Intentional Parenting - Memories, Presence, Models, and Peace, Part 1

How would you describe your home's atmosphere? Is it defined by chaos, anger, hostility, or calmness, love, encouragement?

If it's not the latter, stay with me. That's what we'll talk about today on Living on the Edge. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We are a discipleship-driven ministry on a mission to encourage Christians everywhere to live like Christians. Thanks for joining us as we continue our series, Intentional Parenting, taught by author and speaker, Doug Fields. For the last handful of programs, Doug's been encouraging us parents by identifying specific ways we can be exceptional moms and dads for our kids. If you've missed any part of this series along the way, catch up anytime at livingontheedge.org or through the Chip Ingram app.

With that, here's Doug with today's talk. We are in part three of this series that we've been doing where I've been talking about 10 actions that all kids need from caring adults. And that caring adult could be a parent.

That's mostly what I'm going after. But really, grandparents, aunts, uncles, mentors, coaches, teachers, anybody who's not a hermit, whose life intersects that of a young person. What do all kids need? We've been unpacking that.

I wish I could spend a lot of time at the front end catching you up for those of you that missed, but it's all online that you can listen to that if you did miss it, and I encourage you to do that. But basically, what we've been saying is that to have an end game in mind. What would it look like if the kids that we were entrusted to parent and to care for and to mentor had a sense of confidence and character and convictions and compassion, and ultimately were competent people? That they weren't just taking up space on this playground that we call Earth, that they could actually do something with their God-given skills. So we have that end in mind. What do we do to build into that?

And I've been given these, so far, six actions. We've talked about strong belief, ongoing affection, encouraging words, serious fun, delicate discipline, and activated responsibility. Now last week, I got an email from one of you, and it was great. Here's what he wrote. I told him I would keep him anonymous.

I asked for his permission, but said, I'll keep you anonymous. After church, we came home and we sat our six, seven, and nine-year-old daughters down. My wife and I said, quote, your mom and I learned at church today about being better parents. We're going to have some consequences around here when you make bad choices, and we aren't going to yell anymore. The seven-year-old said, I'd rather you yell. The nine-year-old said, you guys shouldn't go to church anymore. I could just see those kids saying that, like, oh wait, things are going to change?

You're going to mess with my world that you've already created? I mean, parents are weird. I mean, I think of my own parents.

I've shared this once with you before. I grew up as a teenager in the 70s here in Orange County, and I wouldn't say it was an abusive home, but I would say it this way. My dad was an accountant, and my mom was a seamstress. So if you put those two together, you just described hell for a teenager.

Because the accountant dad would say, we can't afford it, and the seamstress mom would say what? I will make it for you. So as a teenager, I go through school in Orange County in homemade clothes. Now, by show of hands, how many of you remember from the 70s OP shorts?

Let me see. Oh yeah, many of you. Now, if you don't, OP shorts, they were it. You were cool if you had OP shorts. OP stood for Ocean Pacific. This is where trends start in Southern California.

I'm right in the heart of it in Orange County. But my dad would not pay $28 for a pair of shorts. I don't care if they're lined with gold, Douglas. You know, that's the lecture that I got. So my sweet mom said, I'll make you a pair. And before I could say no, my mom had whipped out a pair of OP shorts, corduroy. From a distance, they look just like OP shorts until you got up close on the pocket. There was no, which is exactly the point of wearing labels. I mean, if labels weren't important to teenagers, you know, and we all make fun of our teenagers now.

Oh, you're so materialistic because we forget we were too. But so my mom, I said, mom, these aren't OP shorts. These are just generic brand shorts. I'm not wearing these.

So two days later, I get them on my pillow with a bow. My mom had embroidered, not OP, because she was scared of the infringement police. But she had embroidered DP on the pockets for Doug's pants. That was what I grew up in. But as I look back at my parents, they did a lot of things great. They did a lot of things goofy, but they were sincere.

They were sincere in what they tried to do and what they tried to pass on to me. And actually that that memory moves us to the the seventh action that I think all kids need from carrying adults. And that is positive memory. Healthy kids have great memories. So when it comes to our childhood, there's a flood of things that come back. And personally, I'm thankful for more good memories than than bad memories.

But truth be told, no family is perfect. And you as a parent, you are going to create some bad memories. You're going to act like a child as an adult and do something that's going to wound your kids. You're going to yell too much. You're going to create shame. You're going to get you're going to get angry and use terrible words.

That's going to happen. But how beautiful that we get this long amount of time as parents that we can create more positive memories than the negative memories. Because in addition to my mom making my clothes, I can actually see things in my mind when I go back to when I was four or five years old learning to ride a bike. And I can remember my dad pushing me from behind the bike and I can still remember my mom clapping, partly because her arms bicep thing just wiggled.

