14. Helping Your Kids Grow in Character, Wisdom, Relationships & Health: Raising a Luke 2:52 Kid

What if there was a SIMPLE PLAN for helping your child GROW in CHARACTER, WISDOM, HEALTH, and RELATIONSHIPS on a regular basis?  Here's your road map to more intentional parenting!

Luke 2:52 says, referring to when Jesus was a child, “And Jesus grew in WISDOM, STATURE, FAVOR with GOD, and FAVOR with MAN."  (NIV)     I’ve used this verse for many years to set goals twice a year regarding my kids in the following four categories: "Wisdom is the application of knowledge"     "Stature refers ro physical skill and health"           "Favor with Man means manners and relationships"       "Favor with God refers to a growing relationship with God"   
Read the corresponding BLOG POST by clicking HERE.
Val's "Raising a Luke 2:52" Resource:  Laminated Poster $7   OR  download $2

Laminated 8.5x11 poster w/ instructions on back. $7 & free shipping OR $2 for a download www.PracticallySpeakingMOM.com/shop

Val's Blog Post, "Raising a Luke 2:5

Transcript

Val Harrison: 0:00

Welcome to the Practically Speaking Mom podcast, the place for an intentional mom to build a strong family. Strong starts now! I've got my daughter Emma here with us today and she's 10.

Emma Harrison: 0:16

Hi.

Val Harrison: 0:17

Okay, so we're going to talk for just a minute, you and I, about something that I talk about later in this podcast episode. This episode is Raising a Luke 2:52 Kid, which is about four different areas of life: our physical development, our mental/academic development or wisdom, our relationship with people, and our relationship with God. So just for a minute, I want to talk to you, Emma, about our relationship with God. So I want to know what is your favorite resource for getting to know God better?

Emma Harrison: 0:54

Well, there's one called NIV Bible live and it's all on CD and it's the whole Bible and it has a bunch of different characters and it's really cool.

Val Harrison: 1:06

Yeah, so we found that over a year ago on Christianbook.com but for the whole past year it's been 75% off. So it's like$12 for the entire Bible. Really awesome. Dramatized, but word for word accurate. So she just loves listening to it. Okay. Emma, what do you do that helps you understand the Bible or, you know, when you're having trouble understanding something, what do you do? Can you just tell us, kind of help us have a picture of a 10 year old, how they can be learning the Bible?

Emma Harrison: 1:41

Well, so, um, as I listen to the Bible on CD, I sometimes read along in my Bible and sometimes I stop and really think about it and retain, uh, the information that it's giving me. And I think how can I apply this to my life and what can I learn from this verse or chapter? Because there's always more you can learn from just one simple verse, no matter how many times you read it.

Val Harrison: 2:12

Okay. Awesome. Thank you. And so what are some other things that you think have helped you to learn the Bible over the years?

Emma Harrison: 2:24

Um, well there's this thing called, What's In the Bible and it's different songs about the stories in the Bible. So if like, kids can like memorize the songs and sing them. And so that will help them retain the information that the Bible is giving them.

Val Harrison: 2:45

Okay. And that is available. You could either get it on Amazon as individual episodes or they have the entire Bible or you can also get an app that has a monthly cost to it. And I'm going to have in the show notes, links to all of this stuff. And this time I also wrote a blog post that goes along with this episode and it is called raising a Luke 2:52 Kid also. So the blog post and the podcast episode have the same title so that you'll be able to find those things easily. Emma, what about, can you also mention Awana? Tell us a little bit about that.

Emma Harrison: 3:24

Well, Awana is a weekly, um, it's on Wednesday nights usually. And uh, it's a weekly Sunday School is pretty much what, what it is. And so there's worship and there's game time. And there's, uh, one segment of time where, uh, all of the kids memorize verses and then they tell it to their leader and then the leader gives them a slip of paper with a number on it. And then that is worth like a couple, like not real dollars, but you know, um, and then you can like take that,

Val Harrison: 4:07

Basically, you can turn those dollars in for prizes and rewards and things. And there's awards ceremonies a couple of times a year. Now, Emma, what would people do if they do not have Awana in their area? Which by the way, it's spelled AWANA. So Emma, what would they do if they don't have a one in their area? Could they still learn from Awana?

