Navigating the intricacies of parenting with a spirit-led approach takes center stage as Seth Dahl joins the conversation! Seth, with his rich background as a children's pastor, opens up about the emotional landscapes of both parents and children, revealing how these deeply affect family dynamics. The discussion spans from tales of discipline and understanding to fostering emotional intelligence in little ones, presenting a treasure trove of insights for those seeking to cultivate a nurturing home culture.
As the delicate dance between guiding children and allowing them the space to grow into independent thinkers is unpacked, there is a reminder of the importance of setting boundaries with empathy. Seth's personal anecdotes bring to life the power of validating children's feelings, establishing a family identity, and the art of teaching respect and obedience through genuine connection. The conversation traverses the terrain of emotional communication, the benefits of contributions over chores, and the necessity of embodying healthy examples for children to emulate, all while integrating contemporary child development science with age-old wisdom.
Wrapping up the heartfelt exchange, there is reflection on the transformative shift from demanding immediate obedience to nurturing little ones through connection and co-regulation. The Vallotton's experiences with their little ones illuminate the beauty of this evolution in parenting, prioritizing emotional attunement over quick fixes. Here's to a week of meaningful connections and the delight of nurturing future world contributors!
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Seth Dahl is a worldwide speaker to parents and children, and the creator of Designing God’s Home Academy, a 3 month intensive for parents to build their home in partnership with God. He is also the founder of Jesus on Every Screen: empowering churches, ministers, and kingdom businesses to effectively harness social media and reach more people with the gospel.
https://sethdahl.com/
Connect with Lauren:
Instagram
Facebook
Connect with Jason:
Jay’s Instagram
Jay’s Facebook
BraveCo Instagram
www.braveco.org
Navigating the intricacies of parenting with a spirit-led approach takes center stage as Seth Dahl joins the conversation! Seth, with his rich background as a children's pastor, opens up about the emotional landscapes of both parents and children, revealing how these deeply affect family dynamics. The discussion spans from tales of discipline and understanding to fostering emotional intelligence in little ones, presenting a treasure trove of insights for those seeking to cultivate a nurturing home culture.
As the delicate dance between guiding children and allowing them the space to grow into independent thinkers is unpacked, there is a reminder of the importance of setting boundaries with empathy. Seth's personal anecdotes bring to life the power of validating children's feelings, establishing a family identity, and the art of teaching respect and obedience through genuine connection. The conversation traverses the terrain of emotional communication, the benefits of contributions over chores, and the necessity of embodying healthy examples for children to emulate, all while integrating contemporary child development science with age-old wisdom.
Wrapping up the heartfelt exchange, there is reflection on the transformative shift from demanding immediate obedience to nurturing little ones through connection and co-regulation. The Vallotton's experiences with their little ones illuminate the beauty of this evolution in parenting, prioritizing emotional attunement over quick fixes. Here's to a week of meaningful connections and the delight of nurturing future world contributors!
---------
Seth Dahl is a worldwide speaker to parents and children, and the creator of Designing God’s Home Academy, a 3 month intensive for parents to build their home in partnership with God. He is also the founder of Jesus on Every Screen: empowering churches, ministers, and kingdom businesses to effectively harness social media and reach more people with the gospel.
https://sethdahl.com/
Connect with Lauren:
Instagram
Facebook
Connect with Jason:
Jay’s Instagram
Jay’s Facebook
BraveCo Instagram
www.braveco.org
We're the Valentines and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 3:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:Let's go Welcome back everybody to Dates, mates and Babies with the Valentines. So good to be back with you on this Wednesday. We have our good friend with us today, seth Dahl, and I'm going to let him tell you a little bit about himself. But we've known Seth a really long time. We've spent years and years working alongside him here in the Bethel Reading community at our church, before he and his wife moved to the Los Angeles area and then, more recently but it's been a while now to Austin, texas, and so, yeah, we'd love to just welcome Seth and introduce him to our listeners. Seth, it's so good to have you. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. It's good to be here, and we just moved to Florida. Two months ago we bought 60 acres.
Speaker 2:Seth, I thought that your farm was in Austin. I didn't know it was in a whole new. You're in Florida.
Speaker 3:We just moved and we yeah, we found 60 acres. We sold our little two and a half acres for more money than we bought 60 acres for here. So we have an old farmhouse, we have Jason I can hunt on my own land Me and August.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:A lot of deer on our own land oh my goodness you can walk for two minutes and be ready to hunt. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Where in Florida are you Seth?
Speaker 3:In the Panhandle area, so kind of near in between Tallahassee, destin, 30a. We got far enough of the beach that we have soil instead of sand, yes, but we can still drive an hour and be at some of the best beaches in Florida, so it's amazing Wow.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, congratulations. I knew that you had bought a bunch of land. I had no idea it was in Florida. Yeah, it is Wow.
Speaker 3:I like it. That's amazing, golly Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, Seth, get taking the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now I knew.
Speaker 2:Take a few minutes and tell our audience a little bit about yourself. You are married to a beautiful Lauren, you've got three kids and, yeah, tell us about your family and what you guys do.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we, yeah, we have three kids 13, 11, and seven and we have. Typically, we have a cow and a horse. Right now we don't, but we're prepping to get a new cow and a horse. And we got dogs, we got chickens, we have cats, we have a rabbit and we, yeah, we just live on our 60 acres now on Explorer. We have a pond. We, like, just went walking through it yesterday making sure there's no alligators or anything. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:And but for ministry, like I do something called spirit led, parenting, spirit led families. Yes, you know, being a children's pastor for so long, I was like, wow, it's really, it's really common for Christian parents to have religion driving them and pushing them rather than the Holy Spirit leading them. And so, yes, being a.
Speaker 3:Bethel for so long is kind of like, hey, we, we spend our lives growing in and learning how to follow the Holy Spirit rather than religion, and so that's sort of the approach that we take.
