How To Parent With Grace [Not Fear or Control]
Our relationship with God directly feeds into how we see our role as a parent. If we have a flawed theology regarding who God is and how he sees us, it creates a chain reaction of flawed decisions and actions in how we parent our children.
In this episode of the Everyday Disciple Podcast, we look at a few radically different parenting styles. We’ll reveal that while you might be well-intentioned, your parenting style may not be producing the type of outcomes in your children’s life and heart that you ultimately desire.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- If you might be the “judgemental parent” or “legalistic parent” type.
- Several parenting styles that commonly flow from a flawed theology of God.
- How to develop a grace-based parenting style for life.
- The 4 key “freedoms” that all parents need to give their children.
![How To Parent With Grace [Not Fear or Control]](https://everydaydisciple.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/How-To-Parent-With-Grace-Not-Control.jpg)
From this episode:
“God loves you the same regardless of how well or poorly you have been parenting so far. There is no condemnation from him towards you. You have his love and grace. He desires that you know him more and live and parent out of your relationship with him.“
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Transcript
Grace-based parents focus on trusting themselves and their families to God.
Caesar:They focus on that and they press into knowing God more and understanding his love deeper in his grace and how God views them as parents, as humans.
Caesar:So their kids are the daily recipients of the grace based relationship that they're experiencing with God themselves.
Caesar:It's beautiful.
Caesar:See the difference?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So if.
Caesar:I want to Be like God to my kids in image him.
Caesar:Well, then I need to dig deep into my relationship with him.
Caesar:So the grace is flooding me and all my jacked up stuff.
Caesar:So now my kids are just exp they're the recipients of that experience.
Caesar:Daily overflowing.
Caesar:It's beautiful.
Caesar:Very different.
Caesar:Right?
Caesar:So the voice to their kids.
Caesar:Kind of mixes these things up.
Caesar:They're saying to their kids, you're a gift from God in his image bear, and he loves, and he accepts you for you and they mix it with now.
Caesar:You may struggle with always doing the right thing, but you're forgiven and loved just the same.
Caesar:So you can live a life of gratitude and grace with others too honey.
Heath:Welcome to the Everyday Disciple podcast where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality and an integrated faith that naturally fits into every area of life.
Heath:In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle, this is the stuff your parents, pastors, and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.
Heath:And now here's your host Caesar.
Heath:Kalinowski.
Caesar:All right.
Caesar:I can't believe it.
Caesar:It's finally feeling like spring.
Caesar:Mostly I was in New York this week.
Caesar:What a beautiful little short trip.
Caesar:I kind of went in and out.
Caesar:I didn't get to see everybody I knew, but there was one day that I had and I wasn't working.
Caesar:And it was about 72 degrees, Fahrenheit and beautiful and sunny.
Caesar:And I got to see central park again, right.
Caesar:Where we used to live and everything was in bloom and walk around the city.
Caesar:And I had not been back to New York.
Caesar:In maybe three years and maybe, you know, if you listen to the show regularly, Tina and I used to live there for a couple of years training and coaching people and Missional living.
Caesar:And, uh, we fell in love with the city and we tried to get back as often as we can, but with the COVID and all that hadn't been back in awhile, but I had a beautiful time, but they were saying the same thing.
Caesar:They were like, it's just been kind of winter here, winter, winter, winter, and today its summer.
Caesar:They said we never really had spring.
Caesar:Well, we'll finally getting some spring here and I'm excited about it, but I'm happy if it wants to leap straight to summer.
Caesar:That would be awesome.
Caesar:I don't know how you're feeling about it, where you're at.
Caesar:I know there's also some places we were in Phoenix, not too long ago, and it's already hotter than crazy.
Caesar:So alas, anyway, I hope that you are having a good week.
Caesar:Thanks for being here with me today.
Caesar:Pretty excited about we're going to talk about before I do.
Caesar:Can I just remind you to join us over on the Facebook group, go to Facebook, search up Everyday Disciple dot com or you can just go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash Facebook, and we will, we'll see you there, right?
Caesar:That'll take you right to the group and we get to talk about the show there.
Caesar:Update you, make sure you have all the links when there's training free resources, all that stuff's there.
Caesar:Plus you can give us.
Caesar:For new episodes, ask questions, help other people answer questions, you know, kinda like we love each other like a community.
Caesar:So I hope you'll join us over there in the Facebook group.
Caesar:And I also hope you'll take a moment right now to share the podcast with someone, texted out, text out a link just shared at Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash podcast.
