Parenting Conference 2023 from United City Church

Hey, it's still good for you guys to be here.

Grateful for uh tonight and the opportunity for us to be able to be together and to talk this through.

Uh as folks hopefully walk in, they can be in to um be able just to join us in the middle of the conversation.

Hilary Kuba is up here with me.

Uh she is the uh she is the premier parent in all of this, no question about this.

And uh I want to just recap a little bit.

Hopefully, you were here this morning and had an opportunity to hear a little bit about what we talked about.

If not, I want to give you a little bit of insight because it's gonna break down a little bit of how we're gonna go about talking about things tonight.

Uh I mentioned to you Proverbs chapter 22, verse 6, uh train up a child in the way that he should go, and and when even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

And we talked about how it's very easy for us to think about that in terms of four different stages of parenting.

I want to recap those to you.

Uh, the first stage of parenting is that of caregiver.

This is basically your preschool years.

Uh, the second phase of parenting is your coach years.

This is the time whenever you're basically telling your kid, go here, uh, and take this, uh, don't forget this.

It's just basically you're giving them instructions.

This is that elementary school years, it's the time when you literally are a coach, as well as a time whenever you are basically just giving instruction.

Then you move into that consultant phase.

That is the teenage years.

We're actually in the middle of that with all four of our kids in that consultant phase, and then there is the confidant stage, which is kind of the post-uh high school and beyond.

So, what I want to do is I want to just kind of break down a little bit more specifically what that looks like in some of these various phases.

I want to start with some of the caregiver phase, because some of the questions that we got uh specifically that were sent in this morning were related to how to deal with this specific phase.

How many of you, just by show of hands, are in this phase of parenting right now?

The okay, gotcha.

Again, I just want to say it's pretty awesome that you're here, all right?

That's a big deal in and of itself.

I'm sure you're just here because there's child care for a couple of hours, right?

And that's okay by itself and everything.

But we talked a little bit about this morning that the goal of the caregiver phase is that you basically survive, but we know that there's gotta be more than that.

You gotta get stuff done, you gotta be able to function, you gotta be able to move things forward.

Hillary, you're a mom.

Why don't you speak to this specifically?

Give us some insight and what it looks like to both try to survive but also thrive in the middle of this caregiver stage.

Yes.

So we had our four kids all within five years.

So that was just a nuts time for us.

And we were in counseling after our third child.

Literally.

We were literally in counseling after our third child.

I remember though somebody telling me, you have like the first six months after having a baby is just literally like wake up, sleep, eat, go back to bed, same kind of thing.

Just survive.

And that kind of gave me a lot of freedom to not feel like I had to do all these other things, and especially when you have more than one kid, because you're thinking I'm totally dropping the ball with the older one, all they do is sit in front of the TV.

But it really is just survive when you have that newborn.

But you can't do that for years.

And so I think that's where we I've really thrived on just having a schedule.

And even from bedtime, like I knew exactly when they were gonna go to bed, and then we had built-in times throughout the day.

We trained them how to sit on a blanket and have blanket time while um, well, just any time during the day.

But there was also something that Chris and I did called couch time, and that was something for us to sit on the couch, have time at the end of the day, or right usually when he got home from work, and just kind of reconnect for us to say, here's what happened today, how was your day?

But also the kids to see like mom and dad are having their time and we're still down here, but mom and dad are the priority.

And but it that took time, like babies don't just sit on the rug and or on the specific blanket and sit there.

You have to train them to stay on that blanket, don't cross these lines, you're teaching them boundaries.

Um, we had room time and obviously nap time, but then I guess after nap time, they would move to room time when they weren't necessarily still sleeping anymore, but they would know, okay, I'm gonna still be in my room for an hour in the afternoon while everybody else is sleeping, and I would give them a basket of books or quiet toys, and they knew they had to stay in their room from this time to this time.

And I would say all that not to be super legalistic, but to just you have things you have to do too.

You have to take a shower, you have to still do dishes, you have to do laundry, you have to get meals ready.

So there's things that you need to do as a mom and as the parent to take care of yourself and the rest of your household.

So it really helped me just not be like a total free-for-all every day.

And especially if you're not, if you do have a Mother's Day out or a program at preschool, that's great.

But all of three of our four kids were born in the summer, so it felt like a free-for-all a lot when we didn't have those extra things um for them to be able to go to.

But I would just say really push in on a schedule because it just makes your life so much easier.

And every day is a new day.

If the schedule doesn't work out that day, or um it's just not, you know, not a good thing, or something throws it off, it's okay.

Just start over the next day.

But at least you're training them um to just get used to something that is gonna be helpful for your whole family.

One of the things that I mentioned this morning that I think is so key is the funnel.

If you hopefully you got the member of the image of the funnel, there's basically a lot of times what happens is whenever you come in this caregiver phase, one of the things we've seen so often with families and couples is that they basically give their kids way too many options, right?

So basically they give them all these various choices, and then ultimately it's like, well, do you what what what what color drink do you want?

And then it's like, uh, I want this one.

And then it's just kind of this whole little game, it's like takes forever about what stupid cup you're gonna pick and that kind of thing.

Let me show you the image of this funnel.

It's so key for you to realize at the beginning of their lives, your kids should have as few choices as possible.

Your kids should basically be in a situation to where you are told, in fact, Hillary, I want you to walk them through that because you were genius about this.

It wasn't like what do you want for dinner?

It was like, do you want this or do you want this?

And they would say, Well, we want this other thing.

It doesn't matter.

You get this or you get this, right?

You limit those choices as much as possible because ultimately it goes back to Hillary being able to have some sort of schedule, was ultimately because we limited the amount of variables that we were able to deal with because there's enough variables by just life alone.

You don't need to add more by them having choices as to what I want to wear this as opposed to there this or that kind of thing.

Speak to that.

