Fostering Love, Curiosity, and Self-discovery in Your Kids
This week on the podcast, Daron and Julie Earlewine discuss the importance of understanding the “who, why, and what” in parenting. They emphasize the need to start with the child’s identity, helping them understand that they are loved and valued by God.
They also stress the importance of getting curious about the child’s motivations and why they do what they do. By focusing on the “who” and “why,” parents can better guide their children and help them develop a strong sense of self.
The episode concludes by highlighting the significance of the child’s unique gifts and abilities, and the role parents play in nurturing and supporting them.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Daron:
Why did you do that? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What was going on inside of you? Like, I need to understand why you did this so we can go to the next level and help you understand why you did that and connect back to that motivation. Because that’s where things go awry. Instead of just stepping in, punishing the what and thinking we’ve fixed something or helped our kids.
Tagline: Created on purpose and for purpose.
Daron:
Everybody. Welcome back to the Daron Earlewine Podcast. Daron Earlewine, your host, here with special guest VIP Julie Earlewine, back for the fifth episode. Welcome, Jules.
Julie:
Hi.
Daron:
We want to take this opportunity to ask for those of you that haven’t financially supported the podcast to do so. The signing bonus we had to give Julie to get her back for this fourth episode was steep.
Julie:
Jesus. Weird.
Daron:
Very steep. He’s crazy. Anyway, hey, we’re going to jump back into what we’re talking about here with the Parenting for a Purpose podcast. And I’ve really enjoyed these episodes so far.
Julie:
Yeah, it’s been fun.
Daron:
It’s been fun. Hopefully you’re enjoying them as well, as I say all the time. We’d love to hear from you if you’re enjoying them. Or maybe this is creating like a bunch of new questions and some of the stuff that we’re going to talk about maybe the whole time. But I know these next two episodes I know what we’re going to talk about are getting into some stuff that was really challenging for me to start to try to understand.
Daron:
I realized. I think we realize and maybe you’re realizing is and I think you said this in last episode, actually, Jules, is like, you get married and then you start having kids, whether natural or from adoption, foster, whatever it is, is you think, well, yeah, we’re going to be parents. But you don’t get a book of like, here’s how you parent. Well, right. You have how you were parented. Stuff you’ve kind of paid attention to. And most of those things you’ve never really questioned deeply.
Daron:
And some of them you don’t even know you’re going to do. Because like we talked about in the first couple of episodes, the whole idea of more is caught than is taught. You have caught a bunch of things that are probably not the best practices that you have never questioned that just happen. And one of the things interesting I was thinking about this this morning about my parents is I think my parents did a phenomenal job. I think they were great parents. I think your parents were great parents. But I’ve come to the place of really starting to extend a lot of compassion to my folks because they didn’t get a book either.
Daron:
And I’ve told my dad’s story. He’s been on the podcast before. It’s a great episode of like my dad was one of the first people of faith in his whole family. My grandpa in the early years of my dad growing up, alcoholic, worked in an oil field, like, gruff, hard kind of guy. This is in the 1950s. There wasn’t a lot of parenting studies of, like, here’s how to be a loving and caring dad and stuff. And my dad comes to faith before you know it, you know, he’s a pastor.
Daron:
He’s, you know, he’s only been a Christian for, like, five years. He’s a pastor now. He’s got kids, like, I can’t imagine in his late 20s, early 30s trying to figure all that out. And those were my early childhood memories, interacting with my dad. There’s just a lot of things that we’ve learned as we’ve parented of, like, wow, I have to really shift my whole paradigm of parenting, because this wasn’t actually the best way to parent.
Daron:
Not throwing stones at my dad or even at your parents or stuff you figured out of, like, wait a second. I got to start thinking differently about this. I have to change the way that how I understand this.
Julie:
I just had a conversation yesterday with my mom, who she’s wonderful. I call her almost every single day, one of the most important people and best friends in my life. But she was carrying something emotional, and she was sort of talking to me about it, and I kind of turned the conversation to help her see. And she said to me, I don’t think she’s like, they were never taught it wasn’t generationally normal to just turn your thinking to see things a different way. They just did the only thing that they saw. And we’re in a generation now where we want to be open to meet people, where they are emotionally generations. Years ago, if things went wrong in their life, they were often hidden.
