Latest / Homeschool Insights - Biblical Home Education Inspiration in Under 10 Minutes! / Stop Chasing Success. Teach Your Kids to Thrive! Jonathan Brush
Transcript
- speaker-0: God gave you your children and your unique abilities and your unique circumstances to to raise them. And so it's not so much about the mechanics of that, you're actually equipped to do that. Or you're not, which is both helpful to know. I mean, like we're never fully equipped, right? Like like that we we have to rely on God. We have to there are times we have to be humble and hit our knees and say, Lord, I I don't know how to do this. At some level, you really want your kid to not only get into college, you want them to get into the elite college with a full scholarship so that you can, in the most Christian way possible, stick it in the eye of all those people that for years have been like, You're gonna do what? You're gonna do really you're gonna do high school and what about prom? And like, you I mean like asking all those questions. It was like at some level, I would like some sort of standard achievement that everybody recognizes to be like, hey, look, we're fine and and and take that. And ⁓ did did I hear your kid didn't get it? I mean, like you You're thinking that in the back of your head, right? I mean, there's there's there's some level of nastiness there that we don't really want to admit to, but at some level we're kind of thinking about. And yeah, it comes into this like, well, if if if my child is rich, famous, or powerful, and the child thinks the same thing, that's recognizable. ⁓ it's also an anomaly, but it is recognizable. And again, I'm not saying that I don't want your children to be rich, famous, or powerful. It's just that if they become rich, famous, or powerful, I'd like them to know why. And I'd like them to be equipped for that when they get there. speaker-1: Yeah. And I think what you said is so true because with homeschooling, ⁓ my goodness, you have all these naysayers in our lives. And you know, and it is so easy to slip into getting success focused with our kids. So do you have any like practical advice or maybe even just ways for us to be aware that we're doing that in our in our raising of our children? So that we're trying to get them to focus on, you know, thriving as you like to say, thriving versus success. speaker-0: Well, I think in a lot of things it's it's less about the mechanics of doing it and it's more about understanding what you're doing. Right. I mean, like I think that you're uniquely equipped by God to raise your children. And therefore advice for me on specifics is probably, you know, wasteful at best and and and completely misguided at worst, in the sense that, you know, God gave you your children and your unique abilities and your unique circumstances to to raise them. And so it's not so much about the mechanics of that, you're actually equipped to do that, or you're not, which is both Helpful to know. I mean, like we're never fully equipped, right? Like we have to rely on God. We have to, there are times we have to be humble and hit our knees and say, Lord, I don't how to do this. ⁓ but but I think what's so difficult for me is to know where I'm going. I I teach our students a lot to say, humans, for humans, ideas always precede action. And and the problem is that most of those ideas are subconscious. So I want my students to have conscious ideas that precede action. And I think for parenting, it's the same thing. So When unbound we say we train young adults to thrive. And we pick thrive because most people have a generally positive connotation with that word, but they don't know what it means. And that gave us a chance to define it, right? And so I'm not claiming this is the dictionary definition of thrive, but we looked at at the young adults we worked with and we well, which ones were doing really well? And if we kind of broke down the pieces, what is it that they do consistently that we see across, you know, in our case, we had, you know, 25 years of experience of looking at this. And so we say to thrive. And we define it as to thrive means to accept full responsibility for your life. And if you listen to our last episode, that means to become a full adult, right? Mm-hmm. To prioritize relationships. ⁓ we teach our students that first of all the relationship with the one who made you, but then also time and tasks, productivity, the stuff everybody talks about, only makes sense in the context of relationships. It doesn't matter if you're a time management and task management guru and genius and ninja. It it only makes sense in the context of how that impacts people. And at heart of that we s we We teach our students, you know, you've never met anybody not made in the image of God, which in C.S. Lewis's words means you've never met a mere mortal, ⁓ either everlasting splendors or eternal horrors, and so as Lewis's words. And so that gives that gives weight and freight to every one of the relationships that you're in, so that you prioritize relationships and that you then change the world by being extraordinary at the ordinary things. Now there's a there's a twist here because if you've never met a mere mortal and everybody you meet is made in the image of God. Than then you've never had an ordinary moment. Every moment carries the weight of eternity. And so, so that means to be extraordinary at ordinary is to have this attitude of excellence that that infuses everything that you do, but also to trust that God will use it in the right way, often ways you don't fully understand in this life. And so to be extraordinary at ordinary, we tell our students is this is how you actually change the world, not by being rich, famous, or powerful. But also don't be surprised that if you get good at being extraordinary at the ordinary things, that the extraordinary becomes ordinary. ⁓ that you know how to create value, which is different than just working hard, that you understand what value is and how to create it, how to how how to do things that lead to human flourishing, that you know how to live resiliently, which is to understand the world is a broken, busted place, and yet you live in light of a hope that exceeds that. And that you do that in light of eternity, that's your perspective, for the glory of God, that's your purpose. And when you put that together to take full responsibility for your life, prioritize relationships. Serve others by being extraordinary at ordinary, know how to create value, live resiliently, and light of eternity for the glory of God. I don't pretend that that's a formula. I'm not even claiming it's a formula. I'm just saying that those elements are the elements I see most reflected in the people that I think are living meaningful, useful, holy, redeemed lives. And so if we would then say those are our goals, well, then that subtly and not so subtly changes what we do as parents, but also for students should give us something better to shoot for. Now, if you do those things and you wind up rich, famous, and powerful, you'll know what to do with it. And I think that that ends up being something that's not an anomaly. I think those are things that God calls us to across the board. This is this is available to those of us who follow Christ, who live the Christian life. ⁓ and so and the earlier you start on it, the earlier you get good at it, and the more you ⁓ benefit from living that way, the ability to thrive. speaker-1: This episode of Homeschool Insights is brought to you by Liberty HealthShare. Choosing to homeschool is about making intentional decisions for your family. Liberty HealthShare is another way families across the country are choosing a different path, one that offers a community-centered approach to health care cost sharing that can help you keep more of your hard-earned dollars while getting the medical care your family needs. Learn more at LibertyHealthShare.org. That's LibertyHealthShare.org.