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Hurting Parents Need A Place to Meet

August 2, 2012 in Parenting with 25 Comments

Hurting parents are deeply wounded. They need a safe place to meet where they can share prayer requests and know that they are not alone. If you are a hurting parent, I would encourage you to just read the comments on a post from December, 2008. At the bottom of this post, I have some requests from my blog’s “hurting parents commenting community.”

Hurting parents were the reason I wrote a post over three years ago, How Should Parents Unpack Forgiveness with Rebellious Adult Children. In that post, I laid out a number of suggestions. In terms of content, the most important thing I did was point to a post by John Piper that shared 12 Ways to Love Your Wayward Child.

I did not anticipate how much I would learn from the comments on that post. Hurting parents have continued to encourage one another and share prayer requests for several years.

The Most Important Lesson I Learned from Hurting Parents

The most important lesson I learned as a pastor is that hurting parents need a safe place to meet. One commenter echoed many others when she wrote:

I am so glad that I found this website. Just reading that I am not alone gives me such comfort. Please pray for my situation. My 18 year old daughter has been rebellious since she was about seven years old. But in the end, she has always been repentant. She recently moved from our house to live with a woman who’s daughter my daughter started babysitting.

People who have known my daughter would be shocked to know how she acts at home. She’s worked with children at church since she was about 12 years old, she volunteers to help out at a lot of church functions, and she is praised as being one of the most responsible workers.

Because of this, I don’t feel comfortable confiding in people at church. One of her great qualities IS her helpful nature, at least with people outside immediate family.

In response to the comments of others, another hurting parent encourages:

Hey everyone! I have not forgotten you at all…in fact, I pray for you and your families..as we continue to walk through this maze of incredible agony. (As you are,as well)
My husband and I continue to leave this before our Heavenly Father…and we were just talking the other day about how we are not the only parents enduring this pain…I brought your name up, Carole. I mentioned to my husband that you and your husband have not seen your daughter for 5 Christmases. Also..mentioned that there is a grandchild involved as well. Do you know if it is a grandson or granddaughter,
Carol? Chris, what is the name of that book you are co-authoring? I believe we need to have support groups for people like us…there is too much to walk isolated. God never made us to be islands. Thank-you again,Chris for this website. Christ is our hope…and the hope for our lost sons and daughters…if they are lost, so are we…just in a sea of grief.

Over the three plus years people have been sharing on this thread, we have seen wonderful answers to prayer. One lady who has been estranged from her daughter and unable to see her baby granddaughter was so thankful when she shared:

MY DAUGHTER AND MY GRAND-BABY CAME AGAIN LAST FRI.20TH AND THEY CAME AT 11:00AM TIL 5:30PM,,,WE HAD A GREAT DAY ,, MY DAUGHTER AND THE BABY AND I JUST LAID ON THE FLOOR ON THE BLANKET,TALKED AND TALKED,I HELD MY GRAND BABY MOST OF THE DAY , SHE IS SO SWEET AND BEAUTIFUL ,MY DAUGHTER ALSO CALLED ME THIS PAST SUN. NIGHT 10:00PM AND SAID MOM I WANTED TO SAY HELLO AND TELL YOU I LOVE YOU,,,,,,I AM SO BLESSED ,OH YES, MY NEW NAME IS GRAMMY,,I AM PRAISING GOD FOR HIS FAITHFULNESS,,,,MY HUSBAND AND I ARE SO THANKFUL,,,,,,STILL NEED PRAYERS, BUT THE LORD IS WATCHING OUR DAUGHTER,THANK YOU FOR THE SUPPORT AND MANY PRAYERS

Here are the Requests for My Hurting Parents Commenting Community

First, we need to move the comments to this post. The main reason is that the comment thread on the original post is closing on 300. As a result, there are some technical problems that surface occasionally which I don’t know how to solve. So if you have been commenting on the original post, please move your comments to this one.

Second, even if you are not a hurting parent, you know hurting parents. You might encourage them by sending them by the original post to read all the comments. It is such an encouragement for people to realize they are not alone. It helps a great deal if you share this page on Facebook or through Twitter.

