Latest / Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies / Parenting | Mark Hester | Week 05

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Parenting | Mark Hester | Week 05 · Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online@madisonchurch.org be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
• 0:38
  Speaker B: So this is a class. The series is called Christian Parenting. And ever since I got on the list to teach, I've struggled with it, with the idea of me trying to tell somebody about parenting. And we'll get to that in just a minute. But particularly, our topic tonight is on communication and relationships. And I prayed about it and I thought about it and I said, what would young parents or parents of teens and older children need or benefit from that I have that has happened or God's given me in my life? And I really think this is kind of what kept sticking in my head. Mistakes were made. How many of you even know who Richard Nixon is? That's a classic, right? Mistakes were made. It's usually followed by, but not by me. But that's a classic way to kind of say, yeah, things happen, right? But I say that to say, you know, I don't teach parenting classes in any normal way. And I don't feel qualified other than in the sense that we've got God's word, all of us have got God's word to help us. And I do have some experience. And, you know, you learn more from mistakes probably than you do the things you do, right? So I do want to talk a little bit about some of the things that I feel like I did wrong as a parent that might. You guys might benefit from. So I'm. That's my quote. Now, mistakes were made, and by me particularly. And you may, you may can relate to some of these. That's not my intention here, but it's really to just let you know, you know, you're not. You don't have to be perfect. You know, I'm not up here teaching. None of us are because our kids turned out perfect because of us. In fact, you know, I feel like my kids turned out okay in spite of Me sometimes. And that's true anger. I had a temper when I was a kid and God broke me of it the hard way when I was a young teen, or at least I said God broke me of it. And then I had children and they try every nerve that you've got. You guys can probably relate to that. It's a difficult thing, right? You're losing sleep, you know, routines are interrupted, you know, they're not very verbal. You know, they don't talk about things. So, you know, having kids will try you. So some of you that I know are on your way to maybe being first time parents. Keep that in mind, right? You know, just realize that you don't want to make big mistakes out of anger. But in my particular case, you know, some of the old ghosts came back and it's, you know, it's difficult on me being distracted by my own interests. You know, you've got other things going on in your life. All of you do. I know you got jobs, a lot of jobs today are, you know, take you away from home, maybe both of you are out of the home a good part of the day, things like that, you know, so, you know, when you're pursuing that dream, you know, whatever it is that you've got going on. And I know for me, you know, work was a big, big thing in my life and a place that was, you know, where you felt like you were needed and wanted and all those good things and, you know, so you can get distracted. And the Bible talks a lot about that. Right. You know, Jesus talked about in the parable, the Sower, about the seed that got caught up by the thorns, and he described it as someone getting caught up in the cares of this world. Right. So when it comes to children, you know, I feel like that's one thing you need to be on the watch for and really keep, stay diligent, you know, not to let, not to get distracted. Because they won't be whatever age they are right now, they won't be that age very long at all. There will be times, you know, Lord willing, there will be time for some of these other things that you get distracted by. And then uninformed. I was pretty naive sometimes. That worked for me. You know, it helped me in some, some things. Not raising children, though, but I was, you know, I didn't really. I was pretty cocky probably too. So, you know, I wasn't really looking for other people's thoughts on how to, how to be a good parent. And, you know, just not being informed is not really a Good excuse for, you know, some of the things when you're, when you're raising the kids. And I would, I would triple down on that now with the digital age upon us. You need to know as a parent, you need to know what's out there, what's knocking at the doors and what vampires sticking their head in your window, AKA the television and the phone and all those things. So I was uninformed and particularly I had all girls, so I was double naive there. Right. So, you know, I think these were kind of the things that stuck to. Stuck in my mind as things that, you know, I could have done better. Anything come to Yalls mind. Not mistakes I made, but I probably made them. Whatever you come up with. But what are some other kind of mistakes that maybe, you know, they're not the end of the world mistakes, but mistakes that people make sometimes in parenting. Some of you parents speak up, whatever. That's a good one. Yeah. Overcorrecting. Yeah, I get it though. That makes sense. Yeah. Because you either either you often kind of adopt it wholly or you reject it wholly. There's no in between. So. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Very much. And we are, you know, right. We. They told me when I got married, right. To look at my wife's mother. Right. Because you know, your wife's going to be a lot like her, you know, for a. I hope that's good news to all of you guys, everybody in here. But you know, it's just that idea that, you know, that is who raised you. So you're going to be somewhat like them. Here's a few others I thought of that were less top of mind for me anyway. But just some of the things maybe I saw in others or I saw in myself or I didn't see in myself and I probably should have. But you know, this idea of being consumed by fear or almost consumed by fear, you know, particularly around losing that child.
