Parenting Q&A

Bethlehem Bible Church iconBethlehem Bible Church

5 views

0 comments

00:00
Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity we have to gather together in your name to be reminded again of your goodness and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
00:12
Father, I pray that you would bless our time as Pastor Mike and I talk and as we consider how we might best parent and parent in wisdom, parent according to your word, and Father, parent as best as seems to us.
00:31
Father, I pray that you'd give the parents of BBC wisdom as they seek to guide and nurture their own children and to do so with grace and love and kindness and in the instruction and nurture and admonition of the
00:46
Lord. We pray for these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, you know how
00:52
I love quizzes, but let me start out because we are going to have a quiz this morning. Only Pastor Mike is going to be taking the quiz.
00:59
Everything's a covenant of works around here. Covenant of works. I just found this online and I thought this is an interesting place to start and it will lead into our first question.
01:11
Researchers examined about 221 million prescriptions written for millions of Americans between ages 12 to 25 and these are the years 2016 to 2022, so recent.
01:24
Researchers additionally separated the data before and after March 2020 when COVID started.
01:31
The increase for SSRIs among young women and girls was very prominent.
01:40
The monthly rate increased 130 % faster among 12 to 17 year old girls and about 57 % faster among young women between the ages of 18 to 25.
01:53
There are also vastly increased suicide rates among young men.
01:59
So, somebody sent this to me and they said there's a book out called The Anxious Generation.
02:05
The author is a secular psychologist, but this book provides in -depth formal studies and mountains of data to support some really important ideas.
02:14
More kids are medicated than ever before. The big ideas of the book are no smartphones before high school, no social media before 16, preferably 18, give kids more real -world play with other kids.
02:30
So, my question for you, Pastor Mike, after that long introduction is, is this just legalism?
02:36
Is this all just law? Well, the answer is it is all law, but I don't really think it's legalistic.
02:43
What we wanted to do this morning is talk about parenting, but we kind of wanted to preface it this way.
02:50
Remember the format for decision making? What do the scriptures say?
02:56
And of course, if they say it, that's binding. Then there's the category of wisdom.
03:02
What does wisdom say, right? And you can ask, not everybody at once, the
03:12
Lord, right? James chapter one, he generously gives wisdom, so there's wisdom to be found. And then after that, what are your desires, right?
03:19
If you're walking in the spirit and you're worshiping and you're reading the word of God, what do you desire to do?
03:25
So, I want to preface it this morning by saying what Steve and I'll talk about today. Many of these things aren't a Bible verse.
03:31
They're just wisdom from two geriatrics. That's all they are. That means he's old.
03:38
And so, at Bethlehem Bible Church, I know you've been trained. Well, what does the Bible say? You know, give me chapter and verse.
03:45
And sometimes there's not a chapter and a verse, right? And there's just common general knowledge. And the
03:51
Bible even says to go outside the Bible to learn things, such as if you watch an ant, right?
03:57
In the Proverbs, it says, watch the ant. So, I just wanted to preface that so you don't email Steve and say, what about this?
04:04
That was just your opinion and I disagree with you. It's okay if you disagree. As long as you're thinking through these things, we would be happy, right?
04:11
Yes. So, is it legalism to tell your children, what was it again, no smartphones? Yeah, no social media before 16 and probably not till 18.
04:22
No, let's see, what are the other ones? No smartphones. Yeah, no smartphones before high school.
04:29
And more real world play. In other words, no fake world play, which would be online gaming and all that kind of stuff.
04:37
Well, if I had to do it over again, I would wait longer to give my children smartphones. I remember the children had to put together a presentation,
04:48
Maddie and Gracie, why they should have a smartphone. And they had all these charts and graphs. And it was like this assignment that they learned in school.
04:55
I think I would have waited. And of course, when we grew up, there were no phones at all, except, you know, the dial phones, rotary dial phones on the wall locked in.
05:04
And somehow we survived. Yeah. How did you find out that your friends were home? You went over their house, you know what
05:09
I mean? Right, right. And so I think you could still have a flip phone for kids if you needed to be reminded of where they were and safety and all that stuff.
05:17
And so with the smartphones, I remember Luke saying to me, Dad, whenever a kid at the playground said, look at this, he knew what was coming.
05:25
It was going to be pornography. And so I don't think it's legalism. I think it's just wise. Be careful how soon you introduce smartphones and the whole world, right,
05:35
World Wide Web to your children. And so I don't think it's legalism at all. When we think about the law, as you know,
05:42
Steve, it's coming from the hand of the parent who loves and provides.