Actually, dinner wasn't even a choice.

It was yours less for dinner.

If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it.

But I wasn't making anything else.

We're all eating this.

Um, but yes, like I mean, I'm a super laid-back person, so being this detailed or giving them these choices is kind of more than I like to do.

But I just understood the value of trying to hone in on that and show them that we're the ones in authority over them.

And eventually I want them to see that with God.

Like if God tells them, here's what I want you to do, I want them to say yes right away and with a happy heart.

Um, but yeah, so with the choices, I'd say you can have the blue cup or the green cup.

Not the pink one's not an option right now.

If that's the one you're fighting over, or you can wear this outfit or this outfit.

And then as they get older, I would say, okay, pick from this drawer if you want something to drink, or you can I will you can go get yourself dressed, but it needs to be a shirt and shorts.

And so you're you're slowly broadening the funnel as it goes up and giving them more choices.

But early on, you just have to keep it very minimal, very much, and you're not this domineering person, but you're just giving them um, you know, the what they uh what they can handle and not too much, too many freedoms, because then you have to pull those back.

And so you want to make sure that you give them those freedoms when their age appropriate.

Whenever we speak to the schedule, some of the things that are key is that we also had ideas of what time our kids were gonna go to bed.

We also had ideas of what times our kids were gonna get up.

Does that mean they always got up at the exact same time?

No, but what it did mean is this they weren't allowed to get out of their rooms until that specific time.

Uh I I hear constantly here of couples who are like, oh my goodness, the kids came into my room at 5 a.m.

and whatever the case may be.

That our kids have never once ever, ever gotten our bed.

Like ever.

Now they've gotten pallets by the bed, those types of things, that kind of a thing.

When they're sick, obviously that's different.

I think the point being is that create some sacred space that's also yours, and don't allow the kids basically to make the decisions that rule every decision that's gonna take place.

Instead, have those boundaries that are gonna be there.

And we we had a little timer, for example, that our kids would have.

And so ultimately it was like a little like uh sunlight kind of a thing.

And so, like the light would the night light would like change colors or whatever.

And so our kids knew they couldn't get out of their room until that certain time.

It goes back to the funnel.

We wanted to limit as many things as possible.

So when they decided to get up, if they wanted to get up and be out for a while, that was their choice, but they weren't gonna necessarily bother us in the middle of all of that, right?

And so it's just those boundaries that kind of take place that deal with that.

Talk us through relationships, because this is a very key thing because you kind of go from being a young married couple, you have all these friends, and you have relationships, and all of a sudden you throw a kid in the mix and it's everything changes.

Walk us through what that looks like.

So we were very active before we had kids.

We all loved hanging out with friends, going to dinner, and having people over, and that didn't necessarily have to stop when we had kids.

And in fact, you have to be still intentional with it.

But there were many times we would just bring the pack and play with us, or if they had kids, borrow their pack and play and put the kids down and still play games or eat dinner over there just like we always would, or watch a game, or whatever it was we were gonna do.

But so don't necessarily let your kids be an excuse to drop all your relationships because you're gonna need those people.

And um, it was still just they were great parenting friends for us, and we were going through similar situations and we could bounce ideas off of each other.

And and again, it just proves to the kids you like Chris and I were a family unit before you came along.

Our marriage is the most important thing here.

And as when the kids were born, you just were an invited guest into our family.

But our family doesn't rule around any one of you.

It's it's us that's the most important.

And we actually have told our kids that all the time.

All the time.

All the time.

We always tell them, hey, we are we're we're the family.

You're an invited guest to our ably already established family.

And I'll say when you have one kid, it's very easy to make them the one and only and put your whole world around them, schedule everything, let them get away with things that you wouldn't.

And so I think that was probably a lesson we learned quick since we had so many kids back to back.

So it wasn't cute for them to run around our living room or my parents' living room and grab all the remotes or destroy stuff.

You have to teach them those boundaries early on.

And um, I mean, even with like sitting at the dinner table, we would have dinners every night and the kids would sit in their high chairs with us until everybody at the dinner table was done.

I wasn't letting them get down, run around, oh well, you're finished and you don't want to sit here anymore.

Okay, go run around and play.

No.

If we're at someone's house, if we're at a restaurant, you can't go do that.

So you're teaching them those things in your house when it wouldn't really matter if they got down and it would probably be a more enjoyable dinner for us.

But you're looking ahead to think that I want this to look controlled and and just that they have self-control to be able to sit and not be crazy when we're in situations that they can't do that.

Let's talk about bedtime.

What does bedtime look like during that caregiver stage and uh what what what are some guidance for that?

Well, you you were good at bedtime during this stage.

I mean, we um we had the Jesus um Jesus Storybook Bible.

Yep.

And so that it was just, you know, simple little kids' stories from the Bible that we just would read to them every night.

We had like a flip, um, it was like a little flip book about different missionaries and locations around the world, and we would just call Operation World, yep.

Yeah, I mean, I don't even remember necessarily how we got that, but we just would pray for missionaries in different countries around the world.

It would kind of give a blurb about what they were doing.

I mean, I'm sure most of it went over our kids' head, but I can still picture and hear this prayer that Kinsey prayed for all the people in the world when she was probably three, and um, you know, just instilling those things in them that Monday, one day if they want to go be missionaries, great.

I would love for them to have that call on their lives from God.

But um bedtime was definitely he mentioned it this morning that it's a long process and it can be, but it it was definitely a schedule.

Like I could leave notes for a babysitter and say, do this, this, and this, and they will go to bed and you won't have to hear from them again.

And you know, if it's we're gonna get home and eat dinner, shower, brush teeth, get pajamas on, and then you can pick one book and we'll sing one song.

And it's probably not come pick one book off of this bookshelf.

It's here, you want this book or this book, especially when they're younger.

