Latest / Equipped for Impact / Who's in Charge? Parental Authority Part 1

Transcript

Who's in Charge? Parental Authority Part 1 · Equipped for Impact

• 0:00
  Nate: Lewis, listen to how parents say no today.
• 0:04
  Nate: Okay?
• 0:05
  Nate: They say, I know this isn't fair, but or I'm really sorry, buddy, but we've decided or maybe I know everyone else's mom is letting them and I feel terrible, but and then there's like an apology stapled to the front of the decision that they just made as a parent.
• 0:24
  Nate: Do you think the parents hear themselves doing that?
• 0:26
  Nate: I don't think they do.
• 0:27
  Nate: And if you stand in the grocery store for 20 minutes, you'll hear a mother explain a decision to a nine-year-old like she's presenting something to a board that could overturn her.
• 0:38
  Luis: You know, and she still said no, and that's the part that gets me.
• 0:42
  Luis: She made the decision.
• 0:44
  Luis: She just made it like she wasn't sure she was allowed to.
• 1:25
  Luis: And before we get going, I want you to know that these two episodes belong together.
• 1:30
  Luis: So once you're in it for this one, make sure to plan to catch the second one because today's episode is about the ground that you stand on.
• 1:38
  Luis: And the next episode is how you use it without running your kid over.
• 1:43
  Luis: Because I've seen parents do that with the best of intentions in our world today.
• 1:48
  Nate: And so the best way to do that is subscribe so you don't miss our next episode.
• 1:53
  Nate: Like go ahead and do that right now.
• 1:55
  Nate: Unless you're driving, wait until you're at a stoplight, and then just hit that subscribe button, and then it'll automatically download so that you've got this to hit listen to part two, because you're already listening to part one right now.
• 2:07
  Luis: Make sure to listen to both of them.
• 2:08
  Nate: That's exactly right.
• 2:09
  Luis: And if you've never listened to an episode, if this is your first episode, go back and listen to all 73 other episodes as well.
• 2:16
  Nate: If you have time.
• 2:17
  Nate: But you probably want to turn us on double speed.
• 2:19
  Nate: Although I've heard that my voice sounds very funny on double speed because I talk quick already.
• 2:25
  Luis: I bet it sounds German.
• 2:26
  Nate: Does it sound no, I didn't say angry.
• 2:28
  Nate: No.
• 2:28
  Nate: Just very rapid.
• 2:30
  Nate: Like I had too much coffee.
• 2:32
  Nate: Which I probably did this morning.
• 2:33
  Nate: Do you drink coffee?
• 2:34
  Nate: Absolutely.
• 2:34
  Nate: I drink coffee with my breakfast for dinner.
• 2:36
  Luis: Oh.
• 2:37
  Nate: And those are two things you'd never do.
• 2:39
  Nate: I don't drink coffee.
• 2:40
  Nate: And then I go mow my grass afterwards.
• 2:42
  Nate: After dinner?
• 2:43
  Nate: After dinner.
• 2:43
  Nate: After breakfast for dinner with my coffee.
• 2:48
  Nate: You know, I get accused of being a party animal every once in a while.
• 2:53
  Nate: I believe it.
• 2:54
  Nate: Oh my goodness.
• 2:55
  Nate: So we want to start with with kind of where this came from.
• 2:59
  Nate: Like, you know, we want to start with why this happened.
• 3:02
  Nate: Because nobody woke up one morning and just decided to be timid about their own kids or making decisions.
• 3:09
  Nate: Like the biggest piece from where this is is it's it's visibility.
• 3:13
  Nate: Like that we get to see lots of different families in churches and schools and around.
• 3:18
  Nate: And it used to be that that parenting happened, you know, behind closed doors, and you you made your decision, your neighbor made their decision, and you mostly had no idea what other people decided, right?
• 3:30
  Nate: And but we know that that that's gone, right?
• 3:32
  Nate: That world does not exist anymore.
• 3:34
  Nate: And and now, you know, you know exactly what every family in your kid's grade is allowing because your kid tells you, you see it on social media, and you're probably in a group text with all those other parents that made that decision too.
