I would encourage you to see my wife, and I think Sally is going to have some as well. Thank you for coming tonight. If you would, please bow your heads with me. Let us ask the Lord for his blessing. Father, we're thankful for this time that we have together. We ask that your spirit would do what human words can't, that we would leave here not with only a greater accumulation of knowledge, but we may take the truths from the seasoned and godly parents and apply them to our lives as parents. And as always, we look to you for the increase. In Jesus' name, amen. OK, so I'll explain to you kind of the outline of the order of tonight. There are a total of eight questions. And some of you are going to have questions as I ask questions. And some of you will have even more questions as they answer questions. And so on that sheet, I have provided space in between each question for you to write down. any kind of notes or even any questions that may rise up throughout our time this evening together. You'll notice question number eight, parents, I would encourage you to read question number eight right now, and if you would like your children to be here to hear the answer, they are invited to stay, and if not, that is your cue to ask them to leave. All right. Well, we are blessed to have three of our long-standing members here. Maybe if you can introduce yourselves to the audience, maybe share how many children you have, and maybe their ages as well, if you can. Okay, I'm Connie Linsky. We raised five sons with the grace of God. Aged 41 down to 31 at this point. I'm Barb Keyport. We have five daughters and one son. Ages 44 to 31. I'm Larry, and I had nothing to do with it. She raised them. No. But, you know, with having five girls and one son, you know, and plus Barb, you know, it was crazy sometimes. Dan and I just used to get Dan who said, let's, come on, Dan, we're going out to the barn. You know, so we had good times. Awesome. Thank you. And just to let you know, Larry, I think you have a microphone right there next to you as well. Awesome. Good. So I want to read a passage of scripture for you. You don't have to turn to it. You can just listen. It'll be from Proverbs chapter 1, verses 8. Hear my son your father's instruction and forsake not your mother's teaching now. I think we have one or two sons or one son and two daughters here maybe today. Is that correct? And so, but for most of you, they may not be your biological parents, but in Matthew chapter 12, people came to Jesus and said, your mother wants to talk to you. And he said, who are my mother? Who's my mother? Who are my brothers and sisters? But those who do the will of my father in heaven. And so I look to them as spiritual parents. And for those of you who have children, regardless of the age, you guys can gain much wisdom from them. So question number one. You'll hear people say that parents need to be friends with their children. What do you think they mean by that? Were you friends with your children? And are there any advantages or disadvantages of being Friends. Connie, you can lead us off. OK. Well, I want to preface this by saying that Dean and I together prepared some answers since he could not be here tonight. So a lot of what I'll be sharing will really be out of his mouth rather than mine. But our first response to this question was, what do you mean when you say that, being your child's friend? Does it mean you want your children to like you? And that's, I think, what it probably means. We always enjoyed our children, but that's not the same thing as being friends with them. Friends means being peers, wanting to be companions. And there's no authority between peers. They are equals. Friendship with your kids begins when they're adults, when a child begins to take care of their own welfare, and they're independently dependent on Jesus Christ and trained in life skills. First you parent, and if you parent well, friendship is the outcome. You don't even have to work at it. Meanwhile, when they're younger, kids need to have a bit of fear and respect. Larry and Barb? Well, yeah, I would say that we didn't write it out that carefully, but Barb and I did talk about it. Our goal wasn't to be our kids' friends. I didn't think I could be, didn't want to be. I had read some books on it, and I figured, as Connie alluded to, that hopefully, eventually, I would be their friends. But it's not going to be certainly during their teen years. And did a lot with them. I had a very hands-on dad. I wasn't all playing golf while they were at soccer practice or whatever. I was there for everything. And so I did, or I think I did earn, this is a long, quite long statement I guess, but I did earn the right to be heard, but it wasn't as a friend. Awesome. Thank you so much. Question number two is I think a very important question regarding resources that were influential to you. And so question number two, what resources were instrumental to you as parents? And preferably, what resources do they have access to? Does the audience or those listening have access to that can help them parent better? when we started parenting there was not the volume of things that were written that there is available today. There really wasn't a whole lot. We were. freshly out of the Dr. Spock era. I don't know if that even means anything to you, but we were greatly influenced by James Dobson and Focus on the Family to bring discipline into our children's lives because the older model did not include that. Other, we read the Bible, and there's an awful lot in there about how to deal with children, and that was important, especially Proverbs. And Elizabeth Elliot, who was a great influence in my life, often had very valuable, pithy things to say, and I valued that. We also had the advantage of some older Christian people when our children were young and we asked them questions about how they did things. And I was fortunate enough, we