• 7:29
  Speaker C: Right.
• 7:30
  Speaker B: Or losing them in the sense of them rejecting you. You know, if you get kind of consumed by that fear, you know, you're going to be. You're going to be in an imbalanced type relationship with them. Right. You're going to be begging, so to speak, when you really should be leading. Seems like to me, I feel like I've seen that as something that could happen. Caring too much about what others think. This is one that I remember. I was in a grocery store and a lady was with her in the grocery store with her young child and the child was doing what kids do when they get out in public. Right. This one in particular was throwing some kind of fit, but she was. Her every response was about us, the other people in that room. It wasn't about the child. Right. Or her and that child. It was about her embarrassment of us seeing that thing. And I thought, you know, at that time, I thought, I hope I don't do that to my kids, you know, but something that. That was just something that kind of popped into my head. And then the idea of sheltering, maybe that goes a little bit with being consumed by fear, but this one I get. I mean, I get them all, but I get this, you know, the idea of trying to kind of. Because, Right. You know, life is hard, and it gets pretty hard pretty early. Right. You, you know, when you're a baby, you get all this attention and then maybe another baby comes along, and then maybe there's neighbors or there's cousins that you gotta share your stuff with you never had to share before. You know, life comes at you pretty quick and it's got things you have to kind of deal with and cope with. And so, you know, trying to shelter our children to the point of not having to deal with some of those things that maybe we had to deal with the tough parts of life, I see that as a big draw anyway, something you would want to do. But I saw something the other day that really stuck with me on that one. This is mine. Making good choices is not learned in the absence of choices. So if you're trying to shelter, you're trying to limit them to the one choice that's the right choice in your mind, the good choice. But you want your kids to grow up to be able to make their own good choices. So that doesn't happen just because they didn't. They never had. If they never had a choice, you see. So when it comes to how they dress and you know, any of those decisions, and of course, you know, you're the parent, so they're going to be maturing over time. But, you know, keep. Keep that in mind. Them making choices and having a choice is part of becoming a good chooser while you've still got. You're still in the picture. But the thing I heard that stuck with me, I didn't stick it up there. Is prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. And we want to. I want. I'm in. I'm not a parent now. I'm not a parent with kids at home, but I'm a grandparent and I don't want. I want to prepare the road for my grandchildren so they don't ever have to have any problems. But that's not how life works, right? So it's. It's better to prepare them to make good decisions, to be able to deal with the things that might come along, those kind of things. So prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child. And of course, you can't do parenting without Proverbs 22. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he's old, he'll not depart from it. That is a difficult verse. I didn't do all the deep dive about it. But, you know, I used to have this mindset that, oh, you know, it's. It's just A equals B, right? You train them and they're going to do everything right that they should. But I don't really think that's what it's saying. I think I brought it here because of that idea of train, right? That's what this is, right? Giving them, giving them a somewhat controlled environment where they can make good choices. That's training, right? As opposed to just telling or, you know, limiting choices, things like that. So that's hard to do. And I don't, you know, I don't have it perfectly set out in my mind, but I always appreciated it when I was a child, you know, like my parents would say, you can, you know, when I'm offered to go to a movie, you know, or something like that, and maybe it's questionable choice, right? They would let me make that choice at, at an age appropriate point, you know, and I always appreciated that even though I made the wrong decision sometimes. All right, other. Other thoughts on that. While I get caught up with my
• 12:24
  Speaker C: notes, I think being careful about the words that we use because those words are going to stick in their brains in their lifetime. And if we use words that we don't think about as being negative, that, you know, being so lazy, they grow up, they're lazy. You know, quite often if you ask somebody, if I ask somebody who comes in to see me, well, whose voice are you hearing here? And it'll be, well, that's what my dad had about me. We need to be careful that our kids know they're precious.
