Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Today we're going to talk about chapter one in William Gooshe's book on child raising and of course the focus of it is really about parental love and we have our wives with us today. Hey that's fantastic. Hope you enjoy the discussion. So there are two really pivotal things that parents need to make sure they're rolling really clearly on.

And the first is that God's given them authority. God has given them exclusive authority in their families with their children, but that's not the end of it. God has also appointed them to promote love, actually to incite love in their children, And William Gooch talks about this in a really beautiful way. He talks about a parent's love like the heat coming off of a wall heated by the Sun. In other words, the children are experiencing sort of the emanations of their love.

He says it like this, therefore the heat of the Sun shining much and long on a stone wall draws reflection of heat from that wall. So the hot beams of parents love which with fervency and constancy are cast on children ought to provoke and stir up children to send forth a reflection of love to their parents. I thought that was beautiful. So that's what we want to talk about. How do parents insight love?

And so I'm just going to throw out, we're just going to throw out questions and it'll be like a lightning round response, okay? Okay, how do parents cultivate a child's affection through love? You know, I couldn't believe Goose started with this because I don't know how many times we've had this conversation in our house. How parents, husband and a wife, so forget about parents, let's talk about husbands and wives, how they relate to each other impacts their children before you even get to the child training stuff. So, Gujj has an appreciation for this too.

And so, he actually starts with it and talks about how important it is that parents love each other as a starting point for parenting children. Right. I think when a husband and wife love each other, really love each other and work at it, that's automatically going to be training your children to respond in the same way because that's how you're going to train them. You're not going to let them snip at you because you don't snip at each other. And so I would think that that would be a benefit, like osmosis kind of thing.

It's forever for your marriage. It's a good thing to always, always have affection in your marriage. Like when you answer the phone and you see on caller ID that it's your husband, you don't just say, hey, what's up? But you say, hey, what's up? And your kids hear that and it keeps your marriage loving and you have so many, so fewer problems when you train up your children with that kind of an atmosphere.

Husbands and wives, if you've thought of this as two different silos, marriage and parenting, know that that's not so. This is a single silo and everything you're doing on the marriage side is having an impact that You have no idea how much weight it carries into the parenting and child training area of life. Well, because you're demonstrating authority and submission, you know, every time, you know, you're together, you know, it's this this back and forth relational dance that husbands and wives are really called by God to do. And so, you know, you want children to respect authority, you want them to submit, and you want them to love one another. So all of that gets collected up in the marriage relationship.

I was just picturing of a husband and wife who are just somewhat cold, not necessarily mean to each other, but maybe just the kids don't really see how much they really do appreciate each other and love each other. And you think that you do think of child raising as a separate category. The kids don't see it that way. They're watching, they're taking their cues from you. You can say all the right things till you die, but they're not going to believe you if you're not living them out.

So to me the life you live in the home as a husband and wife and as parents, If you're not acting out the golden rule to each other, they're not going to either. That goes for lots of categories, but the golden rule is top of mind for me. Always has been because of my mom and what she taught us and how she and my dad acted. They put others above themselves. We want to do the same.

We want to show our kids, like when you answer the phone and you're so cheery with Scott, do you always really feel like being cheery? No, you might be in the middle of milking a cow or something for all I know. But you know, or you might, you young mom, you might be in the middle of changing the third diaper and being so sick of changing diapers. That was in the last hour, you know. So you might be really sick of the thing you're doing right then, But to make the conscious decision to answer cheerily anyway, your kids, as they get older, watch that.

And they know, Mom wasn't really all that happy when Dad called, and she turned it on for him because that's good and right. And then you feel it after you do it. But anyway, our kids are watching all those little things. If you want to blow up honor in your house, then be a husband that disobeys the command. In 1 Peter, husbands honor your wives.

If you want to blow up submission in your house, then you wives, all you have to do is not submit to your husband. And you've created sort of this family culture of dishonor and lack of submission, which is actually the formula for success in your whole life long. So it's pretty important. So we have seen so many examples of the marriage relationship gutting the child training efforts, Like good child training efforts get laid aside because of the things that are happening in the marriage. So that wasn't very lightning-y.