were, to have some godly friends and so to some extent we worked through things together. Does Larry want to add anything before I do? Well, you used the phrase this morning, Elizabeth Elliott said about delayed obedience is disobedience. That was one of her lines, and I always thought, wow, I like that. And we did listen a lot to Focus on the Family and a variety of parenting books that we read, and besides scripture, of course. But we used to talk a lot about it, too. between the two of us. I was just going, what do we do now? How do we screw up here? What do we need to do? And so it was helpful having a mate, a helpmate, because I surely needed it to have someone to bounce ideas off. I totally concur with Barb. I think it was probably to our benefit that we lived in an era where there was not a lot of voices coming at us with advice and instruction. However, given the fact that today people are beginning to raise children maybe out of a vacuum of not having experienced good parenting themselves, having a lot of conflicting views on things, it's nice to have some authoritative resources. Probably one that Dean and I were both thankful for was the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts, which was very popular. I forgot that. Yeah. Me too. And we learned a lot about child discipline out of that and about our roles. And it made a huge difference because we went there before we were married. So we carried that into our marriage and parenting. But apart from that, We could not have gotten by without the advice of our own parents. Very, very helpful. My mother gave me the largest piece of advice ever when I was with my first child back home, had come back from seminary for a vacation. And I was talking to her about something I was learning out of reading Dare to Discipline by Dobson. And she looked at me and shook her head and said, books. She said, you don't need books. It's not hard. When they're bad, you spank them. And when they're good, you hug them. It's that easy. That's all you need. And it brought me up short because I realized just going on the basis of what had been modeled for me in my own home, in my own upbringing, and in the families around me that had godly children grow up out of them, was much more influential than something that I might pick up out of a book that might challenge what had been tried and true in my own life. So that was maybe not as helpful for you as if you want to know resources now, you may need to go to each other on that because I'm not as up on them. Although I will say that Dean has always been very helped, not helped because it came after we were done with most of our child rearing. But the Growing Kids God's Way curriculum by Ezzo, sometimes there are people who have trouble with it, but for the most part, it echoes very much of the principles that we used when we were raising our own children. And that's, of course, there are the trip books, the Shepherding a Child's Heart and that, but I personally am not as familiar with them. Thank you. Question number three, fill in the blank. A parent must, or we can say a godly parent must, We'll start with that. You want to go first and I'll fill in the blank, what you missed. I thought this question could take hours. So Larry and I talked about this and we kind of distilled it down to I don't know, seven or eight things, which, if that's okay, I'll just say them really fast. First one is pursue your own personal relationship with the Lord. And you ask why as part of the answer for this. Because it's the first commandment. to love God with all your heart and your soul and your mind and your strength. Because your kids will observe your example and they'll see it. And third, because you can't share what you don't have. So that was the first thing that came to my mind. Then as number two, to love and respect your mate. The Bible is clear on that in Ephesians 5 and other places. It sets an example for what your children will do with their own mates in time to come. And it also provides stability for them and security. Number three, there's a verse in Proverbs that was just so meaningful to me. It's Proverbs 27, 33. It comes out of a shepherding mentality, but to me they were talking about children. It says, pay attention to your flocks and know the condition of your herds. I think that is just critical that you watch your children, you understand them, you know them, you pray about them and ask God to give you wisdom and insight into their natures so that you know how to deal with them, you see what's happening. She's a lot better at that than I am, by the way. Six kids, figure that out. That's a lot of studying. The fourth thing is also from Proverbs, train up a child in the way he should go. And I think that word train is so broad, it doesn't just mean talk at. It means so many things. It means consistent, persistent discipline, being unified as a couple, being clear in your instructions, teaching them to be obedient. And we tried to make obedience be immediate, complete, and pleasant so that you didn't get some of the pushback. And the last of all under that, under the training, is our effort was to treat them in such a way that their hearts would be turned toward the Lord and not just obeying things or being forced to being good kids, but that they would love the Lord from their heart was important to us. Number five, say yes as much as possible. even when it costs you. And any no's that you have to say should have a good reason why. You either cannot do for them what they would like or you should not, but you should be able to verbalize a good reason why you say no. Those were my shoulds. Do you want me to go into the should nots? Yeah, so we'll stick with should and then we'll let Connie go and then we'll do should not, yeah. Okay, interestingly, I totally concur with everything that was said, and like, wow, we didn't get that on our list, but yes, yes, yes. But