• 3:48
  Luis: And the kid uses it.
• 3:50
  Nate: And it's usually the first thing out of their mouth, right?
• 3:52
  Nate: Everybody else has one, everybody else is doing this, and most of the time, you know, it it's one or two families that your kid has heard about, and and you know, you d you feel like you don't want to check them in that moment because you're standing in the kitchen having a conversation.
• 4:07
  Nate: And so that's kind of like you you start feeling like you're standing on kind of shifting sand right there.
• 4:12
  Luis: And then you feel like you're the only family in the grade that's holding the line, which can feel lonely, and we don't want to just blow past that, right?
• 4:20
  Luis: Because we know that it costs something real, and we're actually gonna come back to that.
• 4:25
  Nate: Yeah.
• 4:25
  Nate: And we if you want to listen to a previous episode, we actually talked about intentionally building the community that you're in.
• 4:33
  Nate: We I think that was episode like 66 that we started talking about that.
• 4:37
  Nate: And so that's that's kind of like a plug back, a little callback to we've already talked about that phenomenon already.
• 4:42
  Nate: Okay, so so if you want more there, you can go back and listen to that episode.
• 4:47
  Nate: But the other thing that nobody really ever says out loud is and that's it's parents have picked up on this idea that they're not really qualified for this job.
• 4:57
  Nate: There's an expert for everything now, there's a study for everything, and you know, what settles on a parent over time is that the people who understand his child are the professionals, and he's just kind of like this amateur.
• 5:10
  Luis: Yeah, which is really odd since you, the parent, are the one who actually lives in the home with your kid.
• 5:17
  Nate: So, fun fact, so I'm doing some research right now, and I was reading this guy writing, I'm blanket on the name right now, but he was he was writing in like the early 1900s, like it was t like 1917, something like that.
• 5:29
  Nate: So it was a long time ago.
• 5:31
  Nate: And he he literally, in his book, he said, We don't really know how to raise children, so everyone needs to stop having kids for 20 years so that social scientists can study the best techniques for parenting and then the social scientists can raise everybody's kids for them.
• 5:48
  Nate: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:48
  Nate: Like it was ridiculous.
• 5:49
  Nate: Like I'm reading this, I'm like, you really just told the entire world to stop having kids for 20 years.
• 5:55
  Nate: Let's be honest.
• 5:56
  Nate: We we aren't qualified for this, but that's one, that's why this podcast exists.
• 6:01
  Nate: I don't think you and I are qualified for this, Lewis.
• 6:04
  Nate: But we're just figuring it out.
• 6:06
  Nate: We're figuring it out as we go.
• 6:07
  Nate: But but we've got good principles and we've got good, you know, from from the scripture, and we've got good role models ahead of us that can can help us in that.
• 6:15
  Nate: So let's calm everybody's fears for a second.
• 6:18
  Nate: But let's go back to what you just said, right?
• 6:21
  Nate: You as the parent are the one that lives there, you know, and you've got, you know, 10, 12, 14 years of information about your child that no one else has.
• 6:31
  Nate: Yeah.
• 6:32
  Nate: And your child only has, you know, two parents and and you listening to this, or maybe you're a couple listening to this, you are it.
• 6:38
  Nate: Yeah.
• 6:39
  Nate: Right?
• 6:39
  Nate: Nobody else knows your child like you do.
• 6:41
  Luis: And your 14-year-old kid feels like they have all the information that nobody else has, right?
• 6:46
  Luis: Like they've got it figured out.
• 6:48
  Luis: And I do want to be careful with how I say this, right?
• 6:51
  Luis: Because the information that your 14-year-old has, it's useful, right?
• 6:55
  Luis: Like parents, we can be helped by it, right?
• 6:59
  Luis: But consulting somebody and deferring to them are different things.
• 7:03
  Luis: And I think that a lot of parents have crossed that line without ever really deciding that that's what they wanted to do, right?