Caesar:You can do that.
Caesar:All kinds of ways to find it anywhere you listen to a podcast, we can find it, but if you're hearing an episode and boy it really hits you hard, you, ah, this is helpful.
Caesar:Hey share it.
Caesar:To someone you love someone in your church, maybe someone in your small group, Missional Community, maybe your spouse, even just help us get the word out and keep getting more and more people equipped in gospel fluency and making disciples in everyday life.
Caesar:I would really appreciate it.
Caesar:If you just do that, pay it forward a little bit for us.
Caesar:Now getting to today's topic.
Caesar:It seems that everywhere I go and I mean, it like everywhere I go, just like when I was just in New York, this topic came up several times with several people and I was only there for 48 hours where everywhere I go, people are asking me questions about parenting and.
Caesar:Our kids and how we did this and how we did that.
Caesar:And I've shared before Tina and I are very blessed.
Caesar:Our kids are all grown now and they turn out great by God's grace.
Caesar:They are wonderful people.
Caesar:They love God.
Caesar:They love people.
Caesar:They're
Caesar:like
Caesar:our best friends.
Caesar:They're best friends and people know that about team K and they ask a lot of questions about that.
Caesar:And I think maybe because we're a little older, people want to know how did that happen?
Caesar:And I want.
Caesar:Let you listen to a conversation that I had with Heath Hollensbe who, as you know, is the announcer of this show.
Caesar:And he used to co-host with me.
Caesar:He himself has four kids and he's a great father and they have a great family too, but he and I had a conversation about how do we parent with grace.
Caesar:Versus control or transactionally or using fear of you don't do this.
Caesar:This is going to happen.
Caesar:We had a really great conversation kind of between two dads.
Caesar:And I just want you to listen to that now.
Caesar:So here it is.
Caesar:I know it's going to really encourage.
Heath:Today, we're going to look at some radically different parenting styles that kind of reveal that while you might be a well-intentioned parent, your parenting style might actually not be producing the types of outcome in your children's lives and even their hearts that you ultimately desire and a.
Heath:As a father of four kids under the age of eight, I'm going to be taking a bunch of notes during this, this topic.
Heath:This is going to be exciting, I can't wait to dive into that.
Caesar:So it's a great topic, Heath.
Caesar:And I just want to say up front though one, I'm certainly not an expert in sure.
Caesar:But I will say that I have a lot of experience in it, meaning I have not done it all perfectly.
Caesar:And here's the, here's the, a way to do it or the only way, but I have a lot of experience.
Caesar:So first off, let me set the table with a big level though.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:And an idea that we need to grab a hold of before we try to get into specific parenting stuff.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:And here it is, it's that our view of God and our relationship with him and how we think he views us directly feeds into how we see our role as a parent and how in turn we will deliver the parenting goods or the parenting bads.
Heath:So unpack that a little bit more for me.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Again, how we see God and how you know, our theology about who he is and how we think he views us in our life and our choices it's going to affect our parenting.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:So if we have a flawed theology regarding who God is and how he sees us, his attitude towards us, our choices, how he sees our sin, then it creates a chain reaction of flawed decisions and actions in how we're going to parent our own kids.
Caesar:And when we miss the overarching dominant message of God's grace, That permeates scripture and in the entire story arc of the Bible and Jesus life, and unfortunately leads to two different potential parenting black holes.
Caesar:And here's what they are.
Caesar:You can either become the judgmental parent parent.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Or you can become the legalistics.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:So do you see how that's working?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Like if we see a God a certain way, right?
Caesar:So, so here we go, the judgemental parents spends most of their time, making sure their family's better than the competition, better than the neighbor kids or their sister's family and their kids.
Caesar:And they, they live as sort of the monitor for everyone else and their behavior.
Caesar:And so their voice to their kids, you know, as parents is this sort of weird mixture of, well, God's watching you.
Caesar:And so am I.
Caesar:Mixed with, well, you may be bad, but you're better than so-and-so.
Caesar:See and see how that flows right out.
Caesar:If we think that's how God is, he's just like watching us he's, you know, but, you know, because he's God, he's a pretty good guy.
Caesar:So it's like, well, you're not as bad as this guy.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:See.
Caesar:So that's the judgmental parent.
Caesar:They sort of sit as the monitor of everyone's behavior okay.
Caesar:Or you can be the legalistic parent and the legalistic parents, they spin around and around trying to make sure their family, their children do everything right.