I have five others for you. The first one is we must discuss openly and repeatedly the gospel. I mean, that is our primary mission. Number two, we must be aggressively consistent in rules and our own conduct concerning what is reasonable and upright, especially as other kids come along. We don't want to drop the standards, but we may have to adjust them according to the individual child and their needs. Number three, we must confess our sin to our children when we have offended them or wronged them. and we must be quick to acknowledge our sin and ask their forgiveness. You don't gain any points by trying to keep up a front. The most important, this is just an aside, but the most important thing that we've seen over the years, and I'm sure Barb and Larry have as well, is that the children who grow up in a home where the parents are living at home what they profess on a Sunday morning here in the company of others turn out all right when the parents are consistent. And that involves treating your kids with the same kind of respect in terms of if you've offended them that you might anybody else in your acquaintance. Kids pick up on hypocrisy real quick. Oh yeah, and that's, they should be the number one reason besides honoring the Lord that you want to be genuine and consistent in front of them. The fourth one is you must teach life skills like orderliness, punctuality, respect for authority, nutrition, manners, things that are going to help them survive in the world well. And our fifth one was you must recognize the difference between childish behavior and foolishness. Foolishness needs to be confronted, but childishness you make allowances for. And the classic example is your child spilling milk at a meal. When they're young, and you tell them not to do that, and they do it, are they doing it because they're just too young physically to avoid it? In which case, you move the glass out of the way. You do that for them. But as they get older, and they should be responsible and able to obey you when you say, move the glass to a safer place, move it back, and they don't, then you have a different issue. But you've got, because it could become outright, no, I'm not gonna do that, rebellion. So you have to discern that difference between what is childish and what is foolish behavior. And that concludes our list. Okay, obviously the don'ts could be the negations of it, but maybe you can give us the don'ts that we wouldn't already assume for the opposite of what to pursue. So Larry and Barbie, you guys can start. Our first don't was do not have favorites or compare them with other kids. Number two, don't be hypocritical, arbitrary, or unfair. Asking for forgiveness if you do fail in those areas. Do not punish for what you have not explained. Number four, do not ask more than they are capable of giving, which was what Connie was talking about. Be aware of what they're capable of doing at certain ages and don't ask for more than that. And also don't be overprotective as they mature and should be taking on responsibility for themselves. Do you want to add anything? Okay. Barb hit on a couple that we had on our list, but one is you must not discipline in anger. That's kind of easy to say, maybe hard to do, but it's not hard to do if you walk away first and make sure that that discipline you're attempting to carry out is legitimate and it's done in love and compassion and not because your back was put up. And I guess the only other one I would add is similar to Barb's. No, I'm going to add on to something Barb said. And we don't want to demand that they follow rules we haven't clearly explained. You basically said that. And the way to avoid doing that is when you tell your children to do something, you ask them, what did I say? Have them repeat it back to you. Do not assume that they either heard you or understood what you said. And that way, it's much easier to hold them accountable. And the only other one that I did have on my list was, you must not ask your younger children, why did you do that? Ask them, what did you do? and ask them, what did mommy say about that? But do not ask for the why from younger children. You will mystify them. They will stare at you with their mouth open, and you will think they're being disrespectful. And they just can't answer that question. But if you ask them, what did you do, you have the first step in them crafting a confession, admitting what it is that they did. And then you can talk about what they did. But don't ask why when they're young. I want to ask them, how many times have I told you not to do that? Well, first of all, they don't know how many times. It's a meaningless question. I feel like you overhear people say, kids these days. Or you hear people say, when I was a kid, as if it was any better. But I think we can all agree that parenting has changed. the philosophy of it, even how kids relate to their parents. And so question number four is very simple. Connie obviously has a pastor's wife, and then Larry and Barb. Larry, you've been in leadership for a while, and Barb, you've been plugged in here for a while. And so I think it was Yogi Berra who said, you can observe a lot by watching. And I'm sure from their end, they've seen a lot. How has parenting changed in the last 20 years? You can start, Connie. Somehow this seems a little bit obvious, but obviously if you're not as old as we are, it may not be so obvious. It's become much more difficult because of culture. And it's not just things like smartphones, it's the morals, the morality drugs, the internet. And there's so much less margin for error in your parenting because the dangers are so great. Schools are a whole lot more toxic. I mean, they were bad enough when our kids came along. Our kids had a 10-year age spread. And from the time our first one went through high school to the time our last couple went through high school, we could see the difference in what