Speaker 3:You know, a lot of discipline, a lot of vision, a lot of stuff like that, but ultimately, following the voice of the Lord, following the plan of the Lord, you know how to do that, how to find that for your individual family, and then so working on a lot of that stuff connection with parents, interhealing with parents, and because that that really affects all of our parenting as well as how healthy we are and so we do that. Lauren's got a company. She does real estate, but she also does like oral wellness, so like tooth powder, gloss, really clean floss. But she's prepping to liquidate all that and just do the real estate. So we are okay. They transition there as well, and yeah. So our daughter has a company. She sells like soaps and sponges and stuff for the kitchen, stuff for the bath that she either makes or has made, and so she runs her own little company from the house as well.
Speaker 3:And yeah, it's fun. We have a lot happening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot going on in some big transitions. Well, our conversation day is going to really kind of circulate around the spirit led families idea. Obviously, obviously, your. This conversation is a great fit for our podcast because we love talking about relational health. Obviously family health is in there. We haven't actually had an interview with anybody on parenting, although we've talked a lot about parenting just in our other topics.
Speaker 2:But relevant to the listeners, for sure, relevant to Jason and I obviously, just having raised one set of kids out of the house and then working on our second set to toddlers under the roof at the moment, it's funny because we found ourselves kind of having to reinvent some parenting styles. We thought you know you go in around two and we're like this is going to be like bonus drum, we've already done it, we know what works and what doesn't work, and then turns out you actually wind up with two different kids than you've ever had before and so you kind of have to go back to the drawing board as far as wow, okay, what we thought we were going to be doing isn't actually what we're doing now. In fact, it feels like we're back in school. We're having to learn all over again what to do with these toddlers and then, even more than what to do with them, like how to handle them, actually building intentionally a culture in our home and a culture as a little family unit. How do we want to raise these kids? Because my word, my word, the world is different now, even than it was when we were raising our older children. It's completely different landscape, and so we're so excited to chat with you today and absolutely know that it's going to bless anybody that listens.
Speaker 2:But yeah, kind of diving into that topic, I'd love to go back a little bit to what you originally said, seth, and just hear from your perspective, because I could kind of interpret what you're saying. But I'd love for you to explain what do you see when families are letting culture or fear push them? What does that look like, as opposed to the fruit of letting the Holy Spirit actually lead you in parenting? How do you know if you're in that first camp of letting culture and fear kind of push you along in parenting?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I mean one of the things I've said to my kids quite a few times with this kids are really good at going. All my friends are doing this, all my friends have this. Or my friends get to watch that show, my friends get to play that game. My friends get to do this. I want to and I, you know, I've told them. I said hey, my job is not to do what everyone else is doing, my job is to do what God is doing.
Speaker 3:And so, and letting them in on some of that conversation, slash decision making a little bit, but also telling them why we've made the decisions we've made of like, hey, you know what? You can play that video game if I'm playing with you, and then I want to. You know, there's a people who will jump on the chat, there's people who will try to, you know, in age appropriate ways and stuff like that. Talk to them about that. But culturally, that's that's my job is to go. We're not going to do what everyone else is doing just because everyone else is doing it, you know usually if you're doing what everyone else is doing.
Speaker 3:It's probably not the best, and so we're going to follow God and so let's ask God. Here's what we felt like God has shown us, here's what we're pursuing, here's why we're pursuing it. I think is really, really important. And I think, to go into that religion conversation a little bit, one thing I've been realizing more and more lately is, like you know, when, when the devil tempted Eve in the garden, I believe he had to introduce religion before he could introduce soon. So he, and before he could introduce religion, he had to introduce unbelief. So hey, did God really say? He's questioning what God said. So he's trying to enter unbelief. And then he says if you eat that fruit, you'll be like God, so do something to become who you already are because you're already made in his image right.
Speaker 3:But the more I thought about, more I realized like, oh, when he said you'll be like God he was inviting her into, into her own religion. Become the God of your own religion, where you decide what's right, you decide what's wrong. And so I think even culturally it plays in of like, if all my friends are doing it, or this is what's on TV, or this is what's on my screen, that must be, that must be okay, that must be right and so. Well, we don't. We don't decide on our own what's right and wrong. We want to get this from God, and you know, whether it's how many genders there are, whether it's what a normal marriage looks like, what a godly marriage looks like man and woman, stuff like that. It's like, oh, we, we're not making those decisions, those are not decisions that we have to make.
Speaker 3:God made those decisions, and so we but that's what I've been realizing is like, in a sense, everyone's, everyone's ate the fruit at some level, like we all ate the fruit.
Speaker 3:We all, we all became gods of our own little religion.
Speaker 3:We all decided what we thought was right and wrong, and so we create these cultures in our own homes that are like oh, I'm the leader of my own little religion in my own little home, that I decide what's right and wrong all the time, and so I think a huge part of that is going no, we're, we're going to find out from God, we're going to talk to God, we're going to look in the Bible, we're going to consider this stuff and we're going to question anything else that is is different.
Speaker 3:We're going to question that instead of instead of just take it hook, line and sinker and yeah, so that's that's one thing I've been realizing more and more lately is like oh, we've got to get rid of this whole thing of like whether it's how we discipline or how we choose to use those and you guys are asking yourselves the question like I think that's a huge place to start how we want to raise our kids, because a lot of what I see is like the dad's like, well, this is what I want to do, and the mom's like, well, I don't want to do that and I want to do this. And the dad's like, no, that's not going to work. And they never get on the same page and go how are we going to do this?
Speaker 3:And I think a huge key is to go how does God want us to do this, and I will yield to what God says, and I would like you to yield to what God says as well, so that we come on the same page and we're on the same page with God about how we parent and the culture that we create in our home. And yeah, so that was kind of a long answer, but that's great. Some of the things that we've talked about with our kids is like this is our job, nothing else.