Caesar:Based on whatever they think is for sure, they sort of keep score of good deeds versus bad deeds, and they secretly believe their kid's behavior helps them sort of stack up brownie points with God.
Caesar:And so their voice to their kids is a mixture of, Hey, you, owe God.
Caesar:And so you can do better.
Caesar:So you better get busy.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And, and it's kinda mixed with, well, you may be bad, but if you try harder, you can ultimately please God.
Caesar:So these flawed theologies and perspectives on God and his character lead to some pretty common yet pretty far off the mark parenting styles.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And I,
Caesar:I don't think any parent intends to go there.
Caesar:Like, it's not like any parent sets out to be that way, but it is something that we fall into and it's sometimes easier just to go, like, you better stop this right now.
Caesar:Like if I jumped into with my kid, it's, it's just a quick fix rather than actually getting to the heart of parenting.
Caesar:I mean, that's, that's kinda what we're going head, but you know, for now I'm hoping that, you know, you, me, you know, folks listening to show today, I hope they're getting that.
Caesar:See how they, how they think God looks at them as the ultimate parent.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:I mean, just check it out.
Caesar:Your parenting mirrors.
Caesar:It, it just does.
Heath:All right.
Heath:Well, let's jump in.
Heath:I know there's been a book that you've found really helpful.
Heath:Let's unpack some of these different parenting styles and what each of them looks.
Caesar:Oh my gosh.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So Dr.
Caesar:Tim Kimmel, he wrote that grace based parenting book, and it's such a few years old, but man, it's.
Caesar:It's just so good.
Caesar:And so a lot of my thinking on this has been formed by him in that book and still is it's like one of those read it, reread it kind of things.
Caesar:And so, you know, our listeners know, my kids are largely raised, you know, they're grown now.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Um, but I'm still a parent and now I'm a grandparent, but like, you know, you're raising younger kids and all the folks in our community are.
Caesar:And so I feel like I just need to keep growing at this well, in a sense
Caesar:in our community, you're able to, to parent my kids and the other kids that are new, we just had Joseph and Lacey had a kid this week.
Caesar:And yeah.
Caesar:Shout out to a little Andy.
Caesar:Huh?
Caesar:Yeah,
Heath:but hopefully like you, you stacking up and sharpening iron on this book also helps the way that you are.
Heath:You're always a parent to those that you're surrounded
Caesar:with.
Caesar:Kind of dig out a few of these sort of parenting styles that kind of flow.
Caesar:Flawed theology at times.
Caesar:And, you know, we can, I'm not trying to slap you or me or anybody listening, but see if any of these sound like you, you know what I mean?
Caesar:And, uh, so there's the fear-based parenting style.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:And, and that's like, where, you know, and I know I kind of grew up in churches like this, where we're scared of Hollywood.
Caesar:We're scared of the internet, public school system, Halloweens, evil, um, gay community drugs, alcohol rock, and roll.
Caesar:rap, Partying neighbors, you know?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Every unbelieving softball team can't join that, gotta join a church.
Caesar:You know what I mean?
Caesar:It's just, I mean, liberals now, conservatives, whether, you know, whatever your brand is, right.
Caesar:We're scared of everything.
Caesar:And so our fears determine our strategy for parenting and it's, you can, you know, we just gotta fear drives it all.
Caesar:So let's box it all up.
Caesar:So that's one south fear-based this one is sort of the behavioral modification parenting.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:You know, where it's, it's, it's sort of the offshoot of fear-based parenting that assumes a proper environment and the proper information, you know, you learn the right stuff and spend enough time in knowing these types of places, proper education and the absence of negative influences.
Caesar:are gunna increase , your kid's chance of doing great.
Caesar:And the focus is on like behavioral modification.
Caesar:in other words , it's just being better and doing better and sinning less.
Caesar:And that's the focus.
Caesar:It's not on a heart level thing.
Caesar:It's it's yeah.
Caesar:And that's, that's big within evangelicalism for sure.
Caesar:Absolutely.
Caesar:Super is okay then there's the image control parenting.
Caesar:This is sort of the checklist method of parenting.
Caesar:That is part of the seduction of being legalist.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:You know, it's it's image, image control, and it assumes that people will know that you're a really good Christian parent raising really good Christian kids.
Caesar:You know, by your church, attendance, by how your kids sit there with their hands, fold in their lap.
Caesar:And, and, you know, I mean, we've all done it, right?
Caesar:I mean, that's, that's the thing about these parenting styles.
