TLP S00-E8: One Step to Making Family Time Work

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We know, we hear about it, we talk about it, there are statistics, and nobody really argues with the data, but do we believe it?

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Do you actually believe that your children need that time with you? Welcome to Truth.

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Love. Parents. Where we use God's Word to become intentional, premeditated parents.

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Here's your host, A .M. Brewster. Thank you so much for joining me today for Truth.

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Love. Parents. I am A .M. Brewster and I'm looking forward to our discussion today, short though it may be.

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I think it's extremely, extremely valuable. First of all, though, I want to tell you a little bit about the most recent camping trip

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I took at Victory Academy for Boys, where I work full time. I am the residence counselor and my unofficial title is the house dad, and I had the opportunity to take the guys on a mentoring camping trip that we call a retreat, and it was really great because we have an opportunity to kind of ditch school and to get out into nature, do some rappelling, do some rock climbing.

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Obviously, we're sleeping out in tents, making our food over a fire, but really the main push is for us to study

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God's truth, and we had the opportunity to spend five days, morning and evening, looking into God's Word about the most important facet of who we are as people, and if we wanted to really see true, lasting change in our lives, what part of our relationship with God has the biggest effect on that.

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And that's a study that I actually hope to go with you guys through on this show later, but for right now, we'll leave it there.

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So anyway, thank you to those of you who are praying for our camping trip and this retreat. Obviously, keep those prayers up, and I will keep you guys updated with the types of things that we're doing and the different ministry opportunities through Victory Academy for Boys.

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Another piece of good news I have is that Heath Lambert, Dr. Heath Lambert, who is the executive director of ACBC, the

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Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, is going to be joining me on a future podcast here.

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I'm very excited about this. I have some questions planned for him that I hope are going to be, as he answers them, are going to be a huge encouragement and blessing to us as parents as we strive to become premeditated parents.

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So stay tuned for that. I'm very excited about Heath Lambert joining us on a future episode. Lastly, I want to tell you a little bit about a little family respite

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I just got done with. My job is kind of a 24 -6 job.

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Even the times that I'm not on with the guys, I'm on call, and it can be pretty stressful.

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It can be definitely, there are a lot of stressors and pressures involved in what

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I do. So I get a day off a week, and then I also get these little half days off approximately every couple weeks.

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And so this past half day slash full day time that I got, my wife and I decided we were going to take the family to Green Bay, which is an hour and a half south of us, and we were just going to have this family time.

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So we found a hotel with a pool and slides, and just as an opportunity to kind of get away and chill.

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So even though every time you travel, you add extra stressors to your life, it still was a great time. And I really want to focus on one particular anecdote and then just derive some application for us.

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So it was the first night that we were away, and we were down in the pool, and the kids had had their fun on the slides, and they were just dinking around the pool.

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And the nice thing was that we were the only family there, and they were the only people there, period, in the pool. And we were just kind of having a good time.

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Kids were jumping in, doing cannonballs. And keep in mind that my kids are younger, and my oldest is nine, my youngest is seven.

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And we had this opportunity where my daughter all of a sudden says, hey, look, there's a light. And she was referring to the light on the side of the pool that had been on the entire time.

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And she says, we need to investigate. And all of a sudden, she went into imagine mode.

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And I made a decision in that moment to go along with her. And the next thing we knew, my son was investigating with us.

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And we had concocted this whole story about what the light was. It must have been an alien ship that had landed and, of course, had nefarious purposes and was siphoning

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Earth's water from the planet. And we needed to see if we could stop it.

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And we're going from pool to pool and we're jumping in and we're investigating these jets and these other ladders and things like that.

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And, of course, we find the alien ship and we're able to stop them from depleting our

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Earth's resources. And I don't know how long it took us. I know my wife was laughing and taking videos of us and running around like crazy people the whole time.

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But really, what I wanted to focus on today was that two things. Number one, the importance of family time.

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We know we hear about it. We talk about it. There are statistics and nobody really argues with the data.

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But do we believe it? Do you actually believe that your children need that time with you?

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And if we're going to be honest, the answer is no, we don't believe it. And we don't believe they don't need that much time with us.

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We give them time, undoubtedly. We have our time maybe around the table or those daddy -daughter dates or father -son outings that we have where we pour in extra time with them.

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And we take them to church and there's the times in the cars and whatnot. And we convince ourselves that that's enough.

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But I think we really know it's not. My wife and I had the opportunity to take this little family respite time without our kids.

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We had somebody who was willing to take the kids so that we could go down there. But, you know, we realized, man, we need to take

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Micah and Ivy. We need to take them with us as a family. We need this time together. So, first of all,

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I need you to look at your families. I need you to look at your own personal family and think to yourself, once the last time we actually were able to sit down and just the however many of us be together, not watching a movie or doing something else that's brainless, but truly interacting in a way that is building relationships and is solidifying the foundation of your family unit by building those redemptive relationships.

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When was the last time you did that? And then ask yourself why. Now, if you're anything like me, the knee -jerk reaction is going to be,

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I'm just so busy. Again, let me reiterate. My job is way over 40 hours a week.

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I get one day off and I'm on call the time that I'm off.