As they get older, you might say you can pick between more of these.

But when you rein it in, and then you know, you start learning the things they're gonna keep asking for.

I want a drink of water, I want, you know, a different pillow or I whatever, and you just have to say, no, we're not doing those things.

This is what we're doing, and then we'd sing the song and put them to bed and um and then leave.

And then we were sharing with somebody that our kids have always shared rooms.

We have two girls and two boys.

So when they were little, the girls would share a room, and then the boys would share a room, and the girls, we'd put them do the bedtime routine, it was great.

But then the minute we left the room, they just start talking and they want to stay up and they want to play.

And so we learned that, you know, instead of keep going back in there and having to get onto them, and just that that's what dragged out over the night was that we finally would just say, Okay, you have 15 minutes when we leave, and you can talk for 15 minutes.

But when we come back, there's no more talking, we're done.

And I don't know, somehow they could get it all out in 15 minutes.

And it, but it was just giving them that freedom of saying, okay, I'm gonna let you do this.

You have this freedom now, and I'm okay with it, but you're still in control, you're still in authority over them, and these are still boundaries that we've set.

But then when we come back in, we're done.

And that seemed to work so much better than just getting onto them all the time.

Let's talk about the coach phase.

That's kind of that uh elementary school uh season, that's one that's filled with a lot of activities.

All of our kids played almost all different activities and sports and all that kind of thing, and uh I coached all of them and all that kind of a deal.

So it was definitely your team mom.

I mean, it was sort of a crazy season.

Uh this morning I mentioned first-time obedience.

You were you were great about this.

Let's talk through what does it look like to establish first-time obedience and what are some of the things that that we found helpful to be able to implement that.

So, as he said this morning, even I mean, you want your kids to eventually, when God tells them to do something, say yes, you know, yes, ma'am, yes, sir, right away with a happy heart.

And that was what we started our kids off from the get-go when they were little.

We would call their name.

We told him, okay, whenever mom and dad call your name, I want you to say, yes, mom, I'm coming and with a happy heart.

Not whining, not complaining, not dragging your feet, not yelling what at me from the top of the stairs to so I can get, you know, you can get my attention.

You know, I want to make sure that you hear me.

And sometimes we would just call their name for the heck of it and just say, you know, I'm sitting at the table, hey, Caitlin, and if she didn't say yes, mom, I'm coming with a happy heart, then I would be like, uh-uh, go back and try that again.

Like, I want you to come.

These are the what we've told you we want you to do.

You need to come with a happy heart, say yes, mom, so that I know you've heard me.

And um you did it quite a bit even when we didn't even have anything to tell them.

I mean, you would just do it, just basically the idea is to train practice.

Making sure it's all these things take practice because otherwise you're gonna get in a situation when you really do need them to come right away when you have told them that, and they're gonna just be like, Yeah, I don't want to, or if you count, then I'll come when you say two and a half, like you said this morning.

And so I was trying to train them to come right away when I when I call your name.

And um talk about how the we dealt with uh because you know, one thing is very easy during this stage is basically a kid comes in and then they kind of think that whatever they've got is the most important thing.

And so how how did how did you help them learn not to interrupt us?

Yes, so you know when you've been in a conversation with your friends and your kids come running up and they're pulling on your sleeve and yelling in your face and trying to get you to acknowledge them about them who knows what, nothing important, or maybe it is, but either way, I would we taught them that they had to put their hands on our arm just so I would feel it.

I know that they're there, and I would sometimes put my hand on top of them so they knew that I was acknowledging them.

But they also knew that I would wait until I got to a stopping point in my conversation before I would acknowledge them.

I mean, if it was a super important thing, I have to go to the bathroom, then they might be a little bit more forceful.

But um, just teaching them that adult conversations are important too, and you're coming in interrupting, and so I will get to you in just a minute as soon as I'm finished with this conversation.

But um yeah.

Let's talk about um activities and sports.

Um all of our kids, like I said, played stuff, but I know one of the things that's very easy uh is to basically overschedule your kids.

Walk us through what that looks like.

How can we protect ourselves and in this stage of coaching to not basically be too busy?

So, yes, we have four kids.

They're all 12 to 17 right now.

They all play sports, and even when they were little, they from kindergarten around kindergarten, four or five years old, they wanted to play sports, and we put them on teams.

And um, but we had a rule that you can only play one sport at a time.

And so for us, that was just what we could manage with between the four kids.

Sometimes we even since we had two boys and two girls back to back, we'd play them on the same team.

Like the younger one was okay, good enough to play on the the team up with the older.

Even if they weren't good enough, we just played them that way.

That would cut down on one practice and one game a week to double up like that.

So um, but there were and it would we'd usually go from fall to winter to spring.

In the summer, we never played sports.

We always just took a break from any sports, we'd do camps, church stuff, whatever they had going on, but we did not play sports in the summer.

And um honestly, we rec league is what worked best for us because it was one practice at one game, and so we didn't even jump into the whole club select whatever that there is out there, and I think that's just such an easy trap to get into that if your kids show like a little bit of a talent, you're like, oh wow, well, they need to go do all this stuff.

And I'm like, they're in second grade, they really don't need to, they'll be okay.

And your whole lives are taken with four nights a week of baseball or four nights a week of volleyball practice, and um, you know, it's it's just become one of those things like with our kids, they they just they love the sports and they would play all of them all the time, but we had to just limit it to one.

And that was also how Chris could coach.

He coached almost all their kids.

He coaching actually helped because he could set the schedule of when practices were that worked with better with our family schedule.

Um but I would just I would say there was even a time I remember when Hudson was Hudson was trying to some friends were gonna get him to play lacrosse and he had never played before.

It was a new sport.

He was in elementary school, but they had practices or something, I think on Sunday afternoons.

It wasn't even that it conflicted with church, but Sundays are just exhausting days for us and for Chris especially.