05:48
And it's not a law that says, if you don't do this, you're no longer my child. But since I love you and have cared for you and provided for you, dad and mom think this is best.
05:58
And so we're going to not let you have a phone. Yeah. But everybody else has smartphones. Everyone else. But we're going to we're going to wait so that you don't have these temptations and you're going to have to trust us.
06:09
Maybe you disagree. But what's the mission when you disagree and you just go along?
06:16
Right. And so I think it's not legalism, although it's law. We don't want you children to have smartphones and social media until you're old enough to be able to process it.
06:29
Right. You have to be a certain age to vote. You have to be a certain age to drive a car. I mean, if I was a kid, I'd probably say, dad,
06:35
I could drive a car at 16. Why can't I use social media? What would you say to that? What would I say?
06:41
I because I was just thinking about this. I was going to ask you the question. So I know this is more fun. So I answer it.
06:47
I mean, what are the benefits of social media for me? I can say, you know, what are the benefits?
06:53
Well, you know, a lot of times I learn. Here's a pastoral hint for you. I learned what's going on with people in the church.
07:01
Right. Through social media. I find out what some of my friends around the country are doing via social media.
07:11
What for a young person could they learn from social media that they really need to learn?
07:19
Probably not much. And I would tend to think, you know, there's more social media. I mean, we read all the time about social media and what's the next phrase that usually comes in, especially when you're talking about junior high and high school.
07:33
The next word is bullying. That's almost always the next word that somebody is getting bullied or they're getting maligned or however you want to phrase it on social media.
07:47
Somebody is making fun of their appearance or whatever it is. And that's just kind of the way things go.
07:54
So, you know, when they need social media, that's kind of a funny thing, isn't it?
08:00
When do you need it? Well, really, never. How many of you don't have a social media account at all?
08:08
Do you feel deprived? Troglodyte Bible Church.
08:14
Yeah. I mean, and you know, there are some social media platforms that I just think are they're designed for cruelty.
08:24
And what do you suppose that is, by the way? Well, I'll ask you, what do you think the people act more brutally on social media than they do in real life?
08:33
Well, there's no social. It's not very social. Social media isn't very social.
08:39
There's it's easier to forget about etiquette if the person is not standing in front of you.
08:44
Right. You can write a scathing letter or email or text or something on social media and you don't have to deal with the person's fallout right there.
08:52
Yeah. I mean, let's just talk about our dads for a second. I dare say if social media were a thing in my dad's day, people would have been very nice to him on social media.
09:01
You know, might they have been nice to your dad, too? And there was a reason for it because you didn't want to face my dad, you know, six, seven.
09:08
And, you know, I mean, he was a he was a big dude, you know, and things didn't go well for people who spoke ill of my dad.
09:16
So, you know, social media would have been like he would have had a list. You know, he's making a list.
09:22
He's checking it twice. See, one of the things I think we did along these lines is we didn't tell the children no all the time.
09:30
Sometimes we said no, but sometimes we said just wait, right? There's appropriate time. And so if you're just the kind of parent that only says no, no to this, no to that, no to the other, it kind of becomes laborious.
09:42
And so we would try to say, I mean, if you're talking big picture, well, what about sex? We're not telling the children, no, this is a good gift from God.
09:50
It's enjoyable. It's pleasurable. And you wait until you're married. I remember when my daughter said,
09:56
Dad, can we wear bikinis? And I said, you know, when can we wear bikinis? I just didn't say no, you never can.
10:03
I said, you can wear them on your honeymoon. There's a time where you can wear a bikini.
10:08
It's just not no, no, no. I think we have to be careful that we're not, especially maybe for me and maybe you with your background, my dad being a
10:17
Korean War vet, it's kind of military stuff around the house. And it's just orders. No, no, no.
10:23
And so I would probably tell my children, there's a time you can't have a smartphone and there's a time you can be on social media, but now's not the time.
10:31
And so let's work on these things to achieve those goals, to get on social media. And I, while you're saying that,
10:38
I'm thinking, you know, there's a tendency, because when we, when we pray, what are the answers that we get from the
10:43
Lord? You know, sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's no. And by the way, they're not audible answers, but sometimes it's yes, sometimes it's no.
10:51
And sometimes it's not yet. And, you know, the problem with parents, when they say, you know, let's just pretend you're a child for a moment.
10:58
You say, you know, dad, can I have a smartphone? And I say, not yet. What's the next word? And the answer is not yet.