Speaker 3:I don't care what anyone else is doing. In a kind way, I don't care what anyone else is doing, and if all of them are doing it, we should probably question that right out the gate and we want to be on the same page with the Lord and what we're making decisions about. So we're not just leading our own little religion, we're following his guidance and direction.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:When I was growing up. I remember a lot telling my parents like, well, the Johnson boys get to do whatever X, y or Z go to a dance or I don't know. And my dad would say all the time, well, we're not the Johnson's, don't we? And because I knew like I could use that card, even like the Johnson's were like the ideal family growing up in our town. But my dad, I really do think my parents subscribed to a lot of what you're talking about and my dad really did hold the line and my mom on we're falling, god, we're raising. We're raising kids based upon our convictions and I think as parents, we have to be okay with disappointing our kids. It's honestly, one of the hardest things for me is to see my kids disappointed and I often let their emotional well, the temptations to let their emotional distress decide and make decisions on what they can and can't do. And it's, it is such a, it's such a trap to get into, isn't it Because you have this conviction, whether it's what they eat in the morning, or you know whether they're going to go to school or not, and I don't know? There's just so many different examples, even this morning, like my daughter wanted pancakes. And then I make pancakes and then she wants oatmeal. She didn't want pancakes anymore and she's not in a good mood about the fact that I don't want to make her oatmeal. And you know she's throwing a fit and it's so much easier in that moment just to go like, well, I'm just going to make you oatmeal now, just to make you happy. And but there's so many, you know, from their friend group. The other thing that my dad did a lot growing up is I remember going over friends' houses and I had a friend, who will name remain nameless, who did not have a great relationship with his parents and he was often, you know, kind of a jerk, but I really liked him and he really liked me and I'd hang out over there quite a bit and I'd come back and I remember a whole phase of my life where I'd come back in a different mood than when I left and I remember my dad, pulling me aside, telling me listen, if you're the one that's being influenced by your friend, you're not going to go over there anymore. You can go over there as long as you're going to be the one influencing. And it's crazy, because I even think there's a lot of parents who would have just banned that relationship, but my dad watched my heart and watched me make adjustments and therefore I stewarded a lot of relationships like that and was friends with a lot of people who were struggling. But because I had changed the way that I saw my role in the relationship, it really worked, and I was 15, 16 years old.
Speaker 1:But I think, getting back I mean even where I'm at today, getting all the way back to I was raised in a godly home with godly parents who bought into what you're talking about, you know, following God, and I had raised my first set of kids to the best of my ability. That way, I still find myself today going okay. What does it practically look like, though? What does it look like to? Because it's very confusing. Even for me, it's very challenging to know from day to day how to. Okay, I'll give you some real examples. How do I handle my three year olds? Almost four temper tantrums. My parents would spank, you know, my parents spanked quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Quite a bit.
Speaker 1:I mean they did that was the tool that they had. You know, and I would say, with Danny, I learned level logic.
Speaker 1:So I learned a lot more of like hey, this isn't fun, I'm not having fun you know, make a powerful choice, be a powerful person, and so you know I've done that avenue quite a bit, but even more so, like there is a, I'm still realizing I have a massive gap in between spanking, and my kids need to make a powerful choice. That's not fun. You're going to go sit in the no fun chair until you're ready to be fun. There's a whole nother thing that I'm learning, which, and I don't feel like I have nailed fully, but I would love to know. We hope that it's spirit led.
Speaker 1:I'd love to know like what's your practical advice for young parents who are raising young kids when it comes to discipline and behavior, and you know correction and direction? Like are you going? Do you have like a set? Hey, this is how you handle disobedience and this is how you can still be instant. Can you take this down? That? I know it asks like a perfect question, but I am very much on this track.
Speaker 2:The question is about as pretty as our actual life is at home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think the beautiful thing and the hard thing I think at the same time was like all of us are kind of growing in this as well. You know, I've been learning things and tons about just emotional intelligence, and even someone the other day was like hey, they asked me. They said, flat out said, if I just send my kid to the no fun chair, am I teaching them that I only want to see positive emotions and that they're not allowed to show negative emotions? Because we're going through all this grief recovery stuff and they're like wait, you're telling us we're supposed to express our negative emotions so they're not stored inside of us, so they're not getting out. But if I send them to the no fun chair and I'm going, hey, I'm actually in the middle of rethinking some of this and repracticing some of this and redefining some of this in my own life with my own kids, and they're not even that small anymore. So I do think that huge are. You know, when there's a disobedience or a tantrum or a meltdown of like I don't want the pancakes Now I want the oatmeal. Daddy give me the oatmeal and you're like I don't really want to.
Speaker 3:I think a huge part is to, you know, kids, this is, this is one of the things I put, the language I put around it. And, jason, you know connection codes. Well, it's like one of the things I've put in is like oh, you know, put, a lot of people will say facts don't care about feelings, right? So if you pull that into parenting and you go no, I made you pancakes, that's what you're getting, that's the facts. I don't have time for the oatmeal right now. We got to go, we got to leave for school or whatever it is. I got to drop you off, like, so, facts don't care about feelings. And so if you adopt that into parenting, you, you know, your kid will start storing emotions, they'll stop opening up to you, they'll stop showing you what's really going on, and then you just have a kid. That's like I know I'm never going to get oatmeal anyway, so I won't say anything, I'll just hold this all inside and eventually it comes out.
Speaker 3:So what I said is facts don't care about feelings, but feelings can't actually hear facts, which that's a connection codes type thing is like if I'm emotionally overloaded, I don't care what facts you throw at me, I won't hear them very well, right? And so if I'm like you know, with my son right now, him and his brother. We're working through some stuff with him and his brother and it's like he's like dad, I always get in trouble for what he does. He started it and then I get in trouble and I wanted to throw a bunch of facts at him. Like nobody I, I discipline you.
Speaker 3:And then I'm going to go straight in there and talk to him and I realized, like he, he can't hear me, he can't hear me, this isn't going to help, this doesn't matter to him, his feelings don't care about my facts because his feelings are his facts right now. And so I said oh, buddy, I can tell that you, are you trying to tell me that you always get in trouble for him, that you feel like you always get in trouble for him? He goes, yes, and I said I can see how you would feel that. And he goes.
Speaker 3:We just starts pouring out tears, crying.
Speaker 3:I said, oh, my gosh, son, I can see that you've been trying to tell me that and I didn't see it and I was just trying to convince you that, that that you were wrong about the facts and I apologize for being wrong for doing that to you and I'm so I could see how you would feel upset, mad, sad that we, that I, that you, get in trouble for him and we just laid on the floor and cried for 15 minutes and it changed everything.
