Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 144 | Setting Specific Dates for Your Children

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Ep. 144 | Setting Specific Dates for Your Children · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  But especially when they're younger, we're called to seek the Lord on our kids' behalf. Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:31
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. So this is a conversation that I've never had before, so I'm curious how Jeff will react to this one. So ancient fathers had the practice of setting specific dates for their children. And this happens in our culture a little bit, but we almost never talk about it. Like I said, I've never heard about this. This is in the Bible a lot. It's really interesting to think about some of the verses. Let me just read three of them to you guys. In Acts 1, Jesus said—he was asked by his disciples—
• 0:59
  Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? This is just before the ascension. And Jesus says, It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.
• 1:13
  Similarly, in Matthew 24, when Jesus is talking about the end of days, he says, "...no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows." And then in Galatians, Paul is using this analogy about how the law was sort of like a guardian, and he uses a similar idea here. He says...
• 1:35
  I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians—this is his analogy of the law—and managers until the date set by his father.
• 1:48
  So one of the things that you as dads need to do, and our Heavenly Father does this a lot, obviously, it's all throughout the Bible, is he sets dates. He decides—in our culture, one of the examples where this comes up a lot is fathers a lot of times will set a date for when their kids can start to date the opposite sex, right? So we have a little bit of this going on, but this is a really important thing—
• 2:11
  Set a date for when your child can get their first computer or their first smartphone, right? You set a date when your child needs to get a job. You can set a date for when your child needs to start paying rent or start to ramp that up. It's really important to set these dates out in the future so that your children can kind of anticipate and sort of trust you and your authority and see this as a part of your responsibility and that you're caring for them because your wisdom is really important.
• 2:41
  for setting out these dates. We even had, so for really little kids, we had all kinds of these kind of dates, like the date when they could first chew gum, right? Like we did not want our really little kids chewing gum. And so my wife set a date, like you can't chew gum until you're five.
• 2:58
  And each one of our kids just could not wait to turn five. It was like the biggest deal when they were little because they wanted to go. That's a little example. But I hadn't thought about this. Like, you know, I'm curious to have what your thought, because this is a very consistent theme throughout the Bible that a father sets dates. And the more I thought about this, the more I realized, man, this is such an important responsibility and one in which we can really help our kids aim their life in a better trajectory.
• 3:24
  Yeah, and I agree. And I think the first thought I thought of is specifically, I think where this plays out the biggest is in like rites of passage. And so a father marking the time when their son or daughter crosses over into an initiation, into a rite of passage, into kind of a new season of adulthood and what God's calling them to do and their mission that they're taking up.
• 3:48
  from the Lord. And so I think that's huge. I think, yeah, I think that is up to us as fathers to, because here's why I think if you get down to the why it's God, I think has equipped fathers to be the stewards, fathers and mothers, but to be the stewards of our kids vision and future. Now, of course, with flexibility and there's this kind of Venn diagram of crossover and it starts stretching them or they get older and older of them kind of seeking the Lord on their own behalf. But especially when they're younger, we're called to seek the kids...
• 4:18
  seek the Lord on our kids' behalf. And I think what that does is then the Lord will speak to us and say, hey, I want you to shepherd them in these moments, in these times, in these seasons. And I think we're created for that. And then like the gum example you used, I think is a perfect example. I think then just more like...
• 4:34
  smaller ones or ones that aren't necessarily like a rite of passage are still deeply important and really fun, especially if you have more than one kid, because it kind of creates like a family culture. And I would say actually play up the funness of them, right? Like, hey, in our family, you do this, you get this at this age, you get this at this age, you get this at this age, and then you see your siblings getting it. It actually creates a really, really, really fun family culture. And especially I can see it creating a really fun family culture of people kind of like,
• 4:58
  rolling up their sleeves and working a little harder or like chomping at the bit to get there or kind of this excitement kind of game like mentality. I think playing that up is actually really beneficial to the culture of the team. It's really beneficial to just and just like kind of the discipleship of the team. I think that older siblings have really fun opportunities to kind of tell the younger siblings how it went and what it was like. And here's the date it happened. And it's going to happen for you on this date. And
• 5:22
  Stuff like that. So I would say that's really, really important. But yeah, I think that's a fascinating thought. And this one, I'm actually really, really excited to hear other people's thoughts. So we'll bring this one to the Facebook group. If you're in the Facebook group, Five Minute Fatherhood, and we can't wait to hear what you think.
• 5:36
  Hey guys, can I just ask you a quick favor? If you could just pause real quick. Well, actually after I'm done with this, so it makes sense in about for about 30 seconds and just rate and review this podcast. We can 10 X the number of dads we help through this content. If our podcast can be found by more dads. And one of the weird main things about this podcast game is that how they get ranked and how they get in front of other people essentially is because of how it gets rated and reviewed. So if you can just give a quick, honest rating and review, we would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Thanks guys.