Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 292 | The Importance of Instructing Your Children

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Ep. 292 | The Importance of Instructing Your Children · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  That is such a powerful way to prepare your kids for the future.
• 0:08
  Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome back to 5-Minute Fatherhood. So sometimes we like to just share quotes, tease them out, that really kind of get at a really foundational element of fatherhood. And I ran across this one and wanted to chat about this for a little bit. H. Jackson Brown says, Life doesn't come with an instruction book. That's why we have fathers.
• 0:30
  And man, I think this is a piece of ancient wisdom that people used to have a deep understanding of. A lot of people still do, but I think is increasingly getting lost. And that is that it is critically important for the father to understand that they have a role in teaching their children the basic way that life works.
• 0:56
  That's the reason why the book of Proverbs exists. You know, this is Solomon saying to his son and then to all of his children multigenerationally that, hey, I spent my whole life trying to figure out how life works. And I want to pass those on to you in these little wise sayings so that you can understand it.
• 1:17
  And so it's really important to be collecting proverbs as a father and talking to your kids about, hey, you see that situation? You see what's going on there? Let me give you some insight into how that works. And if you imagine that that's constantly happening, really taking advantage of each of those teachable moments.
• 1:36
  That is such a powerful way to prepare your kids for the future, to train your kids to be good parents as they get older. And sometimes I like to think about this in just the basic, you know, answering the what, how and why questions for your kids. You know, so oftentimes when they're young, we're oftentimes explaining the what to them. You know, you're just saying, hey, this is this is what that is. You know, they don't really know what I.
• 1:58
  what a car is or that animal, or, you know, you're reading little books to them. And then they're kind of a season where they oftentimes are ready to just build like skills with their dad. And so you're constantly explaining how things work, right? This is how a car works. This is, you know, how plumbing works. This is how your spiritual life works. And then as they get older, and we're definitely getting into this season, is I feel like I'm constantly having...
• 2:24
  deep abstract why conversations with our kids philosophy morality yeah yeah yes and i and that and so i've it's been each of those journeys with my kids has been really fun i love each one i actually really miss the earlier stages where you can just explain to a three-year-old what something is um
• 2:43
  You know, and sometimes we're having these really deep conversations with our kids about, you know, why something works the way it works, which I also love, love, love. But each of these is just so much fun. I think that part of what's really important as a dad is to just take on that responsibility as a privilege. You get to be the life manual, the instruction book for your children. And it's just important to take on that role and take advantage of those opportunities. But yeah, Jeff, how has this worked out for you guys? Yeah.
• 3:11
  Yeah, I love that. I totally agree. I think it's really important for the mom and the dad to both do that. I think I do think we see dads do it less. So I think that's why we want to harp on it, too, of like dads have such an ability and gift to do this to their kids. One thing else, two things I think of.
• 3:29
  And the first one is, I think it also goes to show too, it's a really good way to subtly teach your kids about the Lord in the sense of like how he actually operates. And what I mean by this is like when you're a disciple of Jesus, you're an apprentice of Jesus. And when you put it in this bucket of apprenticeship, not just like knowledge taker.
• 3:49
  You know what I mean? When you follow, you study, you learn, you glean from all of the organic kind of dynamic parts of life. That's how Jesus taught as a rabbi, as a first century teacher. He was dynamic and they were his apprentices essentially kind of following and studying for a long period of time in close proximity, kind of watching behind the shoulder. That's how you want to treat relationships with your kids. And I think when you do it like that, you're actually – what you're also doing is you're giving them a really beautiful framework that can immediately transfer to Jesus.
• 4:16
  Right. Of this is how to follow him, not just facts, not just knowledge, not just whatever. But it is facts and knowledge, but through this dynamic kind of peeking behind the shoulder way. And so I think that's what I would say with that. And then I had a second thing that spaced my mind, but I was going to, but I, but I think, uh,
• 4:31
  It's just really, really important. It's really, really important to do this. This is what life is actually about, is to pass on those breadcrumbs of life. And most people remember that type of stuff. Then the big thing or the huge thing or the overly planned thing, it's a lot of the stuff in the margins that sometimes the Holy Spirit uses in a really powerful way. And so don't neglect those.
• 4:52
  Yeah, sometimes I've been shocked at what my kids remember me saying because of the moment that it got stated in. It was a very memorable moment. We were in a particular place. They were wondering a particular thing. And I forgot that I even said it, but it just sort of snuck in there right at the right time. And if you just rely on...
• 5:13
  a school system or just downloading information, you know, your kids are not going to remember a lot of that stuff, but they'll remember when their dad said particular things to them. By the way, Jeff, I don't know if you know this. I just checked our stats. By the time this podcast goes out, we will have...
• 5:31
  um, gone over 1 million downloads for five. That's sweet. That's awesome. High five. And I just wanted to shout out to our audience. Thank you so much. Yeah. It's been about a year and, um, man, what a cool, uh, milestone for this podcast. Thank you guys for sharing this and yeah. Listen to, no, I was going to say, thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for what we get to do that. You get to tune in. And I think this is one of our favorite things we do because it's so fun in the bite size way. So, yeah.