11:07
And so as a parent, you have to just learn how to say not yet means not yet.
11:14
And this discussion is over, you know. And as they get older, we dialogue with them more, right?
11:21
When children are small, I don't think they need an explanation, right? When Adam sinned, God didn't say, why did you do that?
11:28
He said, what did you do? And so I think when children are small, we just, what did you do? And now these are the consequences, positive or negative.
11:36
And then as they get older, of course, we dialogue with them and reason it out. And we want them to kind of think through process.
11:45
Yeah. And so sometimes those conversations with my kids and I would end, you know, they'd say, well, when dad?
11:51
And I'd say, I'd give him the, you know, Darth Vader pinch. And just kind of, and my day we gave him the
11:58
Spock Vulcan grip. Yeah, there you go. I thought there were four, four answers to prayer.
12:06
Yes, no, slow grow. Okay. All right.
12:12
All right. There you have it. I thought there was going to be some kind of yes, no, maybe in Vulcan pinch. So, okay.
12:24
How far should parents go in monitoring the activities of their children? Should they look at their cell phones, their
12:31
Facebook posts, their emails? You know, what about their right to privacy? I'm trying to be nice.
12:40
If you're living in my home, at least this is how we did it in our family. You guys are free to do it however you like in your family.
12:46
But I knew all the children's social media passwords, email accounts, everything.
12:54
And sometimes we would check. And I think that helped the kids. I mean, they're far from perfect, but that helped them knowing mom and dad could be checking.
13:02
Right. If you would write things, knowing someone might be checking, you'd probably write things differently.
13:09
And of course the Lord sees everything we write. And so I would definitely tell you parents, if you have 13, 14, 15,
13:18
I don't care how old they are. I think if I ask, I think I still have Maddie and Gracie's social media passwords, even though they're out of the house and I haven't checked.
13:27
Hacker! So I think you should be very hands -on.
13:33
And part of this series that Steve and I want to do is we just want to make sure we encourage you parents to be involved and to be engaged.
13:41
The default, especially for men, tends to be laziness, right? God says, you're in the garden,
13:46
Adam. We want you to work. I want you to work. And Adam then does the opposite because of the fall, his own sin.
13:55
And so if we're not careful, we can be lazy, can be busy. We have our hobbies, we have work, we have school, we have church, we have ministries.
14:02
And so we want you to just be engaged with your children. And if you said, I decided at 16 to give them social media, or I don't have their passwords or whatever you want to do,
14:10
I'm not in charge of your family. I'm just trying to say, as an older man with Steve, another older man, these are some things that might be wise.
14:18
And that's the main thrust of our time on Sunday. So I would definitely, if I was on the radio,
14:27
I'd probably say something like, parents, I think it'd be dumb for you to let your children have a social media account and you don't know the password.
14:36
Well, or, you know, why? Or you don't want to be bothered or whatever. You know, I'm reminded of an
14:43
American who once would say things like, trust, but verify, you know, and so as a parent, that was kind of a good phrase for me.
14:56
I remember one child in particular would leave me notes in his room that said, I'm not going to name him, but would say,
15:03
I'm not going to name him. No. They would say privacy, please. And so I would write back, you know, no, or, you know, and put it back where it was, or, you know, you get it when you earn it.
15:18
Or, you know, sometimes I'd hear things like, dad, why do you always catch me lying? And I'm like, better question is, why are you always lying?
15:25
Right? I mean, if you tell the truth, I'm never going to catch you lying. And I would say things like, you know, if you tell me the truth, whatever it is, we can talk it out.
15:38
You know, we can work things out. Could there still be consequences? Absolutely. But the consequences go up.
15:44
The more you dissemble, the more you obfuscate, the more you lie, you know, so don't do it.
15:51
Honesty is the best policy. See, that reminds me, when my children were in a groove of obedience and respect and good attitudes,
15:58
I was more lax in my investigation mode, right? But when I could tell they were off or something was wrong, then
16:04
I'd want to investigate that. When I was 21, I was a camp counselor in an overweight camp.
16:12
My vanity wants to tell you, not because I was overweight, but because I was the sports director for the young people that were overweight.
16:19
And so every night we had to check their dorm rooms because it was a seven -week camp where they spent the night, and we would have to rummage through their rooms to find their hidden snicker bars.
16:29
And so I hid a lot of snicker bars at the fat camp, but they weren't mine. So would
16:39
I investigate my children's room or would I snoop around or do things like that? If they're doing well, then why bother, right?