• 7:11
  Luis: And so because I think that we feel like our 14-year-old child, or I've got a 15-year-old daughter, like her knowledge is is somehow superior to what we have, and and no, it can be helpful, but it's not the end-all be-all.
• 7:26
  Nate: Yeah.
• 7:27
  Nate: So so let's talk about this, like from a scriptural just kind of understanding, okay?
• 7:33
  Nate: You know, we we want to know like where is all of this coming from?
• 7:38
  Nate: And and a lot of times your kids will probably uh sometimes in jest, like my kids usually use this verse in jest, but there's the whole like fathers do not provoke your children to wrath.
• 7:47
  Nate: Yeah.
• 7:48
  Nate: And normally they do that when I'm telling too many dad jokes, which is true.
• 7:52
  Nate: Like I probably do tell No, I don't tell too many dad jokes.
• 7:55
  Nate: There is not such a thing as too many dad jokes.
• 7:57
  Luis: They may feel like you're provoking them to wrath.
• 7:59
  Nate: Yes, because of my dad jokes, right?
• 8:01
  Nate: And so that doesn't mean that when you make a decision or you you kind of stand on the authority God has given you that, you know, if your kid gets upset because maybe even you made a wrong decision, right?
• 8:13
  Nate: That's not what that verse is talking about, right?
• 8:15
  Nate: That verse is talking about putting too much of a burden on you.
• 8:18
  Nate: You've got to think about where does your authority actually come from, and then you need to use it.
• 8:22
  Luis: Yeah.
• 8:22
  Luis: And I think what happened, right, is parents sometimes have heard that verse, right?
• 8:27
  Luis: And it may have been misused or misquoted.
• 8:29
  Luis: And so just because you tell your kid no and now they're throwing a fit, or you've held the line and your kid's upset, you feel like somehow you've done something wrong, right?
• 8:39
  Luis: But but that's not what Paul's talking about.
• 8:41
  Luis: But it's how a lot of good, sincere parents have taken it in, and now it comes with a verse attached, and so nobody wants to to push back on it.
• 8:50
  Nate: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 8:51
  Nate: So so let's talk about where all of this comes from.
• 8:54
  Nate: You know, there's there's kind of a question underneath it all of where does a parent's authority actually come from?
• 9:01
  Nate: Because if you can't answer that, you're gonna lose kind of everything else that follows after that.
• 9:07
  Nate: So so Lewis, where where where should we start when we're talking about a parental authority?
• 9:11
  Luis: I think we should start in the same place we should always start, which is the word of God.
• 9:16
  Nate: Look at that.
• 9:17
  Nate: I was waiting for you to like pull out a Bible.
• 9:20
  Nate: Like if this were a video podcast and you like pull out your Bible, pull out the Bible, hold it up, like have my sword drilled ready.
• 9:25
  Luis: There you go.
• 9:25
  Luis: And so, but we find the answer in Ephesians 6, and it's pretty interesting, right?
• 9:30
  Luis: And I think it's interesting because of what you don't find in it.
• 9:33
  Luis: So Paul tells children to obey their parents, but there's no qualifier in that, right?
• 9:40
  Luis: There's no except or but.
• 9:42
  Luis: Not if they've earned it, not to the extent they're competent.
• 9:45
  Luis: It just sits on the relationship.
• 9:48
  Nate: Yeah, and that's that's kind of uncomfortable, right?
• 9:50
  Nate: It's not a natural tendency in any of us as humans, but especially small humans who are not done developing yet.
• 9:58
  Luis: And look at what it does to the parent, right?
• 10:00
  Luis: Your authority isn't something your kid hands you by cooperating, right?
• 10:05
  Luis: The other families in the school, they don't vote on it, and you don't earn it by getting a certain percentage of calls right, which is good because none of us are hitting that number, right?
• 10:16
  Luis: Like this isn't an RPG where you are upgrading your parenting skills year by year.
• 10:21
  Nate: Look, you just went to like RPG and like video games.
• 10:24
  Nate: Yeah.
