Archives for January 2012

TEACH THEM HOW TO THINK (process based) NOT JUST WHAT TO THINK (product based)

As little ones, this means:

• Don’t just provide healthy snacks, help them understand why one food is better for them than another.  “My mom doesn’t let me eat that” is not going to last as a de-motivator for the long haul.  When our kids understand that they want to have a strong body and that certain foods won’t help them do that, it’s a better parenting process that leads to the same behavior we could have simply forced anyway.
• Limit the “because I said so” to a last resort parenting card you play.  Even if I must use that phrase to gain obedience today, I must also explain how I came to that conclusion at some point with them in ways they might understand.  A 5 year old that knows not to cross the street without looking is great.  A 5 year old who knows why you don’t cross the street without looking is better. 
• Helping our kids decide why a tv show, music choice, or movie might not be the best option for them instead of just ruling it out.
• Allowing our kids to be themselves.  Don’t demand that they do everything your way, just demand that their way needs to have solid reasoning.  So if you want socks folded and they want them tossed in a drawer, let them argue why their way works before forcing your way upon them.  Help them learn the process and articulate solid reasoning in decision making.  This will be critical when the issues is not how do I organize my socks, but instead who will I date or how do I want to decide what to do on Friday night.  The ability to reason out a solid decision is a mission critical life skill we must all work towards developing in our kids. 

In honor of our JCC Parenting Summit at the end of this month, I’ll be posting a 5 part series on this blog this week.

My experience as a youth pastor is that most parents of young kids I meet are scared of the teenage years ahead.  Some common fears are:

• Sexuality will be navigated horribly   
• They will leave all I have taught them behind when doubt begins to take root.
• They’ll grow up to rebel against me.
• They will make a mistake that can’t be undone like pregnancy, car accident, etc. 

But what most parents don’t often understand, is that the patterns they are setting in parenting at a young age are the very thing that shape the teen they’ll have one day.  Literally much of who they will be is being shaped in the patterns we set in pre-school.

To this end, my wife and I wrote a seminar for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) a few years back, shortly after we finished up that stage of our own parenting.  In it, we shared 5 basic parenting patterns that we tried to start when our kids are young to produce the young adults we want in the future.  It’s kinda like planting a bulb.

We’re not working for what we hope to see today so much as for the flowers we want to see in the Spring. It’s the hope that the seeds we’re planting now will produce a rich harvest in the future.

SO HERE WE GO:
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PROTECT YOUR KIDS (care based), DON’T SHELTER THEM (fear based) 

Jesus prayed this in John 17:15 of his disciples: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.”  (NIV)

That’s a great parenting mindset in my opinion.  Sure, protect your kids from things like cars in streets and bad movies and people who could harm them. Absolutely.  Just don’t move subtly from caring for your kids to a fear based role of a bunker parent where you remove them from the “big bad world” out there all together.  A bunker parent tries to protect their kids from the evil one not by equipping them to protect themselves, but by building big huge “Christian walls” around their homes.  This surely keeps kids safe for a season, it just doesn’t train them to live in the real world for the long haul. Failure to help our kids guard their own lives from evil down the road means we’re raising teens who will spend a lot of energy wondering how to get outside of the big parent barriers and parents who spend all their time reinforcing the rules.  It’s the wrong focus for both.

When parenting little ones, this means:

• We work towards teaching them how to cross the street, not just putting up a bigger fence. 
• Inviting neighborhood kids to play in your home under your family values instead of just telling your kids they can’t play with so-and-so because they don’t make good choices.  We then parent those kids like we do our own and lead up, teaching our kids how to make good choices when poor ones are available to them too.  
• Talking about their “why can’t we” questions in ways that don’t end with “because I make the rules” but instead because “that’s not the kind of people our family wants to be.  It’s not the kind of people who make God’s heart happy.”  
• Listen to music in the car that you want them to be listening to later in life.  
• Letting them take healthy play risks.  Climb the tree, ride the bike off the jump, swim in the deep end.  Sure, these come with time, but don’t shelter your kids from risk. Work with them to let them enjoy healthy risk.  Teaching them how to make that choice will reap huge dividends when the risks get bigger and the consequences much more out of our control later in life.