So he was like, I just don't think I can give up that day that I want to do that.

And it wasn't, you know, a super big deal.

So you have to look at what at your family and see what is actually manageable.

And if a certain sport isn't at that time, it's okay.

It's just the season.

They can come back to it, or somebody else might take a break on their sport and allow room for that.

But um again, don't let one kid drive what your whole family does.

And when I would just say this, I mean, we've got a um we've got two high school athletes, we we've got two that that potentially could be athletes as well.

I think the point being is that you can say no and you'll be fine.

I think that's there's this pressure, like you feel like you've got to make these life decisions whenever they're really early on, and what you ultimately do is allow some coach who's not his fault, but his schedule m is becomes your life.

And you've just got to figure out ways specifically during this season where you grab control as much as you can.

We have also even told teams, you know, if you have stuff on Sunday mornings or you have stuff on Wednesday nights, we just won't be there.

We did it right now.

Right now we're in the middle of that.

If you, you know, don't want our kid on their team because you want him to be there for all the practices, and I get that, and I understand why you would want that.

I just want you to be up, I just want to be up front and let you know that's where we are.

And so far we haven't had any issues.

Even when they've had one of our kids has a Wednesday practice every week, and we just say, sorry, you won't be there.

And then the coach said, Well, actually, we might try to move that to another day.

So, you know, it will work out, and if it's meant to be, it's meant to be.

But at least our kids are getting what's most important, which is going to youth on Wednesday nights.

They're gonna get so much more out of that than they will from their practice.

So the coach phase, let's talk about screen time.

How to handle screen tom?

So we um This is easy.

They don't have it.

We don't they don't have it.

They don't have it.

Literally, they don't have it.

Yeah.

They had Kindles when they were little, but they were hard, they were used on like long car trips, like driving to Colorado, which was once a year, or they were used, you know, very infrequently.

And there were times where, you know, I would need them to sit still or quiet in the stroller when we're going to a doctor's appointment, or we're going to just anywhere that I need them to be still in it.

But don't just throw your kids in front of their iPad or phone.

I would bring games that we could play, like or snacks, lots of snacks.

But then um just think of other ways to help them stay entertained.

I mean, we played iSpy in the doctor's office so many times, and even still, when I take my kids, we'll be sitting in the waiting room and they're like, let's play i Spy um or make up math.

Games or I don't know, just make up other things that you can do that isn't just handing them your iPad.

Because I've just there there was a couple times where I'd give them a Kindle or something, and then the doctor walks in, they don't even look up, they're still staring at it, and they're just not engaged.

And I'm like, okay, nope, that's mine.

And um I would just say limit those as much as possible.

And our kids never had uh phones or anything like that at all of these stages.

And even when they got phones, they have don't have internet um in middle school.

We'll talk about that in the next one, yeah, for sure.

Um let me just mention this really quickly is a little bit about bedtime um and the importance of all of that, or a couple things during this coach phase, as much as you possibly can.

I think it's vitally important for you to have family dinners.

Uh we always did high lows, uh highest thing of the day, lowest thing of the day uh with our kids, even at this stage right here.

Uh and you're just gonna it's gonna be harder and harder for you to have any kind of family dinner whenever they get older.

So I would encourage you during this coach phase, even if you have to eat at 5 30 or if you have to eat at 8 30, you figure out a way to have a family dinner.

Like you have some kind of sitting around a table, being able to get together.

And then I would also just encourage you to maximize the bedtimes.

I've mentioned this before, but um you you said I should say it as well.

Like we used to do a blessing over our kids.

I used to always do this every single night for the longest time.

I used to tell my kids, Can you see my eyes?

And they would say yes.

Can you see that I see your eyes?

They say yes.

Do you know that I love you?

Yes.

Um Do another love you.

What did I say?

Do another love you?

More than God when you do good, and they would say yes.

And I say, when you do bad, and they say yes.

Um, who else loves you like that?

They would say, God, more than me?

They say yes.

And I'd say, rest in that love, and then I would touch their head and I would give them a kiss.

Uh my boys fought it all the time, and I did it every night.

I would just go and give them a kiss and pray that blessing over them.

And then we would pray.

Whenever it was the girls, we'd put all of our hands in, we'd pray, and we'd all say, Team Cuba.

One, two, three, pray, say amen, and then break off one, two, three, team kuba.

With the boys, whenever we would pray at the end of our prayers, we would put our hands in and we'd say one, two, three, men.

And we to this day still do that.

Every single day, whenever I take any of my kids to school, they know as we're driving up to school, as we're gonna go, I'm like, all right, you ready?

And everybody has to put their hands in as we're driving up to the school, we're putting in their hands, and I'm praying something over them before they go into school.

It's little bitty things, but it's so important, particularly you men in this room, for your kids to hear you pray their name to your father.

Like it's vitally important that you begin to just let the name of God being spoken in your home become something that is just as natural as talking about the cowboys or the Texans or the Astros or whatever it is that's out there.

And so, for some of you who may feel like that's a radical thing, here's the thing: your kids don't know that.

So you can fake it and just do a little bit, and guess what?

You're gonna be fine.

I just want to vitally encourage you, though, to figure out ways that you can maximize, particularly during this coaching phase, as much as you can, uh, those times of blessing where your kids can hear, I'm proud of you, I love you.

I tell my boys all the time, I love you.

Uh to this day, even though they're the consultant phase, all the time, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Those powerful words that can be spoken that at the end of the day, perhaps generations even before us, that wasn't quite as normal.

And I would just simply tell you it's vitally important in an age when everybody else is gonna tell them that they love them and they want their attention and all of that, that they hear from a godly dad and from a godly mom that that is the case.

All right, nothing like a video to kind of make you all sad.

That's totally the stage that we are in right now.