• 10:25
  Nate: I was gonna think like the new ABS system in baseball where that you can like overrule the umpire and they like zoom in and they show like how many millimeters it was out of the strike zone and whether it's the calls.
• 10:36
  Nate: Have you seen any of that?
• 10:37
  Nate: You're not a baseball guy.
• 10:38
  Nate: I'm not a baseball guy.
• 10:39
  Luis: I like to watch football.
• 10:40
  Nate: And like that's a that's a big thing.
• 10:42
  Nate: And it was this is the first year with it.
• 10:43
  Luis: And so like so they can overrule an umpire.
• 10:46
  Nate: Yeah, well, you you have to you have to a pitcher, a catcher, or the batter can call for a review of the call, and then they zoom in and like look at where it was, and then the the system can overrule the umpire.
• 11:00
  Nate: Anyway, that that was totally off track.
• 11:02
  Luis: And so we're not talking about that for parents, right?
• 11:04
  Luis: No, no, there's no ABS system for parents.
• 11:06
  Luis: So it got assigned to you, parents.
• 11:08
  Luis: Like you're like your authority comes from God, right?
• 11:12
  Luis: Psalm 127 talks about children as being a heritage, something that is entrusted, something that is handed into your keeping.
• 11:21
  Nate: Yeah, so this is like it's delegated.
• 11:23
  Nate: God has delegated the raising of these children to you as the parent.
• 11:29
  Nate: Like you are a steward taking care of them.
• 11:32
  Nate: And that's another thing, like going back to that research from the 1920s.
• 11:36
  Nate: So we're talking a hundred years ago, and there's this big trend in in the kind of the parenting research where they were taking, honestly, it was coming from people like Charles Darwin, so I think like evolutionary, naturalistic stuff.
• 11:49
  Luis: Yeah.
• 11:49
  Nate: And they were like pumping that into even Christian parenting's books and all of that back in the twenties, where it was almost like you can't come down and use your authority on these kids, you know, because that's not how society works.
• 12:02
  Nate: Like you think like this is when like communism was ticking up and like it was the whole thing uh leading up to World War II.
• 12:08
  Nate: And so what we need to do is we just need to like bring the kids together, and our our family is gonna be this mini microcosm of democracy, and then we'll just like we'll work together and we'll stand side by side and rationalize our decisions, and it's like I don't that's not what the Bible tells us.
• 12:24
  Nate: Yeah, you know, that is not biblical.
• 12:26
  Nate: And so we need to l see that from a biblical perspective, right?
• 12:31
  Nate: You know, you don't own your child, right?
• 12:35
  Nate: But they have been given to you, which sounds like hair splitting, but but it's it's an important tension of like, no, you are there helping your child, your 14-year-old, your 12-year-old, whoever it is, you are there.
• 12:48
  Nate: God has put you there to do a job, and you have that authority that He has delegated to you.
• 12:53
  Luis: And here's probably like a good scenario that every parent has found themselves in, right?
• 12:57
  Luis: Like you're in the kitchen, it's 10 o'clock at night, and you're arguing with a 14-year-old, right?
• 13:04
  Luis: And you aren't defending a position anymore.
• 13:10
  Luis: The thing was settled before the argument started, right?
• 13:14
  Luis: Like you are in authority, you make the decisions, and I think it's important to remember that, right?
• 13:21
  Luis: Because it cuts both directions at the same time.
• 13:24
  Luis: On one hand, nobody can take it from you, not the culture, right?
• 13:29
  Luis: Not the experts, not your kid, not the group text with the moms that are telling you, oh, you shouldn't do that, right?
• 13:36
  Luis: They didn't give it to you and they can't take it back.
• 13:39
  Nate: Yeah, and on the other hand, right?
• 13:41
  Nate: It's it's it isn't yours in the first place, all right?
• 13:45
  Nate: You aren't the authority because it's you, right?
• 13:48
  Nate: You're holding that authority for someone else, right?
• 13:53
  Nate: You know, you don't want to stand there and tell your kid, God gave me authority over you, because that's not gonna that's not gonna work, right?