Caesar:We might slip in and out of all dabbling, but you know, we've done it where it's like, you know, you're in the car and you're having the big blow up before you go into, you know, the church service.
Caesar:And then you're like, Hey, we gotta straighten this out because our image control needs to be in place before.
Caesar:Even start walking through the parking lot because you know, been running, you know, I can remember growing up and, uh, I went to a religious school as a kid and one of my teachers, she S she would always compare our bad actions to her, to her Johnny, Johnny, her Johnny, her Keith, whatever his name was.
Caesar:And she would say, well, my Johnny does this and my Johnny wouldn't do that because I've taught him this.
Caesar:And it.
Caesar:We never met the guy.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:But it was always kind of real creepy, but she showed us pictures of him and he was way older than us.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:But then I remember this was really, really sad.
Caesar:her Johnny Committed suicide.
Caesar:Like, but like when I was in eighth grade or something, it was like, oh, it didn't.
Caesar:Yeah, it didn't work.
Caesar:Cause behavioral modification, you just live under the, you just live under it.
Caesar:There's the duct tape parenting style.
Caesar:I haven't heard of this one.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:So rather than trying to figure out how to fix their parenting issues, uh, those duct tape parenters, uh, they, they, they kind of coped by patching their.
Caesar:Huh.
Caesar:So temporary solutions, you know, is what they're looking for.
Caesar:When a crisis comes up, you know, something's wrong in the family or kids.
Caesar:Why did he do, why did she do that?
Caesar:What's the, you know, and they're usually running on empty.
Caesar:They're just too busy, too many things going on, too focused on what's happening.
Caesar:So when they're perfect little, you know, image breaks, they duct tape it.
Caesar:And then move on.
Caesar:They don't really deal with it.
Caesar:You know what I mean?
Caesar:So it might come back or it might morph.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:And, uh, and that kind of, that's kind of a parallel, in some ways to the duct tape families are the life support or the nine 11 parenting.
Caesar:Huh?
Caesar:That's that's what the author calls it.
Caesar:9 1, 1 parenting.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So what they do is it's kind of like the duct tape thing.
Caesar:When something blows up, you just patch it and move on.
Caesar:But with the added feature that a particular crisis is dominating their focus all the time.
Caesar:Oh, fascinating.
Heath:Moving from there's always something.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So it could be a little thing with the duct tape thing.
Caesar:It's like, oh, why are they, you know, all they use the curse word or they hit their sister a lot or she's biting, or like, doesn't want to do her homework or who knows.
Caesar:I mean, there's a lot of worst things.
Caesar:The nine 11 parenting is it's their move.
Caesar:They move from crisis to crisis.
Caesar:And I know right now you're I can see your eyes.
Caesar:You're like thinking, I know I, I'm not going to know people,.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:I've been People.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:But here's the thing and there's, there's others that we can keep breaking it down.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:Check out, check out Grace Based Parenting.
Caesar:There's a ton more of that, but all ultimately what we want to have and what we want to get to.
Caesar:And we, and we actually get to have is, is a grace based parenting style.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And so, you know, we talked about.
Caesar:You know, the, the judgmental parenting style or the legalistic parenting, and then all those subsets of that just now.
Caesar:But here's the thing.
Caesar:grace based parents focus on trusting themselves and their families to God.
Caesar:They focus on that and they press into knowing God more and understanding his love deeper in his grace and how God views them as parents, as humans.
Caesar:So their kids are the daily recipients of the grace based relationship that they're experiencing with God, themselves
Caesar:. It's beautiful.
Caesar:See the difference?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Like, so if I want to be like God to my kids in image him, well, then I need to dig, dig deep into my relationship with him so that grace is flooding me and all my jacked up stuff.
Caesar:So now my kids are just, they're the recipients of that experience.
Caesar:Daily overflowing.
Caesar:That's beautiful.
Caesar:Very different.
Caesar:Right?
Caesar:So the voice to their kids kinda mixes these things up.
Caesar:They're saying to their kids, you're a gift from God in his image bearer, and he loves, and he accepts you for you.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:Just like God's treating them and they mix it with now.
Caesar:You may struggle with always doing the right thing, but you're forgiven and loved just the same.
Caesar:So you can live a life of gratitude and grace with others too, honey.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:That's beautiful.
Caesar:Those two things.
Caesar:You're a gift from God and he loves and accepts you for who you are.
Caesar:And even when you screw up, remember you're forgiven and loved.
Caesar:And so you get to live out of gratitude.
Caesar:That's the focus.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:That's night and day/ right?