Julie:
They weren’t talked about and things like that. We were just talking, and I said to her, I was like, Mom, I was like, you know what? I was like, there’s things I’ve gone to my counselor about, and I’ve talked about my upbringing, and I’ve worked through them. And it’s not that you and dad didn’t do them great. It’s just there’s something I needed from that to do differently. And I made a joke of like, okay, I wonder what the boys, what are they going to be talking to their counselor about? About what we did that wasn’t of best practice for them.
Julie:
And what I said to her yesterday, because she was saying, how is it kind of that you’re the one teaching me to relationally handle this situation? Because she was just in a relational kind of turmoil of how to manage something. And she’s gotten later in her years of life, she’s called me more to ask me and how to handle things, and I said, you know, I was like, mom. Each generation, our goal is to be more mentally healthy, more spiritually healthy, more emotionally healthy, to where we can openly express how we feel in a real way and feel like it’s safe.
Julie:
That was not practiced of generations prior to ours. We’re sort of the first oldest generation of speaking out about being healthy, about our emotions and our feelings. And so sometimes maybe if we feel like we’ve done anything right. One of the things Daron’s always said in our parenting is that we’ve raised the boys to critically think. Like we’ve tried to raise them to be able to critically think for themselves.
Julie:
And I think yesterday, talking to my mom, it’s like they didn’t really know how to teach us how to critically think. They just knew black and white, do this, don’t do that. And to see even my mom in her older years of life, in that later generation want to even try to engage in doing things emotionally better is really special because it’s difficult to do.
Daron:
Yeah. So if you’re listening to these episodes and you feel like, man, I don’t know that I’m equipped for this or I didn’t learn this. You’re probably not, and you probably didn’t. And that’s the joy of it, realizing, for one, to start from the place of humility. I’ve got a ton to learn here. And the great part about humility is that the Lord promises us when we start from a foundation of humility, we’re going to find the grace that we need. And the great news is this is God’s grace is sufficient. His guidance and direction is sufficient to where he needs to guide and direct you to parent for a purpose. And we hope that some of the things we’ve learned can help in that. Once again, if you have questions, thoughts, let’s dialogue about this. You can email me Daron@blackbirdmission.com.
Daron:
You can also text me 317-550-5070 or reach out through any of the socials. So this episode, Julie, is called the episode is titled who, Why, what, and I’ve titled the episode that because that is the order of identity formation and value formation that I think is really important as we raise kids, as we raised our boys, and as you raise your kids. And it’s not always the predominant order that I think the world goes in.
Daron:
What Julie was just mentioning there is really we’re going to talk about this, about the why, understanding, learning to be curious, learning to think critically. The why part. A lot of times in parenting is something, it doesn’t even make it on the list, but most of the times, if we look at how people process in life, they start from what, meaning actions, behaviors. That’s the focus. Action behaviors are outcomes, right?
Daron:
What’s my kid going to do? What’s their job going to be? Or what are they doing wrong or what it’s all about outward behavior. Then maybe they spend some time thinking about why, but probably not. And then the last one would be who. They don’t spend maybe any time thinking about the depth of who their kid is to God who they are and developing the understanding of identity. What we want to challenge you on is something that has guided a lot of our thought, a lot of my thought.
Daron:
And all of this comes from the way that I’ve had to change my thinking and how the Heavenly Father parents me as his kid. And that’s not the way I used to think. God operated with me. We’ve talked a lot on this podcast through many different episodes. It’s a big part of the spiritual DNA course. If you’ve not gone through spiritual DNA, just go to the website spiritualdna.me or at daronearlewine.com. I’ll get it out of my mouth.
Daron:
You can go take the course. But we talk a lot about a covenant relationship and what is born in that. What is formed in that is the kind of relationship we have with Jesus. And we talk a lot about the covenant triangle and understanding that we have that connection to our Heavenly Father and the first thing that he begins to develop in us is identity. That’s who we are because who he says we are and out of that identity flows obedience which drives us into greater intimacy with God. We’ve talked about it, we’re not going to unpack it all through here. But that has been a process of learning I’ve had with my understanding of God’s love. For me that has been the foundation of this. So here’s where we want to start is you got to start with who.