16:45
But when I think they need some extra hands -on help, then what's the difference between snooping in their room in 1970 to find a pornography magazine or trying to get into their social media and find out where they've been looking?
17:03
I mean, for me, it's kind of like what you said is true, right? The better they're doing, and usually there are hints that things are going amiss, that they're off trajectory there.
17:16
But sometimes there's just like there was a mental clock in my head, almost like playing basketball or something like that, where you're just like tick, tick, tick.
17:25
Something's going on. I don't know what it is, but I'm just going to wander. And usually when
17:30
I ignored that, I was sorry I did. Something else just popped into my mind.
17:38
I think as we watch society getting worse and worse and worse, it's almost akin in my mind,
17:47
Steve, how early do you talk to your children about sex, birds and the bees? Well, society is so degenerate now, you better start earlier than you normally would have, because they're going to learn from somewhere and someone pretty fast.
18:00
And so as society degenerates and social media degenerates more and more and more, it seems like I want to keep them off of that more and more and postpone that until they're more mature to work through these things.
18:15
Good, good. Getting back to the whole right to privacy, what about things like room searches or telling your kids even as they get older, it's time to go to bed or you can't stay up playing whatever,
18:35
Switch or whatever it is that they're playing until one o 'clock in the morning or whatever it is that they want to do.
18:42
How about in their own room, access to internet all night long, stuff like that, or the amount of time they spend online gaming?
18:51
How do you set parameters for them, limitations on them? Again, things that we didn't, our parents never had to face and we probably didn't have to face a lot of this stuff.
19:02
I mean, did you, did your kids have a TV in their room? No. But, but now it's almost like if you, if you don't have one, somehow you're depriving them or, you know, if they don't, if they're not able to carry their game machine everywhere that they go and be in front of it all the time, you're, you're depriving them, you're shorting them.
19:21
When we had children in the home, we didn't have a TV because we're righteous people. And I remember
19:30
Ray Johnson started coming to the church. Ray went to be with the Lord a couple years ago and he said, well, did you see that on TV or whatever?
19:35
I said, we don't have a TV. Of course, proudly. And he said, I think
19:40
I have 22 TVs in the house. I'm going to give you one. So we finally got one, but we didn't put it in the children's bedroom.
19:48
I think it's probably not good advice to have one in your own bedroom, the adult's bedroom. But I mean, I'm not against TVs.
19:54
I'm not against that stuff. That's not really the point. It's a heart issue, but to let a kid have a TV in the room, you know, when they're little, here's when you go to bed, lights out when you're older, or you're doing well, you want to sit in your room and read or something.
20:07
I don't know, crochet, whatever you want to do. Fine. I'm just like, hey, you want to crochet in your room?
20:15
Sure. Go ahead. How many of you have kids who crochet? Wow. I guess
20:21
Pastor Mike knows what he's talking about. Has he secretly started a crocheting class? I don't know.
20:27
That would be a good ministry. Yeah. What did you start? Connect. Crochet.
20:34
Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, to me, it's based on the maturity of the child, how well they're doing.
20:44
Do they excel in other areas? I mean, so it's just a matter of how wise do I want to be.
20:50
But I definitely wouldn't want them to have social media, phones, TVs in their bedroom.
20:58
And right to privacy, we've had in disciplinary cases in our home, having to take the door off the children's room, because everything
21:07
I give you is by grace and by mercy. And you can either earn privileges or have them taken away.
21:14
And you don't own that door. You don't own the right to have a door shut if you're going to be disobedient.
21:19
So I've had to take the door off the hinge before and set it in the garage, saying you're just going to have to have an open door until you can earn these privileges back.
21:27
I mean, people, and I think this goes for parents, parents assume that there's a certain standard of living that they have to provide their kids.
21:36
Well, there's truth to that, right? You need to, even by the law, you need to feed them.
21:42
They need to have a place to sleep. Right.
21:48
But a lot of the things that we give them, I mean, you know, like how many changes of clothes are you obligated to provide?
21:56
I think one. So, and I mean, you know, there are just different children have different pressure points, different ways of getting their attention, in other words.
22:09
You know, and so you might have to do things that you don't think you really want to, but sometimes it's just like a matter of pushing and finding their weak spot so that you can get their attention, get their compliance.
22:23
So that, I mean, because if you have one child who's allowed to run as they want, then what are the other kids learning?
22:32
That we can do whatever we want to, so everybody has to comply. Steve, you mentioned this in your prayer,
22:39
Hebrews chapter 12. If you ask yourself the question, how many verses in the Bible relate to parenting?