Emma Harrison: 4:32

Uh, yeah, actually there's a CD and book that you can buy, um, and you can get it through the mail and it has all of these different stories and, uh, it has the same verses as, uh, the verses that the kids are learning, uh, on Wednesday nights. And so, yeah,

Val Harrison: 4:57

And we have purchased those through the years. There's basically different ones for different aged kids. So anyway, there's a few resources for all of you as you help your kids develop their relationship with God. Thanks Emma. Bye. So moms, do you ever feel discouraged and overwhelmed by all of the imperfections in yourself? All of the ways you need to be growing and changing? Well, you know God, he really only points out to us a few of the things that we need to be working on at a time. And have you noticed He'll give you opportunity after opportunity to grow in a certain area? I just believe that God limits how much He shows us of areas that we could work on in us because He doesn't want us to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. He wants us to zero in, focus in on a few of those things and and be working on changing a few of those at a time. And so that's the way God fathers, us maybe it's also a good way to parent our kids. So about 20 some years ago, I actually really was noticing that in my own life and decided that's what I was going to do with my kids. So I began doing what I call raising a Luke two 52 kid. And that is a Bible verse that talks about the four main ways that Jesus grew as a kid. And I began looking at those four ways and setting a goal for each one of those areas in my kids' lives. And I would do it about twice a year. I would take some really focused, prayerful time, some brainstorming time to just get away for a little bit and get a new game plan for the next six months on how I was going to parent my child. So let's look at the verse. Luke 2:52-"Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God and favor with man." Well, let's look at what each of those are. Wisdom. That's pretty easy to understand. That would have something to do with knowledge, but also the application of knowledge. When I'm thinking of my kids learning things in school, I don't want them to just take in information. I want them to know how to apply it effectively in a variety of situations. It's when we know how to apply information effectively, the most effective way, that would be being wise. So we've got Jesus grew in wisdom. Jesus grew in stature. That's going to be your physical things. You know, obviously Jesus grew in height and strength in physical ability. All of these things would be potential ways that someone would be growing in stature. And then favor with God. That's going to be relationship with God, character and habits related to God, related to our God time, related to our, uh, the way that we live life, recognizing who God is and who we are to Him, who we were created to be. You know, all of these things that are wrapped up in our spiritual, soul and heart. Okay, so then J esus grew in favor with man. That's relationships. It's manners, it's the ability to communicate effectively. So all of those things. A ll r ight, so let's just dig a little bit in here. You see as parents, it's easy to feel overwhelmed with all the ways that our kids need to improve. They can have weaknesses in their character a nd their classes, i n their manners, for example. Looking at all the ways we fall short as parents and they fall short as kids is discouraging, but th ere's a better way with the Luke 2:52 plan each semester. Set aside some time for a goal setting session about your kids. This is your opportunity to be intentional about the semester or the next six months ahead. First of all, I start with prayer. Pray to our all knowing God and ask him for guidance about the goals you're about to set. He created our kids. He knows them so much better than we do. You know, our kids, they're a mystery to us, aren't they? It's an exciting journey to discover our kids and it's one that is challenging, but it's rewarding and is exciting. And when we get really hooked on discovering all the aspects about our kids, wow; that is when we really start shining as a parent. Think of a teacher that you've had in childhood. Wasn't it the one that was motivated and excited about the discoveries of whatever subject they were teaching you about? If they were teaching English, they had discovered different books that were wonderful. They had discovered that linguistics is interesting. They had discovered that the order of grammar is interesting, you know, they're just that type. Then you have a history teacher and the history teacher has discovered all these neat things about history and they're so excited about them or, or likewise a science teacher, et cetera. So as a parent, if we can get excited about discovering all the different aspects about our kids, then what we're doing is inspiring them, helping them have a vision for their own lives and helping them to navigate the world based on their strengths and weaknesses and giftings and, and mannerisms and abilities, and so, so many things. You know, there's, there's love languages and the personality types and there's the Enneagram and there's so many different ways to discover our kids. But you know, our Heavenly Father designed them, created them. He already knows all of the facets of who they are and He knows where they've been. He knows about the places in their heart that they've never talked to you about and He also knows about their future. So He is the one to go to to get information and wisdom and guidance on how to parent these kids. And so He is my first stop every day in raising