Third, I want to ask those of you who have been hurting parents for a number of years to share what you have learned from your journey. Continue to share your prayer requests. But also share what you have been learning through your journey as a hurting parent.

Children Playing Outdoors Requires Leadership: 3 Suggestions

July 24, 2012 in Marybeth, Parenting with 2 Comments

Children need to play outdoors. Virtually everyone agrees. The question is, “How do we effectively encourage children to play outdoors?” As is so many times the case, the word “leadership,” answers the question.

Dr. Mohler from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently published an article with the title, Have Our Children Forgotten How to Play Outdoors? Mohler interacts extensively with a book by Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder, which raises concerns about the small amount of time children are playing outside. Mohler writes:

In reality, many children have almost no contact with nature. They play indoors, focusing on electronic screens that produce an artificial experience. They are surrounded by creature comforts and watched over by anxious parents who are afraid that violent criminals are lurking behind every green tree. “Our society is teaching young people to avoid direct experience in nature,” Louv observes. “That lesson is delivered in schools, families, even organizations devoted to the outdoors, and codified into the legal and regulatory structures of many of our communities.”

Read the rest from Dr. Mohler here.

But “parental whining” is not going to solve the problem of children not playing outdoors.

Unfortunately, too many times our response as parents to children’s tendency to watch television or play video games is to talk about how much better we were as children and how awful things are today. It is certainly the case that most of us played outside more when we were growing up. My mother used to kick us out the door to several hundred acres of our farm and tell us not to come in unless we were bleeding to death. In response, we fell in the creek, trapped frogs, and looked for rabbits.

But it really doesn’t help the situation for us to go on and on about the wonder of the good old days as though we grew up with Laura Ingalls Wilder on the banks of Plum Creek. Instead, we need to show our children how playing outside can be wonderful.

Leadership Suggestions for Children Playing Outdoors

Plant Something – Show your children the wonder of life. Plant a tree. Plant a flower. Put in a garden. My daughter and I have had a great time this summer with her pumpkin patch. (You can see all our pumpkin posts). Marybeth’s pumpkins continue to grow. We survived some sort of plague that turned many leaves brown. We dusted to battle beetles. And now (as you can see from the picture above) we have the joy of seeing small, green pumpkins appear on the vine. That is Marybeth’s hand in the picture.

Our garden motivates my little girl to play outdoors often. She waters. She watches the garden. She dusts for bugs. But it required a real investment on our part as parents.

Encourage Children to Lead – When our older three children were elementary age, they played for hours and hours outside: street hockey, baseball, kick the can, leaf forts, they did it all (that’s an old picture of them playing street hockey to the right).

I would love to take all the credit. But the central reason that they did so well played outdoors is that one of our neighborhood kids was a very effective leader. He was able to motivate and organize all the other kids. I can’t tell you how many times he knocked on our door to invite our children (who were younger) to come out and play. The more I look back on it, the more I realize that he was a gifted leader even as a child.

For our part, we tried to encourage our neighbor in his leadership. We bought hockey sticks for street hockey. Let them ruin our grass with a slip and slide and various other games and fed them cookies.

If you have young children, have you identified the child in your family or neighborhood who can effectively mobilize the other children?

Dam Something – Children love to play in creeks and water. And I still like doing it. So show them how much fun it can be to dam up the creek.

One of the real highlights of our sabbatical in Switzerland (more sabbatical pictures here) was building a dam together in a Swiss Mountain stream. Not only did it offer the opportunity for the obligatory dam jokes . . . this is the best dam thing we have built etc . . . But (no joke), the Swiss water authority came by to see if we were unduly messing with the natural flow of water in the Alps. We were honored. We told them, “That’s what you get for being neutral. We’re from America: the home of the Hoover dam.” Okay, not really. We didn’t stick around when they were inspecting. But it makes for a good story.

Of course, you have to put parameters around the video games – - -or ban them period. But if we want our children to play outdoors, we need to give them a vision for doing so.