Let's move on to the next one. So here's the next question for the lightning round. We'll try to make it more lightning-like this time. How does despising parents manifest itself? Have you ever seen children be dismissive of adults, of their parents, you know?

Sometimes children are allowed to be dismissive to their parents, and it's appalling. I'm not advocating that every child does this, but there was a day when children stood up for parents or any older person when they walked in the room, in Jonathan Edwards' family, the kids always rose when their parents walked into the room. You know, I don't think that's something you have to impose, but there was something going on there, and he actually had honorable children. If you go to Ephesians 6, the calling for children is honor and obedience. And I think it's right to say obedience is actually a subset of honor, meaning honor is more dispositional.

And when you talk about the despising of the parents, that is a disposition. So we're talking about how does that manifest itself? Well, dispositions always manifest themselves when instead of honor you have despising as the disposition, the outworkings of that in obedience, in tone of voice, in rolling of eyes or looking to, you know, all those things come out. They have to come out. This is how we operate.

So here's another statement, question. How should parents help their kids listen respectfully to them. And I'm gonna loop back to where we started. It really helps if a husband listens respectfully to his wife and a wife listens respectfully to her husband. And they actually let each other talk.

I think it begins there, but at the at the same time we all know kids are kids and they need to be taught. They need to learn how to listen and pay attention and be respectful. So how do parents do that? Gooch has this hilarious quote when he's talking about children needing to listen quietly to their parents. He says, though parents in their speech may seem to be long and tedious, Yet children must endure it.

Hey, the truth is when you have an authority and submission relationship, the judgment about whether it's long or tedious doesn't belong to the child, it belongs to the parent. So the child just needs to acknowledge that. This feels long and tedious to me, but this is my mom speaking. This is my dad speaking. And so it's my job to sit quietly and listen respectfully.

I think another thing you need is time with your kids, especially if you're talking about a mom with four or five kids, it's so easy to just pass over things because you have so many. Take the time it takes to get down with that child and talk to them about whatever it is that he's not listening or he's not speaking kindly. But it takes so much time to parent this way, but it is so worth it to make sure you have your kids. And do it when it doesn't matter. When they just want to tell you about the thing they found outside and you're like, you found a stick just like that the previous 10 days.

But they want to tell you about it. You have to be willing to listen. And it takes a lot of time, mom, to step aside from the things you have in your mind, your list of things, put down your phone, put down the other things and listen to your child. There's nothing more important than giving them some undivided attention, especially when you have a lot of kids. You better take the opportunities when they present themselves because it might not again for a few days.

And dads too, dads too. I think that takes us back to the whole beginning illustration of William Gooshe on the wall that's being warmed by the sun. On the one hand, you've got to teach your children by example what respect is in conversation. But also you've got help them understand when they're goofing up and to explain to them, no, this is how we do it. And that might be role-playing, but here, look, come on, you need to say that differently, okay?

Reframed that in a respectful way. So all families have isms, you know, the sayings in the house. My children will tell you one of the sayings that they appreciated because it was a shot across the bow to let them know the waters that they were going into. So I felt like one of my children was being too free in how they spoke to either me or my wife. I would say something like this, That is the strangest way I've ever heard to say, yes, ma'am.

And they knew at that moment that they were at a decision point to either continue down the track or to change the track. This is a weird way to say, thank you, mom. But hey, it's good to have some of those things where you don't go straight into discipline, rebuke, correction, but there are some lighthearted ways to let them know, oh, you're coming right up against the line. In my mind, you might want to turn around and just give them the opportunity to turn around. Often they do.

One thing about Gujja's comment about parenting, maybe being long and tedious, their words, I would encourage you to, when you're giving instruction, especially to younger children, don't be long and tedious. The kindness for your children is to be short and to the point so that they can really understand and be repetitive. Little kids don't remember. I don't remember. Little kids don't remember.

We're all the same. Be repetitive and be short with your words. Out of kindness is the golden rule with children. What's good for them? What's most helpful for them?

As they get older, you explain a little more maybe. But still, I remember one time Jason heard me fussing at some poor child, he's like, baby, less words, just give them a spanking. And I thought, that is gold. I was just talking them to death, and they get the glazed look. They're not really hearing it anyway.

