I'm at today's is going to be a little different as it usually is. What was supposed to happen first was Connie was going to talk about early childhood language development because that's her her field academically. Then long about Wednesday, she remembered that she had baccalaureate this morning. So you get three minutes of George paraphrasing Connie on that. Not the same. And then we're going to talk about. corrective conversations as in discipline. Then in terms of inspiring children, the other side, inspiring under good works, going to interview a couple of you all. Don't panic because those people know who they are. Eric and Stephanie. But that's going to be a conversation and switching Joel switching the microphone on. Can we do it? Do we have a means of not having to turn on and off when we get to that portion? Hello. Are we there? OK, good. It's always nice when the real doctor comes in and takes care of things for early conversations with with kids. I was in a conference this past week with a guy who is a world class expert on brains. He has a lot of them. One thing he mentioned was that by body weight, the brain makes up 2% of our body weight, but consumes 20% of our energy. For kids, babies, those numbers practically double. So there's a lot going on up there in the young mind. And I think sometimes as parents, as a dad, we kind of think, well, I'll be glad when this kid is big and becomes a real person and he and I can do cool guy things together. And we overlook, we tend to overlook those things because he's not a real person yet. But those are key years, key times. A child is born with a hundred billion neurons, which is the same thing that we as adults, most of us are supposed to have. But the difference between a child brain And adult brain is all those neurons are not yet connected with synapses. And the connections are made by working the brain. And one of the key ways of doing that with a baby is by talking to him or to her and having conversations and playing with and cuddling and reading. Connie and I have often quoted my mother who would roll her eyes when something would happen with one of our babies and say, oh, he understands a whole lot more than you think he does. And through the years, we have been continually impressed with how true that was. In week one, A child can recognize voices, can follow objects, can express preferences. Why can they express preferences? Reflect moods as in the parents moods. If they're on edge, if they're happy, whatever reflect moods, make eye contact week one. It is believed that the child has recognition of something, some of those things, even in the womb. So it would be a gross mistake to say, I'll wait until the kid becomes a real person and then we'll do neat things together. He's a real person already. though obviously doesn't come as quickly as crying, for instance. How many of you have any of you done sign language, baby sign language? OK. I was sign language had not been invented, I think, when when we had our children, but Our son and daughter-in-law use sign language with Gabriel and I was hugely impressed with that. I would just say those of you who have not and are looking towards future babies, I want to talk to one of those who raised their hands just now on baby sign language because it is really cool. And one thing it illustrates is that the kid can express thoughts. I'm through. I want more. I love you. It doesn't have the coordination to speak it, but the thoughts are there and they can communicate that with sign language. And I would demonstrate, but it would show you how illiterate I am in that in that word world. But understand to the children when they're very young. Well, all of us really. There's two kinds of vocabulary. There's expressive vocabulary. These are words I'm familiar with. I can use them in a sentence. And there's receptive. I hear the word used. I understand it. Small children have very high receptive vocabulary. And just because they can't say ostentatious doesn't mean they don't know when you're acting that way. don't be fooled. Going back to my mother, they understand a whole lot more than they think than you think they do. And those who know these things, like my wife, say that if you have conversation with small infant and as they as they grow up, then through those early years, if you have conversation through those years, can make the difference between a child at the time of kindergarten having a vocabulary of 2500 words as opposed to a vocabulary of 5000 words. So it does make a difference in there, not only in their development, but in your ability to communicate with them and in their being used to responding to you in that way. I, forgive me for a couple of examples. These are not Connie's, but when I found I was going to be doing this, this came to my mind. When our first son, John, was real little, we kind of, we were so thrilled to have him. And we didn't lack for conversation with him because one or the other of us would provide the words for him. And we were good about that, you know, I would say he's I'm crying because I want daddy, you know Or mommy change me. I Just intuitively knew those things But but I recall one time John he may have been crawling, but he was definitely not yet walking He was he was pre verbal But somehow he got a 32 ounce glass of ice water and got himself up over the shower bar where his mother was taking a shower and dumped that ice water in on mommy. To my day, I don't understand how he got up there. He belly laughed about that for five minutes. Even though he didn't have any vocabulary, he didn't know what was going on, but he knew