• 13:58
  Nate: But but he did give you that authority.
• 14:01
  Nate: Yeah.
• 14:01
  Nate: And so you need to stand on that and and use it and steward it well, knowing you will have to give an account to God for how you use that authority.
• 14:10
  Luis: And that's actually a really good thing because I think that in some Christian homes, the phrase God gave me authority became an excuse for some really bad parenting decisions made by Christians, right?
• 14:25
  Luis: And we want to make sure that we sound balanced here, right?
• 14:28
  Luis: Like I've talked with adults in their 30s and 40s who grew up in Christian houses where dad's word was law and there was no warmth in it anywhere, right?
• 14:39
  Luis: Yep, yeah, the authority was real and nobody was answerable for it.
• 14:44
  Luis: And then you see it 20 years later, where some of them have walked away from the faith because when they hear the word father, they picture this harsh man that lorded over them and said, you know, I'm in charge, I'm the dad, you're gonna respect me, you're gonna do this because the Bible says it, because God says it, and it was very, very harsh.
• 15:07
  Nate: And so And then they hear a pastor preach a sermon about, you know, God is your father.
• 15:11
  Nate: Absolutely, yeah.
• 15:11
  Nate: And it's like, oh, well, I don't want that in my life.
• 15:14
  Luis: Correct, yeah.
• 15:15
  Luis: And so now they have this vision of this father that they're afraid of, and now they're running the same house the same way that they were were brought up.
• 15:26
  Luis: And in like I think it can get really, really tricky and it goes to the other extreme.
• 15:31
  Nate: Yes, you know, and then it's uh, oh well, I'm gonna let my kid walk all over me because I don't want to be like that, the harsh parent.
• 15:38
  Nate: Yeah, yeah.
• 15:39
  Nate: But now you're also giving a poor picture of what a good father is.
• 15:44
  Nate: Yeah.
• 15:44
  Nate: And so when a kid hears that, they think, oh, God is my father.
• 15:47
  Nate: He's just this little genie in the bottle that I can get whatever I want.
• 15:50
  Nate: So it's a balance, right, between the two.
• 15:52
  Luis: But God is the one who gave you the authority.
• 15:55
  Luis: You are stewarding that authority responsibly for God.
• 16:00
  Luis: Like we are accountable to him, and we are gonna give an account for our children before God because we are stewarding that for him.
• 16:09
  Luis: Like, think about this: like, God chose you to be the parent for your children.
• 16:14
  Luis: Like he could have done that for anybody else, but he chose you for your children in this world in 2026.
• 16:23
  Nate: Yeah, and so we need to remember, right, you you have that right to decide for your child.
• 16:28
  Nate: You have been given that authority by God, and you've got that obligation to decide towards something or something that kind of isn't maybe it isn't your preference or whatever.
• 16:40
  Nate: You you're put there and you're you're called to that.
• 16:44
  Nate: And so, you know, y you need to think about these things, you know, i is is it a conviction or is it a preference?
• 16:51
  Nate: Is it a convenience?
• 16:52
  Nate: Are you just being afraid of being embarrassed in front of other people or whatever?
• 16:57
  Nate: And so you need to think about how are you using the authority God gave you in the the decisions that you're making for your children.
• 17:06
  Nate: So let's talk about telling your kids no, right?
• 17:08
  Nate: Okay, yeah.
• 17:08
  Nate: So let's get concrete.
• 17:09
  Luis: What does this look like?
• 17:10
  Luis: Mm-hmm.
• 17:10
  Luis: Yep.
• 17:11
  Luis: And I think that what we need to know is that it's probably what we as parents, right, have been trying to do for 15 years, right?
• 17:23
  Luis: It's it's what I'd have said 15 years ago, but it but innocence isn't a plan, right?
• 17:27
  Luis: You can't keep a kid from knowing things forever, and a kid raised in a bubble isn't stronger, he's just untested, right?
• 17:34
  Luis: Like we've talked about that, right?
• 17:35
  Luis: Like we don't just say no because we're trying to protect our kid from the world, right?