22:46
There's quite a few in the Proverbs, but typically it's be a godly parent and you'll know how to be,
22:52
I mean, be a godly Christian and you'll know how to be a godly parent, right? They're related. Godly Christians are godly parents.
23:00
And so the writer of Hebrews said, Paul, they disciplined, that is to say, parents, us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our own good.
23:15
And so some of this is just wisdom. We're just trying, we're working through and what seems best to us.
23:21
And that's a good thing, I think, for you parents to know that wisdom from God and not a playbook is probably the right way to go.
23:35
Other thing that just popped in my mind, if you are a parent that says no to this and no to that and strict, and I think
23:43
I was a strict parent, make sure, dear Christian parent, that you're still a fun parent and that you're not just a law parent.
23:51
And if you think about our heavenly father and all the good gifts he gives us, then we receive those laws from him, from his good, generous, gracious hand, it's just easier.
24:01
And so sometimes I've said to parents, you need to put all the children's clothes out by the road and do this and do that, take the door off, some pretty extreme things because the child was doing extremely sinful things.
24:16
But I don't think they had a relationship with the children of closeness and intimacy and friendship, appropriate friendship.
24:25
And so then they did these dramatic things and it just pushed the child away farther. So make sure, as tough as you are, that you're gracious and generous and fun.
24:34
And I think in my marriage, that was really helped by Kim because Kim's fun. So I wasn't the bad cop and she wasn't the good cop.
24:41
I mean, we switched sometimes, but just the relationship of fun. And so when the children then say, well, dad just took the door off my room, it was not necessarily the door off the room that hurt the most, it was the relationship that was broken, that hurt the most, that he would have to do that.
25:02
And that's kind of how I explained it to them when I was doing it. I just kick in the door.
25:08
But I just always had my battery charged with a screwdriver just in case. It's good.
25:15
It's good. Yeah, I mean, for us, I think we sort of took turns,
25:20
I would say, having fun and disciplining the kids. And when I say it wasn't like,
25:26
OK, it's your turn, Janet, you know, but I mean, she was more, I'd say, more fun around the house.
25:32
And I think I was probably more fun outside of the house. That's just my opinion, because, you know, probably most of you would not know this, but I can be kind of funny and I'm not.
25:48
Well, let's I'm not and I'm not really and I'm not really embarrassed about it. I mean, you know, I remember taking
25:54
Kristen out one time, you know, on a date and having her say, hey, dad, you're embarrassing me.
26:00
And I'm like, well, that's kind of the deal. Right. I mean, that's that's sort of what I do. So get used to it.
26:07
And, you know, she's gotten used to it over a few years here. So when our children are back home, our adult children, and we're just talking about whatever in life, many times that conversation revolves around what we did to correct them or to discipline them or to take away privileges.
26:26
And they're happy about it now. I mean, at the time they didn't like it, but they were just glad that we cared. Right. If you love your children, you're going to be involved and you want to correct them.
26:35
You just don't let them go their own way. I think there's a Bible verse regarding that. Yes. And so I think if it's done from a loving hand, you're going to be fine.
26:44
And I hear my kids, I sort of delight in this when they start talking about how much more strict they are with their kids.
26:50
And I'm like, it's good. You know, you'd be stricter. Good for you. OK, so let's talk about relationships with the opposite sex here.
27:02
What level of we talked about social media, email? Well, we haven't talked much about email, but what sort of communications are appropriate with the opposite sex?
27:15
And when, you know, when we're talking about 14 year olds, should they be making phone calls, emails, you know, back and forth with people from the opposite sex?
27:26
My first job was with the phone company and I would install phones and, you know, the jacks were not modular at the time and they were wired in and everything.
27:36
And some people in Omaha still had in the late 70s party lines. And so the one telephone went to two different, the line went to two houses and if it had a certain ring, you'd pick it up.
27:48
If it had a different ring, the neighbor would pick it up. But what made me think of that is in the old days, if you wanted to talk to a girl, like I wanted to go on a date with a girl and I was 16,
27:58
I had to call the parent's house. And if I have a 16 year old girl in my house,
28:03
I made sure I'm answering the phone. And so you have to kind of, you can weed some of those guys out, right?
28:09
Because if a 16 year old is too afraid to talk to the dad, well, then he's already out. So that's good.
28:15
And now it's very difficult because they can be texting boys and boys can be texting girls all the time behind the scenes.
28:24
So if they didn't have a smartphone, they couldn't do that, right? I guess they could type in those old phones.