Speaker 3:And then I, then I could bring up the facts, then I could go later. I could go hey, I do want you to know, when you guys get in trouble, I usually come correct you first, because you yelled at him and I didn't see what happened before. But I go in and then he could receive it Right. So now we can receive my facts, because I've acknowledged and allowed him to express his feelings, and now he can hear me, and so now we can talk through it and now we've solved the problem, not just put a bandaid on it or or moved on to the next thing in disciplines over.
Speaker 3:I'm learning more and more and more like wow, this takes a little bit more time than just give the spanking or go to your no fun chair, come out when you're fine, like.
Speaker 3:It takes more time to acknowledge and allow them to express their emotions, but a lot of times too, they can't get back to the right perspective, the factual perspective. Whether it's oatmeal, you know, it's like oh my gosh. I can like one of the things I've been asking my kids lately when, when that stuff happens and they're kind of like mad at me If I didn't give them the oatmeal, it's like hey, am I hearing you say you feel sad? So that's a good question to ask. Am I hearing you say you feel sad, that you really want oatmeal right now? Like, oh man, I could see how you would feel sad, I know.
Speaker 1:Right Now I'm acknowledging it.
Speaker 3:Now I'm letting them express it.
Speaker 3:You know, she, your kid, can be like, no, I don't feel sad. I feel mad that you won't make me oatmeal. Like, yeah, I could. I could see how you would feel mad because you really want oatmeal and you feel disappointed around not getting the oatmeal. Okay, hey, I. And now you start talking to them about what your decision is. And you know because you've acknowledged it. So now you can go oh, you're only made these pancakes. I thought you wanted pancakes. I made them for you. They're all here. I don't have time to make the oatmeal, so we're going to stick with the pancakes.
Speaker 3:But now that she's, it's not sitting in there interpreting everything for that's what I'm, that's the language I'm using is our emotions become our interpreters? And so, like all of us have traveled to other countries and had interpreters and it's like you pray to God, you get a good one, or they're going to say something that you didn't say, or they're going to tell you what someone else said that they didn't say, and now the conversation just doesn't even work. And so I'm like, oh, our emotions are interpreters and so if there's a bunch of sadness, disappointment, anger, frustration in there, it's going to be interpreting what I'm saying to them. So if I can get those out and then talk, I'm going to be heard much clearer than I was.
Speaker 2:And so that's so good.
Speaker 3:I do think it's important because one of the things I've seen is parents are like we react a lot, so it's either like well, spanking is just mean and wrong and so I'm never going to spank, and what that means is I'm no longer going to set any boundaries and I'm only going to talk about emotions but not have boundaries. I'm going to let your emotions, like you said, jason, determine the decisions that I make, and now you're in charge of the parenting, not me, and so a lot of times what happens is like wow, I've only seen a bunch of consequences I don't want, so I'm going to react and go over here and no longer discipline my kids. And biblically, that basically is a recipe for the orphan spirit. If you don't have discipline, you are a bastard. In King James it says you're a bastard like a kid with no parents.
Speaker 3:Like well, you invited the orphan spirit when you don't ever set boundaries. And I think the line there is to go how do I acknowledge your emotions and then have the boundary and go? I'm sorry we're still going to sit with the pancakes because I made them for you and I don't have time, but you've got that interpreter out, you've got that emotion out, so it's not bottled up and now you can actually talk through it, rather than just argue with a little kid who just wants to open meal or is shutting down because they keep getting in trouble for their sibling.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's so good, Seth, so that's such a good just leeway into this next kind of topic or question that I have for you. But I'm thinking as you're speaking. I'm thinking about this wrestle that Jason and I have been in a little bit since. You know it is interesting timing for us because our old, our youngest of the big kids, moved out about a year after the baby of the whole family was born. So, you know, you kind of enjoy that first little bit of a baby's life where they don't actually require a whole lot of parenting.
Speaker 2:You're just meeting physical needs, but your brain can kind of take a break for a minute and your body just takes over, like we're up at night, yes, we're feeding babies, yes, we're changing diapers, yes, but we don't have to think a whole lot. Then they turn to and you're like, oh, we have to start parenting. This, like this is actually like we're on the clock now, you know. So we're there with our almost four year old and our almost two year old. We're like, oh, my gosh, it caught up to us so quickly. Shoot, we need to plan quick. But one of the things we've been wrestling with is realizing like, okay, there have been some pendulum swings in culture when it comes to parenting, even in the church, and so we've got everything. For you know, I actually listened to this audio book about a year and a half ago. That's old school man, it's like from the 80s.
Speaker 2:This like Amish guy is talking about how, you know, you kind of crack the whip of discipline with your kids because you know it's obedience it's obedience based and his his whole point, which, honestly, my takeaway and I'm like actually believe this is true my takeaway from that book was you know, your children are going to first learn obedience to God by learning how to be obedient to you like you are going to represent the father to them and you're going to teach them how to be like with God. We are first slaves before we are friends, kind of a thing. Now, that's extreme language and we don't like that terminology. When it comes to raising kids these days, I get it, but the principle being wow, it is actually really important that my kids learn obedience in our home. That's really important. And then the other pendulum swing. You know, now we're in 2024. So there's like a gentle parenting. I'm going to call it a trend because it actually feels like a trend at the moment. I understand, like the psychology behind it, I understand, but it does feel reactionary to some degree.
Speaker 2:So Jason and I we've been wrestling with, okay, the question is Holy Spirit, help us find the truth? And it's probably somewhere in the middle. There's probably. It's probably not one or the other. Now, I'm not. I am not about cracking out the whip or the wooden spoon. That's never been in our style, but but if we're just talking about, like, what fruit do we want? We do want. We want children that know how to obey. We also want children that know how to think. We want children that know how to ask great questions, but we want children to trust mom and dad.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, at the end of the day, when, when you don't understand and when you don't actually agree, we want you to trust mom and dad, and this is what you know. This is the boundary, this is the line that we're drawing and, anyways, I don't want to just talk around it too much, but that is the current wrestle that we're in is looking for, and really asking God for, a strategy for raising these kids in 2024, where they still have a culture inside of them, where they know how to say yes to God the first time. I want you to say, I want you to obey the Lord the first time he asks you, and you're not going to have a clue how to do that unless you, unless I teach you how to do that with us. So, anyways, that's the.