those kids were dealing with, with language and morality. I can't imagine, our last one graduated in 2006, we're 12 years beyond that. I have no clue what it must be like. You may know better being in that environment somewhat. There's one thing in terms of parenting in particular that came to our mind was that there's a lot, there seems to be pressure on parents today to conform to other parents. I don't know if you are aware of that. It's something I don't think we ever had to confront. It comes across in what opportunities are you giving your children? How much are you showing up at this and that? My husband's work before he was a pastor, he was selling cars. He was working 10, 12 hours a day and always on Saturdays. He didn't get to kids' activities, but then being homeschooled, fortunately, we didn't have a lot of out-of-home activities. We couldn't afford them. If we had tried to keep up with what other parents thought was good parenting, we would have felt very guilty for what we were not able to provide to our kids. Another thing, moms are working so much more consistently, and they're not in the home, so kids are more unsupervised. And the kids get mom's weary time, not their good attention. And so much can happen, even if a mom here is not working, your kid's friends' moms may be. And they're living with lack of supervision. I think another thing that affects parenting is that there's a much higher demand now, it seems, on dads to contribute domestic help. rather than that being mom's career. And that, I think, muddles role models, which I think good biblical role models help shape your children's sense of who they are to be in their family life and in serving the Lord and in serving the church. But you've got that going on in the culture and I think it really makes it harder to carry out a biblical parenting role because you have to buck that tide. I think there's culturally just an overall general decline of civility and respect. for anything, it's amazing. Other people's property, other people. And also the decline of respect for and view of authority. Back when I was in school, a policeman was a policeman. We respected and he showed up. Okay, I get it, but not anymore. The only other thing I would add to that that I see as a really big difference is the prevalence of technology. And it's, I think, difficult to manage and changing so rapidly. So there are many questions that are part of parenting today that were not a part of parenting. when I was young. The hardest decision we had to make with technology was no one hour television is plenty. That was it. We didn't have a TV. We did for five years. I mean, early on we didn't have a TV. Question number five is very practical. I know as I was making these questions, this especially was one that I had, having two young ones and everybody in here, some have older children, middle, and in between. And the question is, what are some red flags that we should have in the back of our minds of when God isn't at the center of our home. There's so much busyness, so much stuff to do. I mean, at what point do you have to say, hey, we've got our priorities out of whack? And so question five is, what are some red flags that indicate families do not have God at their center? And I mentioned sports, activities, et cetera, et cetera, precedence over what God has called us to be as parents. So Connie, maybe you can start. You okay with that? Yeah, that's fine. So we're including the second part of the question in this. Okay, very good. The first thing we wrote down is one of the signs that there's a difficulty is church attendance. That's our number one priority. Yeah. That's it. That's what we do. Yeah. And not only church attendance, like showing up here to worship, but our parents ensuring that their children are taking advantage of all the opportunities for them to be engaged in learning spiritual truths and being under the influence of other godly adults, which is one of the things that can happen when you have them in Sunday school at all different levels or attending whatever groups are age appropriate for them. Another thing that's tied to that is when you're on vacation, do you go to church? Or is church just something that's part of your life when you're home? Because I think this is what people don't understand. There used to be that old saying, and it may still be out there, that when it comes to priorities, it's God first, family second, work third. And they somehow put church down under that, or at least after God first, family second, then church. You don't understand that your church involvement is an expression of your relationship with God. And so you can't relegate that into a lower level of priority. We had a small list of things in terms of activities. Do you want to add anything to what I just said before I go through that list? Okay. In terms of all the activities that you can get your kids involved in, is it supplanting family time? Your family time's important, and it shouldn't be simply relegated to ferrying your kids from one activity to another. Our kids sleep deprived or tired. When a parent hears, but the coach says too often, then someone is beginning to supersede the parent in decisions for that child. That the parent, you know, is really giving up some authority to other people because of what the children are involved in. When the family is feeling the need to spend money on these activities that the family doesn't really have, and mom thinks she ought to go to work to fund those activities, you've probably crossed a line, because you are now not following, for that reason, God's design in the home and the roles and the place of mom. When the parents measure their effectiveness by how many and how activities their kids are in and how well they're doing in those activities, rather than by their kids' spiritual sensitivity and openness, then the priorities have become skewed. I totally