So the point was, what they really need was a quick spanking, understanding, move on. They don't need a five-point gospel presentation every time they do something wrong. They need to understand what they did wrong, and they need to understand that you love them so much, and you need to move on. You know, Deborah would often hear me talking, you know, to my 13, 14-year-old son, and she would pull me aside, and she would say, Scott, you're talking to him like he's five Okay, he's not five He's like almost a man might be acting five Just can't I've told lots of my friends that are struggling with their two, three, four year old in the middle of major child training. You're in the trenches.

We call it boot camp. I've told them, you know, you're the parents. They're the two year old. It's their job to disobey. And it's just your job to help them not disobey, and to help them learn what all the rules are.

Don't get upset. They're not out to get you. They're just little children being little children, and you're just a mom and dad giving a job by the Lord to help them that you're supposed to help them honor and obey. And it's their job to be kids and figure out what all that is. And so the more clear you are setting those boundaries, it's so kind to your children to be clear with the boundaries so they know what to expect from you.

Is mom gonna Say you know that was wrong on the first time the second time the third time the fourth time be clear with your children help them understand what you're thinking and Keep it short Next question how should parents help their kids keep from being too bold too indiscreet and interrupting Well Gooch talks about that He lists all those in that first chapter. And, you know, I think he's really talking about how you train your children not to be the way that they are, they just are. You know, parents have a duty to take their children from one place to another. And, you know, you mentioned too bold, indiscreet, interrupting. You know, those are different categories of of unprofitable speech, you know, in children.

I'll take interrupting. It's of course, you know, one of the most common things, but if you're a husband and a wife are always interrupting each other, if you don't have rules of engagement, It's going to be harder for your kids, but you've got to teach your kids rules of engagement. It goes far better if you learn how to listen. This was one of the brilliant outcomes of Charlie Kirk's life, and he was just recently murdered. And he actually listened to people.

He would let people talk and talk and talk. And he would wait till they're done and he would ask them a question. He was constantly asking questions. And that's, you know, teaching your children to wait and to ask questions is one of the most powerful things they'll ever learn. And all of these things are really under the banner of your children relating to you as if you're peers.

So it's very true in child training, you only get what you insist on. So if you don't want your children to act towards you as if they are your peer, then you have to insist that they not do that. You have to put a stop to it and insist that they not do that. Yeah, because all of them will seize that spot if you allow them to, because they actually see themselves that way. It's part of the corruption in us, is that we buck against authority relationships and want to just crawl right up onto that level.

All of our children want to do that. It's in all of their hearts. And if you don't insist on better, you won't get better. Okay, so there are a bunch of ways that parents can love their children and bring them along, teach them along the way, deal with all the absolutely normal problems of dishonor and disobedience and talk-iveness and interrupting and indiscretion and all that. Hey, that's why parents are there, is to take their kids from one place to another.

But it all flows from love, Like that warm wall being warmed by the sun, reflecting, radiating, you know, to the children. So let the parents love their children. Can I give one parting shot? No. Yeah, go ahead.

Just one. Okay. So, parents see the command to children, to honor and obey their parents. It's easy for us to think that this is a command to children, but all children are naturally backwards to these things. And so it's actually, in a way, a command to parents to secure it.

If you don't secure it, you won't get it because they don't come out of the womb with a natural disposition towards honor and obedience. It's quite the contrary. And so, we should view this as a command to us to go secure that for the blessing of our children. It's actually good for our children that it may be well with them. I've heard lots of moms say in front of their children, they disdain their children.

They talk poorly about, especially when you have lots of little ones, your life's so hard, okay it is hard. Don't ever speak in front of your children as if they're a problem or an issue to be solved or a burden. They pick up on that. We're talking about loving our children. And I've just heard people talk in front of their children, even just a little bit, even just, even the hint of that.

Children pick up on those things. You need to be very sure to be careful how you speak in front of your children about your husband and about them. No, I think that's really, really important. I heard somebody say just recently that they're talking to somebody who was saying that he had a hard time liking certain children in his family, and I thought, oh, no, no, That's not the Lord's way. Okay.

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