that that was funny, which is to say they understand a whole lot more than you think they do. But the John as puppet, if you will, actually started when he was about, well, less than two hours old. Connie went into labor on a Friday evening John was not born until Sunday afternoon. Connie at that point looked like she had been in a kickboxing match with somebody with really long legs. But but there she is with up in her room with with John resting against her legs, looking so she could see this child for which she had worked so hard. And John's there looking around. You see the eyes going back and forth. And one of us said, God sent me from heaven, and I want to see the family that he gave to me. And this is one of those things, I don't know anything, nothing else has come to my mind like this, where it doesn't really matter whether that's true or not, as long as you believe it and act on it. that he is looking around to see the family that God gave him. And we wanted to make him feel welcome and loved. And he had had a stressful last couple of days too. But it provided a way to relate to him, and if you will, give us handles for the love that we felt for this little bundle. Our little storytelling there probably wasn't literal reality in one sense, but then I think about it more and maybe it was reality. But regard your babies as real people. Talk to them, have conversations with them. This point will shift into larger conversations with larger people and about reality, which is dealing with dealing with the kid about sin. And if you would hand out front page. One of the, if you will, down at the bottom of that front page, and this falls in line with Brad's message this morning, suffering. We don't mind suffering, being treated poorly, if we feel like we deserve it. But when we're trying to do good, as Christ was here to do good, and then are abused for it, that's pretty bad. But in this case, Younce, the author of this book, makes the comment that this is an area that, as parents, we need to deal with. None of us like our good to be evil spoken of. Here, I've tried to do my best for this kid, slaved, all of that. And this is the appreciation I get. How do you react to that? And this has application not only to children, but happens a lot in the workplace. I was trying to do good and they dumped on me. Are you going to get over it or are you going to get bitter about it? In the case of the kid, are you going to retaliate or are you going to go forward? So remember that this precious little lovable bundle is in reality a cute little heathen. And we'll treat you like that sometimes. But our goal is to show the gospel to them. Then up above that is a quotation from the, whatever, from, this book, Instructing Child's Heart, on formative instruction. Let's, in essence, let's get out in front and form the child's ideas and avoid problems later. Ephesians 429 in the ESV, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those to hear. In the Amplified, it expanded a little bit, only such speech as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need that it may be a blessing and give grace to those who hear it. So, though we have been in a situation with the child, that ungrateful little... We read Ephesians 4.29. Is it okay to vent? To belittle the kid? I'm going to make you feel that big. I'm going to squish you like a grape. You know the metaphors. But in essence, I'm going to show my superiority to the kid. Do we see that in Ephesians 4.29? Well obviously, the message of that verse is that we need to empty ourselves and do what is good and beneficial for the spiritual progress of others. in this case, our children. The last paragraph there under parents as teachers, I think is important and I will read it, follow along. Beware, do not use the scriptures to beat up your children. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath. If you beat up your children with God's word, they will shrink from it when they are young and flee from it when they live independently. We must be sensitive to the times when our children feel overwhelmed by us verbally. Bring God's word with care and compassion, even when it speaks to correct and rebuke. And we will note in a few minutes that probably the best time for teaching, well, certainly not when you're angry, but Instruction is better done independently from the offense. And the toodle thing, got the kids sitting on your lap, you've read through toodle. stay on the track no matter what, that's a good time for instruction. Got that lovable little bundle there and he or she is not feeling any pain, they're happy, it's almost bedtime. That's a much better time to instruct than when you're investigating the missing cookie from the cookie jar or whatever. If you turn to page two up at the top. And this is from the everyday talk book. But we we have the author posits a situation where the trash needs to be taken out. It is the child's chore to do it. Several days have passed. The trash has not gone out. And here are nine ways that the parent might express that, remind the child that something needs to happen. And what I'd like to do is talk about a few of these and get your reaction to them. First one, Joshua. You want to be helpful, you can take out the garbage sometime when you have a moment. What about that as a way to handle it? Mandy? So what if he doesn't want to be helpful? But he just says no and he never does it. If I wait for Caroline to want to be helpful, I'll never get anything done. Yeah. And in this case, You never come to an act of disobedience because it's. Thanks for giving me that I want to. Yeah. Thanks. But