agree. We put down some of those same things. I think there's a lot of pressure. There was pressure for us and I think it's more so now to make sure that you give your kids every opportunity to develop whatever skill or ability they may have. And the truth is most of our kids are not going to be in the Olympics or doing any. So there are, I think it takes a lot of wisdom to think about How much time is really being given to all this? And maybe they need to be limited to one or maybe two things that they really like and are really skilled at. It wasn't quite so hard for us because there were enough kids that we couldn't do everything, so we had to pick one or two, and even that was hard enough to do. But I just really think a kid doesn't have to be busy every minute of every day. The lifestyle that we had didn't permit it. When we were ex-hippies, you know, we had a big garden, raised sheep. I mean, we had a farm and so I had six slave hands. And Barb, before you move on, I just want to add in there, one of the greatest blessings in our life was we couldn't afford those things. I realize one of my guys is here, and I don't even know if you remember, we went to sign up for soccer once. And when I got there and realized the cost, I broke into tears. I couldn't afford it. I could barely pay the sign-up fee. There was no way we were going to go get the equipment they needed and the whatever. And so I told Greg and Ben, we can't do this, we have to leave. And I don't know if it broke their little hearts or not, but they survived. I have two other things that occurred to me as we were talking about what are red flags that you should notice. The busyness is one of them. And to that, I would add if you and your children's activities are so busy that you don't have time to spend time with them at night and read the Bible to them and pray with them and listen to them and answer their questions, then you are losing really, really valuable time. So I would encourage everybody to take the time to do that at night. The kids are so open right then, and it's just a wonderful time to build into their little hearts. Two other things that I think are red flags, one of them is when you are faced with constant arguments. That's a sign that something is a little out of whack. And the other thing is when you see a lot of obvious signs of disrespect, either from, either between your children or between you and your children, that's another sign that something needs attention. I used to preach to the kids, show deference to one another. Do it. It's important. Question number six. How has your parenting shifted now that you have children? who are married with kids. And I know I didn't include this in the question, but obviously as they're married, they leave and cleave, but you're still involved in their lives. Maybe you can address that. Well, you know, it's changed obviously. I'm still the dad. They're only going to ever have one dad and one mom. But our roles have changed markedly. It's not a chain of command, it's a chain of counsel now. That's from the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts. It's the same thing we wrote down. One of the things that we have tried to do with our adult married children is not but in. They are their own family. We wanted that freedom when we were married and we tried to grant that to them so if they want to know something they can ask and they have. So other than that. Other than recipes, we get a lot of requests for that. The other thing that I think is really important to us is to back up our children's rules with their children so that there's not a second set of rules for what happens at grandma's house. What happens at grandma's house is the same thing that happens at home as much as we have the power to do it. We try to keep the same rules that their parents have enforced. There's not a lot to add, but if you missed what was said there, you move from a chain of command when you're a parent with your children in the home into the chain of counsel. Now it's advice, it's not instruction that they need to obey. And we try that, and I know sometimes we fail, and we offer advice that has not been asked for. And our kids have been very kind. And one of them will actually say to me, now you're doing the mom thing. And it just brings me up short, and I remember, okay, my role is different now. So you have to kind of learn, you ease into this. happen right away. It's a change that you have to grow into. We support our kids as we can and I think that's one of the reasons why we're looking forward to when that retirement time comes around so that we actually have a little bit of time to do that much more than we're able to now. But we also want to set a spiritual tone for our grandchildren and back up the parents on their own spiritual instruction, which is very similar to something that Barb said, and we're starting to do that more with the ones that are older. Barb and Larry have older grandchildren than we do. Our oldest just turned 12, and the next one is soon to be nine, so most of ours are younger at this point, but that's what we look forward to doing. And we don't demand appearances at family gatherings. As you said, they've got other families in their lives now. They've got in-laws as well as their own family. And we have to adjust to the fact that we just may never have them all together at one time in one place as much as we'd like that very often. So it is what it is, and it's the way God designed it. Question number seven, were there any times of parenting where you had a disagreement with your spouse and how did you handle it? I don't know, Larry, this is probably pertinent to you as well as being the head and preferring your wife and all of that, the potential tension. Maybe we'll start with you. Were there any principles that you had regarding disagreements that you had with your spouse, whether it was over parenting or