I mean, everything clapped when my mom clapped. And I still I still remember the joy on her face. I remember my dad coming home from work one time. He had taken my tennis racket to get a restrung. And instead of getting any restrung again, my accountant dad, he brought a brand new tennis racket. And I just remember the thrill of being surprised by that. I remember my mom was at all of my games.

I could hear her cheering, which was easy because I sat on the bench, but I could I could still hear. I can remember my dad coming home and and shooting hoops with me in the front yard or playing catch. And he wouldn't even take off his his suit.

I mean, some days when he had a bad day, you could tell it's like, Douglas, let me go change. But I just I have that memory of my dad coming home, getting out of the car, bam, catching the football, shooting hoops and in a suit. I remember vacations, driving across country. I remember as a little boy going through Mississippi and wondering where Mr. Sippy was. And my mom just laughing so hard and the dog barking. And I gave the dog a lifesaver because his breath was bad.

He choked on and threw up on my sister. I mean, I remember that stuff. See, our lives are this are this museum and memories contribute to that museum. And every memory is like a frame in a film of one's life. And I know for some of you.

Your museum is a little darker. That your museum has memories of pain and hurt and abuse. And honestly, I am so, so sorry.

And I don't pretend to understand your pain, but I do know that you can be the adult to stop that cycle and not pass that on to your kids. That I know you want a brighter future for them. And you can redeem that. You can redeem this whole idea of family by creating these these positive memories. See, memories make up the foundation of who we are. And I will tell you that memories are very biblical. Actually, God wants us to remember.

If you were to take a scope through the entire Bible, you would see the remember word used a lot. As a matter of fact, there's several memory builders, one called the Sabbath. It's a day to remember and to worship God, the creator, the Sabbath. There's the feasts, which were to remember that God is holy and he is a provider. There's communion.

Why do we celebrate the Lord's Supper? To remember what Jesus did on the cross for for us. In the Old Testament, there was all these rocks and memorials to remember what God had done.

Take a look at Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, chapter four, verse nine says, only be careful and watch yourself closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart. As long as you live, teach them to your children and to their children after them. Grandparents were to create memories.

God is saying that which is good, remember it, not only remember it, infuse it and solidified into your your heart and your soul. So as a parent, building memories is not optional. You are building memories. The question is, are they going to be positive memories or negative memories?

So when the frames of experience are all spliced together in one narrative, is it going to be a positive narrative or a negative narrative? I mean, are your kids going to remember a mom who was a nag or a mom who was playful? A dad who wasn't present or a dad who was playful? Are they going to remember their parents' marriages? They were always, they always argued. Are they going to remember their parents' marriage that mom and dad were crazy about one another? They can remember parents who yelled all the time or parents who laughed a lot. See, there are going to be memories. Grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, they're going to have memories of you too.

Remember, your life intersects the life of other kids. Are they going to remember grandpa the grouch? Grandma the grump? Take your shoes off at the front door? You've got plastic on all your furniture because, you know, they're coming over. You're more interested in Wheel of Fortune reruns than playing with them. Now you've got to make memories.

Let me go really practical. I put a bunch of these in your notes. You know, the first just said, make up traditions. If your kids are little, start now. What are the traditions in your home? What will your kids say? Every birthday we did this or every first day of school or last day of school or Sunday night was spaghetti night or every holiday we did this. You know, my dad would wake me up on flag day wearing a flag, you know, nothing else, just a flag.

And, you know, it's high potential for memory and therapy. But traditions add to the flavor. I actually brought this to show you because this is something we do.

My kids have been doing this since we were little. You go to a Chili's or this is Outback, you'll go coconuts for our shrimp. And we take these and we play mouth catch with them.

And we have contests. Who can catch them? So you fling them across the table like that and the other person has to catch them in their mouth. So it is really a simple game. You just go, ready?

One, two, three. And, you know, we don't have that big of a table. But it's not as easy as it sounds. We did it when we were little and you're going, Fields, you are insane. Well, my kids did not grow up in a bland home. My oldest is 25 in a serious relationship. We were out to dinner a couple of weeks with her boyfriend in Outback. She's the one who brought it up. Dad, see how good John is?

Okay, let's go. You know, that's what I mean by a tradition. Then I put in your notes, capture memories, photos. Every photo has a story behind it. You know, it is so easy now with everything, photos and videos being on your phone. It ought to be happening all the time. When our kids were growing up, we would have contests.

I would just give them the camera and we would have photo contests at different places. And the ones that were the funnest to them is when Cody, my son, took a picture of a guy on a beach with a speedo. I mean, he thought that was so funny. He was like a seven-year-old. I almost got the guys at a speedo. You know, he'd never seen a speedo before.