no, thanks, mom. I'm fine where I am. Very good. Also notice that nothing is said about timing. So in reality, you don't even know. Maybe tomorrow she'll feel about it. You know, so you never find a smoking gun in essence. How about number two? Josh, take out the garbage right now. And I would say, you know, in several of these, the author omitted the middle name, which we all know is important to make sure you've got the right Joshua. Number two, take out the garbage right now. Two exclamation marks. Is this the way to do it? It sounds like she expects to be disobeyed instead of expecting to be obeyed. She's already on the defensive, already upset with him before he's had a chance to obey or disobey. Okay. In the back, Becky. I think if you expect kindness from your own child, like teaching them to say, please, and you should probably model it for them. So you'd say, would you please take out the trash? Yeah, I think. And we we can read into those two exclamation marks, not just one. This is given pretty sharply. I think there's an element of provoking the child to wrath. And I think Brad would say that that applies to mothers as well as fathers. Becky says no. OK, third one, Joshua, I asked you yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Would you please find the time to take out the trash? It's it's clear that there's been no follow up with the first request. So I would say that three often happens and then two happens when you're really irate now because they haven't obeyed. But you haven't enforced it the first and second and third time. And in essence, saying I've done this over and over again is reinforcing that I'm not in charge. I'm along for the ride. Joshua is in charge. And again, timing is not specified. We'll do a couple more. Number four, Joshua, please think of things to do to help me out, like maybe take out the garbage, OK? I would also say you don't have to be a mom to respond to these, although moms are welcome. The biggest problem is you're asking and you're also expecting them to want to be helpful, which is not our sin nature. I think with any of these, you have to know your kid as well. The first one, you know, I have one child that would respond right away to that. So, and I have one that wouldn't. So, a lot of times you have to know how to use your words depending on how the child is going to receive that as well. And I think after the child is used to is demonstrated responsiveness. You don't have to go through the whole thing every time. When we were learning how to teach English, they told us, when you want your students to do something, just say it. Because too often, I've even found myself doing this. I'll say, if you wouldn't mind, could you maybe please take out your books? Versus just being very clear and direct. It doesn't have to be rude. It's just clear communication. And I think sometimes we try to couch commands in such nice language, and we don't want to offend somebody. So we're unwilling to just say what we want. A lot of times in a writing situation, you get stuck. Can't find the words in the back office. No. What was it I was trying to say? Take out the trash. OK, last one we'll go through. Number five. Mommy is so tired of taking out the trash all the time. Josh, wouldn't you like to help me? Rebecca. Kind of bouncing off of what John said, I was trying to teach my students about inference and how to understand indirect speech, because they really struggle with that at times. And so I gave them the example of me complaining about the trash being taken out and hoping that John would understand that I'm trying to communicate that he should take out the trash. And they thought, of course, that was really funny. Again, it's a problem of indirect speech. You're not directly telling the person what you want from them, and they're just kind of wondering about why you're so tired or whatever. So. Anyway, so my example to them was like, oh, it just really smells in here. It's really horrible in the house or something really stinks, you know, and we're just good as women with indirect speech. And I think our children need more than that. And Jamin has his hand up here. I know I've said every single one of these. I'll just confess that at different times. And generally that we have a brother named Joshua. Right. And he he never takes our trash. Generally, it reveals more about me and how I'm feeling or when I respond to Aiden, you know, whether it's one or nine. Generally, I'm tired, I'm lazy, I don't want to get down. Like Janine said, knowing Aiden, he needs me to get down on his level, get him to stop bouncing around the living room and say, the first thing you need to do is this, the second thing you need to do is this, the third thing you need to do is this, and I need to give him a timeline. And when I do that, It's not perfect, but it helps. And so it's usually, I just don't want to take the time, and I'd rather just say, you know, just snap and pick up your toys, or you know, go put your shoes on, or go do whatever it is that I've wanted him to do, but just, I've been lazy, and that generally makes it actually take longer to get the thing accomplished than if I would just do what I should have done the first time. And that comment will provide a good segue to the next section on snapping. I would like to say with with this one, mommy is so tired. The I read that as a form of manipulation. feel sorry for me, because you feel sorry for me, would you do this for me? And that's not the point of the transaction. The point of the transaction is to get Joshua to take out the trash. And be it mommy or be it even daddy, who is