over finances or anything like that? How exactly did you go about that? I don't recall that we had that many disagreements, really. Except the Saturday thing. There's Becky shaking her head, and Karen. Well, I was pretty much of a dictator on Saturdays. We had a lot to do. And I will say this. I wasn't like my dad. He'd tell us to do stuff. He'd make my sister and I do stuff, and then he'd be off playing golf. That wasn't the case with me. I was leading the pack. I was out front, so it wasn't like I was requiring more of them. than I did in myself, but Barbara and I used to disagree about work, Saturday was a work day and I expected a lot, morning till dark. And picking the bean beetles. The second part of that question is how did we handle it? We disappeared into the basement for a discussion. So we could come to an agreement. And can I, I want to pick your brain a little bit. So from a child's standpoint, like you guys moving to the basement is a preference over your children so they don't hear you actually arguing. Now, obviously, if you're in the car, I think it's a different situation, but did you guys have any signals, any type of facial expressions where you guys were able to read each other? Or did you just know after being around each other that, hey, this is something that, or Larry's upset, or whatever it is? And so maybe, can you expand on that a little bit? Our children could probably expound that a whole lot better than we could. It's the mom and dad show. Yeah, I think there were some times when there were some issues in relationship to Saturday work and how it should be handled. Not if they should work, but how long. Should there be an end to the list or was the list open-ended in case the work got done faster? Various questions of that nature. There were times when the kids would come to me frustrated over this. And my answer to them was, your dad and I have talked about this. We don't agree. But he is the father. And I am deferring to him. And I want you to do the same thing with a good spirit. So that was how we handled it. Well, this is the time when we get to admit that we didn't always have it all together. And I'm the culprit because my husband would come home after a 10 to 12 hour workday and he'd walk in on something and make an evaluation on what he was observing and want to announce his verdict. And I was always very quick to jump in front of my children to protect them. Not that anything really bad was coming down, but I felt like, but you don't know what's been going on. You don't have the facts. You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what we went through today. And so we really had to work through how we were going to handle that dynamic. It usually came down to areas of discipline, which I'm not going to go into right now, but as to whether discipline was needed, when I might not have felt that it was, because I knew what led to the situation that he walked in on. I think we learned to talk to each other about how to approach that. And there are looks you can agree to give. There are signs you can give. But as we talked about this, and I realized my role in interrupting Dean's dad role. He at the same time admitted to me and wanted me to write it down that he had to learn how to become more mellow and to be patient and to get facts. So it's a two-way street, but moms and dads have to work that out because as Barb said so beautifully, mom's job is to back up dad. And so you need to have a way to communicate or cut something off before it gets too far so that you get on the same page. It's so much easier when you do. But if in doubt, if there's one thing I learned, especially having had all boys, sometimes my impulse was wrong. And my husband's coming at rearing the boys to be men. And they needed to have him come down on them in a way I might have wanted to protect them from. And so it's very important that you be communicative about it. I would like to back Connie up on that and say we had some of the same issues. We only had one boy, but I can tell you that there were many times when Larry said to me, Barb, he's a boy, let him go. And so I had to learn that. So if you wanted to go out and make a bomb or something, you know, out of a soda bottle, you know, you ever do? That's really cool, by the way. Crumbled up tinfoil and muriatic acid. It's great. Doesn't do any damage, but it's really loud. We also had a lot of times where I would say, go ask your dad. And then they would say, I did. And I would say, what did he say? He said, go ask your mom. So sometimes that was going back and forth. And there are other times when Larry would really back me up, which I appreciated. Sometimes they would, you know, they play off, mom gave me one answer, let's try dad, maybe we'll get an answer we like better. And he, they would come to him after they had already asked me, and he would say, did you ask your mother? Well, yes. Okay, then why are you coming to me? So he really did back me up, which I appreciated. I think the point here is that parenting has to become true teamwork. And you don't get it right all the time, especially when things come out of left field and you've never encountered them before. It's a learning process and you're constantly adjusting. So learn and adjust and just be in conversation with each other about what the priorities need to be, what the goals are, what you need to demand of your kids, what you can let ride. And that kind of communication is so important between you because it's you determining how you are going to carry out God's mandate in your children's lives. Okay, thank you for that. This last question, we're going to hold off on their answer, and I'm going to allow you to talk amongst yourselves. I want to read it just in case anyone listens to it online. And it is a situation that has happened before. Not here, but let's take a look at it. Question number eight. Suppose your daughter