them, in discovering them. But in this process of Raising a Luke 2:52 Kid, He's my first stop in helping me figure out what goals I want to set for them. Allow God to lead you to the best goals for your child this semester. Pick one goal per category, the four categories that I mentioned, wisdom, stature, favor with God, favor with man. We're going to dive more into those, don't worry. Then pray throughout the semester about these goals. Ask God to provide opportunities for your child to grow in these areas. Ask God to help you remain alert for times when you can praise your child's improvements in these areas. After all, praise what you want to become permanent. Implement some ways for your child to practice each of these goals. That is the system for Raising a Luke 2:52 Child. So let me say those again really quick. Pray, Pick,(pick one from each category), Pray some more that God would give you eyes that are always open to the different opportunities He's bringing along, Praise them for what you want to become permanent about that area, and then Practice, create ways for them to practice all of these four goals that you have for them. So let's look at each one. So the first one, Jesus grew in wisdom. What's the most important improvement that your child needs to make academically or in a mental health area this semester? What one weakness- now all of these, I'm just giving you here some, some brainstorming questions to help you figure out what might be the best wisdom goal for your child this six months- what one weakness in this area is holding him back the most? Or what is the strength that your child has in an academic area that you'd like to foster even more growth in that area? For example, maybe they're really into astronomy right now. Well let's maximize that time. If they're excited about it, they're going to soak it in so much more than if it's something that they're just, you know, being forced to do as a school project or something. Right now, um, my 10 year old is very into the Titanic. She thinks that's super interesting. So she's just soaking in all kinds of info about that. Not because she has to, maybe your wisdom goal is going to be math because they're really struggling or having a hard time with math right now. So it would be:"okay, this is my number one academic goal for my child this semester is getting them more solid in math, getting them to the most solid place they are capable of being at in math." So then you would figure out some ways to implement that, such as: I do a little math basket where I put different math manipulatives in it, and they can pick out of that basket every day. They need to spend 10 minutes from something in the basket. Now this is on top of their regular math homework and so these are hands-on, more fun ways to do math. For example, my 10 year old, she still needs to be more solid on her multiplication and division, so it's things related to that that are in her math basket. There's these things called wrap-ups. They're these little handheld things that you pull a string and twist and do these little things to help you study your multiplication tables. There's all kinds of little things that you can pick up even at the Dollar Tree or at Walmart at, you know, wherever you shop, just looking for some little math manipulatives. There is a website, Rainbow Resources, they have a lot of different math manipulatives. Okay, so maybe the academic thing that you want to work on with them most of the semester that's most important, that is most key or else is holding them back most- maybe it's their ACT prep. So you begin looking into what's the best ACT prep out there. I know for us, we have really liked on the official ACT website, which I'm trying to think of the name of that website right now. I'll have to put it in the show notes. Anyway, they have an online prep course that is really cool because you take an online test on there, a sample test, and then it figures out what are your weak areas and it designs the practice for that child every day based on what their weaknesses are. You even put in when the date is of the test that you're going to take the rea l AC T tes t th at you're going to take, so it will formulate a daily scheduled plan for them to study. It' ll gi ve them stu dy th ings right there to do on the program based on that date and based on what their weaknesses are. So I just think that's so cool and it's also really affordable. All right. Maybe the wisdom goal that you're going to pick is they just need to be more prepared for adult life. Maybe it's coming soon and they need to be more ready, so maybe it's budgeting. Maybe you want them to do... Dave Ramsey has this awesome teen mon ey ma n agement co urse. Maybe time management is holding them back the most, maybe they're really slow when they're doing their schoolwork, s o this semester we're goi ng to fo cus on time management skills. So you're going to take some time to help them make a daily schedule or help them to set a timer and track how quickly they're doing something. And then, you know, maybe they're goin g to w ri te down everything they did for three days with time s bes ide it. And then you guys are going to evaluate that and you're goin g to g et a game plan for what you can do to improve that. And he can try that out then and then do it again, you know. So anyway, it's just figuring out what is their weak spot and being all in with them, being really partnering with them to overcome their biggest obstacle, their biggest hurdle right now. Or it could be that the goal you want to set is based on something they are rea lly into and exc ited about. Maybe you're thinking that the y're really good at STEM science