He's in therapy. But, you know, a cockroach on a hotel in Panama City Beach, Florida. I mean, people falling asleep on a train that we were on. We were taking pictures of them.

That all tells the story. Capture those memories. I put in there, prioritize vacations. Because here in Orange County, we think, you know, there's just never a good time to take a vacation.

That's true. So that's why you've just got to get it on the calendar and say, we're going. All family research, by the way, points back to vacations being the most, creating the most memories for kids. And it's not where you go that they remember.

It's what you did with where you go. Several years ago, I spent too much money taking my old family to Maui. You know what my kids remember about going to Maui? Dad, remember when we bought fireworks, which were legal there? And we found that empty parking lot and we shot off fireworks.

That's what I remember. That trip cost me thousands of dollars. I could have done that in Barstow and been an innovator. OK, so you prioritize vacations. I put there create adventures. What are the adventures for us? Every spring break, we take our kids to Mexico and work in an orphanage or those who are less privileged, taking jackets to homeless people on Sunday nights, going grunion hunting at midnight.

If you don't know what grunion hunting is, look it up. You can all do it at the beach. If you have boys, anything that expresses intrigue or mystery or danger or automatic weapons, you know, all that stuff. You know, my son's birthday, when he graduated high school, I had kids coming up to me. Mr. Fields, do you remember that time when we were at?

They all remembered me. Take I have some friends who live in Coto and at night we would sneak onto the Coto golf course and dressed in camouflage, face paint. We had a pillowcase and a flashlight and you go golf ball hunting and it's not going to make sense to you until you try it. But when you put your flashlight in a bush, all of a sudden those balls, just the golf balls just light up like Easter egg hunts. And we would walk out of there with hundreds of golf balls. So memorable.

I think it's illegal. But here's my point in all of this. Your kids would rather be in a beat up, broken Volkswagen van, headed toward adventure, than a really nice Mercedes parked in the driveway.

That's my point. How else you create memories and start this as soon as you can is start writing your kids letters. Write letters. Why?

Because at some point, here's what they're going to ask. Does anybody love me? Does anybody even know I'm alive? There's tension in my life and stress and pressure.

And is it even does does anyone even care about me? Then just imagine them having a box full of letters from mom or dad or grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, coach, mentor, teacher. Here's Exhibit A. See, building memories is going to get you an A in parenting, and it is it is never too late to start. I mentioned in the first message that my mom died a couple of years ago in hospice, right in right in the home. And as my mom was dying, she knew she was dying.

She knew she had just weeks, if not days to live. What's interesting about her is that she never said during that time, as she's surrounded by her kids and her friends and just these sweet people that had invested in her life, never once said, Hey, Doug, would you go to the attic and get me all my bowling trophies and just surround them? Could you could you wrap me up in all the quilts that I made?

Could you could you bring me a PowerPoint presentation of my 401k and a pie chart? None of that. You know what? When when mom died, it was photos. It was stories. It was memories.

Everything summing up your life. So my point. Memories matter. And good parents make intentional memories. All kids need that.

Number eight. Well, all kids need in carrying adults is they need consistent presence, consistent presence. The way you spell presence is T I M E. One of the major contributing factors to healthy kids when you investigate their life. It's present parents that kids need your time. And I realize it is very difficult to see tangible results when you give them time, especially when when they're little.

But presence is so crucial to their development. And I know there are some of you in here. You subscribe to the the theory of quality time over quantity time. And if that's you, let me just tell you, you're wrong. OK, you're just wrong. I mean, you can argue with me all you want when you get to heaven.

You'll you'll see I was right on this one. People who subscribe to quality over quantity, they either don't understand parenting or they're just trying to ease the guilt of their own their own mistakes. See this idea of presence. It is a challenge to our priorities. It is always a challenge to our priorities.

And if I'm honest, our selfishness. I've mentioned this a few times in the series. If you are a single parent. You're my hero. You are.

You're my hero. I honor you for working so hard to hold things together. I really do believe in God's economy and his sovereignty, that he is going to bless you as a single parent and your kids are going to rise up and call you blessed. But what kids won't call bless are not the parents who are working to survive, but the parents who are overworking to drive the nicer cars, to live in the better zip codes, to have all the the toys, to stroke their egos.

And then blame the kids or the spouse that I have to work so much to maintain this lifestyle. So your kids would rather have your presence than your presence with a T, your money, your toys. Presence matters. And this idea again of presence, this is very big to God.

You guys think about this. This whole playground that we call Earth was brought into existence by God's presence. Then God said, I love humanity so much and I want to restore humanity to me. God became present. In the person of Jesus, the God man, take a look. John one fourteen. So the word we're talking Jesus here, the word became human and made his home among us.