so tired, we're adults, we're supposed to rise above that. And at some point, the kid will become sensitive to those issues, but not yet. So if you look down at the bottom, I tried to be real subtle by hiding it. But the the modeled answer is simply, Joshua, take the trash out now, please. And simple, direct, no emotional baggage. We've set a timeline. We've not been hostile. We've not been whining. Just take out the trash, please. And we're modeling manners. We said, please. The, there to deplore or restore, I guess it's our culture. And I always, I wish Jonathan Quinka was here and he could talk about bootcamp, but it's that bootcamp in your face kind of conversation that we tend to think of as, boy, we are really dealing with this problem. I am in your face. And won't belabor that a whole lot here. But in reality, those types of conversation are not particularly effective. One reason is the motivation of the person delivering it. Very often, it's to make a point to the audience. I'm not going to mess with him. Did you see the way he chewed out that person? Or it must be a strong willed child there in the aisle of Walmart. I'm sorry that I always pick on the Walmart toy department, but I avoid it for the six months before Christmas for this very reason. the child carrying on because, boy, this mom really chewed the kid out and, you know, I'm going to break both your arms and legs if you don't stop crying right this instant. The kid knows, the mom knows, everybody knows the problem's not going to go away, but I feel good for having vented and to the people on surrounding aisles, five or six aisles in each direction, They know there's a real mom over there who's dealt with this problem or a real dad, although it usually seems to be the ladies who find that duty. But the motivation of the speaker quite often is not to correct the behavior, but to feel good for themselves. And that is not a basis for a corrective conversation. Second, when the child has done wrong, If the child is repentant, it's one thing if the child is not and is Defensive self-justifying we all know that we can be that way When caught red-handed, I'm embarrassed. I don't want to surrender You get this fight Was it my whose fault was it? Well wasn't my fault that I didn't invent gravity that made that thing fall on the floor You know it shouldn't have been put there, whatever And the child goes into that self-justification, which makes the parent turn up the amplifier a little bit, because I'm going to make you admit wrongdoing. And you just get this back and forth that is not a productive time for instruction, which is what we're talking about in a corrective conversation. So, and I'm not saying don't deal with disobedience, but what I am suggesting is that the time to talk about obedience, the most productive time for teaching obedience, is somewhat removed from the problem. And, you know, this afternoon when thus and such happened, why did that happen? Well, because you weren't obeying. After the things have settled down is a much better time to have a constructive conversation. Any any comments? I want to move on to inspirational conversations, but any comments on this before we leave it? I just wanted to ask your opinion or others. How much explaining or talking are you doing at a point of discipline? Like say, you know, there's disobedience, you're going to discipline with spanking and you're you know telling them why you're doing it or talking sometimes it's hysterical and it's a real hard chore to get to her bottom and get to doing that so it's hysterical so it's counterproductive to explain at that time but I feel like I need to and not just for her but I mean just as a habit and explaining and instructing but you're right half the time I mean she's hysterical and then I'm going to get upset and then I'm going to end up not speaking at all. Yeah. And I don't have a simple answer. Remember, Connie's a baccalaureate. Child needs, from my perspective, the child needs to know what the punishment is for. If the child can, if you say the child has to fully acknowledge everything, then I think you're putting the child in a position of stalling or almost vetoing punishment, because I don't understand. It's the old I don't even remember the story, but the line is about hitting somebody over the head with a 2x4, and why you understand now is that he explained it better. There's an element of self-interest involved a lot of times, and kids are good at masking that. So I wouldn't wait forever to deal with it. I don't know, Stephanie, if you're trying to talk to her before or after. I found that if I try to talk before, that Aiden is so busy wondering whether or not he's going to get a spanking, like, ooh, maybe she'll just talk, and maybe I won't get a spanking this time. that he's all over the place. He's not generally hysterical, but he's all over the place. But if he gets the spanking, and then I've spent some time hugging him, and given him time to settle down, then we talk about it. And I found that that's more helpful. But I tend to get on the lecture track sometimes. So I have to I mean, that's that's a really hard struggle. But I have found that after disciplining, at least because he knows he got it. I mean, that tension has been removed. Yes, exactly. There's no question in his mind of maybe I can get out of this somehow. There's a saying nothing focuses a man's attention quite as much as knowing he's facing the hangman's noose at dawn. And yeah, it kind of gets in the way. Yeah, but I have to give him a lot of time to settle down. And sometimes he likes to drag out the crying too, which then