We have just uh we we just did homecoming and uh all that kind of stuff and uh and talking through some of those types of things.

Uh, did you guys enjoy the breakouts?

Hopefully it was very good.

I've heard great feedback from them.

I got a chance to go sit in on uh two of them.

It was very, very good.

And uh I know that we all agree our team is just uh phenomenal and got some unique experiences and hopefully can not only provide resources for you tonight, but also as we kind of go forward.

We want to spend a little bit of time talking through those last two stages.

Let's just get a little uh feedback.

How many of you are in that consultant phase?

You've got teenagers, you've got uh folks that you're dealing with.

Okay, good deal.

So, quite a few of you and uh all of us in that stage right now.

Um we, yeah, this is fun times, right?

This is this is uh interesting times.

Uh these are definitely challenging times.

This is vulnerable for us because we're in gonna give you some guidance and some wisdom from this stage, uh yet still very much in process, still trying to figure it out ourselves.

Uh, but we do feel like that one of the things that we've been blessed with is that we've got a lot of godly mentors that have been put in our life who've raised really, really great kids, kids who love the Lord, kids who follow after him.

And so while we certainly will most likely deviate and change, perhaps a little bit along the way from some of the things that we may mention and talk with you a little bit about tonight, uh, we certainly know this that we at least um have a plan that we're gonna try to go for and that we're going for in the midst of all that right now.

One of the key things we talked about in this phase is just the importance of moving from telling your kids what to do, where to go, the yes, the no on a constant basis, and instead trying to teach them how to think.

And it's really hard to do that because in this stage, their frontal lobe isn't even fully developed, and so basically they don't even know how to think, right?

So it's a problem.

You're trying to teach them how to think, they don't know how to think, they just feel, and depending on their gender, they may feel more than others.

And so it's important, though, that conversation takes place.

Yet it also feels like at this stage, conversation is one of the most difficult things uh ever.

I would tell you, my wife's amazing at this.

Hillary, give us a little bit of insight on what it looks like for you to be able to have conversations so that you could help lead our kids in terms of what to think during this stage of being a consultant.

So I one of my favorite things um before two a year and a half ago was driving them to and from school.

And for us, it was just a great time to be in the car.

It wasn't even all of them because they were at different schools starting at different times.

But my favorite was I'd pick up from high school at 255 and go get an elementary school line.

And we had about 30 minutes in the car.

And so my oldest her freshman year, it was just her, and then the next year it was both her and Kinzie.

They were only a grade apart.

And but I'd hear all about their day in those 30 minutes, and they could fill me in on stuff and just hear about what's going on.

And they were kind of trapped because they had to go with me.

We had to go get in line real quick, and it was just a great time for them to open up.

And now she's 17, so she drives them both and brings them home and all that.

And um, so I don't have that as much.

But one of my other favorite times is before bed.

For some reason, when everyone you're exhausted and you're ready to just go to sleep, they're ready to like spill everything.

And so, especially I remember so many times when they were little, like in the last phase of just like, just go to bed.

I'm done talking.

Don't call mom one more time.

Like, I have no more to give to you, just go to sleep.

And now I'm finding myself being like, okay, I'm gonna stay up.

I want to hear about it, like just not feeling rushed to try to put them to bed and say goodnight.

And um, so many times, just the girls, especially and even the boys have just, you know, how's this friendship?

What's going on here?

And what do you think about this class?

How's this teacher?

Um, the hard thing for me has been, I would say it's kind of a slow, gradual process of teaching them to think more for themselves instead of just telling them what to do, because my oldest is definitely a verbal processor.

So she is will text me during the day.

I can't wait to tell you about this story or this or that.

And so we talk about things all the time, but my middle one isn't as much.

And so, but it's it was always easy for me to be like, oh, well, I think you should handle it this way, or you should talk to this person about this.

And um, but it's Chris is good at reminding me, like, step back, like what how can they what what questions can you ask them to make them think about, well, how would you handle this?

Or do you think that an apology is needed here?

Or and even honestly, even just asking them and saying, can we pray about this?

Or have you prayed about this?

Have you asked God for help in this situation?

So many times for me, I just think in my own life, God doesn't care about these things, but he does like even relationships, your friendships at school, boyfriends, girlfriends, teachers, grades, sports, whatever it is, he cares about these things.

And so I want them to start thinking about and reminding them they can go to God for any of these things.

So um just, you know, even opening that up and reminding them like, have you talked to God about this or thought more about this?

But um, I would just say definitely bedtime.

I just go sit in their rooms on the end of their bed or on their chair on their floor or wherever it is, and you know, kind of like plant myself.

Like, I'm not going anywhere, so let's just talk and um see what comes out.

And if it is in the middle of school and they're studying, then I know it's a quick night, but most of the time it's not.

So one of the key things I think you do so well is that you just uh listen.

Um, I tell you, if she's ever not there, and uh the girls will come home and they'll sit down and they'll start talking to me, and they can tell they want me to be just like their mom.

And man, it is a struggle.

I am dying.

I'm just thinking, what would Hillary do?

What would Hillary do?

What would Hillary do?

And and it's not about fixing, it's not about whatever, but I mean you even do that with I think the boys, and I think it's just so key that you you don't know when they're gonna talk, but I think you've got to be prepared.

This is not a time when you're gonna catch up on sleep.

It's a time when instead you've got to be available, and when the window opens, I mean you gotta run and you gotta stay in there and you gotta stay as long as you possibly can and begin to have those conversations.

For me, I basically I can buy my girls affection by basically taking them to Starbucks.

That's my thing, right?

I but you know what I do?

I buy a lot of Starbucks and it's worth it.

It's worth it every single time.

Uh, there's something that I do with my boys that I would love to talk to any guys in here about called Primal Path.

It's a program that I do with my son Hudson.

He is 13.

