All of the work that we do is heart education. It's the education of the heart. We spend so much time trying to fill our kids' minds that we do that often to the neglect of filling their hearts. That's Jill Garner discussing how we can raise children who are morally courageous and grounded in truth and able to stand strong against all the temptations of today's world. Welcome to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller and thanks for joining us.
John, it's going to be a great discussion. You know, many people today would say that character education, it feels old-fashioned, you know, the napkin in the lap and yes ma'am, no sir. But these are great things to teach our children.
It's very important because the tongue expresses the heart, right? And I remember when my boys were younger, Jean and I decided we'd have them go through cotillion, which is what I didn't understand at the time. It's mostly ballroom dance training like the waltz and that and how then to treat a lady at that event and, you know, see her. A lot of manners and etiquette. A lot of manners. They did do some table manners, which was good. How to eat with 16 pieces of cutlery and, you know, so it was really good. But I had said the exact opposite to both my sons.
I said, yeah, this is mostly like manners and then you'll do a little dancing. Well, it's a lot of dancing and little manners, but it was good. And it was fun for them in the end.
The first night was a disaster for both of them, Jim and Troy. But I think so often we're losing sight of teaching our sons and daughters these wonderful things and these good truths. And today we're going to give parents the tools to cultivate the heart of your child so they can become everything that God has called them to be. And part of it is how to treat other people.
Yeah. And that springs out of that character that you were talking about with respect and humility and courage. Jill Garner, as I said, is with us again. She's passionate about teaching godly character and good manners to children. She's written a number of books, a curriculum called Manners of the Heart. She also speaks regularly about the importance of strong character. And today we're going to be hearing about a brand new book she's written.
It's called Strong Heart, Cultivating Humility, Respect and Resiliency in Your Child. And you can learn more about Jill and this great book on our website. We've got the link in the show notes. Jill, it's been a bit of time, like eight years since you've been on the program, but it's great to have you back. Wonderful to be back. So good. Now, one thing I want to get out there, Strong Heart. I want your definition of that, but we share a passion with movies. Brave Heart is my favorite movie. Yes. And I read that that is yours as well.
Yes, it is. What is Strong Heart getting at? Strong Heart.
The definition for Strong Heart is a morally courageous kid who is grounded in truth and fortified with self-respect, not self-esteem, but fortified with self-respect in that, you know, that's a good goal. You want to teach your children these things. You were, I think, involved in a fifth grade commencement. Maybe I don't know if this was your child, but this commencement ceremony at public school that you said left you thunderstruck. What would happen at an elementary school commencement ceremony leaving you thunderstruck?
Well, the best word I could come up with for the emotion that's a big one that I felt that day, because it was a very big emotion that day. I had been asked to be a commencement speaker for the fifth grade class. And this was a manners of the heart school who had been using our curriculum since first grade.
OK. So I went in with the assumption and the prayer and the hope that these kids were manners of the heart kids and that they would have the answers to some tough questions I wanted to ask. So the Lord gave me this thought, this vision of a strong heart, which had not been part of the curriculum.
It wasn't part of our vernacular at that point. And I took a big white board and I drew made a heart character with the big heart and the little arms, you know, in the head. And so I turned to the kids and I said, you're going to teach this lesson today. What do you believe should be in the heart of a strong heart? And all the kids started throwing out these amazing answers of respect and resiliency and compassion, obedience, which made the parents eyes open very a lot, really obedience. And so we filled the heart in with all these beautiful heart attributes.
And then I stood back and I said, OK, here's your lesson for today. I said, even some of your closest friends, as you move into middle school, are going to try to break through that strong heart. And I want you to understand what happens when you make the wrong choices and you're pulled into wrong things. I want you to understand what's going on in your heart. And so they gave me some scenarios which mortified me of the things that they already knew that might come before them.
Right. That probably were already coming before them. So I said, OK, you said yes when you should have said no. I raised a piece of the heart and began to, you know, take the heart apart. And so the kids knew, I hoped from their manners of the heart lessons, when the good stuff falls out, the bad stuff gets in. And so I said, what happens now to the love? And we put hate.
What happens to the respect disrespect? So we transform strong card into this heart full of terrible attributes. Then I asked a very profound question that brought the thunderstruck moment when I said, so now who is our strong heart become? And a little boy on the front row said, oh, he's a murderer.