things and so you want to give them a lot of STEM opportunities this semester to figure out if in fact they want to be looking in an engineering field for their future. So those are a few examples of what you could pick for your wisdom goal for your student or your, I said student, but I mean your child. It just happens to be that we're talking about wisdom, so we're talking about a lot of knowledge things therefore, and ends up seeming academic in nature, but really wisdom on anything. Maybe, maybe they need more wisdom about the dangers on the internet or the dangers of about strangers in public or about not giving information out to people or, or not trusting everybody with every bit of information about their life. You know, you be prayerful and let God direct you in what is the top wisdom thing your child needs this semester? Okay, the second section, Jesus grew in wisdom. Jesus grew in stature. So setting a stature goal is this this semester where your child will learn to ride a bike or mow the lawn or learn to play the trumpet. Does your child have some learning limitations that could be improved with crossing the midline exercises? You know, if they struggle with certain kinds of things, sometimes a parent will know, you know, I know they're not dyslexic, but they're having some kind of issues. Try midline exercises. You can just look those up online and see those, but they're literally physical exercises that you can do to help their brain make some changes in the way it does. Some thinking, okay, does your child want to start baseball? Maybe you want to incorporate active play or exercise at the top of every hour throughout the day in breaks, you know, during Christmas break or if you homeschooled during the school year. I do that every hour. I want my kids to be moving some, it's better for their life in every way if they get some movement regularly. Even improving handwriting could be the physical goal for the semester. If their handwriting is really holding them back. For example, maybe they're really slow at it or it's so unclear that they can't see it, or maybe you would like to help them learn cursive so that they could be faster or shorthand so that they could be even faster at taking notes. For example, you know, what is the one stature or physical goal that would most help your child this semester? All right, now we're ready for the third goal. Jesus grew in wisdom. Jesus grew in stature. Jesus grew in favor with God, so your child's relationship with God is the single most important category of life. Make it a top priority to pray for their, their walk with Christ, to pray with them about their walk with Christ. Do they know the plan of salvation? Do they have a personal relationship with Jesus? Are they spending time in the word of God regularly? It's going to be awfully hard for them to get the wisdom of the word if they never spend time in it. Do they know how to study the Bible? Would it be good for you to get a book on? How to study the Bible or there's also lots of good ideas online, honestly, that I've looked up to help my teens and middle-schoolers know how to study the Bible or are they struggling with a particular sin in their life such as lying or laziness or bride or revenge. Are there some character issues that they may need to improve such as complaining or obedience or anger or maybe they are really motivated right now in a certain aspect of interest in God and maybe they could be. You could give them opportunities to study that or to go on a missions trip. My kids, I've been really big on having missions as part of their life and it has been so impactful. Another thing right along those lines is volunteering and the big impact that can have on their character, on their worldview, on their view of themselves, on their view of God. So many things. We're actually going to do a whole podcast on volunteering on how to help our kids get more volunteering and the importance of it and what a difference it makes. Okay, so this would be the section on setting a goal about favor with God. You know, I'm guessing that for a lot of you you're hearing that and you're going, Oh yeah, that makes sense and that would be good, but how in the world are we going to have time to do that? And I don't even know where to start. You know, if they're little, then start by doing a fun Bible devotional with them. My very favorite one is called the pray and play Bible. It's got really big pictures, a really short story, and then it's got two or three pages full of really simple, quick fun ways for you as a parent to help them understand that that Bible story that they just read. So it's got little prayers in it, little songs in it, little crafts in it, little action games to do. So it is just packed full of really, really great ideas. So that would be a great place to start just doing an emotional like that. Or maybe you have a daughter. I have a 10 year old and we're doing a great Bible study that my good friend Amy gave me. So in the show notes I will give you some examples of different uh, items, resources that could be helpful based on the different age groups of your kids for this area. And then step four. So Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God and favor with me. And so we're on favor with me. And now is there a particular relationship that needs help? Do they have some social skills, weaknesses, or do they lack a particular manner? Is it time to learn how to be a good friend? These would all be examples. Really the category that's kind of my passion is relationships and people skills because I feel like it's such a critical part of our whole life. Our whole life is about the relationships we have. Even in a