• 17:40
  Luis: What you're protecting is time.
• 17:42
  Luis: Like there's a window where a kid's love and instincts get formed before they're out there defending it themselves, and whatever fills that window does the shaping.
• 17:52
  Luis: Nobody has to pick it for for them for it to happen.
• 17:55
  Nate: Yeah, and which is why, and we've had multiple episodes on this, we're not gonna go down the rabbit trail right now, but think about the phone, like that's the biggest thing where the fight happens.
• 18:04
  Nate: And you know, we've done all of these episodes on on digital technology and different things, but what it is is it's it's a window and you're letting things into your child's life.
• 18:13
  Nate: And so you, as their steward, as their protector, need to make a decision of what you're letting in and what you're not.
• 18:20
  Nate: Yeah.
• 18:21
  Nate: Even if your kid wants it or their their friends allow them to have it.
• 18:24
  Nate: Yes.
• 18:25
  Nate: Right.
• 18:25
  Luis: And I think one of the examples that we can point out here, right, is that there's never a movie that ruins a kid, right?
• 18:30
  Luis: Like your kid doesn't watch the movie, and then that's what ruins them for life, right?
• 18:34
  Luis: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Luis: But it's the 10,000 hours of anything decides what a person thinks is normal, right?
• 18:41
  Luis: What he thinks is funny, what he wants.
• 18:43
  Luis: My my wife and I, we were recently discussing some of the attention issues that you see in children today.
• 18:48
  Luis: Yeah, right.
• 18:49
  Luis: And it's no surprise because my generation of parents, we were very guilty of it, right?
• 18:54
  Luis: Like you hand them a phone, you hand them a tablet, right?
• 18:56
  Luis: Like you go out to the restaurant today and you look around you, and there's infants, there's toddlers that are holding a tablet, it's because we've conditioned them for 10,000 hours to know I have to be entertained and stimulated every part of the day, even if I'm just sitting in a restaurant.
• 19:11
  Luis: And the thing is that your kid can evaluate that while it's happening to them.
• 19:15
  Nate: Yeah.
• 19:16
  Nate: And so what we're what we're talking about here, while we're bringing this back up again, is because it's the idea that your kid is going to be under someone's influence, right?
• 19:25
  Nate: And God has given you the authority to protect that influence over your child, right?
• 19:32
  Nate: Whether it's food they eat that's going to influence the way their body develops, or it's the, you know, the the education they get, or it's the, you know, the information you allow in through the digital windows that they they you know consume.
• 19:48
  Nate: It all of those come back to eventually you using your authority to do what God has called you to do, right?
• 19:55
  Nate: He has He has given you the responsibility to raise your child and He's given you the authority to make the decisions for what's best for that child that God has given you.
• 20:03
  Luis: Let me give you just a a real silly example.
• 20:05
  Luis: I've got one daughter, my 15-year-old, she's almost 16.
• 20:08
  Luis: She doesn't drink any soda.
• 20:11
  Luis: So any soda, no, no Dr.
• 20:12
  Luis: Pepper, no Sprite, no Coke, no nothing.
• 20:14
  Luis: Yep.
• 20:15
  Luis: For the first three and a half years of her life, my wife and I, we were on this big health kick.
• 20:19
  Luis: So we didn't drink sodas, we didn't drink anything other than water and natural juices, right?
• 20:23
  Luis: And so for the first three and a half years of her life, when she was the only child, that's that's what she grew up in.
• 20:28
  Luis: So she never drank soda.
• 20:30
  Luis: Well, then our second daughter came around and we weren't on this big health kick anymore.
• 20:34
  Luis: And so soda was reintroduced back into our home, sweet tea, Dr.
• 20:38
  Nate: Pepper, and it's As long as it doesn't have aspartame in it.
• 20:41
  Luis: As long as it doesn't have aspartame in it.
• 20:42
  Luis: So no diet drinks, none of that fake sugar stuff.
• 20:44
  Nate: Yeah, there we go.
• 20:45
  Luis: But real sugar.