Caesar:I mean, please, God, I wish I'd have known a whole lot more of this.
Caesar:Uh, you know, when my kids were little or, huh.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So Heath, which of those.
Caesar:Okay, I'm going to assume you are this Grace Pace parent.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Like you assuming that, what are you hearing?
Caesar:Like where's like the spirit putting the finger on you.
Caesar:Like yeah.
Caesar:I
Caesar:think that transaction-based
Caesar:parenting is transactional based.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:That's another thing we can slip into where everything has to be earned.
Caesar:Yup.
Heath:Right.
Heath:That's the one I'm most prone to jump to like, well, if you guys will, we'll play together for four hours where we can get laundry done in the house clean, then we're going to take you out for ice cream.
Heath:So all you're doing is band-aiding cancer at that.
Heath:You know what I mean?
Heath:Like.
Heath:Because then
Caesar:they're just looking for the next time it has to be earned.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Oh, well, you didn't do this, so now you can't do that.
Heath:But, um, it's one of those things too, where then for the rest of your life, you're chasing that.
Heath:Right?
Heath:Well then my view of God is maybe he doesn't feel close to me.
Heath:So maybe if I prayed more.
Heath:Read more.
Heath:If I
Caesar:stop this, then I'll get this from him.
Caesar:And maybe if I start this, I'll get the raise I want to work or whatever.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:Exactly.
Caesar:Rather than - we pour that back on our kids, see, that's an icky loop, isn't it?
Caesar:Absolutely.
Heath:It's crazy.
Heath:So the transaction one is the one that I'm most prone.
Heath:We do keep the image.
Heath:If I'm being honest, I feel that pressure of like, when we go into social situations and I'm like,
Caesar:especially cause right now, and I, and I've been there for years, but you're working at a church.
Caesar:Yeah, for sure.
Caesar:Have to be on the best behavior.
Caesar:Right.
Heath:Older and they're wild.
Heath:And we like that about them and their interests.
Heath:But oftentimes when we hear crying, it's like, oh, that was so-and-so.
Heath:That was one of ours.
Heath:That was it.
Heath:So I try to keep
Caesar:the kids they're naked again.
Caesar:Actually they still, the kids are
Heath:naked, so they're just going through a phase.
Heath:So I try to there's there is this in a sense, this kind of, I, if I'm being honest, I get on my wife sometimes of like, we've got to get our kids under control because they just make us look so bad or they make us.
Caesar:And that's part of it that kind of, that, that transactional parenting style bleeds into that too.
Caesar:Doesn't it?
Caesar:Absolutely.
Caesar:Because it's like, listen, if you kids will just maintain afterwards, we're getting ice cream.
Caesar:So I can get, so now what do they think churches and who God is in this community of supposed to be?
Caesar:Our family is these are people you have to pretend in front of.
Caesar:Cause God, somehow they say he sees all things, but apparent if we pretend we get by with it.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Now is that not going to bleed into their little hearts and lives forever.
Caesar:Oh my gosh.
Caesar:That's the thing too.
Caesar:The echo, I think of this is not only, you know, that big thought I was saying is like how we view God and think how he views us directly.
Caesar:Affects our parenting.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But how we parent obviously directly affects how our kids for the rest of their lives are probably gonna end up seeing God.
Caesar:And what they think that relationship's about.
Heath:Well, one of the things I feel just called to say right now is, and we've done this before is just, I mean, if you are listening right now, kicking yourself that you screwed up your kid's life and how they're going to view God forever.
Heath:It's not too late.
Caesar:No, grace is so big.
Caesar:It actually goes back in time and repairs things.
Caesar:And we're going to talk a little bit about that.
Caesar:Yeah,
Heath:that's what I was going to ask next is that you mentioned Tim Kimmel's book, grace based parenting.
Heath:Having helped you with some really great thoughts that have been helpful when you look at.
Heath:How your parenting style, you really wish that
Caesar:that was more graceful and actually it's still changed it.
Caesar:You know what I mean?
Caesar:It just wasn't.
Caesar:I wish it had started earlier.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:I remember you talking about
Heath:the four
Caesar:freedoms that he mentioned.
Caesar:That was crazy, right?
Caesar:I mean, gosh, we could do like a whole series on this, but, um, so yeah, he, he talks about, and I'm going to share them that there are four freedoms that we can offer our children.
Caesar:And I think freedom is just another way of saying grace.
Caesar:Yeah, absolutely.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:And we can not only offer it to our kids, but how about we can offer to each other?