at age 20 who was living in sin under your roof and not submitting to your authority wanted to move in with her boyfriend. You have pleaded with her not to, that It is a sin, but she wants to regardless. When she's leaving with her bag of clothes, what are you going to say to her? Part. The second part of that question, she's been living with her boyfriend for three months and wants them to come to Thanksgiving dinner at your house. Would you allow them to come and why? And then the third, six months later, you receive a phone call to find out that she's pregnant and her boyfriend is kicking her out and she wants to come home. What would you say to her and would you let her move back in? We're going to give you guys four or five minutes to talk amongst yourselves. I'm not going to ask you to give any feedback, but I do want you guys to share what you guys would do as parents in light of that. You may not get through everything, but we're going to come back and we're going to see. I have no idea what our panel here thinks, but again, this is a time for you to discuss with maybe two or three families around you, okay? key ports first. So first, and just so some of you guys understand, the reason why I didn't say a son and I said a daughter is because that innocent child was the wild card and I figured it would be more difficult of a question to say a daughter and not a son. But you can word it son if you want. I just wanted to add as many twists and turns to see how good of parents they really are. And so... And so the first part is she's leaving. You guys have had many conversations. What are you telling her as she has her bag of clothes? This has never happened. So I think what I would say is I love you very much and you are making a huge mistake which you will live to regret. But obviously I can't change your mind. Do you set any parameters such as do you set a parameter at the first part to prevent the hypothetical part B. I mean, obviously, as you're thinking along, do you say, I mean, these kinds of things may or may not be going through your mind, but just so I understand you, you would say, I completely disagree with the decision that you're making. I'm not sure I understand. Yeah. Well, meaning, so do you have any conversation like, obviously I don't think this would be immediate, but I guess part B, I'll come back to this on part B because I think I'm trying to fill in a gap. So A, she wants to come to Thanksgiving at your house. She's been living with her boyfriend for three months. Would you allow them to come and why? because they want to have a relationship, yeah, they'd be welcome. You know, be okay. I would say yes to dinner, no to a shared bedroom. Yeah. Pretty simple. Okay. I may not take the offer. Sure. With that, with that, you know, condition added, but. Of course. And then B, she's pregnant and she wants to move home. Would you allow her to come in and live with you? We talked about this pretty much at length, but I think our decision was that is not something we would be able to say until we knew her attitude. Is she broken? Is she saying, I have made such a mess of things. I've disobeyed the Lord. I've disobeyed you. I want to be forgiven. I want the Lord to forgive me. I made a mess and I want to make it better. If that is the attitude, we would be very open. Yeah, if she's just as willful as she was at the outset, then no, we ain't doing it. You know? You know, choices have consequences. And there's consequences. Connie. OK, I was writing feverishly as Dean was dictating while we were driving back from New York City yesterday on this one. And so our first reaction to the first part was, This conversation obviously needed to start a whole lot earlier. The indication is that up to this point, more than ought to have been, she's been allowed to have her own way. at a younger age. She hasn't been challenged earlier about her lack of love for her parents. Now, taking notes from Dean, if your boyfriend wants you to move in with him as he asked you to marry him, why not? As soon as this daughter has been showing signs of being promiscuous, as soon as there's an indication of boy craziness, there needed to be very serious conversations about respect for the family, for parents, for self, and for God. And you say you love him. What's the proof that he loves you? What has he ever sacrificed for you? Because he's asking you to sacrifice a whole lot for him. And about moving out, I chuckled as Dean said this. His response would be, is that all you're taking, her bag of clothes? His response would be, take all your stuff. You're moving out. It all goes. And to say, you know, it's inevitable that you're going to want to come back, but it won't be on the same terms when you do as when you leave. In other words, you're making a decision that's got consequences that are going to reverberate. And Dean also added, before ever getting to this point, Dad should have been trying to get to know this guy and share the gospel with him. It shouldn't get to this point without that having happened. And for myself, I was adding into this. along with dad. But mom especially should be talking about the Lord's design for girls and boys from preteen days regularly with this girl. And mom should forecast one day you're going to feel You know, whatever. And when you do, we'll have our next talk. Grandmas can come in and make sure they have an open channel of conversation. You know, if there's ever something you feel you can't talk to about with your mom, you know, come to me and we'll talk. I'm here. And also, moms, and I think this is the biggest thing, backing way up from the situation that was described. Moms need to do everything they can as a mom from early days to affirm the daughter's relationship with her dad. Don't undermine her respect for her dad through your own disrespect. God meant dads to be their daughter's first boyfriends. And she ought to want