28:31
How do you do those old phones? Like you have to get a J, you have to hit six, four times or something, right?
28:37
This is old texting. So I just think this is going to require some hands -on parenting.
28:42
I don't know the exact one, two, three steps, but I want to make sure that the inroads into my daughter's life.
28:50
And if my son is the one being the aggressor, trying to find a girl, I want to make sure I'm involved with that.
28:56
And so I'm not sure what you did, but it's a problem.
29:02
Well, I remember, and this goes back to our relationship back in California, you know, a bunch of us, uh, at the
29:10
Bible study went out to the Hollywood bowl for a concert.
29:15
I think it was a classical music concert or something like that. And there was a teenage girl.
29:22
She was the daughter of a single mom in the group. And she started talking to our son at this thing.
29:30
And she wasn't just talking to him. She was really talking to him. And, you know, to the point where I'm just like, what in the world is going on there?
29:38
And then at the end of the evening, she had some, you know, fancy doohickey because nobody had cell phones. I mean, if you had a,
29:44
I think we had, did we even have one cell phone yet? Maybe we had one for the whole house, you know?
29:50
So it was like, because we had a, no, we did not. Okay. So I had those kinds of, you could have them hardwired into the car.
29:57
Yeah. We could have like the little backpack satchel. No, but she's right. We didn't have one. Cause now, now when I think about it, because, uh, she had this device and it was only, it wasn't a cell phone, but it was just to like, let her, what would you call it?
30:12
Like pager? No, no. Was it, it was like a PR yeah. Like a Palm pilot kind of a, uh, you know, a directory, you know, she could just keep people's information in there.
30:22
And I said, what was that all about? And she, and he says, uh, well, she was getting my phone number and then she started calling.
30:31
And, you know, I think there were a couple of calls and, you know, one of them went on for a while and I was just like, okay, what's going on here?
30:38
Well, you know, she's got a hard life. Okay. Well he's 16 or 17, whatever he was. And she was 15 or 16 or whatever.
30:45
And I just thought, no, this is just not happening, right? This is not going to go on. So I said, you know, just tell her she can't call back.
30:53
So she didn't for a couple of months. And then she called back and, um, he got off the phone with her and I said, okay,
31:01
I thought we agreed. She wasn't a call. And he said, well, she just wanted to let me know that she was pregnant.
31:09
And I remember saying to him, that could have been you, right? I mean, this, this it's, you know, do the phone calls lead to pregnancy?
31:20
No, but you know, there, there are just certain ages where they're not ready for the level of intimacy, for the level of sharing and connectiveness or whatever that they can easily get.
31:35
And you know, that kind of thing, especially in certain situations with certain people can lead to places where they ought not to go.
31:43
We are certainly in a hyper -sexualized country now. And I think it's like first Corinthians chapter six, right?
31:52
Uh, when you're hungry, you eat and nobody says that's wrong, right? Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food.
31:59
And the Corinthians posture and the posture in the Western world now is if I have a desire for sex, then it can't be wrong.
32:05
And it doesn't matter what the age is. And so I just think we have to be very careful when we have the younger ones and they have gone through puberty and they have a desire for sex that we kind of help them channel it back to the old phones.
32:19
Remember, you'd have a phone probably mounted in the kitchen and it was rotary and it had a cord.
32:27
And if you were really on the ends, you had an extended cord so you could walk around the kitchen and talk.
32:34
You didn't have to stand right by there. And that was kind of nice because I remember you'd have to talk in front of your parents to someone from the opposite sex.
32:42
It was just kind of nice because then you were restricted in what you might say for us.
32:47
And probably you're going to get to this soon. I don't think you need to be talking to boys on the phone and texting them until you're ready to start dating them.
32:55
And you're not ready to start dating them until they can provide for you. I remember somebody was interested in Haley and so I sat down to have a coffee with him and talked about my .40
33:05
caliber guns and my other things. And I said,
33:11
I'm so glad you're interested in Haley. I think she's pretty too. And this, that, and the other.
33:16
Tell me about your job. I have a part -time summer camp job. I said, oh, do you get benefits?
33:23
Do you have medical? And he said, no.
33:29
I said, well, you know what? I think right now, as much as you like Haley, I just want you to be friends because dating leads to other things.
33:36
And once you're ready to have a full -time job, then I think you could probably date Haley. And as we talked about the other day, in the old days, if you wanted a girl bad enough, the dad wouldn't let you get the girl until you had a job.
33:49
And so you went to the army because you have a place to stay. You have benefits, a steady job.