I just count for him and try to give him some time frame. Like, okay, we're not going to cry for three hours now. But anyway, I don't know. I don't know if that's just one thing that I found this helped a little bit. I wanna move on now to conversations for inspiration. And part of what we're talking about here is worldview, which I've given a couple of quotations, one from Piper, one from Al Mohler, which in essence is setting a worldview. God made everything, God made you, God is in charge of everything, we must obey God. But because we are made in his image, it also governs how we treat others who are also made in God's image. And it tells us some things about ourselves. It would not be right for me to beat on a kid because I don't like him, because that child was made in God's image, and I need to respect that. There's a basic dignity there, so we don't hurt others, we don't belittle them. God does not make mistakes, so if there's something about us that we don't like or something about someone else that is not perfect, that was God's choice and it's reflecting another aspect of his image. Moller notes, we find our worth in the knowledge that we are made in the image of God, and we find our health only in knowing and honoring him. And that has a lot to do with how we regard ourselves, how we regard others. I've asked Eric Hargraves if we could have a conversation up here. And Eric, if you would join us. I didn't tell you you had to come up front. I hope you don't mind. I think I think everyone, most everyone knows Eric's brother, Brian. Eric or Brian has final Vista. Eric, I have observed through the years, truth in packaging, I have known Eric's family since before there was an Eric. But very loving and caring family. And when I think of the verse here in your handout, Hebrews 1024, stirring up to love and good works, I'd just like to talk to Eric to share some things about how his family stirred up Eric toward love and good works with Brian. A lot of times in a situation with a child that has special needs, the siblings resent that child because he gets all the attention, inconvenience to me, we can do cool stuff if it weren't for him or for her. I've never gotten that sense from Eric. First of all, a little bit of background. How old were you? You're older than Brian. Yeah, I was two when he was born. So I don't remember a ton about the whole birth hospital. We were living in Kansas City at the time. But I do remember that there was As I got to be three and four years old, Brian's kind of fragile, Brian's special, take care of Brian. But it wasn't so much conversation, it was just my parents teaching me, watching my parents. They modeled that behavior to me. OK. Key point. We're talking about conversations, but it doesn't have to be a lecture. You can live a life and convey things through that. And on the one hand, we know that. But on the other hand, it's easy to forget it. What did you understand of your parents' attitudes? Well, from the start, it was kind of a. You know, this is a whole family, me, you, and John. Shelly wasn't born yet. Shelly was born a year later. But it was, everybody includes Brian. Everybody takes care of Brian. Everybody, he's, not in the sense that we need to treat him so special that he feels like he's different than everybody, but just, you know, Brian is fragile. Brian's a special kid. When he was that young, as he got older, it wasn't, My parents didn't convey to me that we needed to treat him any differently than we treated any of the other children, any of the other kids. Everybody was kind of treated on the same level. There were physical needs that Brian had to have met that we didn't have to have met. And yeah, we should be helpful to him when he needs help, but it wasn't an emotional or psychological difference between one child to the next. Everybody was treated equally on that level. Did you resent Brian for the things you didn't get to do? No. My parents, again, we never had direct conversations really about Brian's condition. We never sat down and talked as a family. Hey, Brian has special needs and he's going to get special treatment and you guys got to watch out for him. We never had those conversations. It was just kind of ingrained into us by the way that they treated Brian, by the way they expected us to treat Brian. Praise God, there was never any resentment, I don't think, from any of the brothers and sisters, not just me, but from any of us. as he got older. He took it upon himself to be as much involved in everything as he could. Obviously he had physical limitations so he couldn't do sports, he couldn't do those kinds of things. But he went to every youth group activity. He and I spent tons of time together. He was kind of like my shadow. But there was never any resentment for that. And the reason being is God gave him a special social ability to get involved. He just plugged himself right into whatever situation he was in. That came from my parents wanting to get him involved and not treating him as though he were different or frail or anything like that as he got older. They just plugged him into whatever activities that we were all doing. Until Lauren became your roommate, Brian was your roommate. Yes. He swears up and down I snore, but I don't believe it. I'm getting no comment. Breathing would wake him up. Is there a particular way you and he bonded? Yeah. Because you had a choice of where you slept, but you chose to be in the room with him. Yeah. We're the closest brothers. My older brother John is two years older than I am. I'm two years older than Brian and he's a year older than Shelly. I don't know why