Took my breath away and a little girl raised her hand and she said, oh, she must be really depressed. Now, as hard as it was to hear that, it was astounding to think fifth graders had that emotional maturity. Right.
To recognize the gravity of what we were teaching and of what they were learning. And so I agreed, yes, this could be with a heart full of these attributes. How do we fix this? Oh, first I ask, well, who's responsible for this heart trouble? And I waited and had to pause for quite a bit of time and a child finally raised his hand. It's a little boy.
And he said, strong heart broke his heart. I said, you're right. You're right. We're responsible, aren't we? And there you have accountability, which is one of the hardest things we have. Right.
To instill in our children to not blame, but take responsibility and accountability for their choices. So I said, all right, here's the good news. Here's the good news. Now we can fix this.
How are we going to fix this? And of course, this was public school. How my heart wanted to take them fully to Christ. Right.
Couldn't couldn't in that moment. And so I said, we're going to transform strong hearts. And now he makes the right choice. The hate turns back to love. We transform the heart, put the good heart attributes back in place.
And then I started drawing the circle, the outline around the heart. And I said, with each right choice, now your heart gets stronger and stronger. And now your heart becomes fortified. And now you become a leader because now those moments and those temptations come. But they're not going to penetrate your heart any longer.
Yeah, what great training. I mean that, you know, again, it's just rather simple, but profound. And that has to be encouraging.
You know, Luke six forty five. Jesus says that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so you're describing that nurturing of that capacity, but even teaching a child that your words are coming from some source, you know, it's just not being formed on your lips and you throw out these words and it's coming from your thoughts and your soul and who you are. Have you found that to be difficult to a concept for children to grasp? It sounds like they might be grasping it better than adults.
I find that to be true quite often. A second grader one time in one of our schools said, I get it. I said, well, what did you get?
What is it? And he said, what comes out of here starts down in here. I said, is second grader. I said, you're right. I said, you've got it. Because that's that's one of the things that we talk a lot about all of the work that we do is hard education.
Right. It's the education of the heart. We spend so much time, you know, trying to fill our kids minds that we do that often to the neglect of filling their hearts. And as you mentioned, the beautiful scripture in Luke that makes it so clear that the content of the heart, whether it's good, bad or ugly, whatever the content is, that's what determines what a child thinks, what a child says and what a child does. And so, you know, when we neglect this, we're going to have trouble.
We're going to have trouble here because this isn't filled with what they need. You know, thinking back a few years ago that I was in school, just thinking about that. But self-esteem education was already going when I was in school.
And, you know, I'm thinking a junior high school would have been 70s. And that was a big deal. You know, self-esteem.
How do we. And I think I understand it. I think the culture was seeing signs of stress relationally and breakdown and all that. So and and, you know, teen suicide and depression was there then it's higher now. But those issues were still present.
And so educators and folks thought we got to help these children with their self-esteem. So I get the motivation, but was it the right target? No, I'll say no, it was not.
Not at all. The back story a little bit is in the late 60s, early 70s. We were told that self-esteem was going to solve the problems of the 60s and the rebellion of the 60s. And then kids didn't feel good about themselves and they need to feel good about themselves. And we need to help them learn how to esteem themselves.
Well, the first red flag should have been that we missed that. Carl Rogers is really the one out of the clinical circles that you can hold responsible for telling us self-esteem was going to fix everything. Well, and he's the grandfather of humanism, should have been a red flag that this might not be an alliance with scripture or with God's. Yeah, God's created beings. I mean, that's where you get the information on the inside truth about humanity.
But go ahead. So we're going to go for self-esteem. That's going to fix everything. Right. We're going to go to self-esteem. It's going to fix everything. Well, has it?
No. As you mentioned, the suicide rates, the depression, the anxiety. Oh, my goodness. All the struggles of today. They've only been exacerbated through the wrong teaching of self-esteem. And I mean, I'm bold enough to say self-esteem is exactly the same sin as the sin of pride in the garden. It's the same thing as vainglory.
A lot of talk in 16, 1700 is about vainglory. The difference is that we understood both of those ills truly were ills of our society. Right. They weren't going to cure anything. They're actually diseases, ills that are bad and wrong. And they're going to create problems until it was reframed and called self-esteem.
