Shownotes Transcript
Well, you pray for your kids to succeed in life. I'm guessing you pray for your child in that way. But I wonder if you've been guilty of praying a little too aspirationally. Like, there was a time when I was praying X, Y, Z in terms of vocation and this and that. And I realized, Danny, that I need to kind of back it off and give God room.
to color outside of the lines, to paint a different picture than I want for my child. And he might want something else. And so we started to really kind of lean into, let's just pray for godly character and hearts that want to serve him. And success, well, sure, I want my child to be successful. But anyway, that's enough about me. I'm John Fuller here with Dr. Danny Huerta, who heads up the Focus on the Family Parenting Department. And Danny,
These expectations, these unrealistic thoughts about what God's going to do, they can be kind of limiting to me and my child, it seems. They can be, and they just kind of creep in. We all have them. We all have expectations for our kids. I mean, you're not a bad person if you have those. We need to be aware of those. Good, thank you. You've assuaged my guilt. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, because I'm the judge of that. But really, it's thinking through. We have expectations out of love. Many times we want the very best for our kids. We don't want to put the expectations as pressure. Sometimes it's to satisfy some deeper needs that we have. That's what we need to be aware of.
And also, is it realistic developmentally for my child? I remember when my kids were little, I had this expectation they were going to clean up after themselves. They're going to be obedient right away. They're going to make all the right decisions with the kids when the kids come to them in the playground. That was a real unrealistic start to parenting. And I still remember, John, when I wrote my first parenting book, it was as an assignment.
in graduate school, and I wrote all these things that parents, the do's and don'ts of parenting. I changed about 80% of that once I became a parent. It is interesting. But this is so unrealistic. Once you get in the middle of it, you realize what you need to lovingly do to shape your child, train them up in the way they should go. That's the key piece.
It's not train them so that they'll be perfect or in this perfect way in the way they should go. And that takes a lot of learning and adjusting, adapting as you go, which is one of the seven traits of effective parenting. This adaptability, adapting to the moment and the child in front of you. And that's without all these rigid expectations to get in the way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and turn now to...
to more about expectations for your child. And let's go ahead and turn now to a conversation, part of a conversation, from Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Jim spoke with Carrie Kampakis about arriving at healthy expectations for your son or daughter.
I think it's so true, especially if you accept Christ as a 18, 19-year-old and really commit your life to the Lord in that way, or even in your 20s, wherever it might have happened. You can tend to rewrite your history a little, I think. Yes. To make it much better than it was. I wasn't that bad a teenager. Right. But you do need to take a self-assessment, I think, as a parent. That's very helpful. Mm-hmm.
Sometimes we can have such high expectations for our kids to
to start at, you know, point 10. Right. When we started back at point one and learned those lessons in two and three and four. Right. But we as Christian parents can really load up on our children to kind of get out of the gate at 20. Right. You know, meaning point 20 because you've got Christian moms and dads. I mean, come on. Right. You've got to be better than I was. Exactly. And that's not really healthy because kids have to make their own mistakes. And I guess the question in that regard I can fold it into is how do you keep loving your teen daughter? Right.
In that time when it's not so pretty and nicely wrapped. Yes, that's great. I mean, I think the biggest thing is just to always parent with a spirit of strength and not defeat and a spirit of hope and giving them hope for the future. And even if they get in trouble, it's more of like, I'm on your team. You know, you're going to face some consequences here and you're not going to like them, but I'm going to journey through this with you.
and just remembering stories like the story of the prodigal son and God's mercy. And I think just really letting our teenagers know you're going to mess up, but God can restore and redeem everything. Say they were mean or they said something they regret, like, okay, now you go make it right. Go correct the situation, and then God can bring good from it. And really teaching them that, letting them see our humanity. Like, you know, I did this one time. I'm not proud of it, but, you know, I faced it. You know, I confessed my sin to God, and then he could bring good from it.
What about that mom facing the obnoxious teenage girl? I mean, it's just what it is. There may be lots of reasons why it's happening. Right. It usually, I would suggest, there's usually something going on or some things going on that create that kind of divide. Yes. But for that obnoxious teenage girl who...
Right. You know, boys can fit that one too. I'm just relating to your content here. But for the girl side of that, how does a mom close that gap? How does she...
just absorb that obnoxious attitude and still love her and still find ways to put snacks in her bag from time to time. Yeah. And I think it might be still setting those boundaries and say, but my problem, I used to mirror their reaction. If they were being, I was mirroring it back. That does not go well. It just amplifies the goal. But it is fun. But it is fun. And it takes you back to your childhood years. I'm like, I thought I was past this, how I acted with my siblings. And now I'm like,
It's all coming back. But I think be the adult basically. And it could be, okay, you can't talk to me like that. Give me your phone or give me your car keys, but doing it in a calm way. And then in the same time, you can still love them and say like, I love you, but this is not who you are. And this is not who you're going to be. And so, and I want you to go reflect on this and, you know, I just want what's best for you. And I love you. I don't know if something else is going on in your life, but
I'm here if you want to talk. And I think just to keep praying and to keep pursuing their heart, but set those rules and boundaries that they might need. They might not appreciate it now, but one day, you know, one of my favorite quotes is he's a youth minister in Birmingham named Cameron Cole. And he said, we're not parenting for our 16-year-old to like us.