• 12:57
  Speaker B: That's good. And that, I think is also sort of what this is saying, right? Training what we do as parents has a permanence about it, good and bad, right. That doesn't mean everything is permanent. It just means there is the opportunity for permanence there, both good and bad. So I think, you know, that's part of what they say. It even has a generational aspect to it. Right. You train up your children, they're going to train up their kids. And you know, the things that I'm sure there's part of my. I know some of the way that my mom brought me up would have been the way her mom brought her up. So that's kind of. There is power in the parent is maybe what you can say there. We're going to talk more about those words too, because that's definitely it. The idea of those things that kind of stick with us. Good. Of course, not trusting God through the process would be a mistake. The opposite of that is trusting man. Right. There's a lot of people out there, including me, that got opinions about how you should raise your kids, you know, things like that. But I know when I was younger, I had a younger brother who came along and so I heard my parents talking about raising him and you know, was it Freud? Who was that?
• 14:17
  Speaker C: Spock.
• 14:18
  Speaker B: Dr. Spock was the thing then he had a book, you know, so I don't know if my little brother turned out the way he did because of Dr. Spock. But you know, listen to God. Trust God. It's not just listen, it's trust, you know, that you can do this, that he has given us guidance that will work and that, you know, if he had thought you needed a PhD to raise a kid, somehow he would have. Well, actually you got a PhD in that sense at being a person. Right? You got to be a kid for a while before you became a parent. Alright, so that would be a mistake. But when it's all said and done, we don't get trial runs. I definitely had that thought after we had the first kid. I'm like, you know, you don't really get a trial run at this. Everything you do is a first time you're doing it and you got to figure it out. So yes, mistakes were made, but luckily really, by God's design, kids are very smart. They are very smart and they're generally resilient. Right. I cringe, you know, at some of the things I have said to my kids when they were young. But, you know, and I remember some of the things my parents said that, you know, I figure they might have regretted that. But, you know, the fact that you remember it and you can kind of think through it, you know, we're thinking agents at a pretty young age and we can start kind of working through things and definitely generally resilient. So God's on our side. So that's a good thing to keep in mind. So from a communications perspective, I have four things related to parenting and communications that have kind of stuck with me for a while through the years. Right. Not really partly as I was a parent and partly since then, but this is a really good book. Hold on to your kids that I liked. Tell you a little bit about the premise behind it. But they said this parenting is not a set of skills and behaviors, but is above all a relationship. You know, reading Dr. Spock or, you know, I really, before this kind of sunk into me, I really thought it was about a skill. Right. Parenting is a skill. It's an ability that we have, you know, a set of behavior, process rules, things like that. But it's really about the relationship. That's a duh moment for most of y'. All. I hope it is. For me, it took a little. I told you, I was naive, you know, for me, it took a little while, but it's really about the relationship that you're building. I used. I heard somebody say, when we were raising kids, I heard somebody say, you're not raising children, you're raising adults. That's the point. You're trying to raise them to be adults, not just to keep them as children. The premise of this book is that parents should be the place that kids go to over their peers. Right. It's sort of against peer orientation. And it really opened my eyes to realize kind of what I saw over time and seems to be even possibly accelerating now. But, you know, if a parent doesn't parent or doesn't engage in a way that creates that relationship and that trustful relationship, the kids are looking for something to follow. You know, there's a cute. Lots of cute videos out there of ducklings that are born, and a kitty cat just happens to drop by at that moment. And they follow the kitty cat around, you know, the rest of their growing up, you know, kids are going to follow somebody. It should be you as a parent. But if it's not, if the vacuum sits there, it's their peers. And then you got the blind. Literally got the blind leading the blind. And that's a lot of what we see in it seems to be the case of what we see that the challenge is right now, you