my yeah I mean you know we with five kids you know some are wired inherently for adventure and some are like nope feet on the ground adventure looks very different for each one of them so but we but one of the things we try and explain people people go oh well you know maybe I don't have the budget we can't go on a big trip they immediately go to like the big trip and there can be adventures in every single day you know you can go hey we're gonna break out in the monotony of wake up go to school homework go to bed you know you can go today we're doing a break on the emergency and you go hey we're gonna go to the park today we're gonna go to the jump you in place it could be something free we're gonna go to a waterfall you know adventure we're all wired for adventure I think you know Christ was the ultimate adventurer right and he called us to this wildlife and so I think we're all wired for it I think some some of us are just pre-programmed ago I don't think I want to do that and so there's a story we write in the book about how we ended up we took the kids skiing and the the two older kids really the three younger were at ski school but the two older kids you know they were like hey we're gonna go off and like okay great so we're like cool we're just gonna enjoy some us time and on the slopes and you get on a chair and you're like okay there's it says blue this is black on that I was like we'll just go up and do the blue well and Jenny's like are you sure there's a blue up there I was like oh yeah looks on the sign we get to the top there was no blue to be found it was a straight black diamond with powder everywhere and we're like we're gonna die we're literally gonna die and it almost happened because we are just scrambling it I'm looking at my I'm like I'm never gonna see my wife again she's buried in the powder over there right and we finally roll our way out of the mountain get down we're like oh we're never doing that again and then we're like at the lodge going like okay we needed a minute and then we look up and we see our daughter and they she comes walking her corner she's like guys we just got stuck on a black diamond I'm like what so they both so we're on our adventure they're on their adventure but we get to come together and celebrate that like in them is the spirit of adventure that we we've had the opportunity craft we're over there dying in the powder they're dying in the powder but we get to come together unified and share an amazing story of how we both just walk through some insanity came on your side it was just a really bonding moment Jenny let me aim this at you the the freedom to fly I you know again I don't mean to always talk in those terms but moms can struggle a little bit with that you know like that's dangerous I mean Jean and I am my goodness they'd ride the bikes down the driveway she'd say welcome their helmets aren't on I know you know half of you're gonna say okay you should yeah I know that but they just jumped on the bike and they went down and they came back and put your helmet on that kind of thing but sometimes we can want to wrap our kids in bubble wrap you know man we didn't have safety belts in cars when I was a kid I used to get jump in our station wagon and anyway you get the point just react to that I guess the mechanism if you're the father or the mother to relax that safety bubble a little bit and let your kids fly and then the other side of flying whatever that might be absolutely you know like Chris said like we're all wired to fly we all need adventure whether we instinctively know that or not the truth is nobody wants to get to the end of their life or our kids get to the end of their time with us as a family and look back at all the things we wish we had done nobody wants to do that we want to marvel at all the adventures we said yes to you know and sometimes as parents that requires us stepping outside of our comfort zone you know like God will call our kids to things that are way outside of my realm of comfortability and I have to choose in those moments okay if God is calling them into this am I gonna say yes am I going to give them that freedom to fly and cheer them on as they go or am I going to cling to that comfort and to the safety and look back and wish that we had said yes to some of those things and there's sometimes you need to do that well the same thing can be true you know we want that for our kids but the same thing needs to be true for our spouses there's moments where our spouses have some dreams and we need to kind of water hose to go hey Wow I'm gonna give you the freedom to fly in this because again all of this comes from if we wanted in our kids we have to model it in our marriage and I think when when a spouse comes behind and supports the other one in a way to go I think it's time for you to step out have an adventure because you've been talking about this dream for a while it's time for you to fly there's something powerful that's really good you know kind of related to this is family mottos we did not have one I wish we would have you know it kind of had a driving theme but I guess you've got one about trusting God in writing the story so this relates I think to the letting go and the freedom for sure yeah I mean look we all believe we love Jesus in our house right and we believe that the God has a plan for us and that he if we bring him in on the equation that we can write a pretty powerful story and so we try to incorporate that into our kids lives and our marriage and everything we're doing to say hey what what is God doing here and and how is he moving in you and how is he moving in this season and moving in our family and so we just truly believe that that you know we all look up like we want the story to be amazing we don't want we want kids we don't want us in our marriage look back and go like we left it on the table or whatever when I go man that was a wild awesome ride and what a powerful story and God was at the center of it the whole way that's so good you know we're coming up toward the