but we've always had a special bond. bond with Brian. The Lord just instilled that in my heart. I don't ever remember making a conscious decision, I need to help Brian because he's got special needs. It was just a normal sibling bond. As a result of that, my parents went away or something for a weekend. He was kind of my responsibility for all the physical needs that he had. But really, The reason that we bonded so well I think is that the Lord just instilled in his heart and my heart to have that special sibling bond. We communicated more than the other kids, I think. We used to go out to lunch once a week when I was in college and things like that, but he sometimes would share things with me that I think he wouldn't share with mom or dad or anybody else in the family. You know, kids do that with each other. Brothers and sisters do that. And especially Brian. There's things, you know, he felt like he couldn't communicate to mom and dad. Like, you know, why don't I have a girlfriend? Why don't I date? Everybody else in my family gets that opportunity. Those kinds of questions came to him, you know, probably when he was 18, 19, 20. You know, as we're all getting married or dating or things like that. The Lord provided the avenue for that. I don't really know how it happened, other than I saw in my parents that each one of them, yeah they had the relationship of parent to child, but they also, mom had an individual relationship with Brian and dad had an individual relationship with Brian. How each one related was their own. It wasn't like a set. This is how we need to act with Brian. He developed that with each one of the other kids. You talked a few minutes ago about we're made in the image of God. Having Brian as a brother, what do you learn about the image of God from Brian? Well, the first thing, I think, is that the Bible says we're all made in the image of God. That means Brian too. So clearly it's more than physical. And that means that the image of God is not obviously physical or on this earth. So it has to extend into your spiritual and emotional and your character and your heart. And Brian has an amazing ability to look past his special needs. And you'll find this with a lot of kids that have special needs. I used to work at a camp called Camp Lilly in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, that was all special needs kids. And Brian came to that camp, you know, like one or two of the weeks. But some of the campers would come every week for like eight weeks through the summer. And you could tell they didn't have parents that cared for them. They had sores that weren't being taken care of or they had bad hygiene. Their parents were not doing their job properly. But those kids still had a gift from God to look past their special needs and want to get involved as much as they could. Or as much as they could participate. To look past their disability or special need and to live as normally as they could in the setting that God provided them. That doesn't come from teaching them how to do that. God instills that in them. And Brian has always If you spend five minutes with Brian, I really don't think you'll pity him at all. He will probably lift your spirit by talking to him. If you spend time with him, rather than you going in thinking that you're going to cheer this kid up or he must have a horrible life or something like that, you'll walk away being blessed for sure. Thank you. The other person one talk to is Stephanie Reese and Stephanie, if you would come up. We have a lot of successful young adults in this body. And Stephanie, I would judge as one of them. But I asked her to do this because she's in an interesting position. Is that true? Yeah. in an interesting position. She kind of has a leg on in two worlds. She grew up raised, in a Christian family, went to a Christian school all her years, went to a Christian college, but now she teaches in the public school system. So she has a leg in the Christian world, but she deals every day with children who have, young people who have not had those advantages. Plus, she's an English teacher, and it seems only fair that I should ask her to compare and contrast. verbal essay question. I recall a couple years ago meeting in probably a train, Stephanie shared prayer requests for having broken up a fist fight in her classroom. And whoa, I can picture John Bastoni doing that. Maybe not Stephanie. But how does a girl who grew up in a bubble How do you get the confidence and assertiveness to inject yourself in that situation, not just the fist fight, but if you will, worldly situation? Well, that situation is kind of different in a sense that You already go into that situation having a love for those kids. And they may hate your guts, but you know that that kid is your kid. And Michelle could probably speak to this more than I could in some situations, but it's almost like that, in my case, mothering capability comes in and you're like, that kid is not going to get hurt while he's under my care. And so, you automatically insert yourself in that situation to keep that kid from doing something stupid that's going to get them in trouble or hurt. And so, it wasn't so much a difference of, I'm in a public school situation and this is so unlike what I grew up in. It was just a matter of, I care for this kid. I'm going to see if they can take care of it. Relating to a person rather than a position. And now the compare and contrast question. Having grown up not that long ago in a Christian home, and then the contacts you have now, what are the differences in the parenting that leap out to you? I had to sit and think