know, because they got 24. Sometimes, if parents allow it, they got 24, 7 access to those peers, you know, and they can talk to them in a way that they may not feel like they can talk to their parents. So you got to get ahead of that through the relationship. That's kind of what that hold on to your kids book is about. This is kind of the idea of this class is to build strong relationships by investing time fostering open and real communication using James 1, which is let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. And then Colossians 3:21, where it speaks of fathers not provoking your children lest they become discouraged. And then down there at the bottom, connection paves the way for instruction. So simple. But to me it was kind of very eye opening. About what? I wish I had known this sooner. You know, this idea that really you are their connection to the world and if you don't make it there, somebody else beats you to it or they're going to go somewhere, they're going to follow someone, and you don't want it to be their peers. It's not good for them or their peers. All right, so These are those two verses I included. Ephesians 4:29, Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up. This is kind of what Becky said there a while ago. And I repeat that speech is powerful, it's lasting. Use it wisely. All right, so kind of got a few quotes as we go through here. This is from Jesus, the Son of God, from the Sermon on the Mount. Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. You know, we're talking about communication and we're talking about building relationship. And to me, this has always struck me. I loved when Jesus said this on the Sermon on the Mount. He was talking about them making all those vows to one another, you know. Well, I promise, you know, by the, you know, by the base of the podium that I will do what I say I'm going to do well, I promise by that, whatever that thing is on the podium, you know, just this competitive nonsense, Jesus just said, let your yes be yes and your no be no. You know, say what you mean and mean what you say and do what you say you're going to do. And don't worry about this whole vow making. To me, it's the idea of being real. So much of this world. I hope I'm talking to people. All of you would say, that's boring. I know that already. So much of this world is a. I don't even know the right word. It's a. It's a veil over our eyes. It's a sham in the sense that we are so responsive to social cues and all that stuff. And we really, the World manipulates us or tries to manipulate us through all of those. All of those things. When you meet someone who is real, who isn't, you know, isn't trying to smooze you, who isn't trying to get something from you, who isn't trying to make sure you hear what they have to say, you know, whatever it is. That's. That's their vow that they just feel like they got to make sure they get out there. When you meet somebody real who actually knows you or cares about you, wants to hear what you have to say, believe it or not, it's a different. It's a different relationship. And that's what your kids need from you as a parent, right? They need realness. Kids see through pretense even when you don't see it yourself. And I think, you know, we were all kids at one point, right? I think we know this, right? I mean, it explains a lot if you. If you think about that. Because, you know, like that. That mom that was so concerned about us being embarrassed or us, whatever it is, second degree of embarrassment about her child in the grocery store. That's the vow, you know, that she needs to be with her child the way her child needs to be at that moment. She needs to be real. I don't mean real in mistreating a child. I'm just meaning she needs to connect with that child in a way, not worrying about us, that kind of thing. Very important. I think as a recipient of it, as a kid and as a parent, that's how you build relationship. Jesus was very real. He was very real. He connected with people. He wasn't worried about what other people thought. I think that's a lot of the sense of the time when he said, you know, I am the Sabbath. You know, Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. All right? So this very important, because if you think about this statement, which can be true, we don't even see the way we pretend sometimes. And I'm there too, you know, we all do that. But as parents, it's so important that we're real with our kids. And mom and dad can help keep each other honest in that, right? Build that relationship. That relationship is very important. But keep each other honest in your realness, right? You know, maybe whatever the way you have to have a conversation that might say, you know, I feel like you're letting your own embarrassment drive the way you treat our kids, right?
• 23:42
  Speaker A: Or.