33:55
And so many men would go into the army to win a girl. And I know it's two generations ago, but I think
34:01
Kim's grandfather, it took him eight years to win her grandmother,
34:06
Evie. He had to buy a house, had to do all this other stuff. And those were the good old days. All right.
34:18
Okay. So we're at the place now where we can talk about dating. How old should someone be before dating?
34:26
You know, in general, what would you say? What's your, I mean, you mentioned a guy being able to provide for the girl.
34:32
Well, what about the young woman? What about her? How old should she be? And again, this all, you're the parents.
34:41
I'm not the parents, right? I can't run your home. I have no authority over you.
34:46
This is just me talking. And in some ways I want to say, I'm thankful that my children, by God's grace, and probably
34:53
Kim's input more than mine, my children, you know, are my letter of recommendation. So I've made a lot of mistakes, but there's some track record there.
35:03
So I try to save that from that posture. We just didn't let the children date when they were less than 18.
35:12
And even then, let's be careful on how to date and why. Strategically dating versus, you know,
35:19
I guess when I was younger, I haven't been on a date for three weeks. I should go. For what reason? I don't know.
35:25
Just because I want to say that I went on a date with a pretty girl or something like that. So in our home, and I would do this again, no dating until you're 18.
35:34
Then we'll talk about it because I don't think you're ready to get married at 16, 17. You're sexually, or you're going to have fall into sexual temptation.
35:47
And so for me, we just didn't deal with that. So we made sure we had lots of other fun things to do.
35:54
And sometimes not so fun things. Luke was the only boy in our house, and we had the three girls, obviously.
36:00
And girls by nature are a little more industrious and hard workers. Boys, like I said, struggle with laziness.
36:06
So Luke had an hour's worth of work to do outside every day. My hardest job was trying to figure out what he should do.
36:13
I know you just put the wood over there, now put the wood over there. Looks better over there.
36:19
Uh -huh. And so if you have boys, you ought to think, okay, how does the fall affect boys differently than girls?
36:24
Obviously, boys and girls are equal. Image bearers, nobody's better. But there's differences.
36:31
And so how do you raise boys? It's a little differently. And so if you're going to say boys don't date, or we're not going to get married now in our culture until we're 21 or 19 or something, there are certain things that you need to think through as a parent.
36:45
And so in our family, I'm glad these boys are interested. I'm glad, Luke, you're interested in that girl, but we're not going to date until you're 18, then we'll talk about it.
36:55
A little bit of a rabbit trail, but what would you say about school dances? Because sometimes people think, well,
37:01
I won't let my kids date, but I will let them go to school dances.
37:08
I wish they were old school dances, literally old school dances, where it would be ballroom dancing, and you would learn, and it would be two -step, or it would be something that was appropriate, right?
37:17
You'd have plenty of room for the Holy Spirit between the two of you, right? I wouldn't mind those dances where there were chaperones, and you know
37:24
I like to ballroom dance. But now dances are basically, it's like having sex with your clothes on very often, if I just could be rude or crude about it.
37:36
So I don't want my children doing those kind of dances. Sometimes I think my girls went to the prom with another girl, and they, so it just depends.
37:49
Well, and if you think about it this way, in a world, we've talked about this in different settings, but a world in which schools are constantly instructing kids on sexuality that we would not agree with.
38:05
Why would we then trust them to sort of monitor them in a dancing situation and assume that their standards would be even close to ours?
38:13
So, okay. Okay, so talking about not permitting dating until they're 18 or whatever, you know, here's an objection that children often raise, and some adults too, but how will kids learn to communicate with members of the opposite sex?
38:32
In other words, how will we get to know somebody, and how will we get to know what we like and what we don't like if we're not allowed to go out on dates?
38:42
I hear a little child laughing, that's good. That's my answer right there. There's plenty of opportunities for socialization, right?
38:49
If you're just going to hunker down at home and maybe go to church, that's it. Well, fine. But they still can see how does mom and how do dad react, right?
38:58
One of the key things to parenting, and we'll talk about this maybe next time, is the relationship that you have between you and your spouse, right?
39:07
People say, well, I want to be a good parent, but I don't really like my spouse, love my spouse, get along with my spouse.
39:12
Your children will see that, and so how do you socialize with other people of the opposite sex?
39:19
Number one, I'm going to watch my mom and dad. How do they treat each other? That's a little different, obviously, because I want my children to say there's something different between mom and dad that doesn't go on between other people, right?
39:33
And that's another discussion. But I want them to be around other church families, and we have people in our homes.