Speaker 2:What do you think about that? Like what? As you're even in your own journey with, I know your kids are a little older than ours, but like if you were starting over right now in 2024, with little tiniest, and you're like we're starting from the ground up. What are you know, what are your? Some of your thoughts around that and creating culture of Holy Spirit led, as opposed to one or the other.
Speaker 3:Well, I think, first of all, it's really a lot easier for a husband and wife like you guys because of your level of health, right? So if I'm trying to teach obedience to me, because that's how you'll respond to God, I better be very healthy or I can make that really, really bad. And you know, it's like you listen to me like well, yeah you're, you're telling me to do a bunch of stuff that is not good.
Speaker 3:Totally. My coaches just had this great conversation because she saw a post that was from somebody questioning giving our kids choices, which to go back to Love and Logic, giving choices like hey, do you want a plate or do you want a bowl, do you want right? And so ask giving our kids choices. But this person posted and said shouldn't we teach our children submission to authority before we give them choices and teach them empowerment? Because if we teach them empowerment before we teach them submission to authority, we can create entitlement. And that's what they'd seen is these kids that have been given all these options and the way the kids are doing is like, no, I get to decide everything. And so they.
Speaker 3:They saw these entitled kids growing up and like, well, I don't want entitlement in my kids and so I need to teach submission to authority. And so I said, wait, hold on. If I'm doing, if I'm giving choices the way they're intended and the way they're taught originally, which everyone has, everyone. How many people go to Bethel, misunderstand the teaching and go off and live a sinful, crazy life and go well?
Speaker 3:it's like no, I think you didn't. I think you misinterpreted what they said, right? So in choices, that's what I've seen. I said well, if the choices are taught, if choices are given correctly, it actually teaches submission to the authority and empowerment at the same time. Because we're in 2024. And I'm just going to say this loud and clear After 2020, 2021 and 2023, I do not want my children to think submission to authority is the most important thing, because I don't care who's on the screen as an authority, I don't care who's on the stage as an authority, I don't care who's in front of the classroom as an authority.
Speaker 3:I do not want my kids submitting to authority because they're an authority. I want them questioning that in a healthy way, right, like just because someone's on the news doesn't mean they should not be questioned Just because right. So I think that's the danger as we go. Oh, I want to teach my kids to submit to authority or obey, because that's how they'll obey God. Well, that's also how they'll obey who's on the screen and who's in front of the classroom.
Speaker 3:Because I taught them to submit to authority obey immediately, right away.
Speaker 3:Well, I would more take the like I'm actually okay if you disobey because I think God was okay in the garden. He's like hey, here's your options, don't do that one, it will kill you. And he allowed them to make the poor choice. He allowed them to disobey and then he gave them a constant. That's right. I want my kids to disobey some, not in a that could be misinterpreted as well. I expect my kids to do some disobedience because they're children and they're learning, and they're yes, so I'm not caught off guard when you disobey, but I will allow you to face a consequence for your decision. So you learn why obedience matters, why to obey, but I'll let you disobey. At the same time, I'm not going to control, because otherwise we just control, control, control. I don't allow you to make decisions and now you have no idea how to think for yourself. When you get out into the real world, all you know is listen to authority, obey authority, and there's a whole lot of authorities that you do not want to listen to.
Speaker 2:That's true. All that so true.
Speaker 3:I give choices correctly to our kids. It's really practical Give choices correctly to our kids. We teach both at the same time. Now you're submitting to my authority, you're. You'll end up where I where I want you in, obedience, most likely. But I empowered you at the same time because I want you to question that stuff. So choices are you know. Here's one example.
Speaker 3:I'm not giving choices of like are we going to go to school today or not? Are we going to go to church today or not? Are you going to go to bed right now or later? No, no, no, no, no. None of those are options. The proper way to do that is to go. It's time to go to school. Do you want to put your shoes on before we walk to the car or do you want to carry them out? So I'm not giving you the option whether or not we're going to go to school, whether or not we're going to go to bed. I'm giving you the option of do you want to brush your teeth first or go to the bathroom first? Do you want to put your pajamas on next or do you want to get your stuffed animals Right? So I'm going, we're going to bed.
Speaker 3:Authority. Submit to authority. We are going to go to bed. Right now it's bedtime, but here's a couple options in how you're going to get there, so that you're going, what do I want to do to get there? Like, oh, what do I want to do to get in the car to go to school on time, because we're going to school. And so I think that's where some of this comes from, as people have misapplied the choices and gone. All right, are we going to school or not? Are we going to bed or not? I don't know if that's what they're doing, yeah, sure, but I think they're not going.
Speaker 3:Here are your two options, but I decided them both. So you have to submit and you have to pick one of these that I'm okay with. So I don't care which one you make, I just want you. You're still making the decision I presented to you. So you have obedience, you have submission to authority, but you're also empowered in that. So I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.
Speaker 3:We do want them to learn obedience, because we want them to obey God that way, but they can also interpret that to go. This is how I obey every authority, which is a scary, scary, and so I'm like no, I want you to obey, but I'm actually at a good place too, where I'm going. If you disobey, it should not surprise me. I'm okay with that because I'm going to let you have a consequence. So you learn obey, daddy. He's got my best interest in mind. He's got my best. He's for me. So now I have a consequence for my decision that I should probably obey. I should probably listen, I should probably make a better decision next time and I want them to learn that in the safety of my home, so that when they're out on their own they have that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I'm a huge fan of both of those Like, yeah, we want to obey God, but we don't want to obey everybody else. That's playing God out there For sure, 100%. And so I want to navigate that. I want to walk that line of like I want you to obey, but if you disobey, I'm going to let you have a consequence so that you learn to obey. But if someone else tells you to do something and you're not sure, I actually want you to disobey them. I actually want you to not listen to them and not just follow along without asking questions or presenting another option or thinking through this out loud with them and going I'm not really sure I want to do that Like, I want them to challenge them in all the rest of society and so, but I'm with you, I am.
