Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 293 | When Can You Incorporate Children in Adult Gatherings?

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Ep. 293 | When Can You Incorporate Children in Adult Gatherings? · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  This is kind of the way that we encourage parents to think about any adult gathering that we want to integrate children into that is not designed for children. Right.
• 0:15
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. So there's a little thing that I've been working out in the context of some gatherings we've been having in our house with kids, but I realized that this is kind of a helpful framework just to think about. So I wanted to kind of run it past you, Jeff, and see what you think. So...
• 0:36
  So in the context of gatherings we have in our house where we're spending time praying, teaching, we really love it when kids can be with their parents. This same thing will apply to worship services if you want your kids to be with you in a worship service. How do you decide what events to bring your kids into when they're ready, when you're ready, when you're ready?
• 1:02
  Um, and which ones to get childcare for. And, um, and so this is the way I think about it. So, um, I want my kids to be with me as much as possible. Um, that's sort of my default. If, if, unless there's some topic we're talking about that's inappropriate for kids, um, I would really rather them be with me, whether it's like a movie theater or a restaurant, uh, or when I'm at work. Um.
• 1:24
  But I have to be sensitive to the fact that kids fall into one of these three categories, and that really is how I determine if they're ready for this event. Okay, so the first category is pre-training. And that means when I say a child's in pre-training, that means that...
• 1:41
  I just don't believe they're ready to be trained to be in this environment. Maybe a two-year-old in a three-hour movie, maybe it's not a great idea to try to make them sit through that, right? So they're just not ready for it, okay, that's fine. And so I get childcare for that, no big deal. Then there's another category, they go from pre-training to in-training. Now this is a really fun transition and as fathers, I think we need to really enjoy this.
• 2:08
  So that is, okay, I now think that they could handle it. So let's say you've got a seven-year-old, and you really want them to come with you into the worship service. Nothing wrong with putting them in kids' club or whatever, but let's say you decide you want them to be in a worship service with you.
• 2:25
  So what do you do during that in-training season? And the way I think about this is you don't go from them having never sat through a 70-minute worship service to expecting them to be perfectly quiet and happy sitting through it. You need to train them. And that means that you need to really...
• 2:42
  give this some time and some space. And so you might say, okay, we're going to go into a training season where I'm going to be constantly working with my child and really focused maybe even a little bit less on what's happening in the worship service and a little bit more on my son or daughter and talking to them about what's going on or if they need to have some kind of
• 3:05
  you know, project to be working on so that when they get super bored, they can like focus on something else for a bit. Um, but you're really focused on that. That's your in training period. You might go from that and go, okay, this is a bad idea. Back to pre-training. You know, that's, that's totally fine. Uh, no harm there, but, but, but you might discover that after four or five weeks of really doing that, your child now can get through what would have been really difficult for them to get through with no problem. Um, and so then you go from in training to trained,
• 3:33
  So this is kind of the way that we encourage parents to think about any adult gathering that we want to integrate children into that is not designed for children, right? So we really live in a world that basically says either it's designed for kids or it's designed for adults. And this is a disaster. It's never designed for families.
• 3:54
  No, nothing's designed for families. And so either I'm going to bring my kids and they're going to be crazy and chaotic or provide childcare. Those are the only two options. And I don't like either option. I like the option where I can be with my kids, even in moments where maybe the thing that is happening is over their head for a little bit. And so the way we've walked through that is to decide for each child, for each event, are they pre-training?
• 4:22
  too young for this? Are they in training? I'm focused on them, explaining to them what's happening, really helping them walk through this in a healthy way so that they can experience this with our whole family together. Or are they trained and I'm not worried about it. They know how this works. I've worked with them. No big deal. So that's kind of the framework that has really helped us, you know, step families through the process. But yeah, Jeff, how does that, how does that work for you guys? How do you think about that?
• 4:51
  Yeah, not much more to add just since you nailed it. But I think what I would say is that one of the axioms that has radically transformed our marriage and our family is we kind of joke. We joke about the old riff on the prosperity gospel, name it and claim it. But kind of the same thing of like name –
• 5:08
  name whatever you're doing or whatever you're in. And it, it solves 99% of the problems. And this is one of them, right? Because if you don't name it like, Oh, Oh, our kids don't know how to do this yet. Okay, cool. No pressure, but we're going to go in with this type of mentality. That's radically different than your kid being at the exact same place he is in that attitude versus going in with, Oh my goodness, you know, just a different thing. Expectations that hasn't been named. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
• 5:32
  And so name it, name what it is, name seasons. That's a huge one. Name certain days, name certain stages that your kids are in. I can go on and on. But just when you name it, it just is this, 99% of the battle is like this expectation communication battle. And when you start naming things, it just puts you in the right box for your attitude, for your spirit, for your tone. And I think that's really, really big. So I'll just say, yes, that's a huge thing in regards to this.
• 6:00
  That's so good. Yeah. The principle I always think about that coming from is the, you know, Genesis 2, Adam's first job was to name things. And I think that that's what was happening. I don't think it was simply like, you know, come up with sounds, you know, that will represent an animal. I think it was, hey, you're responsible. That's right. Yeah. And that's part of what your responsibility is. And the father, you got to name these things.
• 6:24
  Also, guys, just keep in mind, we are taking groups of family teams, speaking of different seasons your family might be in, we'd love to take families, whether it's just the couple or even their kids, to Israel on a tour where we talk about what it means to think about family from the lens of sort of the way that the Jewish people have thought about this or the different cultures in the Middle East think about family, how it's different from
• 6:52
  than families in the West. So if you're interested in coming to Israel with us on a tour, we tend to go every January. You can check that out at familyteams.com, and you can check out our tours. We'd love to take you, your spouse, maybe even your kids, to Israel on an immersive sort of tour experience where we get to think about what can we learn about family from our time in Israel. So check that out.