Caesar:As as couple or just as friends.
Caesar:How about as believers?
Caesar:How about we offer this to everybody?
Caesar:I mean, you'll see when I go through the four you're like, I think everybody needs that for me.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:So here's the first freedom, the freedom to be different, you know, God made all of our kids unique.
Caesar:Just like he made us unique and he delights in that.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:If he, if he wanted only one kind of human he'd have made one kind.
Caesar:So that uniqueness that might bug the heck out of you at times.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:God actually delights in it.
Caesar:Like what about getting that in your heart?
Caesar:So give them the freedom to be different.
Caesar:And if you're.
Caesar:Listening to this.
Caesar:Yeah, I know.
Caesar:You've got a bunch of kids, so I have more than one kid, you know how amazingly different they can be.
Caesar:Tina and . I still, even though our kids are raised, would go, did she grow up in the same house as the other two?
Caesar:Or did he like, did he miss all those years when we kind of taught that, you know?
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:There's an interesting.
Heath:Well, I remember I'm still carrying a lie that when I was a kid, I remember dying my hair for the first time when it was popular, what color it was supposed to be blonde, but it turned my hair red.
Heath:I looked like I, it was bad.
Heath:It was like an eighties, like really
Caesar:bad.
Caesar:A lot of guys, I did, I had the kind of orangy blond, but I remember
Heath:somebody at the church getting on me about like, you're just trying to draw attention to yourself.
Heath:And now most of even the way I dress now is like, Blacks and grays and blues.
Heath:Like I try not, there was no freedom.
Heath:Different was seen as the enemy is like, you're just self-seeking so this is Free, man
Caesar:to be.
Caesar:And there it is.
Caesar:Right.
Caesar:grace gives is the freedom to be yourself.
Caesar:I love that.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:And that doesn't mean yourself, as long as you're perfect.
Caesar:It just means you and your quirks and the way you see the world and your kids and all that uniqueness, God delights in it.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:That's the first freedom.
Caesar:The next one is the freedom to be vulnerable.
Caesar:We gotta give our kids the freedom to be vulnerable.
Caesar:Our children need to know that they can be open with their emotions, their joy, their pain, their fears, and you know what, and that when they do that, those emotions are safe with us.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:When, uh, my wife and I've talked about this a lot and it's kind of this kind of fed into our transactional based parenting was, um, we were not, and it was weird how we were both raised this way.
Caesar:We've talked a lot about it and we've talked about it with our kids too.
Caesar:We weren't allowed to have emotions except one - happy.
Caesar:And not too happy, settled down, you know, like just settled there.
Caesar:My grandmother used to say, don't be so rambunctious.
Caesar:That's great word.
Caesar:I'm going to re get the hashtag rambunctious.
Caesar:I don't know how to spell it out there, but maybe you do.
Caesar:I can't even say it.
Caesar:Isn't a great word.
Caesar:Just go ahead.
Caesar:Try rambunctious.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:So we weren't allowed to sh you know, sad, be sad or cry about something and be angry.
Caesar:Think about this.
Caesar:You ever hear this?
Caesar:Oh my God.
Caesar:Oh.
Caesar:Oh, you want to cry?
Caesar:Well, why don't you go to your room?
Caesar:Yeah, till you can be done crying, and then you can come out here and be nice with everybody, or I'll give you something to cry about, you know, that whole thing.
Caesar:Oh my gosh.
Caesar:I just, I get a little verby right now just thinking about it.
Caesar:Well, you know, and so our kids, we need to give them freedom to be vulnerable.
Caesar:I mean, all, all the emotions that we have mirror God's emotions.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:They're a part of his glory.
Caesar:They're a part of what he's like, and they're all listed over and over and over in scripture and im not just talking about Jesus.
Caesar:I'm talking about the God of the old Testament to the dad.
Caesar:Right?
Caesar:And so that means he has given us these emotions as triggers as, Hey, pay attention as ways of expressing our heart, which is his heart.
Caesar:That's his desire.
Caesar:So emotions are a gift and a reflection of himself.
Caesar:And so grace makes it safe to be vulnerable.
Caesar:That's so cool.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:And I just, man, we fell down on that and I've yeah.
Caesar:So the third one, we need to give our kids the freedom, to be honest, you know, honest with us about their frustrations and their disappointments, without fear that they're kind of risking our relationship.
Caesar:Like how many people's kids can come to them and say, I didn't like way he did that.
Caesar:Or the way you talked to me yesterday really hurt me.