Speaker 3:I think, if that stuff's done right, we do teach both at the same time. Because the other error is like well, I teach you to obey, obey, obey, but then you don't know how to think for yourself when you get out in the real world, because all you know is obey. And now I have all these other voices that aren't yours or aren't God's, and all I know is to obey. And so I think, and that's where, like for me, it's like that's where spirit-led stuff comes in, where I'm going. Jesus, help me. Like what? Do I say yes to this? Do I say no to this? Do I firm up here, or do I wax up a little bit? Do I relax a little bit? And I think that's a huge factor in all this cultural conversation too is to go. I gotta depend on the Lord, because what you know, I all right. Here's a, here's a great example.
Speaker 3:I had a mom reach out to me and she has two kids and she was asking about watching the Harry Potter movies and she's like we want to. We, what about Harry Potter? What's the right answer? What do I say? And I said, okay, tell me. She said, she said my son, when he watches Harry Potter, he goes mom, I feel so afraid, I feel so scared, I don't like it, I don't, I don't, there's so much darkness on it, I don't like it. And I said, okay, good to know. What about your daughter? She says my daughter watches it and she goes mom, look at all the bad stuff trying to happen, but look at how God's power comes in and stops the bad guy. And so she has a completely different experience of the movie than her brother.
Speaker 3:And I said so the right decision is for your son. It's right to not let him watch the movies because it's going to make him afraid, it's going to make him scared, it's not going to be good for him. But your daughter, as long as she is like I see God and I see his power and I see him stopping darkness. I said then, as long as she's in that place, it's, it's right for you to let her watch those movies. There's not a we don't watch these or we do. No, you don't watch. She can because of how she's perceiving it and receiving from it.
Speaker 3:But I said watch her, because if she starts getting afraid, then the right answer changes. I'm like, oh, we're not going to do this anymore. It's causing fear in you and I don't want you to do that. So sometimes there's not like a black and white this is right, this is wrong. It's like, oh yes, that family was like, the right answer was completely opposite for both kids. And and it's kind of like, why do I love this kid go to the party and this kid not go to the party when they're at 16. Shouldn't, at 16, I get to go do what my brother did when he was 16?
Speaker 3:He's like, well, here you're not demonstrating the responsibility required for me to trust you with that freedom, and so, until you can demonstrate this and this and this, I don't feel safe letting you go to the party. So I'm not doing it just because he got to go. He got to go because he demonstrated the responsibility, capabilities to, or the responsibility to handle that level of freedom, and here's what I need from you in order to do that.
Speaker 3:I think that's a great thing to keep to with this, too, is like what are you? Yeah, I can give you more freedom if you've demonstrated greater responsibility and you've handled these choices that I've given you and you're not. You're listening, well, Wow, now, now I can lighten up on some of this stuff too, because I trust you more. Yeah, and so some of them. Yeah, I don't know. I hopefully that answered the question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's good, it's great, it's great. Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. I think that this day and age it's really important, like if we're going to look at the macro view of parenting kids in the world right now, we need to majorly take that into account as we're leading them. Probably more than ever, it's so important that we are alongside of in the home, teaching our kids obedience, while helping them be powerful thinkers. We're teaching them the character of God. We're teaching, we're really, really teaching them about how to see God and how to know that God is in something as opposed to what is in the world. Like we have to help them distinguish those things. But, seth, if we're going to take so maybe that's like the macro view of parenting in in this current day of a day and age, if we go back micro into just like culture of home, let's say that we could. We had all the luxuries in the world of raising our kids in a bubble inside of you know culture out there. We could raise them in this little bubble and still we have this wild obstacle in front of us of creating a culture that we just simply enjoy. Like I actually want to enjoy my kids. I want to enjoy the little humans that I've got in my house and I want to enjoy their presence in my home as they get older and and so you know, raising them to be contributors, raising them to think about the whole, raising them to we.
Speaker 2:Jason forwarded me this really great post or reel the other day, I can't remember on Instagram, and it was basically saying something along the lines of the last thing you want to do is make your kids think that helping with the dishes is a chore. You want them to feel like it's a privilege. It's a privilege to help unload the dishwasher. It's a privilege to help with the laundry. It's not a chore. We don't want them to think it's something that you get to do as a consequence or as a you know this is a punishment, like you have to help with the chores in because of bad behavior or what I'm like. Oh my gosh, if I only had to do chores because I was behaving badly, then I would have a maid for all of my tasks, or whatever.
Speaker 2:So I think, even just on that micro view of raising little people in our homes that we enjoy and that we're proud of, that we like. We like who they are in our homes, what are some of the keys? I mean, you and Lauren, you've got like a farm going on. You've got kids that are running businesses, you've got. Then I know they all have their own passions too. I know your son is really really excelling in gymnastics, and so it's not like you're all just at home on the farm all the time. But how have you and Lauren gone about raising kids that are contributors, know how to think about the entire family unit?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great. Well, we threw out the word chores all together and we only use the word contribution, because contribution is actually one of the eight elements that humans need for mental health. And like, if I'm not contributing?
Speaker 2:anywhere.
Speaker 3:I'm deteriorating my mental health and so we just we chuck chores completely out and we call them contributions. So, hey, this is, we're part of a family, we, we do the dishes, we mow the grass, we feed the dogs, we feed you know, and so we are very big on that, like, oh, we can't you know, part of that too is like oh, if you don't contribute to this, the dog is going to go really, really hungry, and if you don't contribute long enough, the dog is going to die.
Speaker 3:Like we bring a week reality checks to our kids, like with that stuff, with animals.
Speaker 3:You know, if the dishes don't get done, no problem, I'll do your dishes. Then you get to do my job. Well, what's your job? I'm going to scoop the poop later. So as long as you want to scoop poop, totally fine. But I'm about to do dishes in about a minute so you can decide whether you're going to do them or not. You know that whole like I'm giving you choices and at the same time there are going to be choices that I'm happy with. And so, mike, you know it happened the other day with our seven year old. He just I said that. I said, hey, it's okay, you don't have to do the dishes, I'll do them. I gotcha. But then you got to get me and you got to scoop the poop. He's like, well, how much poop is there? I said, son, we have three dogs and that fence is eight. You know it's two acre fence. So I think you, you may have, I don't know, 60 piles or something.