Get Spiritually Recharged on Vacation

July 18, 2012 in Family, Parenting with 0 Comments

Image of the Griswolds not getting spiritually recharged on vacation. It’s been a long time, but I don’t recall thinking the movie Vacation was that funny. Maybe it’s because it hit too close to home – - – planning for a vacation that ended up being a spiritual drain.

How about you? Ever have a vacation where you came back feeling more stressed than when you left? Isn’t it amazing how that can happen? You plan rest for months, look forward to a break. And, then you come back having bickered as a family and feeling spiritually depleted.

The solution to that is to be proactive – - plan ahead. Outline a simple, doable spiritual plan for you and your family. Your children may roll their eyes but this will be worth it. Make it your goal to come back from vacation spiritually recharged.

Even in 10-15 minutes a day you could do a few simple things.

Suggestions for Spiritual Renewal on Vacation

Have your whole family read the daily chapter of Proverbs one or more days. If the date is July 18, then read Proverbs chapter 4. Have everyone mark at least one verse that stands out and talk about those verses right before you put on the water skis.

You can do the same thing with Psalms. Start with the date of the month, say Psalm 18, and then add 30 to go through the end of the book. If it is the 18^th, you will read Psalms 18, 48, 78, 108, and 138. Even one chapter is great.

Or read the book of Philippians or James in the New Testament. Read just one chapter a day and mark something that stands out to you.

Journal a few prayers.

Memorize a Psalm in order to be moved.

Download a few sermons to listen to on your Ipod . . . I can’t resist.

And, attend church if at all possible on Sunday mornings. Reading a chapter of the Bible over Pop Tarts is not the same as worshiping with God’s people and hearing the Word preached!

If for some reason, your dream vacation this summer is to drive down to Ogle County – - -maybe sightseeing around the nuclear plant, or going to the museum in Byron, then we would love for you to visit The Red Brick Church in Stillman Valley. This summer, we are meeting at 9:00 on Sunday mornings.

Parents: Memorize This Speech

July 16, 2012 in Parenting with 6 Comments

Parents: memorize this speech. As a parent my goal is to protect you. If protecting you means having you upset with me, so be it. I love you enough to die for you; you being upset with me is a relatively small thing in my world.

Do you love your children enough to die for them? Most of us do.

But, there is a better question than, “Do you love your children enough to die for them?” The better question is, “Do you love your children enough to say ‘no’ to them?”

There have been times as a father that I have said “no” to something one of our children wanted to do in order to protect him or her. On a few occasions, that child would let me know that he or she was not pleased with me for denying the request.

At such times I give the speech as though I am Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Washington Monument. I say with great urgency, “My goal is to protect you. If protecting you means having you upset with me, so be it. I love you enough to die for you; you being upset with me is a relatively small thing in my world.”

Parents, whether or not your conviction persuades your children, it will motivate you. To be honest with you, giving this speech is as much for my benefit as a parent as it is for my children’s. I really, really do not like it when one of my children is upset with me. Yet, I know that having one of them upset with me is a small price to pay for their well-being. If you find yourself wavering when you know that you need to hold your ground, recite the speech with the conviction of Lincoln at Gettysburg. It really helps.

Proverbs 13:24 says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him (Proverbs 13:24).” Truly loving your children means saying “no” even though they may not want to hear it.

Ironically, the most angry children over the long haul are not children whose parents disciplined the. Rather, the most angry children are those who have been spoiled by their parents all their lives and have never been told “no.” For an excellent resource for parents, see Lou Priolo’s book, The Heart of Anger.

See also Priolo’s article, Training Teens to Open Up.

Parents and Children: Don’t Drop the Baton!

July 9, 2012 in Daniel, Parenting with 0 Comments

Christian parents: it’s not enough to learn a lesson in life. We need to leave a legacy with our children. Consider the diagnostic questions at the end of this post to evaluate how well you are doing as a parent in leaving a legacy. Listen to the sermon here.

In a relay race it doesn’t matter how far ahead you are, if you botch the hand-off, you lose. And in Daniel 5, we see that even though Nebuchadnezzar was humbled by God, his son Belteshazzar did not learn (Daniel 5:22). Father and son botched the hand-off from one generation to the next. The results were tragic (5:30).