We can stop there. The word became human and made us almost. Now watch what happens then, because after Jesus rises from the dead and ascends to heaven, you read and move into the book of Acts. What do we have with presence? He gives us the presence of his spirit. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Take a look at Ephesians three, verse sixteen. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. See, presence is big to God.

And now he's given us his unlimited resources. I as a dad, I can become more present in my kids' lives. He and Chip will join us here in studio with some additional thoughts about today's program in just a minute. Well, like a well-constructed building, good parenting requires hard work and a well-thought-out plan. In this series, Doug shares ten ways moms and dads can better engage their kids in areas where parents have traditionally struggled. Learn more about a parent's sacred responsibility to care for, love, and direct their sons and daughters. For more information about this series or our resources, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or LivingOnTheEdge.org. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now, and Chip, as you get the chance to interact and engage with people worldwide, what are their biggest struggles and concerns, and how is Living on the Edge stepping in and meeting these needs?

Thanks so much, Dave. As I travel around the United States and speak at churches, college campuses, pastors' conferences, military personnel, there is one theme that just keeps coming out. It doesn't matter where I speak or whom I'm with. It's the family, it's communication, and it's relationships. Now, here's the thing. There's a lot that goes into building a strong family. Great communication and doing that for different groups is certainly a challenge. But that's why we're committed to continuing to teach the Bible regularly, practically, and relevantly. We're committed to develop group resources and online courses that help people personally apply the truth to their life. And we're committed to having fun with families and creating tools that allow families to get together and enjoy one another and share their hearts.

Each one of those has their place, and here's what I would ask you. Would you be willing to help us create these and then get them in the hands of families all across America? It takes resources, and I'm so grateful for those of you that pray and partner with us financially, and I want to thank you first.

And second, if you don't partner with us financially now, would you consider partnering financially and helping us do what families desperately need? Thanks so much for praying about it and then doing whatever God chose you to do. Thanks, Chip. As you prayerfully consider your role in this ministry, I want to remind you that every gift is significant. When you partner with Living on the Edge, you multiply our efforts and resources in ways only God can do. Make your donation at livingontheedge.org or through the Chip Ingram app, or if it's easier, text donate to 74141.

That's the word donate to 74141. We appreciate your support. Well, with that, here's Chip and Doug to share some additional thoughts for us to think about from today's message. Doug, as we wrap up today's program, you talked about parents being present in the lives of their kids. And you said that the way you spell love to a child today is T-I-M-E. And you know, parents are busy, there's careers, there's sports, there's traveling teams, there's school.

It is really easy to provide things for our kids and not spend time. And what I found, I don't know about you, in fact I'd love to hear maybe how you have done that, but I actually put it on my calendar in my schedule. I used to have sort of a work schedule and then a family schedule. And what I kept finding was that the family schedule got bumped. And I finally said just one calendar, and I actually had dates and appointments with my kids, dates and appointments with my wife. And then sometimes this would be family, all of us together. Could you just give us some practical, how could we get that more operational, and maybe even touch on, if you will, what are some of the lies that we believe that we don't spend time and we substitute other stuff instead of it?

Well, first off, that's a great idea, Chip. I mean, one calendar that includes all the family activities is a very practical reminder of the how in spending time with family. And this idea of time and presence in a child's life is very important.

And it's also the one that creates so much guilt with parents, and I get it. I mean, we're all busy, we have lots to do, and so do our kids. And in our book, Contentional Parenting, we talk about this idea of consistent presence rather than constant presence.

And there's a big difference there. See, most of us can't be constantly present in our child's life because we have job and career and responsibilities, but we can be consistently present in their life. And there's no question that to even be consistently present, it requires great sacrifice. And sacrifice is at the core of parenting.

That's what intentional parents do. Time is one of the few realities in our world, right? We can't make more time. If you're rich or you're poor, we all have 1,440 minutes a day to steward.

No more, no less. And those 1,440 minutes, they force us to calendar and plan and sacrifice. So you look at your calendar every week and make sure you have family time blocked out.

Maybe it's less time at the driving range and you sacrifice your golf handicap. Every week counts, every day counts, hours counts, moments count. So don't allow the lies that we need more of this thing or this stuff or a bigger house or this boat because that lie will cause you to work more and you're going to miss out on being with your children.

Intentional parenting requires sacrificial choices. Thanks for that reminder, Doug. Just before we close, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now. And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has provided encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever. So thank you to those who support us in prayer. God is doing amazing things. We'll listen next time as our guest teacher, Doug Fields, continues his series, Intentional Parenting. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.