And then that's when we fell for it. Yeah. But it's the same thing. But it is that me-ism. And it's a simpler way of saying it.
And that's what's if you could say that's what's come out of that dark garden. I wanted to catch, though, in this space talking about self-esteem. You related a story about your dad being mis-prescribed medication. And I thought it was a really powerful analogy. Set that up and how does it apply in this space?
Yes. My father was not a well man during my high school years. And he took lots of medication and he had little bottles across the top of the fireplace. And he would flip them upside down during the day as he took them to make sure he kept up with it. Because he was going to do everything that the doctors told him.
Because he wanted to stay here as long as he could. And he came in from, he had the junkyard, Fred and Sanford and Son. That was my dad. Oh, really? Haven't heard that in a long time. That's an old one for us old folks around here.
You'll remember that one. But that was very much my daddy and pretty much that kind of gruff personality as well. Very much who my daddy was. And he came in from the junkyard one day and the dong on the clock went off and it was time to take a pill. And he opened the medicine and he put it in his hand and he started grumbling.
Because he could grumble like a bear. And he grumbled and I said, daddy, what's wrong? He said, it's the wrong pill. And I said, well, you can get it straight tomorrow when you go back into town.
He goes, nope, nope, nope. Time to take it. Got to fix it now. I said, it's one pill.
It's okay. And he said, nope. And he jumped in the truck and headed back into town.
I felt so sorry for the pharmacist. And so he got there. He came about an hour later. He comes back.
We lived out in the country. He came back in and I met him at the door and I said, so, daddy, is everything okay? And he said, nope. And I said, OK, well, give me something.
So what's wrong? And he said, it's the wrong pill. I said, well, good. You got it straight. And he said, no, the one I've been taking for six weeks was not the right pill.
Oh, wow. And unfortunately, out of all those little medicine bottles, this was the most important one of all, because it was the one to control the fluid that was building up around his heart. And so it really was the most critical of all those little pills. And two weeks later, daddy left for heaven. And I believe with my whole heart, nothing ever happens in our lives that God does not intend to use for something, especially the tough stuff.
And I really believe I have that experience in my life back there. That was so hard. I was 18 at the time because I agree with you. I don't know of a more impactful way to make the point of how critically wrong this whole teaching of self-esteem has been. And then, you know, it was as if we were taking the wrong pill.
Right. We took the wrong medicine and it's darn near destroyed us. It's now we're into the second generation and now today's parents who were raised on the crux of the self-esteem movement. That's all they know.
It's amazing when I do a parenting seminar today, how the eyes open to hit when it's deer in the headlights. When I say your children don't need self-esteem, it doesn't even make sense. It doesn't make sense to them because that's all they know. They don't understand that it was a theory. And in fact, more than that really meant to destroy the wrong medicine.
Wow. Jill, another area that we seem to stumble with right now is that, you know, for the most part, the United States and Canada, too. I mean, we have resources. We've kind of scratching clawed to a better economy generally with the dips and all that. But, you know, most people have access to food.
Most people have access to housing. Most people, you know, have the things that make life a little more comfortable. And this big banner of happiness versus joy is what I'm getting at. And I think many people would see that as, you know, compatible.
But Christians, there's a big difference. And when it comes to Christian parenting particularly, we can make the same mistake where we focus on a child's happiness versus what would be more fortification for them for life, which would not be happiness. Joy is the key. Speak to that. Absolutely. Absolutely.
It is. You know, in part of that whole self-esteem movement, parents began to put their child's happiness ahead of their holiness, for one thing, but put their happiness above everything else. And I often tell parents that, you know, your job was not meant to make your child happy. That's not your first goal. Your first goal, I would love to hear parents say, is to help my child become humble.
For one thing, humble and holy. Right. But to mature, and so often in our quest to keep them happy moment by moment, we actually become an obstacle to our children discovering joy and ultimately finding maturity and becoming who they're meant to be. And Jill, how did you implement that or how do you promote that through your teaching and your speaking and writing? How do we as parents help our 10-year-old find something more than happiness?
Yes. The question has to begin with with helping them get outside themselves. You know, if we're looking for happiness, we're constantly looking for kind of what's in it for me.