The story begins with Belshazzar throwing a major party in which he defiantly chose to use the golden vessels stolen from the temple in Jerusalem. It was his way of spitting in the face of the God of Israel (Daniel 5:1-4).

Big mistake. No matter how bold people act, their brashness disappears before God.

Immediately after Belshazzar and his minions began drinking from the golden vessles the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the wall. Belshazzar’s bravado turned to terror (picture the Nazis in the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark).

With a goal of interpreting the writing on the wall, the Babylonians once again summoned Daniel and he reviewed their defiance of God and assured them that judgment was coming. Daniel reminded Belshazzar that he had every opportunity to learn that only God is great.

And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this,

The chapter concludes:

That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being sixty-two years old (Daniel 5:30-31).

Parents: Are you leaving a legacy?

The question for parents becomes, “How do we avoid making the same mistakes as Belshazzar?” The first thing to be said is that there is no magic formula. As a pastor, I have observed many Christian parents whose children rebelled against Christ. (Notice that there are 270 comments on this post about unpacking forgiveness with rebellious children!) I do not mean to imply that if parents had only followed some formula, things would have turned out differently. Yet, there are principles to be lived out in our homes.

You can evaluate how you are doing by considering diagnostic questions under each point.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God- Parents must remember that the central goal for our families is that our children would believe the Gospel. More than anything else, when we gather before the throne of Christ, we want our children to be there. And God’s Word is what he uses to reach lost people. This means that we must be in church where the Word of God is proclaimed and the Word of God must be heard in our homes as well.

Parents: How many times has your family heard the Word preached in the last six weeks? It’s not enough for your children to be in church time while you are in the sermon. The preaching of the Word is God’s specifically appointed means for passing on the faith. (See the centrality of preaching in the life of the church).
Parents: How many times in the last six weeks has your family heard your voice read the words of Scripture? It’s not that hard. But it does take the humility of acknowledging your need for God’s Word. For more, see this post about family devotions when one of our children was 3.

Pray, pray, pray- If our children our to follow Christ, then we must pray for them consistently and often. Prayer must be a way of life in our homes.

Parents: Do you have a place to pray? As I explain in this post, there is great value in identifying a place where you get down on your knees to intercede for your family.
Parents: Do you pray together as a family?

Identify and repeat the central stories of your family – We must lead our families in tracing the goodness of God in our own family history. Like Nebuchadnezzar, we all have stories about how God has shown himself in our lives. In some instances, we have learned from our failures. In others, we have seen God bless our obedience. It is not enough for us to know the lessons ourselves, we need to leave a legacy with our children.

Parents: Can you point your children to mistakes made in the family which need to be avoided?
Parents: Does your family know of several stories in which God provided or answered prayer in incredible ways? Family stories are one of our most powerful ways to teach our children.

Student Debt is Unsustainable

July 3, 2012 in Finances, Parenting with 5 Comments

With a daughter going to college, and 3 more children right behind her, this video is very relevant. So far, our approach has been to (1) Save, save, save. (2) Take AP classes. (3) Take community college classes in the summer. (4) Work hard for scholarships.

Whether or not you have decisions to make about college debt, you can glean wisdom from this video.

HT: Denny Burk

How will children see themselves if the most important work we ever ask them to do is play a video game?

July 2, 2012 in Parenting, Pumpkins with 5 Comments

Never has it been more important to teach our children to work. Parents who allow their children to be lazy undermine the child’s sense of dignity and compromise their future. For parent seeking to teach a work ethic, Proverbs is an incredible gift from God. And Dan Phillips’s book on Proverbs is a great resource for studying Proverbs.

Much is at stake where diligence is concerned. As Proverbs warns, just a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you suddenly (Proverbs 6:6-9).

I was privileged to grow up on a farm in Iowa. A farm is the ideal place to learn a work ethic. Children work alongside parents as they bale, pick, plant, raise, and harvest. (Though as I have otherwise confessed, boys and bulls on farms can make for a dangerous combination). I didn’t always work hard, but I did learn to work hard. And I never doubted that my family counted on me, even when I was eight years old. On our farm I saw wagon loads of the result of hard work. I waded in bins of corn, loaded pigs to go to market, and baled sweet smelling hay.