Caesar:I was too.
Caesar:Hm.
Caesar:Or you were talking to mom that way, why'd you get so angry, but you know, like, like, do they have the freedom to be honest, uh, with their frustrations and disappoints, or how about their frustrations with their friendships or a teacher?
Caesar:Hey, listen to your elders.
Caesar:Like she do what she says.
Caesar:You want to get a grade, don't you, you want a good grade, right?
Caesar:You want to go to college?
Caesar:Do you know?
Caesar:Like they need to be able to be, Hey, that sucked or so-and-so spoke that bad.
Caesar:And you don't say like, well, sticks and stones.
Caesar:Like, no, It's they get to be free.
Caesar:They are free to be honest.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:But we have to, we have to offer that and we have to give it to them and model it's a model that so none of us are perfect parents, but are we willing to hear the truth from our children about how they feel?
Caesar:And even if it's about how they feel about us.
Caesar:That's great.
Caesar:And I'm right now, I'm flashing on, you know, when our daughters were teenagers and it's like, they were like, you're ruining our lives, you know, you're ruining my life.
Caesar:Everything's perfect.
Caesar:But you dad.
Caesar:I'm like, oh, I'm ruining you.
Caesar:I'm sorry.
Caesar:I'm not trying to.
Caesar:So they, they have to freedom, to be honest, that's how they're feeling, you know, that their emotions are and they're growing.
Caesar:So, uh, and then the fourth one is.
Caesar:We need to give them the freedom to make mistakes.
Caesar:And even though there are consequences for the choices they make, our love for them is secure.
Caesar:They need to know that, and it's not determined by their behavior and it won't change.
Caesar:I mean, that's probably the one that underlines all the other ones, right?
Caesar:Like the freedom to make mistakes.
Caesar:And when they do, they don't sense any new distance between us.
Caesar:You know that we also have the freedom, to be honest.
Caesar:Hey sweetie.
Caesar:When you said that, that hurt me.
Caesar:Sure.
Caesar:But I love you exactly the same, but I just want you to know that kind of hurt.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:It just, that that hurt me.
Caesar:That wasn't awesome.
Caesar:But he pointed.
Caesar:Are we need to give our kids the freedom to make mistakes.
Heath:Yeah.
Heath:Those are some great grace based tips yeah.
Heath:Thankful
Caesar:for Tim.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Thanks Tim.
Caesar:Thanks Tim.
Caesar:Okay, good.
Heath:So what would you say are some steps that we could do to like course-correct our parenting, if we've been doing things wrong this whole time.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Well, I'm gonna assume no, one's doing it all wrong.
Caesar:Shouldn't take the high road there and you know, but I, I know.
Caesar:You know, Tina, I looked back over our parenting and we have for years, you know, when they start getting to that age where you're like, oh my gosh, we don't have many years left.
Caesar:You start to kind of reassess that, you know?
Caesar:And, uh, here's, here's what I'd say first.
Caesar:And I had actually, I had an old mentor in my life, listeners who follow the show a lot, probably heard me talking about pastor Johnny.
Caesar:I just such a great guy in my life, but he said, listen, Seek forgiveness from your kids for stuff.
Caesar:When the spirit taps you like, Hey, that wasn't good.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Like what, you know how that went down yesterday?
Caesar:Like you showed anger.
Caesar:You parented and anger, or you disciplined in anger that, you know, there needed to be discipline there.
Caesar:You know, you needed to bring a certain consequence because of the choice state chose and they were clear on it and all that.
Caesar:He says, you need to seek forgiveness.
Caesar:When, you know, you blew it like humble yourself and go to your kids.
Caesar:And you know what, that led us to do that at first, like with fear and trepidation and try that.
Caesar:And I bet you right now, if you'd asked my kids, what are some of the best times the most tender times you ever had with dad or mom?
Caesar:It's when you came to me with this and asked me to forgive you um, you know, it's just it's so, you know, I, cause it's like now you're giving them the opportunity to show grace.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:It's talking about grace based parenting.
Caesar:It goes both ways.
Caesar:So don't fear.
Caesar:You know, and even if it wasn't just yesterday, but you go, you know, like I've been in a pattern of this and I realized I've been doing this consistently because that's how I was parented.
Caesar:Yeah.
Caesar:Go back and explain it to them.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:And here's what I'd say.
Caesar:This is, you know, the other thing is be specific about why, what you did, you know, or set in your parenting was wrong or why it was sin.
Caesar:Yeah, call it out, right.