Speaker 1:He's like, I'll do the dishes and he's seven.
Speaker 3:He's like I'll do the dishes. And he didn't complain. He just gets in there and does it, because for him it's like I'd much rather do this than that. The other thing I've done with my kids too is I've, because of that whole made thing, like like I tell my kids, look, if I don't want to mow the grass, I don't have to mow the grass, but if I want to grass mode, I got to pay someone to do it. So my kids are older and they have some money and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:So I now use money and go hey, you don't have to do your contribution, I can do it for you. Here's how much I charge, because I want them to know like, yeah, you don't have to do your laundry, you don't have to do your dishes, but you got to pay someone else to do it. Or you can have nasty dishes and dirty clothes, and so I will gladly. I'll just. I'll just teach them Like, you know what, when you're older and you're wealthy and you don't want to mow your grass, don't mow your grass, but you're going to pay someone. Don't do your laundry, don't do your dishes, bring a maid in, but you're going to be paying.
Speaker 3:That made money. So I'm going to I kind of want to instill that in them too Like, hey, here's, here's how you contribute. This is good for everyone. You contribute to all of our life because you're part of the family. We can't do this without each other. We're in this together. I got you here, you got me there. I take care of this, you take care of that, I check on you. But if you really really don't want to, no problem, I have a consequence. I'll do yours where you can pay me to do it, and we're it's going to get done one way or the other.
Speaker 1:Yes. How do you like it? I love that. It's so easy to forget how to do those things, how to present and set up that culture and I think, starting over again, we haven't been in that mode for so long.
Speaker 3:We haven't been back for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you forget, you know, and so it's so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sharpen up our choices.
Speaker 1:But for couples I really do. I want couples just to kind of hear, I think, what are some key points. And I want to bring up one thing but being on the same team, like there's no, there's, there's no trade off for that. If you're not on the same team, then you're, then you're a team, divided and parenting, the kids are going to rule you. Ultimately. That's what's going to happen. You're going to hate your life and so really getting on the same page, I think one thing that we haven't talked about a lot is how much time, effort and energy you have to dedicate into actually creating what is the team and what we are doing, and so that you should feel some sort of frustration in learning how to parent. It's a it's a very frustrating process. It's not easy. You should feel a bit of maybe hopeless challenge at first, because they're changing, they're evolving, every kid's different, and so you have to. You got to like it's an enormous responsibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and, okay, I got to figure this out. You're going to find some pain points. But what's also true is, once you get on the same page and you start going down the path of looking at how you were raised and then looking at what type of kids and adults really what, what type of adults am I training, am I growing, am I raising? That really helps a lot, and then you're going to put in tons of time, effort and energy. I think one of the things that has been so new for me and I'm going to take us back a little bit and talk about this just for a few minutes but one of the things that I think that has been really, really new for me having older kids. I wasn't, I wasn't as far into the emotional, health and the science as we are today, and what we know today about like you were talking about before, about grief, what we know about co-regulation, what we know about bonding, really has changed how I'm parenting, how Lauren and I are parenting today and the. I think for me, one of the major keys has been helping my kids learn how to regulate through co-regulation and so, as they're really young, right when Edie throws a fit.
Speaker 1:My first goal hasn't been to get her to stop. It's been to get her to connect. So it's sometimes it's the opposite of what I used to do, right, like I used to just ignore or leave or, hey, you need to go into your room if you're going to do that. Now I'm doing the opposite. I'm actually going hey, do you want me to hold you? If she doesn't want me to hold her, then I'll sit by her and just wait and be patient until we can get that connection and she can actually start to come down and then process through what she's been going through.
Speaker 1:The mistake that I have made in the past a lot, but even recent is trying to get her compliance right. I'm trying to get her to quit. I'm trying to get her to stop. I really want her to obey, instead of she's having this wild moment right now where she's experiencing something that is so overwhelming to her that she is beyond herself. My two-year-old the other day, liam, he was experiencing something that was so overwhelming to him he could actually couldn't stop. He could not calm himself down, down.
Speaker 2:He could not sit, he could not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the temptation is to spank him or the temptation is to get him to quit, instead of realizing, like this little guy needs help regulating. That's actually the first step in this whole process. And my daughter, edie she's been dealing with some sensory issues and sensitivity issues and so she gets. She used to get really dysregulated so easy. Her hair could be in the wrong spot, she could put on a shirt and freak out Socks could do it to her. There's a million things that could just cause her to all of a sudden get flooded instantly. I used to look at that as her misbehavior right, like she could stop if she wanted to. Instead, we've having to. Lauren and I have been having to go to school and learn, okay, actually, what's happening in her. She's getting so flooded in the moment and so overwhelmed that she can't manage herself. She needs our help and as we've been subscribing and buying in and really I mean it's 6am, it's 5.45 and I'm on the ground playing horse with her.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm not going. You know, before I'd have been like, hey, your attitude really sucks right now. I'll come back when you're phone because she wakes up dysregulated. Well, lots of mornings, instead, when she wakes up dysregulated, lauren and I are figuring out ways to help her regulate her system before we even have the conversation about, especially in the beginning, before we even had the conversation about. Hey, I don't like your tone of voice right now, and that's been really changing the game for us and laying a foundation for my daughter, edie, to even begin to learn what's going on in her. She didn't even know what was going on in her. And now we've been doing we've really been hardcore doing this for probably three months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and watching some massive changes in our kids and in our parenting style, and I do. I think it's that balance I just want to highlight. I do think it's that balance between the love and logic that I learned, the spanking that my parents learned, and more authoritative.