job, your child's going to grow up and have a job and their success is going to depend largely for sure on their character. You know, whether they have integrity and a strong work ethic and whether they're reliable but also their people skills because they could be super smart and if they don't know how to interact with others, it's going to really hold them back. It's going to hold their business back if you don't have good people skills, if you haven't taught your child how to have good people skills. So this category of favor with men is just so critical for all aspects of their life, for their marriage, for their siblings. You want their sibling relationships to be ones that they keep their whole life. And that partly is really dependent on how they learn how to be friends with their siblings. So you would just pray or fully evaluate God, what is the relationship issue or this people skills issue that is most critical for my child to learn next. So again, we're praying about this. We are then picking a goal. We're praying that God would keep our eyes open to the opportunities that he brings along throughout the next six months for them to learn and grow in this area. And you're praising when you see growth improvement in this area and you also are getting a game plan for them to practice this area, so I hope that taking a little bit of time on this topic of raising a Luke two 52 kid will be helpful to you. Now I have a couple of resources on my website that may be helpful to you regarding this. My website is practically speaking mom.com and if you'll go to shop, so go to practically speaking mom.com click on shop. Then you're going to see raising a Luke two 52 kid. You're going to see two different things. One is a laminated poster that we can mail to you. This is not a big poster. This is a mom sized poster. You don't want to take up a huge space with this goal, but it just is a spot for you to write out the four goals for your kids and then on the back of it, it gives all of this brainstorming exercises for you to do to help figure it out. Now I've had one, not customer, it's a listener. It's a mom friend. Anyway, she got this off of my website and then she contacted me and said that she did it also with her kids, like she had her kids take the time to go through and set one goal in each of these four areas and I was like, Oh my goodness, that is so great. I love that. Why have I not ever thought of that or implemented that with my kids? So maybe that's how you would want to use this goal poster. Since it's laminated, they can change it every six months, but then they have it hanging up for them to see on their bathroom mirror or by their bed or you know, wherever or it's one for you to keep in front of you for you to be praying for them about. Now also you can just download the same thing. So that's the second thing that is available and of course downloading it is a lot less expensive. I think it's$2 to download this item, which is the goal poster, and then the brainstorming page of helping you figure out how to set your goals and action items to take. So anyway, I hope that you will find this as beneficial as I have found it through the years when I look back over how God has shaped, um, each step of the way for my kids' lives. I am so, so thankful that he showed me this years ago because it, it was really an opportunity for me to focus as a parent instead of feeling overwhelmed and discouraged about all the imperfections that are there that, that need to be worked on. It helped me not be discouraged because I had hope. I had a plan of action that brought hope. And it also meant that I had very focused prayers for my kids because I was being prayerful about these four key aspects of a person, wisdom, stature, favor with God, favor with man, or a wisdom being their application of knowledge. The most effective way to apply knowledge in a given situation. That's wisdom. Or it could be about mental health stature that would be a physical health. So I didn't mention that as an option, but you know, maybe they need to make a change like drinking more water, eating more veggies, eating less junk, getting processed food out of your house, uh, reducing things with, with dyes in them that could be causing some character issues in your kids that's very physically based. And then the third one favor with God that is looking at their spiritual health, their relationship with God, their character development. You know, the fruit of the spirit in their life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control, those sound familiar. That's the fruit of the spirit and maybe one of those that growth needs to happen in, in this semester. And then favor with man that is relationships and social skills. So those four areas, getting a game plan for your child or incorporating them into the process of setting those goals and prayerfully setting those goals, which I just think is fabulous. So thank you Julie for that good idea. So God bless all of you this week. As you prayerfully consider adding raising a Luke two 52 kid system into your life, I believe that you will find benefit in taking the time to do that. And again, you want to jump on the show notes this week so that I can show you in there some different Bible studies or different recommendations that I have regarding that and also links to raising a Luke two 52 kid download or the poster and instructions that I can send in the mail if you prefer. All righty. God bless you. At the beginning of this episode we had Emma on here to share a few Bible resources with us and she's going to share about another one. Emma, there's another series that you and I both really enjoy. What's it called?