You know, what's somebody going to do for me? And worried about, as I said, that moment to moment satisfaction rather than helping our children take a long view and looking toward how am I going to contribute and give towards someone else to help them experience those moments. Right. And when I look at that, I find that joy because we know as adults that a deeper sense of joy comes from a sense of satisfaction that we know that we have given our all. We have given the best that we have to give. And that's where that sense of joy comes from.
Not what someone's given me, what someone's done for me. Yeah. You know, Jill, in the opposite perspective of this, too, and I want your thoughts on this. We can fail to teach our kids to say no. Like, no, thank you. You know, when it comes to boundaries. And I may have not done quite the job I should have done to be completely honest, because I think my boys sometimes I feel like they can struggle to say no to their friends, you know, doing something or nothing bad. I'm just saying, you know, they'll tell me later. Yeah, I really didn't want to go do such and such, but I didn't know how to tell them no.
You know, that kind of thing. So how do we equip our kids to have the confidence to be able to say. And, you know, obviously, when it comes to bad behavior, drinking and drugs or whatever it might be, obviously.
But how do we help them just to say no to something that they don't want to do? I really think that that leads us really into humble confidence, because I really believe that's where it comes from. You know, our kids have to know one important question. I think we kind of I think we've lost it a bit.
I don't hear it as much today as I used to is why. And our kids need to know who they are and why they're here. And when they know those, when they can answer those questions, that enables them to say no to a lot of things.
Like you're saying, not just the bad stuff, but that no thank you. Be able to say no thank you to certain requests that are that are brought before them. Jill, you survey parents frequently on what is most important. And I love these words. They're really critical for us as parents to understand than how to instill these into our kids.
But resiliency, respect, humility, humility. That's a that's an interesting one. I had a fun story with Trent, my oldest, who I was teaching both Trent and Troy how to ride bicycles in our driveway. So I put out the orange cones.
I had these many orange cones that I could put out and kind of made a track. And, you know, Trent's two years older. So Trent, he got it down pretty quickly.
And he's trying to do the no hands thing. And, you know, he's taunting Troy, two years younger, a little bit, saying, look at me, look at me. And I say to him, be careful, because pride goes before the fall.
Like three seconds later, bang, he falls over. I mean, it's probably one of the best lessons I could ever give him. And Troy reinforces it and goes, see, Trent, pride goes before the fall. Probably the best lesson in humility I could ever provide.
But the timing was perfect. But speak to that idea of getting those three resiliency, respect or humility inculcated into your kids, because those can be tough to find ways to do that. They're hard concepts, really, especially in today's world. One of the moms in one of our surveys said that out of those three, I was asking a lot of parents, you know, which is when I was working on the book, you know, which is the most important humility, respect and resiliency, which you spend most time on. And no one really, except maybe with two or three people, said humility. And one mom, though, very wisely said, oh, it has to be humility, because that's the basis of respect and resiliency, which I thought was very insightful.
Right. I thought it was very insightful. You know, in humility, I'll speak to that one first. We really, I think, have misconstrued a bit of what we think of as humility and in today's world. So often people think of a humble person, you know, it's kind of a doormat or they'll think of a person, a humble person is someone who might be less than whatever.
Fill in that blank. And the truth is, if we go to scripture to find a definition of humility, you know, scripture tells us in the Old Testament, the most humble man on earth was Moses. And, you know, you think, wait, wait, Moses and humility in today's world.
I don't know that I would really put those two together. And yet when you look back at the original Hebrew of of humility, the root of the word humility, it really means standing in your God given place. And how interesting it is when you think of humility.
It's more to do with the why behind your actions is what makes that action a humble one or not. Right. So if what's behind our actions is so that we use. So that's it.
Managers of the heart all the time is heart checkers. So that is going to help someone else. If today I'm going to help John because I see John struggling with something. And I know I know how to do that.
I've got that answer. I'm going to share it and help it. Not for anything of return. But that's I'm actually that's exhibiting humility because I'm using something that I've learned to benefit someone else.
It's no benefit to me. Now, if I'm doing that for John, because I know in two weeks I've got to hit him up for a really big favor. And I'm going to need him to do something big for me. So I'm going to butter him up today. Well, there's nothing about humility behind that action.
Right. So it has to do a lot with the why behind what I'm doing. Am I doing what I'm doing? Am I working really hard to be the very best in my class in in math?