In our post-agrarian culture, it is more difficult to teach a work ethic. But it is still possible if we meditate on biblical wisdom. Consider 6 lessons from Proverbs 6:6-9.

6       Go to the ant, O sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise.
7       Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
8       she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest.
9       How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
10       A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
11       and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want like an armed man.

6 Principles For Instilling a Work Ethic from Proverbs 6:6-9

Read Proverbs together as a family. Proverbs is God’s gift for sharpening our wisdom saw. Read and meditate on these verses together as a family. Where mining the precious jewels of Proverbs is concerned, I highly recommend (see my endorsement) Dan Phillips’s, God’s Wisdom in Proverbs.
Set an ant-like example. Both my parents modeled a work ethic. Forty years later, I can picture either my mom or dad working incredibly hard. The first ten things about teaching our children a work ethic are example, example, example, example, example, example, example, example, example, example. After that, be sure you are a good example.
Acquire a taste for work. I didn’t like coffee as a child, and I didn’t enjoy work either. But I have learned to like them both. The reason Proverbs has so much to say about work is because a work ethic does not come easily in a fallen world. Tell your children not to be discouraged if they don’t like working. Assure them that if they are disciplined, over time, they will acquire a taste for work and enjoy seeing the results. Grant hope.
No need to move a mountain; just carry a crumb. Ants don’t lug cinder blocks. They just relocate a cracker one crumb at time. Yet, over time, the results of their industry are amazing. In the beginning, we need to give our children very, very manageable tasks which allow them to see progress. Do not ask your child to rid Western civilization of every dandelion the first time you send them out to weed the yard. Ask them to bring you back five, very dead, dandelions.
Fear Laziness. Preach this with passion. You don’t have to be lazy a long time. Just a teaspoon of laziness can lead to poverty. Children do not need to fear the bogeyman, but they ought to tremble at the prospect of being lazy in life.
Work Together. A single ant would never get it done. Ants cooperate. Likewise, we need to teach our children the joy of working together. It is not a fair assignment to banish a six year old to his room to organize until the rapture. Instead, say to him or her, “Let’s have fun doing this together. And then let’s show Mommie how much we got done.” There is a reason my daughter Marybeth and I are raising pumpkins together!

For balance, which I so desperately need, see John Starke’s, A Word for the Ambitious.

Happy Father’s Day from the Cosby Show

June 17, 2012 in Family, Parenting with 0 Comments

HT: Z

The best product of Northern Illinois is . . .

June 4, 2012 in Church, Parenting with 1 Comment

In this video I talk about our church’s passion for raising children to follow our King.

Christianity.com: How can a church best serve families, children and teens?-Chris Brauns from christianitydotcom2 on GodTube.

Russell Moore: Fake Love, Fake War and the Dangers of Pornography and the Internet

June 2, 2012 in Parenting, Pornography with 0 Comments

Russell Moore:

You know the guy I’m talking about. He spends hours into the night playing video games and surfing for pornography. He fears he’s a loser. And he has no idea just how much of a loser he is. For some time now, studies have shown us that porn and gaming can become compulsive and addicting. What we too often don’t recognize, though, is why.

In a new book, The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, psychologists Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan say we may lose an entire generation of men to pornography and video gaming addictions. Their concern isn’t about morality, but instead about the nature of these addictions in reshaping the patten of desires necessary for community.

If you’re addicted to sugar or tequila or heroin you want more and more of that substance. But porn and video games both are built on novelty, on the quest for newer and different experiences. That’s why you rarely find a man addicted to a single pornographic image. He’s entrapped in an ever-expanding kaleidoscope.

There’s a key difference between porn and gaming. Pornography can’t be consumed in moderation because it is, by definition, immoral. A video game can be a harmless diversion along the lines of a low-stakes athletic competition. But the compulsive form of gaming shares a key element with porn: both are meant to simulate something, something for which men long. . . .

Read the rest.

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