39:40
There's tons of ways to get socialization without saying I have to go on a date.
39:46
And so to me, that's just kind of a canard that's just thrown out there. A canard.
39:52
Not Spencer. All right. I mean, there's this idea that the only way that men and women can learn to appreciate one another or to sort out whether somebody is the right person for them is to be alone with them.
40:11
And I think that's, like you said, it's a red herring. Well, that's one of the reasons why we want to date our children.
40:20
Yes. Right? And so Kim would date Luke, and I would date the three girls. And that means I would get dressed, put on something nice.
40:29
I'd put on cologne, open the door, say she's pretty, pray before the meal.
40:35
I remember sometimes the girls would go on a date or something, and the question of the family was always, did the guy pray before the meal?
40:41
No. My girls were like, loser. DQ. Automatic DQ.
40:47
Disqualification. Did he talk about himself all the time? Right? Because when I'm on a date with my daughter, tell me about this or about that, and how do you feel about such and such?
40:55
I was just trying to ask the questions like that, and I was trying to set the example. This is important, and this is how we do things.
41:03
And so that's one of the ways children could learn. How do I learn how to relate to the opposite sex on a date?
41:10
Well, I'm going to take you out on a date, and off we would go. Yeah, these days I imagine that young men probably talk about their latest accomplishments in some computer game or something.
41:22
Let me tell you about this. I mean, Luke's married now to Hannah, and I'm very thankful for that relationship.
41:30
I remember many times with Luke, we would all say, all the Avendroths, including his sisters, let her talk.
41:39
Luke just asked questions, so he learned.
41:47
He won Hannah. There's a person that teaches those on the spectrum how to relate to folks back and forth, and I remember this therapist sitting there with five balls on the ground, and then the other young teenage person that was on the spectrum was over there, and this therapist was saying, now, when you go on a date, you want to ask a question and then wait for their answer.
42:17
Because you're nervous, you're going to keep asking all these questions. So it's something like this, and she would take a ball, and she would say, what if I would say things like this?
42:26
How was your week? What do you like? What movies do you see? Who's your favorite Star Trek character? And the person's like, oh.
42:32
So then the person realized, okay, did you do anything fun this week? Also, I guess we could always do that around the
42:42
WANA circle. Son, I'm going to give you these five. But I would say to my daughter or son, you don't need to date to learn how to interact.
42:53
There are other ways to learn how to interact, and so I'm trying to teach you those things now so you'll know what to do when you do date. And a lot of this has to do just be hands -on.
43:01
So many times, I think, while I was with my children, my mind was someplace else and other things, and so we're just trying to encourage the congregation here.
43:11
If you've got young kids, it's important to be with them. So would you recommend that, you know, especially teenagers be involved in things in the church and serving and whatnot so they could get to learn about opposite sex that way, too?
43:27
I think that's a great idea. And what I did with Luke, I mean, girls had other things because they were usually helping Kim do something behind the scenes here, but I would say to Luke and my daughters, today we're going to go to church.
43:38
No running around. You have to stay in the sanctuary. We had all these rules, and you have to go up to somebody that you haven't talked to for a while, and you have to ask them a question.
43:48
It can't be, how are you? And so they'd have to go up to someone, and Luke would go up to Maxine Tebow and say, you know, how'd your week go?
43:57
Or, you know, did you make any pies? Because she was such, you know, the pie queen. And then I said to Luke, if you see anybody who pulls up in the parking lot area there for handicap, you run out there and you open the door and you escort the lady.
44:12
How do you deal with people from the opposite sex? Like that. I mean, you can ask yourself the question, for those of you that have young boys, why did we do things in the old days like stand up when a woman came into the room?
44:25
Open up a door for a woman. Luke always got served last. If it was cake, it was ice cream, it was ribs.
44:33
He always got served last, except on his birthday, then he got served first. Because the girls take a priority.
44:39
And one of the reasons why we used to do that in the old days, and some of you should do some of these things now, is because boys will get old enough where the puberty will kick in, hormones will kick in, and I want them to realize women are to be not used, but to be cared for and honored and loved.
44:56
And we put up these structures ahead of time. So when the hormones do kick in, that might help them.
45:03
Okay, well, we need to close because we've got prayer time. So would you close this? Sounds good. Father, thank you for our time.
45:11
I trust that you would help these dear parents come alongside these gifts from you and give them wisdom, give them success, joy.
45:22
And of course, what we want most is our children to believe in the Lord Jesus. And so we don't take this responsibility and this privilege lightly, the children you've given us.