• 20:47
  Luis: That she's older, like she's like, like, like she loves soda.
• 20:50
  Luis: Like we have to be careful, right?
• 20:52
  Luis: We have to like like pull back and be like, okay, like you've already had too many sodas this weekend, or and and we don't, and we don't buy soda for the house.
• 20:58
  Luis: Like we don't have two liters or keep it stocked.
• 21:01
  Luis: Yeah, we don't.
• 21:02
  Luis: But when we go out to restaurants, she wants it.
• 21:04
  Luis: And it's so interesting to watch these two girls, right?
• 21:07
  Luis: One who for the first three and a half years of her life never had a soda, never had sweet tea.
• 21:12
  Luis: Today is she would rather drink water or lemonade.
• 21:16
  Luis: She does drink tea occasionally instead of turning to a Dr.
• 21:20
  Luis: Pepper.
• 21:20
  Luis: But her sister, who's three and a half years younger, if we go to a restaurant and she can pick out a drink, she's gonna pick a soda.
• 21:26
  Luis: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:27
  Luis: Like something is forming them.
• 21:28
  Luis: And so it's it was never a question of whether your kids under somebody's else's authority, it's just whose are they?
• 21:36
  Luis: Yeah.
• 21:37
  Luis: It's either your authority and your influence or somebody else.
• 21:40
  Nate: Yeah.
• 21:40
  Nate: So let's let's kind of wrap this up talking about what what the cost is gonna be in your home if you're you're using that using that authority.
• 21:50
  Nate: Because I don't want somebody driving home, you know, maybe you're listening to this on your drive home and you're fired up, and then, you know, kid just you know is gonna be mad at you because you come in, you flatten.
• 22:00
  Nate: And you know, whatever it is.
• 22:03
  Nate: What what is this gonna cost you as you come in and and go to use your authority, you know, in a right way with with your kids?
• 22:12
  Luis: Here's the thing you need to know, right?
• 22:14
  Luis: Your kid is gonna be mad at you, right?
• 22:16
  Luis: Like at some point, right?
• 22:17
  Luis: When you decide to hold the line, when you decide to exhibit wise authority in your home as a Christian parent, like they're gonna be upset.
• 22:27
  Luis: Sometimes it's gonna be for an afternoon, sometimes it's gonna be a lot longer, and and you just have to be ready for that.
• 22:34
  Luis: And it's worth knowing whether you're ready to handle that, right?
• 22:37
  Luis: Because if you can't stand your kid being unhappy with you, then here's what's gonna happen you're gonna make a decision, right?
• 22:44
  Luis: You're gonna, you're, you're gonna hold the line, and then your kid's gonna get mad, and so then you're gonna come back and you're gonna relieve your own discomfort, and then they're gonna call it flexible flexibility.
• 22:57
  Nate: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:58
  Nate: They'll they'll they'll call you and they'll expect to be able to argue back and get their way.
• 23:03
  Nate: It's it's never a settled decision.
• 23:05
  Nate: They can always argue, right?
• 23:08
  Nate: The second cost may surprise people more, and it's it's some of the other parents, right?
• 23:12
  Nate: You might get a reputation.
• 23:14
  Nate: Even even in a Christian community, right, it it never comes at you straight.
• 23:18
  Nate: It it comes at you dressed up as concerned, right?
• 23:22
  Nate: Oh, we just worry he's gonna be a rebel later.
• 23:24
  Nate: They might say, I've heard ever.
• 23:26
  Nate: I've heard that word for word.
• 23:27
  Nate: Yeah, word for word sentence, right?
• 23:29
  Nate: Or or maybe, you know, they'll say after a long time in you know the schools, you kind of hear the something about parents who who you know, they just they struggle to to to lay that, lay it down because they're afraid of how other parents are going to you know just see them and feel about them, and they just wanna they want to give their kids some leeway.
• 23:51
  Nate: They they always paint it up, right?
• 23:53
  Nate: Yeah.
• 23:53
  Nate: But it it's it's a it's a cost that you're gonna have to be ready for when it comes at you.