• 23:42
  Speaker B: Or your ability or what you think about, even at church, right? Isn't that a place where we Feel that a lot sometimes, oh, my kid's the loud kid or whatever it is, you know, don't let that be the reason. You respond to your kid the way you respond and they'll catch on eventually that that's what you're doing and it won't be good for them. So realness builds trust. I think that's the key. Right. I learned that or one place that, that really sank into me is out there at Limestone Correctional Facility. You know, you go out there, we used to actually get to go on inside and teach on a regular basis. And man, if you came out there just blowing smoke at them, they knew it. They read you and they didn't want to hear what you had to say. They didn't even want you to come back because you were just there to build up yourself. For whatever reason you were there, it wasn't for them. They knew they wanted real people out there with that cared about them is exactly what kids want. Number two is love your kids. This is a quote by everyone, which is another way of saying duh. But as far as, you know, kind of the way this stuck with me is the idea that like realness, love isn't, isn't really common as it should be. Real love, right, real love. You don't get that at the workplace. You know, sometimes you get it at home. Hopefully that's the case. But kids need to be loved and they need to be loved the way God wants us to love each other. So, you know, I'm not really looking for verses in the scripture that say parents do this. I'm looking for God's instruction on how to have a good relationship with anybody, including your kids. Right. And love is the way. Again, Paul the Apostle quoting, the greatest of these is love. So this is a survey, A hundred people, audience members were asked top five answers for love is an emotion, but it is also what maybe a what or what would you, what would you feel in there? Alright, I got action. Choice. Good, good. What else? Yeah, those would be probably the top two answers. Love is an emotion, but it is also action. We're going to go to 1 Corinthians 13. You can get in your Bible there right now. You know, it's one of those that we almost hear too much that we think we know it. But I'm telling you, there's so much in there that we need to soak in and soak on. But it's a practice, right? In the sense of the way a doctor practices. Right. That's sort of what I was Trying to capture there, you know, love is a practice. It's a thing we. It's a thing we do. I think Clint Black said love's not just something that we say, it's something that we do. Got a fan back there, alright. It is a way of being. My Bible says in First Corinthians 13, it's the editor's title, but his title is the Way of Love. I kind of like that because I think it is a way. So somebody got First Corinthians 13. Read the first, read the first three verses. Thinking of as a parent in a family, family relations. If I somebody, if I speak in
• 27:11
  Speaker D: the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am not. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship, that I may boast, if I do not have love, I gain
• 27:35
  Speaker B: nothing that is real. Do you see all the social signaling, right, that he's saying, you know, how much of a great Christian would somebody think I was if I give everything I have away and delivered my body to be burned, right? I mean, wouldn't I be a great Christian? I don't do it with love. I haven't done anything at all if I'm a parent, right? If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. Oh, you know, don't we call our kids angels sometimes? You know, if I do all that stuff, but if I don't actually love the child, then it's going to be seen through and it's going to be tragic or potentially tragic. Fortunately, there's often other people in our lives and in our kids lives that help us as well. But you see what I'm saying? Real love is powerful. I had a boss once and he was a bane in my existence and I just did not like him. And he was so, you know, he just. Well, anyway, so irritating. All these things, so different than me. I felt like. But one day I just was stressed over it and I said, I am going to to love him the way the Bible says love him. Now. We did not become best friends, but work changed for me. It changed for him. He saw it. I don't even know what he saw. I didn't say I love you, trust me. But he saw it and he felt it. And all I was doing was being Patient trying and failing at time. Being kind of not arrogant myself. You know, that was his number one trait in my mind, right. But I probably was. We were probably bowed up because I had that going on myself, you know, not rude, simple term, but you know, it's a way to be that matters in relationship. So you guys get it. But think about them deep, deep, deep how? With my wife, with my kids, am I kind? You know, am I irritable? Am I insisting on my way? This one right here. Some translations say not resentful, some say does not keep a record of wrongs. Think about yourself as a kid. Did you want your parents to keep a record of your wrongs? No. Some of my core memories are when I got forgiven. Forgiven. Forgaven. It's the past old English tense. When I got forgiven, right? When I thought this is going to go bad and it went good or not good, but you know, I learned from it, but I was forgiven. Those are powerful things. And that's exactly what love does. At the same time, it doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing, it rejoices in the truth. All that you is what makes for a great relationship and it makes for a powerful relationship in any part of your life, but particularly in parenting. I love these bears. All things. Believes all things. Believes all things. My work actually gave me one piece of a meme that has struck me powerfully over the years, and that is assume positive intent. It helps in relationships, you know, when you meet somebody, a stranger, or when you're dealing with your kids. Assume positive intent. That's what you want. When you meet somebody, you want them to assume that you're a good guy, to assume that you're not a negative thing. You know, that's what your kids want too. So that's what I