Uh, there's a bunch of guys in here that also do it and would love to invite any other ones to be a part of it as well.

Contact my office and I can give you more details about it.

But it's basically a system designed to help transition uh from 13 up until the become men, what it looks like to transition from being a boy to a man.

We do about a five seven to ten minute devotional every single morning.

And it's guided and we walk it through together.

We do something called man school every Saturday, all right?

And it's just basically an activity.

Sometimes we'll watch a movie together or something like that.

Then every quarter we do something called difficulty day.

It sounds way more intense.

What I've just found is that it's just a framework to help give me some guidance to be able to ask some intentional conversations to my boys because I'm pretty good about having the porn conversation and about having how to treat women conversation.

But when it comes to like the other stuff, it's a little bit more of a challenge because my dad didn't talk to me about kind of stuff like that.

And guys don't know how to talk about stuff like that in general.

What I found is this curriculum and this kind of help just provides me every morning, Hudson and I know we can sometimes it's pretty insightful, sometimes it's just basically us walking it through.

But there's a framework where he and I are gonna have a conversation to where he knows he and I, we we've talked about some deep stuff along the way, and it's really, really, really helpful.

Let's talk about dating.

Dating is definitely something that is all that comes up at our house, it feels like.

Uh it comes up a lot, it's a big thing.

We get asked a lot of questions about dating.

How do you handle dating?

What would you say towards that?

Well, you're the it does come up a lot.

Um, honestly, I with the girls, we just have talked so much about the purpose of dating, A, to find a spouse and get married.

That's it.

There's not, it's not to just test people out, see if you like this or that.

And uh, like Chris mentioned maybe last week, you know, that it's not like your test driving a car and and all that.

So we just talk a lot about what healthy relationships look like.

And that even goes to friendships, like when they were younger and in middle school and there's so much girl drama, and you know, what does a healthy friendship look like?

Is this a healthy friendship?

And is this what you would want in a friend?

How are you treating your friends?

So same kind of goes with dating and with guys of do you have a are you actually friends?

It's like so many times in in high school we've noticed that they just go from like, oh, that person's cute or I like them, and they just are like, well, let's just say we're dating, but they don't even really know the person and they're not they don't have a friendship behind that.

And um, that was just something that Chris and I were such good friends before we actually started dating.

So I've kind of tried to instill that in the girls of be best friends with them.

If it turns into something more great, and you'll you'll know that and you'll want to, you know, take it to a romantic level.

But if not, you have a great friend, and that's okay.

It's good, it's great to have lots of good guy friends.

Um, but I just Chris, you talk about just kind of the things that you've said to some of the guys that have come to our house and then what you've told our boys.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, so we've talked about dating for a long time.

Going back to the coach phase.

We talked about dating a ton in the coach phase, and one of the things that we talked about a lot, particularly with our girls, was hey, there's got to be two key things that are gonna be the case if you're ever gonna date a guy.

Number one, he has to be a boy.

That sounds weird, but we live in a weird day today, okay?

Number two, they have to be a Christian, a committed believer.

And we've talked about that a ton because there's a lot of people here in Houston, Texas who are Christians who don't follow Jesus.

There's a lot of people who go to church who have zero relationship with the Lord.

So we've talked a ton about the difference between you dating someone who just happens to check off a box.

It's not a box that you check, it's a lifestyle and a pursuit that you go and to do.

And so we also have told them repeatedly, uh, and I do this for two reasons.

One, I'm trying to get the riff-raff off from my girls, but I'm also trying to prepare my boys.

Both things are gonna be true at the same time.

We've told our girls forever, if anybody's ever gonna take you out on a date, they're gonna have to come talk to me.

Okay?

And I don't say that to be intimidating, I don't say that to be like, oh, let me go get my gun, and when they come in and whatever, and try to be weird like that.

That's not what I'm trying to do.

On the other hand, what I've noticed, and what you probably noticed if you've got kids in this stage, people don't know how to talk to each other.

They'll text each other, but they don't know how to have face-to-face conversations.

And so what we want to make sure to do is I I we've had this a couple times.

Boys have come over to our house, they want to go and date our our daughter, my daughters, and so what I will tell them is I've got three things I tell them.

Same thing every single time.

Uh when they come over, have a conversation, and I say, hey, there's three things I want to make sure you do.

One, take care of her personally.

So make sure you speak well about my daughter.

Make sure that you speak nice to her, make sure that you're kind to her and the what you say to her and what you say about her.

Second thing I always say is be her protector.

Look, if I was with her, I'm gonna make sure that I know where she's at at all times.

I'm gonna make sure that she's safe.

I'm gonna make sure that there's no dangerous situations that she's gonna be placed in.

And so, therefore, if you're taking her out instead of me, I want to make sure you know you're me tonight.

And so you've got to make sure that you know where she's at, you're watching out for her.

If you're gonna be at the dance, you got eyes on her at all times, or you know where she is.

I want to make sure if you're taking her to the football game, that you make sure that you have got her in your in your in your car with you at all times, she is safe.

And then the last thing I say, and this is the only thing they ever mention, is this honor her physically.

I've talked to Caitlin, I've talked to Kenzie, I've talked to my kids, here's what they say they're comfortable doing with you from a physical standpoint.

Are you good with that?

That's an awkward conversation.

But here's what I want you to understand.

It's way better for it to be awkward for me talking to my daughter and awkward for me talking to this boy than awkward for my daughter in a moment whenever she's gonna be in a situation where it's past the point where she's gonna be able to make the right decision.

And if you have high schoolers, think about the types of boys that would be willing to have that conversation and it weeds out a lot of people.

So now, here's what I tell you.

I uh my goal is not that my girls don't ever date anybody.

That's actually not.

I speak to them all the time.

That my goal is that they will date somebody, and I would love it that they date someone in my while they're still in our house.