Emma Harrison: 32:03

It's called the we believe series. Can you tell us about it? So it basically is a whole CD of parables, modern day parables. And at the end of each story it tells us a verse that goes along with the parables and then it asks questions about it. Such as how was Rachel being kind to this person? Or how did she trust God and this situation. Okay, what is a parable? Um, it's a story that teaches something.

Val Harrison: 32:44

Yeah, it's basically, it's a story that teaches the lesson. You got it. Okay. So thank you Emma for joining us today. I'm going to share about a couple more resources, but

Emma Harrison: 32:54

thank you for joining us. Bye. Merry Christmas.

Val Harrison: 32:58

Okay, so let me tell you about a few other resources for a little bit older. There's a series called true you and it is available on Amazon prime for free to watch. It's awesome. And it's for, it's really designed for teenagers, but we've enjoyed it with, you know, Emma as young as eight, you know, up through adults. We've all really, really enjoyed it. And basically this series is about the scientific, it's using science to verify God and truth in the Bible and showing that they're not in competition with each other and they're, they don't conflict with each other. They reinforce each other. And so that is called true you. There's multiple series, isn't it? Like does God exist is the first one. Uh, is the Bible reliable, is the second one and they're all so good. So I really, really would encourage you to look at those. I have some more resources and they're all going to be in the show notes. Plus in my blog post that is called raising a Luke two 52 kid, I almost forgot to tell you if you're interested in the Luke two 52 resources, we have two options for you. It's$7 to have the goalposts are sent to you. Shipping is free. Some people like to have one per child. Some people just want one so that you have the, you know, if you were to put all of the kids' goals on one, it's eight and a half by 11 and it's laminated and you can write on it and erase. And then the other option is a$2 download and it's going to have your, you know, a little gold poster and the instructions. So both of them contain the same information. It's just one is made for you and laminated and the other one you download. So those are both available on my website, practically speaking, mom.com and just click on the shop.

Emma Harrison: 34:59

Emma, would you like to do our outro for us? Sure, I'd love to first, can I mention another resource? Sure. Okay, well it's called Jonathon park and it's also about how science and the Bible connect perfectly and it's really cool and it says a lot of Bible verses with it and like they take adventures and it's a whole family of missionaries and uh, yeah. So it's really cool.

Val Harrison: 35:34

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and practically speaking,

Emma Harrison: 35:38

mom, intentional mom, strong family. You can find lots more from the practically speaking mom at practically speaking, mom.com there you'll find mom's blog books and the six rooms of the intentional moms home. If you found this podcast to be helpful, we would be honored if you would share it with others. Subscribe to the podcast, follow her blog and join in the practically speaking mom online community through Instagram and Facebook at practically speaking, mom. Mom also has a private Facebook group for intentional moms and she would love to get to know you there to be a part of it. Join the private Facebook group called intentional moms strong family. Join today to give feedback about the episode, ask questions and to interact personally with vow and lots of other intentional moms. Again, that's the private Facebook group, intentional mom, strong family. If you think other moms would benefit from this podcast, would you please put a review on iTunes so that iTunes will recommend this podcast to moms when they search? Mom is looking forward to spending time with you again next week. Right here on the practically speaking mom podcast, the place for an intentional mom to build a strong family. See you soon.