Am I really I want to that number one spot I'm working hard, but it's not so that the bright light shines on me. It's so that I can then use that knowledge that I've learned in order to benefit others. That's humility when I appreciate the emphasis on that. I think it is a difficult concept depending upon the age of your children. I mean, they'll learn it. This is part of life. But it is interesting that scripture says God says be humble for I am humble.
So it's actually an attribute of God's character to be humble. One or two things a parent can do with a 10 year old, 13 year old. You know, when they start to understand these concepts, what are some things that are tangible that a parent can do to bring humility?
I'm laughing because I'm sure a lot of parents are going, I could teach my kid. But, you know, it has to be positive. Any thoughts? Yes. In a positive way.
One thing that comes to my mind is that checking the the attitude behind the action. You know, as much as my 10 year old being kind, as I mentioned earlier, kind of with John, is my 10 year old being kind to someone, you know, for looking for something to get in return? Or am I learning to be kind?
You're pressing that. Am I being kind simply because it's the right thing to do? That has a lot to do with humility, doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not for gain, not doing what I'm doing for anything that I'm going to get, but doing the right thing simply because it's going to benefit someone else. I think, too, one of the things I tried to do in that case of humility is there's plenty of stuff going on in the culture that you're particularly your older sons and daughters can connect with, probably from 10 up. But using those examples where a lack of humility caused great embarrassment or drove somebody to very bad behavior, and then translating that into what you heard in the news.
You know, I heard this the other day. I tried to do that as well so that it's not directly related to them, but they can observe when humility isn't present, what happens and the need for humility. Yeah, that sports. Sports brings that to mind, too, of the characters that are striving to be number one versus being the best because striving to be the best is about humility. Striving to be number one is about getting the bright light, getting the bright light to shine on you. But if you're striving to be your best so that, again, we can serve others. Right.
It's the idea of being all I can be so that I'm of service and benefit to others. But that's that's a good one. You know, these are little dial corrections for the parent.
You know, if you're not observing that or you're not sensitive to that approach, you could easily miss it. Right. So make sure if your kids are in sports, that's what they're going for.
Being the best, not being number one and look at me. It just feels like that's where the whole culture is at. Then we as Christian parents have to fight that that stream and make sure our kids are gaining the best out of that experience. It's who they're competing with. Yeah. Because the culture is telling them to compete with everyone else for that number one spot. And as Christian parents, we need to be telling our children that the only person we're going to compete with is ourselves.
Right. We're competing with ourselves to be the best we can be, to be to everyday strive to be a little better than I was the day before. Well, Jill, this is a great start. We've finished one day, but I'd like to come back and keep talking. There's much more content in your book, and I want to recommend you get a hold of us here at Focus on the Family. And like we often do, if you can make a gift of any amount, we'll send you a copy of Jill's book Strong Heart as our way of saying thank you for being part of the ministry. We can help save marriages. We can help parents be better parents. We could save a baby's life by helping a mother choosing not to abort that child. So many good things that an investment goes for.
You get a great resource. You become part of the ministry. You know, only about 3% of the listeners actually end up supporting, and I think if we can just move that to 5%, think how much more we could do together to impact this world for the Kingdom of Christ. So let's do it.
Get a hold of us. Make a $5 gift, $10 gift, and let's do ministry together. Yeah, and I'll encourage you to consider a monthly donation on a regular, ongoing basis if you're in a spot to do that. Jim and Jean do that.
Dina and I do that. We support Focus on a regular basis, which just helps us as a ministry kind of smooth out the budget. So please be a monthly sustainer as you can, or make a one-time gift. Either way, we'll say thank you in advance for your generosity. And be sure to request your book Strong Heart, Cultivating Humility, Respect, and Resiliency in Your Child when you get in touch. You can donate when you call 800, the letter A and the word family, 800-232-6459, or online.
We've got all the details in the show notes. 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 continue the conversation with Jill and once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Your marriage can be redeemed, even if the fights seem constant, even if there's been an affair, even if you haven't felt close in years. No matter how deep the wounds are, you can take a step toward healing them with a Hope Restored Marriage Intensive. Our biblically based counseling will help you find the root of your problems and face challenges together. We'll talk with you, pray with you, and help you find out which program will work best. Call us at 1-866-875-2915.