We're parenting for our 40-year-old to respect us. Wow. And I think about that like even my friends. Oh, I used to get so mad at my mom when I was 16 because of this. But now, as an adult, I'm so glad she made me do that. Or I'm so glad she put those rules or those boundaries in place. And I think for our generation of moms, the problem is sometimes –
We can't take the attitude from our teenagers because we're relying on them for our joy. And we have really sacrificed our adult relationships in this child-centered culture of parenting. And so I'm a big believer that if you've got teenagers especially, you need to be building up your village as a mom, that you've got to be getting love from someplace. If you're not getting it from your child, which you are when they're little, but there comes a point where you're not always getting it back.
then I'm a big proponent of like, this is the time to reinvest in your marriage. If you're married to reinvest in your friendships, you know, to reinvest in your faith, to really go get love in your life so that what you're able to give your children is an overflow of what's in your heart rather than relying on them, because that's a scary proposition when they are in one of those ornery stages. Right. And those girlfriend connections are so important as moms, those mom connections. Cause I, you know, husbands have a hard time filling that gap too. And sometimes that expectation is quite high.
from the wife that somehow the husband will meet that need and they fall short because we're not good girlfriends. We're hopefully good husbands. But I've seen that with Jean, just her ability to connect and the joy she gets from connecting with other moms, etc.
Well, Danny, the here and now can kind of get in the way of what's coming down the road. And I've tried to encourage young dads in particular as I talk to them that I know it feels overwhelming right now when you have a newborn or a five-year-old or a 10-year-old, but keep an eye on who they're going to grow up to be because you're going to actually have more time alive with them when they're adults and
And so if you invest in the relational capital now, even though it's overwhelming and you have the right expectations, you might be able to have a friendship that lasts decades as adults. It's hard, though. I mean, when I'm right here and they're misbehaving or I feel overwhelmed or it's yet one more thing that's broken, I'm
How do I get up there and kind of see from the helicopter what the traffic looks like from way up above the traffic jam? Yeah, John, I love that you went to the relational aspect because that's the bigger picture. What kind of relationship do I want to have with my child as they become an adult? And your adult child needs high levels of guidance, but underneath that, high levels of warmth and sensitivity to who they are.
And in the frustrating moments, that sensitivity and warmth tends to go out the window. But we can balance those with high levels of guidance and boundaries. And that's what research consistently points to, that if we're able to bring both at high levels, we will have good relationships. Your kids will do well in the future.
And if you can see moments of failure, moments of difficulty as opportunities rather than inconveniences, it changes your mindset as to how you step into it. And so it's your mindset that's going to change your experience and the way you respond to your kids. So if you have a place where you can write opportunity and laugh at it, because it's a hard thing to do when the emotions are firing.
But it could be an amazing reminder for you that changes the momentum of how you show up emotionally with your kids and then guide them because then you'll see the big picture. Man, it's an opportunity, a growing moment for my child as they become an adult. And it's a building moment for our relationship down the road. Some of the most powerful building moments are moments where you're teaching your child something in a
In a loving way. So that is if they fail or they do something wrong, you're present with them. You're entering into their journey. Yeah. There's one that my daughter and I had when she was little. She spilled milk all over the table. I had already told her, hey, let's move that cup over so it doesn't spill. And she moved it back to that spot.
And then it ended up spilling and getting on my papers. It just wasn't a good moment. And when I looked over at my daughter, I could see that she already felt bad about it. And I had a split moment decision to make. Do I correct her and say, man, I told you not to do that? And with just the emotion, or do I say, hey, let's clean that up. That wasn't supposed to happen. And she used the words,
That wasn't supposed to happen, Dad. And she looked at me and we paused for a moment and we cleaned it together. And that helped me down the road notice how that impacted our relationship because she remembered it. She said, Dad, I remembered when you turned around, you looked at me, and then we cleaned that up together. It was a bonding moment rather than a disconnection moment, but she got it. She didn't do that again. Mm-hmm.
Well, I hear you saying offer your child grace in moments of challenge. And we want to encourage you to do that. Certainly the book by Kara Kampakis can help you, especially if you have a teenage daughter. It's called Love Her Well, 10 Ways to Find Joy and Connection with Your Teenage Daughter.
Look for that on our website. We've got the link in the show notes. If you can, make a donation of any amount to the ministry. Sign up to be a monthly sustainer. On a monthly basis, you'll be supporting the work Focus on the Family does. If you're not in a spot to do that, make a one-time gift of any amount, and we'll send the book to you as our way of saying thanks for being a part of the support team.
And then for teen girls, we'd love to recommend Brio Magazine, which features a lot of great stories and insights and biblical truth to encourage your teenage daughter. Check it out. It's a terrific magazine, and you'll find the details in the show notes. More from Carrie Kampakis next time. And for now, on behalf of Dr. Danny Huerta and our entire team, I'm John Fuller, and thanks for listening to the Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast.
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