But I would also tell you this my goal is to raise that fence to where if a guy's gonna go to date her, he's gonna jump over that fence and have a conversation with me.

And I don't mean that like somehow, like, oh, you gotta impress me.

That's not what I'm trying to say.

But I want to be able to teach him to be able to have an adult conversation with me because my daughter's not for sale to try out.

Like, this is a big deal to date my daughters, it's a huge deal.

Let me tell you another reason why this is the case, because this is exactly what my boys, I want them to be thinking about whenever they go and date a girl.

Because my boys one day may be asking your daughters out, and I want them to be able to have the same things instilled in them that I hope that you want for your daughters if my boys are gonna date them.

It's a huge deal.

And so, therefore, for instance, when it comes to boys, my my I talk to my boys all the time about this, all right?

One, my boys don't get uh, we'll talk about social media we want to in a second, but uh my boys don't necessarily get uh to just text whoever it is they want to.

Uh my eighth grade son just this year got permission to go talk to basically approved friends uh to get contacts.

Otherwise, he's basically only been able to text siblings and um and grandparents.

That's basically it, right?

And in extended family.

Um when next year, whenever Hudson goes into uh um high school, uh, if he wants to go and text a girl, that's great.

He's gonna go to the dad and he's gonna ask permission.

You're like, man, that seems really old school.

Yep.

Yeah.

Because at the end of the day, I want him to honor a girl that much, and you don't just randomly text whoever you want to, because you know what?

I'm dealing with right now with guys who are randomly texting my daughters, causing all types of confusion and doing all types of leading things, and they've got one thing on their mind.

I tell my girls this all the time.

They got one thing on their mind.

One thing on their mind.

And so we've got to make sure that we talk openly about this and understand because teenagers these days have changed the rules and the definitions of what dating is and talking and all these types of things.

And I think it's so important that we instead understand that it's playing with fire.

And it's just vitally important that we treat this thing differently.

Uh, I want my boys to go and talk to uh a dad whenever they're gonna go and have and be able to have that conversation, look them in the face and be able to have that and ask for mission and do those types of things.

And so I've I've told the boys, boys, if you promise you, if you do this, you will set yourself apart from every other guy that's out there by a mile, by just the very fact that you're gonna do that old school chivalry.

Uh like with my boys, they can they can do a lot of things.

They cannot ever not open the door for their mom or their sisters when it comes to any door that ever gets opened.

Why?

Because I want to teach them what it looks like to make sure they're always opening up a door for a girl that they're pursuing.

It's just it's just the way that those things um work.

Couple things as well, double date as long as possible, if if you can.

Uh, I would also say no boys in girls' rooms.

That sounds really like it shouldn't be a thing, but can y'all please just hear what I said?

Don't let a guy in a girl room, and a vice versa, particularly um, even if they're friends.

Like just don't don't allow that.

Don't introduce those types of things.

And we uh well that goes with FaceTiming on your phones in your bedroom or laying on your bed or whatever you're doing, but they um can't do that in their room with their talking to boys either.

Let's talk real quick about social media.

Yes.

So we uh we the girls like you well, like you said, they didn't get contacts with friends until about eighth grade.

And um then uh when Caitlin was 16, and she is an old 16-year-old, so she was after her freshman year, she was really wanting Instagram, and that was the only thing that she never had any social media before that.

So we did allow her to get Instagram, and then we had always been hardcore against Snapchat and just basically said, don't ever ask for it, it's not happening.

But the girls came to us with a whole presentation, a slideshow, and the reasons why they had talked to the youth staff and some other just key leaders and um just adults that they trust that they knew we trusted and got their opinions on you know how to do it safely and looked up websites.

And so they came to us with this whole thing, and it actually made us change our mind for her because it just showed that she put the effort in.

She's thought through some of the reasons why parents wouldn't be for Snapchat, and she knows the safeguards and she knows some of the things that kids try to do to get around things.

Um, and so at 17, we allowed her to get Snapchat.

Um, this is the other one still doesn't have it yet, but um, it just for us, it just showed like this the stage of of this parenting of we want you to think for yourself.

We we're not just gonna we don't want to come to you and be like, this is this, and um, you know, it we had said it, this was a hard no for Snapchat, but then they came to us and had some questions and um had thought through it.

So it made us think through it and be like, yeah, we agree with you.

We think you can handle this.

And so I think whatever you're thinking, try to be longer because you're gonna probably feel the temptation and the pressure.

The youth staff, I think, did a great job just a minute ago in the breakout that we went to.

That is how people communicate.

So I would just encourage you to delay social media as long as you possibly can.

My personal opinion in there's just no reason to have it before high school early the earliest.

That'd be my recommendation to you.

It's just there's now, um our we've stated this.

I don't know if we'll we'll go with it, um, but we it definitely makes us think differently.

Our goal is that our kids have no rules their seniors.

Year.

Now, we got a senior next year, we'll see.

I don't know.

But it makes you think very differently, right?

Because I just want to be able to have that freedom.

Here's one of the things we do we talk about a lot with social media.

We tell the boys, just because the girls get it, it means nothing for you.

We do not parent the girls and the boys differently.

We don't even parent every kid the same, but we especially are gonna be longer with social media on the boys than we will with the girls, mainly just because we know how visual those things are.

Now, I'm sure you could argue, and maybe there's different things along the way for sure, but I'm just telling you, it's just not gonna happen.

Like my boys, there's Snapchat's gonna be, I mean, there's just come on, there's just, I mean, it's it's evil, all right?

It's just an evil, evil thing.

But but to the it's it's how the it's how they communicate.

So it is something you've got to fight through and you've got to think through.

Uh, let me just mention a couple of resources to you.

Bark is an excellent resource.

I would encourage every single person in here to have Bark subscription.