last few minutes here but we've covered the rhythm of serving the rhythm of seeking adventure the rhythm of speaking life that's where we started the fourth one is this idea of the rhythm of slowing down man if any culture needs this it's our culture in North America because everybody's running fast and we're trying to get things done and it's almost like our marriage and our parenting become a checklist you know have I done all the right things today for Jean have I been a good dad today and spent 10 minutes with each of the boys it shouldn't be that it's got to be that organic kind of thing but when it comes to this rhythm of slowing down hey I guess how do you identify it then how do you do it yeah I mean this is arguably my favorite rhythm I love this would be I think because I need it so much you know as a mom or I'm always looking at my to-do list and there is a lot of things on my to-do list with five kids and a house to run it's never empty and but if I'm not careful I can let myself get so consumed with getting things done that I miss out on the sweetness of family you know the best part of my day is never crossing off those things on my to-do list it's always the moments that I chose to slow down and savor whatever moment I have with my kids and you said what's the best way to practice this there are several ways we outline in the book but one of the easiest ways to start practicing this is just to let your kids take the lead and this has happened so many times for me I'm lost in laundry or getting things done around the house and one of my kids will invite me in to join them in some kind of activity whether it's getting on the floor and playing Legos or making a batch of you know pretend cookies or just going for a walk in the neighborhood and honestly I wish I could say I just stop what I'm doing and I just say a hearty yes to every single invitation but I don't always because I feel the weight of getting everything done but the times where I am able to slow down and say yes let's step into this moment together to build relationship those are always the best parts of the day and the truth is that's where our relationship with our kids is built yeah when we slow down to take that time to just be with them what we're communicating to them is I delight in you lastly is this idea of staying in awe of God this probably could be one of the best for the family who wants to take that one yeah we did we love this one it was kind of a sleeper rhythm where you both go wow and you when you when it hit it was like yes we need this I mean this plays itself out in various ways but like you know cultivating that in our kids helping them see the wonder of their life and life around them we see this play out in our current nine-year-old she sees a sunset and she makes sure everybody stops she's like mom dad I love that look at that and she's like let's take pictures of it and for us we look up and go okay there's a lot happening we're gonna look back on this on this marriage and his family and go okay what happened there was a blur and I'm sure for you guys the same thing you but we try in them as be as present as we can in the moment I'm a futuristic guy she's a nostalgic look back God has been good to help us so when we find ourselves in the midst of that moment where there's a trampoline kids are jumping the trampoline where they're hitting volleyball there's a fire in the backyard we look at each other and we talk about this in the book we call it the this is it moment where we don't ever have to look back and go like one day we wish we gonna know this is it this is where we will look back and reflect on these moments right here and so being in all posturing yourself with your hands open heart open eyes open to see the wonder that is this marriage and family that's the way we try and posture for ourself in our marriage and ultimately for our kids as well and think of that what a great place to end unfortunately but what a wonderful primer on what we need to be thinking of as parents you know your suggestions on how to slow down how to stay in awe speak life over your family those are simple things that if you do them I think you're gonna have a far healthier family right which is the goal and boy that speaks volumes to the people watching you who maybe don't know the Lord they're going something's different with your family how can you have that kind of joy isn't that good so and so good to have you thanks for being with us thanks for having us and let me turn to the listener and the viewer focus is here for you we have so many resources we have Christian counselors that can help you and talk with you and point you in a good direction we have seven traits of effective parenting assessment which is free just come and take that assessment it'll show you in a good way the things that you're doing well and pat you on the back then it'll say here's something you might want to do a little better it's a great tool yeah it's free again and we want you to get the rhythm of home by Chris and Jenny it is a great resource I wish I would have had this when my kids were younger or teens and implemented many of these things we did it by accident and we didn't do them all well so get this resource to build that kind of healthy home that you want yeah make a donation today of any amount either a monthly pledge or a one-time gift and we'll send a copy of the rhythm of home to you you can donate online we've got the link in the show notes or call 1-800 the letter a in the word family on behalf of the entire team thanks for joining us today for 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 if the fights with your spouse have become unbearable if you feel like you can't take it anymore there's still hope hope restored marriage intensives have helped thousands of couples like yours our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face them together call us at 1 8 6 6 8 7 5 2 9 1 5 we'll talk with you pray with you and help you find out 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