Daron:
And by that I mean this on helping your kids understand who they are because of who God says they are and who they are in your relationship and in your family, okay? And in this we got to realize that we don’t have the ability or the power to tell our kids who they are. They need to know that that comes from straight from God. They’re not who we want them to be or who we’re dreaming they could be, which is a lot about our dreams, about what they’ll eventually do.
Daron:
One of the most important things that they need to grasp from the get go is that they are a dearly loved child of God. Not because of what they do or what they don’t do, but because of who they are. And that is something so key in their relationship with us that they know you are valuable and loved by me because you are my child. You are my dearly loved child. That is who you are outside of anything that you do.
Daron:
And tons of scriptures that speak to this one, john three one from the message paraphrase what marvelous love the Father has extended to us. Just look at it. We’re called children of God and that is what we are, right? Ephesians five one in the new century version says it like this you are God’s child, you are God’s children whom he loves. So try to be like him. I love that one. Right? And here’s the thing I think about Jesus’s upbringing, which we don’t think about a ton.
Daron:
We don’t get a ton of Jesus upbringing. We get some snapshots throughout him growing up. But one of the ones that stands out to me that I love about this point is Jesus is about 30 year old, so he’s not a kid, but he’s getting ready to start out, to start to do what he came to do, which would be the savior of the world. He’s about to start to do the what stuff. He’s about to start healing people and walking on water and all the stuff that Jesus does.
Daron:
And during his baptism, which is a major moment in Jesus’ life, there’s a powerful moment where Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist. He comes up out of the water and this voice from heaven comes out. It’s the voice of the Father. And he says, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. And that’s always stuck out to me, Jules, because Jesus hadn’t done any of the cool with Jesus stuff yet. And at the beginning of his life, the thing that God thought was most important is he knew his identity, who he was in relationship outside of anything that he had done yet. And one of the things that just a helpful thought on this is for one, I think you’ve got to talk to your kids about their identity in Christ and what that looks like. You’ve got to live that within yourself.
Daron:
But one of the things that I thought about Jill, that we’ve done when the boys were little is we tried our best to never make identity statements to the boys in their successes or their failures. And you know, you’re getting into an identity statement when you’re using the phrase you are or I am. You are. You’re speaking to a kid’s identity. So I know we’ve challenged each other and tried to watch that, right. Is when you’re correcting a kid, right, something they may have done is bad, but your kid never needs to hear from you.
Daron:
You’re a bad kid, you’re a liar, you’re a problem, you’re a troublemaker, whatever. The thing can be that you are actually bringing some scarring upon their understanding of identity if that comes into play as you’re speaking to them. Any thoughts on that, Jules?
Julie:
We said we didn’t make you are statements, you mean of negative?
Daron:
Connotation of negative was the main focus when they were little. But I would say also outward things like we do our best to not like even now with Cole, he’s not a football player, right? It’s not his successes. You are so much more than you are your success. And I’m not saying you can’t say things like you’re a really good student. I’m not saying that. But watching to make sure that the thing that your kid hears all the time is not you’re loved and accepted and celebrated here because you’re succeeding or you’re a problem to the depths of your identity. And you keep hearing us say that about you.
Julie:
Yeah. I feel like sometimes you get in rhythms of life, though, where they are a little bit of one thing in a season and you have to be conscientious in that to make sure they separate themselves and see that they’re a child of God and that they’re more than anything they ever do on earth. I think that’s super important. I think it’s really hard in today’s world for them not to find their self worth in the things of the world.
Julie:
And that’s what we’ve always tried to do. Whether something has been going well for them or going negative for them, we want them to see that neither of the thing of the world is really of that much value. That everything else is out of the value of who they are in Jesus and the role that he plays to create their identity. I am fairly certain I have failed and used the ur statement. I’m scared. I used it this morning when we were arguing with Knox about a outfit. So that’s actually where my brain went because I freaked out and thought, did I just you are him this morning.