Caesar:Call it out.
Caesar:And here's the big league thing is if you can say, okay, here's why it was wrong.
Caesar:And here was my unbelief.
Caesar:In that situation.
Caesar:I was not believing this to be true about you or I wasn't believing this to be true about myself in the moment.
Caesar:And I was trying to make you be God or you to fix what, how I felt about me or I wasn't believing this to be true about God like that.
Caesar:He's great.
Caesar:And he's in control and he's good.
Caesar:So I was like trying to control your choices, honey.
Caesar:And I'm not.
Caesar:God I, and I'm sorry for that.
Caesar:And would you forgive me?
Caesar:So don't just go, Hey, when I said that yesterday, I felt really bad to give, to give daddy a hug, you know, sorry.
Caesar:It's like no seek forgiveness and be specific because then what you're actually doing is discipling their hearts.
Caesar:Sure.
Heath:And you're pointing to a bigger, like you're pointing to the perfect Jesus, right?
Heath:Cause you're going like exactly.
Heath:I'm a, I'm a jack-up of a dad, but you're, you know, I'm trying to be like, Jesus, I'm not, and I failed you and Jesus wouldn't treat you this way.
Heath:And so it also secures in them what Jesus
Caesar:looks like.
Caesar:Okay, good stuff.
Caesar:Wow.
Caesar:Love that guy.
Caesar:Heath.
Caesar:You're a good father, man.
Caesar:You're a good guy and you've got a good heart and I love learning forward with you.
Caesar:Even though my kids are a little older than yours, we're on that same journey and I'm sure everyone has picked up on this.
Caesar:Your parenting never stops.
Caesar:So the things we talked about today still applies with adult kids as well.
Caesar:I'm having this conversation with Heath and I'm going this all still applies and my kids are grown and having their own babies.
Caesar:So there you go.
Caesar:Hope that's encouraging now as always, I want to leave you with the big three takeaways from today's topic.
Caesar:Kind of give you the summary.
Caesar:Don't miss these, if nothing else.
Caesar:And we always have these printed out available for you.
Caesar:So if you're at the gym or driving or whatever, we'll give you the big three, just go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash.
Caesar:Big three b i g three Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash big three.
Caesar:And we'll give you those.
Caesar:So here we go.
Caesar:Here's the first one.
Caesar:No, that your children are a gift from God given to you primarily for the purpose of receiving and expressing his grace and character in the world.
Caesar:Hmm.
Caesar:They don't exist to make you look good or to fulfill your dreams.
Caesar:They were created to bear God's image, even though they may physically look like you.
Caesar:Okay.
Caesar:Our kids are not.
Caesar:there primarily for our glory and joy.
Caesar:They've actually been given to us and within our family to receive an express God's grace in the world.
Caesar:It's beautiful.
Caesar:That's what you want to parent them towards.
Caesar:Yes.
Caesar:Yeah that is the win.
Caesar:not Like how much money they make, because they can't take it with them.
Caesar:And right.
Caesar:Second thing, a big three, believe that God loves you.
Caesar:You know, as a parent the same, regardless of how well or poorly you've been parenting so far.
Caesar:So if you're hearing this stuff today and their spirits tapping some stop, there's some conviction there.
Caesar:Yep.
Caesar:Just believe that your love the same.
Caesar:There is no condemnation from God towards you.
Caesar:Hm, you have his love and grace and he desires that you know him more and live in parent out of your relationship with him.
Caesar:That's great.
Caesar:K and third kind of went over this earlier, but this is like a big takeaway seek forgiveness from your kids for the poor choices and responses that you've made with them in the past.
Caesar:and name, the unbelief and the fear behind your actions or words so that your children learn the truth about God and help them understand that he's the perfect parent who''s
Caesar:always full of grace and truth, even when you're not so good.
Caesar:I think that will serve you.
Caesar:Well, I sure hope so.
Caesar:Let this soak into your heart, pray about all of it uses if your kids are little, or if they're in teen years or even if they're fully grown, like mine are doesn't matter.
Caesar:This will help you.
Caesar:And I think you'll see that it will change your relationships.
Caesar:It'll take a lot of the pressure out of it.
Caesar:Give you some encouragement, give you some confidence in them.
Caesar:All right, join me next week.
Caesar:We're going to keep diving deep into gospel and how it applies to all of life.
Caesar:Hope you'll join me.
Caesar:Talk to you soon.
Heath:Thanks for joining us today.
Heath:For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit Everyday Disciple dot com.