Speaker 1:And adding in some of the science and better techniques that we now know is even better is more helpful. And I do think like there's a time when a child probably needs a spanking and when they absolutely know that what they're doing is wrong and they're being defiant and they're you know they're making that choice or whatever. There's a time to say, hey, you're really not being fun right now, but I have been airing on the side of are we connected? Does she need my help coming down? Is she regulated? Does she need my help regulating right now? That's been my, that's been my default and I'm watching her come back like this morning. A good example is after the oatmeal freak out. I tried to talk to her kindly. You know I did talk to her kindly and try to talk to her kindly and so it's not something that we can do today and whatever. I understand you're frustrated and she ran off into the other room screaming and then she came out and started hitting the door to let me know how angry she was and I actually just started singing in the kitchen a really like kind pleasant song and she came out like I don't know three minutes later and she said dad, I really just wanted to have oatmeal and I said, no, I understand that baby, I just I'm not going to make two meals this morning, you know. And she freaked out again and ran off, and so I was just kind of watching, like what does she really need? What's happening in her? I'm thinking through it like a scientist, like what is my role here? And she came back two minutes later and again, I'm happy, I'm not angry, I'm not dysregulated. And she came back out and she stood by me on the stool that I was standing on. That was right next to me. I was making pancakes and she said dad, I want pancakes, I just don't want. There was like a little stringy fringe on it. She was like I just don't want that. And I was like no problem, I can help you with that.
Speaker 1:And then, while she was regulated, I was able to tell her like hey, I didn't love your behavior earlier. Like that I actually didn't feel very fun to me. It felt really sad. And she goes yeah, I know that. And then she gave me a big old hug on her own.
Speaker 1:That's the journey that we've been doing more and more and more, and I think that that, to me, is starting to feel like I'm feeling like I'm starting to get a picture of what a hybrid model looked like, whereas my parents mostly had spanking and in connection, especially when we're older, but not the co-regulation. At first, and I think, with Danny, I really which this isn't Danny's fault, this is just how I took it I really subscribed to the love and logic where we're doing options, we're doing powerful, but I didn't really know about the co-regulation piece. That, to me, has been undergirding of all of it is. Is there something extra that we need to do that we need to add that I'm missing here that you talked about earlier, but anything that you want to add or say to that, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's. I think that's it. It's like the more connected we are, the better all of this goes Like. If we're talking to each other from connection, it's completely different than if we're talking from disconnection and just trying to get obedience, or just trying to get you to stop, or just trying to get you to not scream at me and run off and punch things, like I think that's. Yeah, connection is the secret sauce to all of it, because then your communication is more it's heard, they actually hear you. And when you said, hey, that wasn't really fun, well, now you didn't make her do anything. You stuck with your decision and you were working on connection and then she's like I know, daddy, and she gives you a hug. I'm like that's exactly it. It takes way more time, it takes way more patience, it takes much more fruit of the Holy Spirit in you to be able to serve it.
Speaker 3:So here, eat this patience that I'm giving you and then you can come back and come with kindness towards me because I fed you patience. I think that's where that's exactly where we're going. Is like this hybrid of because people go one or the other and they see one person do it not well, and so they react and go. They swing that pendulum the complete opposite direction. I think we need to live towards the center here of going. I want to be connected and there's some things like worse, I'm not going to make a second meal. And then she tells you what she actually wanted and you're like oh, I got you. You switched out meal because you didn't want the little stringy things, because I flipped them too fast and they slid exactly. I can cut those off in a half a second.
Speaker 3:This was never about oatmeal, this was never about pancakes, it was just about that piece. And I got you and so I also. My seven-year-old is pretty Sensitive as well, like when it comes to noises, when it comes to a lot of things happening. He can overload real fast. So we've same kind of thing, like we've had to even just be more aware of His specific need, as compared to our older daughter who's like oh yeah, I'm good, like that's no problem, and she's like totally fine and can adjust real quick, because she doesn't have that where he's like.
Speaker 3:You know he's looking around, like I'm not okay right now, yeah, yeah, you know I'm taking him in and he doesn't always want to be touched either, so it's like sitting by him and just being there with him is super huge. I think that's yeah, this. To me, the connection is the ultimate goal is like if, if we're connected, you'll hear me better and you'll you have you know the way Danny says it is if we have a Big, strong rope as our connection, I can tell you and you'll come with me, if it's a tissue and I tug it rips and anything I do, you know, make it worse because we don't have a strong connection anyway. So that's it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's that's it.
Speaker 3:How do I connect? You're a different kid than your brother. You're a different kid than your sister. You need different things. You need me to wrestle you, like with arrow. I have to wrestle him and then he looks in my eyes and he talks to me completely different, and I'm like, oh, that's cuz I wrestle you, so I need to let you punch me in the stomach and I need to go slam you on the bed a few times and pin you down and let me, and then we, when we talk about the hard stuff, it's much better, because I let you beat me up and like, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:I think, absolutely I think that's the secret right there, I do too. I do too golly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the job of discipline is how do I protect connection while I do this? Because if I go in, it's it's not discipline, it's punishment and it's separation and it's not good. So that I think, if that's the goal, my goal is protect connection even in discipline.
Speaker 2:That's so good.
Speaker 3:I'm out a lot different.
Speaker 2:Yes, good, seth. Thank you so much, and I it just. It makes me feel so thankful for the work that you're doing, just even offering parents a place to go. If Live learning how to be spirit led in parenting is new, if it hasn't been modeled for you, if it is something that feels like uncharted territory, I just want to be able to point people in your direction, seth. How can people reach you or get Connected to resources that you have?
Speaker 3:Yeah, a great place of spirit led families dot world is.
Speaker 2:Is what?
Speaker 3:where Instagram is really as well. They can find all the stuff like in there. We have a three month Academy that we go into, like all all the emotion stuff and the discipline, but we only need a little after we do the emotion stuff and and we give people a coach to help them work this stuff into their lives on a day, rather than just listen to the information and try it like yes so go with them on that three month journey. So oh good, okay, it's not. World is great.
Speaker 2:Amazing, okay, awesome. Well, thanks a ton, seth, and thanks everybody for tuning in today. We hope that this was helpful for you. If you're enjoying our podcast, as always, please like and subscribe to it. Leave us reviews. That's super helpful and we love hearing from you. Who got questions? Shoot them our way and we'll work them into our next Q&A episode. All right, guys, have a great week.
Speaker 3:I.