• 23:58
  Luis: Here's something that I read recently is you know, there's a lot of information coming out about kids walking away from the faith, right?
• 24:04
  Luis: Yep, yeah and like kids rebelling.
• 24:06
  Luis: Well, well, here's something that that's unique.
• 24:09
  Luis: The number one predictor on a kid not walking away from their faith is consistency.
• 24:15
  Luis: Like the parents who were consistent, right?
• 24:17
  Luis: Like the kids saw them serving in their church, the kids saw them consistent in home and the church, right?
• 24:22
  Luis: The reason why kids are walking away from their faith is because they see inconsistency from the parent, right?
• 24:28
  Luis: So they have this parent who's who's firm and harsh all the time at home, but then at church they put on this front and they're sweet and they're nice and they treat all the other kids better than they do at home, right?
• 24:40
  Luis: But if you're firm and warm at the same time, right, like that's not what's pushing them away, right?
• 24:46
  Luis: Uh the ones who struggle come out of homes where there was harshness in the home and no warmth in them, or houses where nobody was steering at all, right?
• 24:57
  Luis: Like there were these disengaged parents.
• 24:59
  Luis: And so when you're firm and you have your authority, but you love and you're warm and you care and they see that consistently, those kids usually aren't walking away from the faith.
• 25:10
  Nate: Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 25:11
  Nate: And so, you know, just as we kind of like we said, this is the the first of two episodes on on parental authority, and and so we just want to encourage you guys, like, you know, there will be costs, but consistency is gonna be one of your biggest things here, right?
• 25:26
  Nate: You know, you can even be wrong in the decisions you make and and apologize.
• 25:30
  Nate: We've talked about that before.
• 25:32
  Nate: Yeah.
• 25:32
  Nate: But if your kid knows that it's not a democracy, right, and you're gonna stay consistent no matter what, they'll be in a better position.
• 25:40
  Nate: So, Lewis, you know, wrap us up here, this first of two episodes.
• 25:44
  Nate: You know, just what's something that that parents can do with this this week before we get to episode two next week?
• 25:52
  Luis: Look, the parents, you're listening to this and there's a there's a decision that you've been avoiding, and you probably know what it is, right?
• 25:59
  Luis: And you've been putting it off, not because you don't know what's right.
• 26:03
  Luis: You do, but you just haven't been sure that you're allowed to make it, right?
• 26:07
  Luis: Maybe it's the phone, maybe you've listened to one of our podcasts and you've decided, okay, we're not gonna let our kids carry their phone into the room no more, right?
• 26:14
  Luis: Maybe it's a friendship, right?
• 26:15
  Luis: Maybe you've been watching your kid hang out with somebody since the start of school and you're like, oh, that's not a good relationship.
• 26:20
  Luis: Uh maybe it's something on the calendar that you all signed up for that you've been regretting since you signed up, right?
• 26:27
  Luis: And so here's what you need to do make that call, right?
• 26:30
  Luis: It doesn't have to be a good speech.
• 26:32
  Luis: You just make it.
• 26:33
  Luis: And remember, it was never yours in the first place, right?
• 26:37
  Luis: God handed it to you, and someday you're gonna answer for what you did with it, which ought to make you bolder and gentler at the same time, right?
• 26:46
  Luis: Bolder because nobody can take it from you, but also gentler because you're holding something that God has entrusted to you.
• 26:54
  Nate: Yeah, so that's a great reminder for us, um, striking that balance, right?
• 26:58
  Nate: Of the the um the stewardship and the authority God has given us.
• 27:03
  Nate: So uh make sure you guys, like we said before, you have subscribed um so that you don't miss part two next week.
• 27:11
  Nate: And if this encouraged you and you, you know, recognize that that it's something you needed, maybe there's another parent who needs it as well.
• 27:17
  Nate: So we'd love it if you shared this episode with another parent so that they can hear and learn and grow as well.
• 27:25
  Nate: Thanks for listening to Equipped for Impact.
• 27:28
  Nate: Until next time, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.