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So I know what it's like to be busy. And even as a father who has the opportunity to be involved in homeschooling my children,

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I also often realize that those times aren't as valuable. Going over books and math and English and science and things like that aren't nearly as valuable as the times that we spend together relating to each other.

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And so I understand that our first thought is, well, I'm too busy, but I want to encourage you.

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I want to plead with you to make the time. And then the second thing

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I want to talk about really is, I think, the foundation of the title for our episode today, the one step to making family time work.

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We all know that we need more family time and we all know that when it comes right down to it, one of the biggest reasons we don't have more family time is the fact that we're just super busy.

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But see, that's a facet of this issue we have with family time.

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Because let me just be honest with you, I'm selfish when

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I'm not on with the guys and I don't have to be teaching my child some academic pursuit.

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The last thing I want to do is pretend. The last thing I want to do is go into little kid imagination world.

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Now, this might be easier for children older to find shared interests that you both enjoy. But as a parent of elementary school children, one of the last things

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I personally want to do is read a childish book or to play a childish game.

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But that's what my kids need. So if I'm being super, super honest with you, the biggest reason we don't have more family time is me.

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My schedule, my desires, my whatever gets in the way.

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Let's go back to that moment in the pool with my daughter. She saw a light and she said, oh, what's that light?

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We need to investigate. And I could have said any number of things. Oh, yeah, you go ahead, do that. You tell me what it is.

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I could have said, oh, not right now, sweetie. Daddy's kind of tired from from swimming.

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I'm just going to go over there. I could have done anything. But that that moment

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I had to grapple with that split second decision was the next words that come out of my mouth.

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Who are they for? Are they for me or are they for my daughter?

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And by God's grace, I made a conscious decision that the next words that come out of my mouth were going to be for her. And I investigated.

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And next thing you knew, my son and my wife were pulled into this adventure that spanned who knows how long of just imagination and fun.

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And my kids were laughing and giggling and we were playing. And yes, it was childish.

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And yes, I had to get over myself to to put my hand up through the water vent and pretend to be an alien or to play into the fantasy that was being created.

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But it's what needed to be done. And the only thing stopping me from doing it was myself. If you know you need more family time, if you see the importance of it.

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The one thing I want you, all of us to understand is the only thing that's really stopping us from making our family time working is us, because there's always time in a day.

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There's that stop you make at Starbucks. There's that little game you play on your phone.

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There's that article you want to read. And all of those things are choices that we make that aren't necessarily wrong, but they're choices that are made for us.

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I'd like you to consider sacrificing some of those. I'd like you to consider not making that extra stop on the way home from work to give yourself extra time that you're going to deliberately spend with your daughter doing something that she wants to do with you that you can build a

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Christ honoring relationship with her. I want you to not play the Candy Crush or or whatever game you play on your device.

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Just sacrifice that time. I mean, it's not really a sacrifice. Just get rid of that time for that day and play with your son, interact with your son, talk with your son, because family time is necessary.

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We need to be working on the foundational relationship that is the family. The family was created before government.

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The family was created before the church was created. The only relationship created before the family was our one on one relationships with God.

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And yet our family relationships take backseat to our jobs, to our personal time, to our ministries and to everything that it's not supposed to.

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And it does that, honestly, because, well, we're selfish. Because the job or the time with our friends or that personal time to myself or that ministry opportunity is more important to me than my family is.

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I was reminded of this over this last little family respite time that we had, and it was painful because as I reflected,

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I realized there are lots of areas where I could do more with my children for my children.

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And I don't because I'm too busy doing for me. Consider that.

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Consider the necessity that family time is in your family. Consider why it is you don't have more and then consider rearranging.

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Rearranging. I'm not telling you to never play Candy Crush again. I'm not telling you not to stay up to date on current news items and in your local articles or on the videos on your news feed.

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I'm not saying not to do that ever. I'm saying that that family time is more important.

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And if it means you sacrificing yourself and your desires for that half hour, that 45 minutes, that hour, then do it.

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It's totally worth it. And I believe that in the end, your family foundational relationships are going to be far stronger, especially if you start when they're younger.

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And a lot of the issues that I deal with with families when their kids become teenagers and start drifting away from them,

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I think can almost in a way be preempted by focusing on those relationships now.

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And if you are in a spot where your child is older and it's hard to relate,

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I'd like to encourage you to seek some help. It's never too late. Those relationships can be fixed.

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They can be brought back to the place where God wants them. And I know that there are a lot of ministries, your church, other parachurch ministries, including our own at Evermind Ministries and at Victory Academy for Boys that want to help.

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So if you would like some advice, feel free to email us at counselor at evermindministries .com.

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You can call us at Victory Academy for Boys for counsel over the phone 715 -759 -5976.

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You can obviously go to our website at evermindministries .com.

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And you can even find encouraging articles and reminders on our social media, whether it's

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Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter. You can follow me at AM Brewster on Twitter.

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And we want to help you, whether it's trying to help you find more time in your day to spend with your family or dealing with those really hard crisis moments.

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Please reach out to us because that's why we're here. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and stay in tune because we're looking forward to having

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Heath Lambert on the show in just a few weeks. Truth. Love. Parents is part of the

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Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you become an intentional premeditated parent.

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Join us next time as we search God's word for the truth your family needs today.