about this long and hard because we could be here all day if I told you everything. But the more I thought about it, it just really did come down to a couple of major differences. Obviously, the first and foremost was I was raised from a Christian worldview. Everything that was taught to me, everything that was done, was done with the perspective of we are Christians, we are serving Christ, we are living an example of Christ, and that's why we do this. Most of my students, I'm not going to say all of them, because I do have several that are raised in Christian homes, Most of my kids don't have that. And so even my good kids don't have that as a guide. So that went out of the way. What Eric was saying about the example was probably the second biggest thing that came to mind. We would have conversations and different things like that, but what was shared around the dinner table was also lived out in my parents' lives. What was expected of me, they also expected of themselves. A lot of times, we joke about this as teachers, and I know most of you do too, you laugh when you see parents because you're like, oh, it makes so much more sense now. One of the things that we talked about was how did I always know that I was going to college? Well, I watched my dad take 13 years to get through his undergrad. And it was always told to us that we were going to college and we weren't going to take a 13-year route. And so even if we came out with a bunch of debt, we were getting it done. And I knew that because I watched it lived out in my dad. I watched him put that emphasis on education above many things for several years. Whereas my kids, their parents don't have a high school education. And they see their parents surviving, somewhat doing okay. So why do they need a high school education? And so even though their parents expected of them, it wasn't lived out. It's not pursued now. So why do they need it? Their parents are doing okay. We're doing okay. So the example thing, and that could be played out in a variety of different ways, but then underneath that came the concept of love and discipline. I lived every day knowing that my parents loved me. That was never a doubt in my mind. Unconditional love. Yeah. Even when my dad and I were about ready to kill each other over some stubborn issue, I knew he loved me. His or yours? More of mine. Probably a little bit. My mom and I often joke that my dad and I are the two most stubborn people in the world. You know, my parents were at every event that I was a part of. They were at basketball games, cheerleading games, music events, concerts, whatever. They were there. They were present and active in everything that I did. My kids, you go to a basketball game or a football game, And you only have a couple of parents there, but they are not active in their kids' lives because they can't be. They're working to try to provide a living for them, and that takes priority over being involved in their kids' lives. And the other thing is, I think again Michelle sees this even more than I do, I knew that I wasn't brought into this world to benefit my parents. As an aid to dependent children? Some of our kids are brought into this world and they know it because of an accident, because of them goofing around when they were in high school, as a way to bring in welfare money. Mothers have told their daughters, if you need more money, go have another kid. And that's the type of thing they're facing. And then two, discipline was a consistent thing. It started when I was very, very young and continued even until now. And our kids, it's more of a corrective thing. I see the result of not doing discipline when they were two, and now I need to fix it, and now it's impossible to fix it. And can you talk a little bit about family background and sense of self. And I would, in your handout, you have some things about self-esteem. So if you could. Well, the whole self-esteem movement, you see the results of that in classrooms or just in society today. All you have to do is go walking through a mall, and you see high schoolers that think they have the right to do anything and everything they want, or have everything that they want. Again, in most of our homes, we were raised with the concept that we are Christ, and that's where our image comes from. It's not in who we hang around with, it's in the fact that we are Christians, and that was our worldview, whereas with the self-esteem thing, They feel entitled they come in well. I don't have to do that because that gets in the way of me I'm number one and so we've seen the playing out of what self-esteem leads to Last question I saved the ugly question for last went to a Christian school. You're now in public school system What parallels do you see Well, the easy answer to that is that no matter what situation you're coming from, kids need Christ. And that is why I went into public school teaching, and I know that's why many of us here are in public school teaching. They need that example of Christ in their lives. They need to see it lived out before them. But more importantly, they need Christ because they're not going to change or be any different or do what they're supposed to do if they don't understand. the right reason for doing it. And so, in the end, is there a huge difference between my kids and kids going to the academy or going to Inner City Baptist where I grew up? No. Because even in those settings, you need to know who you're serving and why. The school is not the answer, nor is it the deaf male. Thank you very much. Well, we're through. I thank you both for sharing your your heart, your insights on this.