kind of think of when I think of believes all things. You know, it has that positive intent. Y' all got that. Just remember those are verbs, right? Maybe all of them can be a verb that it. Love is an action, something that we do. Alright? True love includes boundaries, right? And that's easy to do, easy to say, easy to say, probably not easy to do. But it definitely, you know, boundaries are driven by love. You know, you can't really do it the other way around, so to speak. You know, you can't fall in love through your boundaries, but boundaries are driven by love. And the way I think of it is like a swimming pool, right? We know someone who just are in the process of buying a house that has a pool in the back. But it doesn't have a fence around it. They have children. They're going to put a fence around it, you know, right away. Is that. And that's a boundary. Right. And the kids might say, I want access to the pool, you know, 24, 7. But the boundaries for a reason, right? It's for the kids, and it's a parent thing to do. It's not a kid decision. So, you know, boundaries. We could talk a lot, and we will talk a little more the next time I teach two weeks from now. But true love includes boundaries in any relationship, husband and wife, whatever it is, because we're. We're individuals, we're people. We gotta have boundaries. We could talk about that later. Yep. I'm gonna go with number three because I said I had four and I only got five minutes. Remember that. You are not above thought, fault. This one's easy. We all make mistakes. We all make sinful mistakes. You know, it's easy sometimes to say, well, I made mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. No, I'm talking about willfully doing things wrong, willfully being selfish, willfully, you know, speaking harshly, whatever it is. You are not above these things. And if you think you are, your kid's gonna see through it and know you're pretending. So, you know, get right with yourself, get right with God, and then that'll help getting right with your kids. Romans 3:23. All have sinned, fallen short of the glory of God. John 1:8 is, if you say they have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Everybody in the family needs to realize that nobody's above doing things wrong. We don't want to be this way necessarily, but we're so thankful that we don't have to pay the price for that. That's the message in the family. Not that, hey, you know, I never made mistakes. No, stay humble. Matthew 23. You read this on your own 2 through 12 and read it as if it's in the context of a family or a parent, like a dad or a mom. And it's, you know, it's talking about how the leaders led, and it's not a good way. Don't be that way. Stay humble. They weren't humble. So number four is use your words. You moms probably use this a lot to your kids. Use your words.
• 34:36
  Speaker A: Use your words.
• 34:37
  Speaker B: But what I'm really saying is, use your words. Express yourself for us. Guys, maybe I don't know if everybody's this way, but, I mean, in my family, we never said, I love you to Each other. Maybe y' all don't either. You don't have to necessarily. But I remember when my brother got married, I was the softy of the family, I guess, because I'm his best man. We're in the back of the room and he's about to go get married. And of course I'm feeling a loss of my brother instead of the gaining of a sister in law. But I told him I loved him. That was the first time I'd ever said it. But you got to express yourself. You got to use words, especially these days, you know, you got to say the things. Don't expect your kids to be mind readers, but they are mind readers. Like I've talked about a lot. They see through you. If you're pretending, they're going to catch you on it. This is so important in husbands and wives, right? You know, don't. I made this mistake a lot because like I said, I was naive. I thought everybody thought the same way. I thought, why would I not think that way? That's a lot of thinking.
• 35:44
  Speaker C: All right.
• 35:45
  Speaker B: This was one thing I asked Ellen, I asked some of my kids about just what's something we did right or that you felt that you remember, you know, that kind of went well. And this was one of the things that they, they said was we made time to be together. We had, you know, we had the family meal thing going as often as we could possibly do it. That was the standard. You know, the exceptions were the times when you couldn't be there. But even just like my parents had done this with me, so I did this with the girls. I loved being a girl daddy, and I loved taking them with me when I did things that were not necessarily girl. Girly things, right? You know, going to the auto parts store, anything, you know, I would grab one of them and go with me. And they both, you know, the two that I talked to both said, you know, you would take us places and we could talk, you know, we would talk then, you know, I'm sure they did most of the talking. I was listening, but that, you know, make time to be together. And that's why I said that first part about. Don't get distracted with your own life. It's easy to do, but you, you don't have them long and you need to, you need to have gaps in your schedule so that not everything is so scheduled that you never have those moments where you just both happen to be sitting in the same room and they bring something up that's. That's important to them. You know, you want to make room in your life, in your calendar, for things like that, and that wraps it up. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer each person, not just within the family, but certainly within the family. That's important. So relationship trumps skill in parenting. Lucky for people like me. Love your children. Remember that you're not above making mistakes and doing wrong. Use your words. I didn't say this, but words like I'm sorry, words like I made a mistake, be willing to say those. Take accountability. How can you expect your children to grow up to take accountability when they make mistakes if you're not willing to do it yourself? So, you know, those are the words you need to use sometimes. All right, I think that's it. Thank y' all.