to find and marry someone like him. And this is going to go a long way toward her not wanting to jeopardize that relationship when boys come into the picture. And then Dean gave me his talk for boys. I don't know if we have time for me. It's just a little bit to add to this. It won't take more than probably a minute and a half. Oh, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. This is Dean's speech to boys, which by the time may have morphed a little bit. I don't know whether the one who's here heard it exactly like this. You do not touch a girl before you marry her. Her body belongs to God and whoever she will marry. You are taking a piece of someone else's wife until you take the commitment and follow through of marrying. You are responsible to treat girls, especially Christian sisters, like friends and to be a friend. And that means you're giving and not taking. Nobody has, let's say a friendship has cooled, it's not as deep of a friendship as it was, but you're never going to suffer when that cools because you've been giving and not taking. All you've done is add value to that girl's life, and so there's never going to be a regret when that relationship maybe is not so special. And at the same time, boys need to be cautious with their words, because any words they say that can convey a commitment or attachment that is not something that they are going to follow through with, they have been selfish and not loving. True love is committed to building the other person up, especially in their relationship with Christ. And if you're not building up, then it's lust, not love. That's his speech for boys. So you had the follow-ups for that. I didn't actually get to the answers on them yet, because we took a different tack than they did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. So Thanksgiving comes along, and they want to, Thanksgiving is at your house, and they would like to come. Dean feels very strongly, and I do concur with him on this, that when a decision has been made for your child to go out and live immorally against your wishes, they have broken the relationship. The parent hasn't. And that there is no need for the parent to welcome them back into the house before such a time as there is a repentance about that behavior. Not having them come back to Thanksgiving is not about a failure to keep up channels of communication. You can keep up channels of communication and not welcome them back into that family circle. You're going to continue to be attempting to gain a hearing. But that child has already spurned the parents' rules and desires and influence. Why would she even want to come back except to gain acceptance while in the midst of her sin and assuaging her guilt? And you don't want to contribute to that. The integrity of the family has to be maintained. And so if you don't need to invite her back to Thanksgiving dinner while in the midst of rebellious immorality. And what if this means breaking off the relationship for the rest of her life? Because, you know, I'm never going to talk to you again. It's over. You're never going to see me. Well, the relationship was broken, again, by the daughter, not the parent, and you can regularly affirm an open door, like the prodigal father for any repentant child, but the rebel needs to be outside the family circle. I think his last comment when this was, if we remove any consequences of rebellion at any point in parenting, we blunt the effect of their conscience. and that needs to be thought about in all of this. And the world would think we were very, very unkind, unloving, uncompassionate, but we don't owe that to the child who's gone rogue. So that's, he came across a little harsh on that. I'll go ahead with the last one. Yeah, I wanna, Pause there for a second. So you would say that having dinner, and you didn't use the words, but that would be more of fellowship, more of family. And because of her decision to be out of the family, providing there's no genuine repentance, she would not be welcomed back in. Did I understand that correctly? Yeah. And I know that sounds very harsh. But it just seems to us to be the right way to deal with it, because you're talking about eternal consequences. And, you know, it's just a little bit extra, more small term, short term pain for the hopeful long term gain. So no to Thanksgiving dinner, but yes to coffee. Yeah, to meeting outside the home and overtures, fine. Affirmations of we're here when you're ready to come back and we'll talk about why you want to come back and then that exploration can be done. And as far as the last one, we concur with Barb and Larry. We've actually known someone who went through this. Her mother did not let her back in when she got pregnant. And this woman admitted later that she was so rebellious in her heart and in her life that if her mother had let her come home pregnant, she would not have broken. It was not until she was caring for a baby in a dump of an apartment in Redding that she came to her senses and then got saved. So you do not, as Barb and Larry were saying, this is about her heart. And you might say, well, what about the child? What about the child? you're still doing what's best. You don't have to rescue her out of that until she is ready to be rescued. And you're there. It's not about not being there. It's not about not wanting her home. It's about letting that sin that led to that point go to its logical conclusion of consequence that causes that heart to break and turn in tenderness toward the Lord. Awesome, thank you so much, panel, for your responses. Encouraging, convicting, and challenging. Well now, you have the opportunity to ask them whatever types of questions that you would like for clarification. I took the hypothetical card, so you can't ask them that. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna switch mics with Connie. And if anybody here has any questions for them, oh, awesome.