We’re doing a our annual PARENTING SUMMIT again on January 28th this year at Journey. While the basic principles of investing in parents and tying what we do as parents to what we do in our kids and student ministries are a huge focus, this year we’re also coupling it with 14+ seminars and breakouts that parents can choose to attend during 2 separate break out session time blocks.

I’ll be teaching a seminar covering the subject of the book I just finished writing “As for Me and My Crazy House” which comes out in March.  That seminar deals with 3 focus points as a parent which I’m excited to flush out briefly with parents who attend. We’ll cover:

1. taking care of your own heart.  
2. tending to your marriage 
3. caring for your family.  

In addition to that seminar, there will also be seminars by many of our pastoral staff and several from our church and school community sharing insights on this list and more:

• How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk
• Telling your kids about Jesus
• Setting boundaries through discipline, communication, and responsibility.
• Attachment and kids
• Parenting your special needs child
• Protecting your home from online porn and predators.
• A Parents Guide to Social Media
• Raising boys into men who love Jesus
• Adoption 101
• Parenting adults: when the empty nest ain’t so empty
• Keys to understanding their Unique Personality Styles
• Parenting a kid that is not your own
• Raising Toddlers into Teens you love

I’ll keep updating the website and more details to come in the next 2 weeks.

But if you’re in the area and passionate about parenting, please don’t miss this great training day.  At only $8 per parent or $12 per couple, it’s a GREAT day of training for a minor investment of 1/2 a Saturday.  I really believe it will be so worth your time.  Just head to the website and register and you’re good to go.

I started my weekly afternoons with Jake yesterday.  On Mondays after school I’m picking him up and taking him to grab an ice cream or something.  In order to earn his treat, he only has to ask me two questions.

I told him this on his way to school on Monday. He was very excited about this and when I picked him up, the first thing he said to me is, “Hey Dad, I got my two questions.”  We then went to the bank to open his first bank account with $63 he had saved from gifts and such and then to starbucks to talk about life.

I asked him what questions he had and he very excitedly asked me these two things.

1. How do you think your heart and soul get to heaven? 
2. What do you think heaven is like?

Several times in our lunch I got a little overwhelmed with God’s goodness and how thankful I am for a team to work with.  To this end, there are 3 main things that we’re doing as a whole generations team to connect that have all proved super worth it.

GENERATION VOLUNTEER APPRECIATION/TRAINING MEETINGS:  So far they’ve been twice a year.  Once in January to kick off a new season after the holidays and once in August to restart the fall after our summer slows down.  We meet after church on Sunday for 90 minutes.  We provide lunch, encouragement, laughter, celebration, information, and training in small bits during this packed program. They each have proved to be so worth our effort and a great reminder that our “own area” is not the only place people are serving at JCC.

GENERATION PAID STAFF TEAM MEETINGS: I meet with our kids ministry team on Wednesday and our student ministry team on Tuesday each week and about 4x a year I meet with all of them together.  In our weekly meetings we sometimes gather over java, talk about the week ahead and the weekend before, and talk about anything down the road that we need to be collaborating on.  In our all-team meetings, we share about our lives, enjoy a meal, and spend several hours mapping out values, events, long term plans, and vision.

GENERATION FAMILY EVENTS:  These are geared largely towards our high school and below, but we’ve been doing some family events that are super kid friendly.  So far we’ve landed on this schedule:

• Mid November:  Generous Family Night celebration where families come to worship, enjoy a teaching or skit, and then serve a family in need together through various hands on experience stations.
• Weekend after Easter:  Family Fun Day. We sell lunch, provide jumpy houses and carnival rides, do a fund raiser by selling donated goods and services in a silent auction.  The funds raised go to offset the cost of camps and retreats and provide a great after service event for families at our church too.  
• Spring: Help Us Help You community service day where families can pay to have our students come and do yard work at homes.  We’ve also done garage sales and car washes in tandem with this day, but this year I think we’re doing yard work only.   We take teams of 6 students and 2 adults.  They do two shifts of two hours each and are paid $150 or higher for their time.  Families get some Spring cleaning done and we raise funds again to offset cost of camps for students.
• Mid to late July:  Summer Fun Camp.  This is a “vbs” replacement of sorts.  We do a 1/2 day camp from 9 to 2 for a week where kinder-5th grade kids are connected with high school counselors and enjoy a fun and encouraging program with day trips to various afternoon locations around our community. Fun way for many of our generations team to work together for a common goal.