It basically allows you to check Spotify and Apple Music and text messaging and emails, Pinterest, uh a bunch of social media.

It basically filters those things and flags anything that may be bad, and it sends you a context, an immediate context of those conversations.

So instead of you having to scroll and check on your kids' phones, it basically does a lot of those things for you.

We found that to be super, super helpful for us to be able to engage in some conversations with some with our kids or to maybe deal with relationships or people that have texted them and said things maybe they shouldn't.

That's a great app.

Uh, Covenant Eyes, we have it on all of our kids' devices.

Also, Protect Young Eyes is a great website.

So if our kids ask for an app, we're gonna ask them to go check out Protect Young Eyes and give us a rundown on what it says before we ever consider saying yes to it.

It's a guide for us along the way.

Last thing is this, real quick.

Uh let's talk through how we try to help prepare them to be able to uh be on their own.

Talk about some of the stuff we did with Caitlin, for instance, whenever she wanted to make that trip.

Uh yeah, so last year, two years ago, I can't remember.

She wanted to go to Dallas and go to a conference with some of her old friends where we had moved from.

And so we were like, sure, that's fine, but you have to do work out all the details.

So she had to get online, book her flight.

She had to call uh my parents live in Dallas, so I'm like, you need to call them and figure out if they can pick you up and get you to your friend's house and all those types of things.

And so it just forced her to have those adult conversations and work out some of these details that I would have normally done for her and just said, Yeah, I'll drop you off at the airport, my mom will pick you up, and um, you know, made it so easy for her.

But we really wanted her to start owning some of these things, especially now that she is 17, so she's been able to drive, changing your own oil, looking at those types of things that um are just adulting that when you go to college, you're not gonna have mom and dad here to check all these things for you.

Um, real quick, just last thing, we'll talk, speak, brief speak really briefly about one of the blessings we have as a confidant stage.

Um, both of our parents are still together.

Both of our parents um are our great-grandparents involved in all those types of things in our lives.

Um we notice so much about our parents and about our the marriage, seeing our parents right now.

Um, and I just want to encourage you, if you're in that kind of confidant stage, it's it's it's gonna be different and it's gonna be it's it's a shift for sure in every way.

But again, I just want to encourage you, let this be a season where your kids see that you are have a difficult time for them because you basically are enjoying each other so much.

That you are pouring in and investing in your marriage in every way.

Let me also encourage you, one of the biggest blessings of all for our our kids is the text relationship they have with their grandparents.

So if you're here today and you're a grandparent and you're in that situation, let me just encourage you.

It could be cheesy and whatever else, but it means the world.

My my grand my dad talks trash constantly to my boys all the time about different sporting stuff.

They have my girl, my kids, four kids, have their own text message group with my parents that we're not on, right?

And I'm telling you, it's awesome.

Like it's the best, it's the absolute best thing in the world because there's just that relationship that is there.

And I think this is such a unique thing because the digital thing is a positive because you have an opportunity to have a relationship with your kids that I promise you previous generations did not if you didn't live really close by and were able to go to all other things.

So I just want to encourage you to press on that in every single way.

That's the last thing we got.

John, why don't you come up here?

Or is there a video?

There's a video.

Check a look at the video.

This when we had uh our conference in the very beginning of the year, and I got to teach a session on intentional parenting.

And I feel like no matter what stage of parenting you're in, that's something that you need to be continuously, right?

Um we got to go through all of these stages today, and it just kept coming up in my mind uh no matter where you're at inside of these different phases, uh, one key thing is for us to be intentional parents.

Be involved in your kids' lives every single step of the way.

And I know that looks different in wherever you're at.

Um, if you're like me and you're in that young baby stage, um it's sometimes hard to be an intentional parent if you're working all the time and maybe your spouse is the one at home.

But I would say make those times.

I try to make sure that I'm able to do anything and everything I can to be there for my kids and to show up as a presence, even though I am the one that is working.

Uh, I know that's different when they get in elementary stuff and trying to play that coach role and how difficult that could be with managing all those schedules, but making it intentional to try to be there.

I remember in my life, my dad was always trying his hardest, even though he's a police officer and he worked crazy hours.

He only missed one event in my life in terms of like the things that I did, and he was a coach for me.

That was super important.

Then when it comes to the consultation, the consulting point, uh, being there, being able to have those conversations, being open and talking to your kids, like be intentional with that.

Don't wait for them to come to you.

Go to them.

And then finally, when you're in that grandparent stage, um I had a I had a grandpa that was awesome.

My grandparents were always trying to be around me.

They always wanted to be with me.

They were trying to do anything and everything they could to be at sporting events, to just be in the moment with us.

And I'll just tell you guys, if you can be intentional with your kids, it's going to make all the difference in the world.

You're gonna mess up along the way.

But also remember this we you have a church that cares about you.

We want to do things to come alongside you.

There are people that are going through the same stages as you, and we don't want you to feel alone.

So join a group if you haven't done that, because we have lots of groups who are walking through the exact same parenting as you.

Um, get on a serve team, show your kids what it looks like to model all of the things that hopefully you're teaching at home.

Uh, but we really want to be a church that's proactive and helping you along this way and parenting.

So we're really thankful that you guys were here tonight.

Um, as you guys leave, uh we're gonna actually be sending something tomorrow to you, uh, probably towards the end of the day or early this week, where you guys will have some of the resources for the different breakouts.

Uh, if you guys didn't get to go to one that you really liked, I've heard a lot of great things about some of them.

Um, and it were awesome.

So I want to make sure that you guys have the content for all of those pieces.

If you have any questions or maybe there's something particular you want to follow up with, uh, feel free to email me.

Uh, you can find all my info on the on the staff website.

But we are we're so thankful you guys are here.

I hope that tonight was beneficial for you.

Uh, but thank you so much, and we can't wait to see you guys later this week.

We'll see y'all later.