Julie:
Because then I would apologize. I truly would apologize because that is one thing we have done in those situations is we’re still so human and we still mess up. So now, honestly, when Daron was talking, I just thought, I URD Knox this morning. And I’m like, great, did I do that? I don’t remember.
Daron:
But you know what that’s thing but that’s real.
Julie:
That’s just me being authentic. I kind of got lost in thought of like when we were arguing about the way he was dressing because it’s football game day and he’s supposed to there’s standards for how he was doing it and he did not meet the standards required by his coach. And it was a I’m concerned. We used to you are this morning. We may have side note, we fail.
Daron:
But here’s like every day. I honestly love the moments when you do fail. Because the teaching moment now is if we did that we get a chance to come back to Knox tonight, right at dinner. We might have had dinner because football but bedtime sing his songs, whatever is to say, hey, you know what? This we I think I said this.
Julie:
About you or I could have managed it better. I hope I didn’t make him think that the way he chose to wear his clothes was not okay. Because those are like non mattering things. That’s one of the other things about this discussion we’ve always is if it’s a non mattering thing. I had to learn early on. Sometimes things that matter to me really don’t matter. And those are the things you have to learn in those situations too to let go. So they don’t become a statement over who they are.
Julie:
For instance, like if he was wearing ripped shorts this morning on football game day, which bothers both of us, but it didn’t bother him. So I don’t want to create an insecurity in him that’s unnecessary. That’s where my brain went this morning. Sorry. Side note, I do have that happen sometimes.
Daron:
Yeah, well, in one of the scriptures that jumped out to me is Paul is correcting the corinthians in one corinthians and it’s in chapter four, verse 14, and he’s bringing some correction. He had to bring some correction, which.
Julie:
He needed to change. The shore got a hole in him.
Daron:
Yeah, but what Paul says is, he says, I’m writing this not to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children and man, shame is of the devil and it’s so dangerous. And we’ll talk about it, I think, in the next episode. Shame is so dangerous because what happens with shame is it’s when we move from I did something wrong to I am something wrong. And in that moment, the great fear and the power of shame is the fear of disconnection, of relationship.
Daron:
And that’s why it’s so important to protect the who and to speak into that and to be able to have conversations that may sound a lot like what Paul just said there first, corinthians you may have to correct something to your kid and say, listen, here’s what I want you to know. You are my dearly loved daughter in whom I am well pleased. Nothing you can ever do can question my love and our connection. Right? And what I want to talk to you about right now is not to shame you, not to separate.
Daron:
We’re going to talk about this outside of our connection and who you are. And sometimes in the heat of the moment, that’s not easy, but I’m glad that you actually brought it up because you may just start noticing and you may think it’s a little thing, but it’s really not. You think about when you have a little kid, how many times you’re correcting something that’s going wrong or so many times they’re annoying. And you may just have something you say, oh, my gosh, you’re such a pest. Oh, my gosh, you’re filling the blank. And then if you stop and think over a year with a little toddler, how many times you may say something like that and guess what they’re doing?
Daron:
They’re hearing it and it’s becoming a part of the soundtrack of their life. So when they then step into behavior or whatever it is that they’re not proud of, or that you’re not proud of, what’s the first thing they start saying to themselves? I am such a fill in the blank. We’ve talked about a ton of the podcast in the past is, you know, who is the meanest person to you on planet Earth? You are. And what we can help our kids with is help them learn positive self talk that I’m not my actions, I’m not what I do.
Daron:
I am who God says I am in this relationship and I am safe in this connection. It’s not perfect, but spend some time looking curious about that. Is that something you’re speaking into and protecting? The next one I want to look at is this is why talking about motivations here, okay? Who they are and then why are they doing what they’re doing? And here’s the thing. I think there’s two sides of the coin to this. Julie is first and foremost as us, as their parents, getting really curious to figure out why they are doing what they’re doing. Then the next level. And this is like honors level, but this is when you know you’ve won. In parenting, I think, is if you can develop the kind of conversation and discourse and trust where you lead your kid to start understand, they start understanding why they’re doing what they’re doing, it’s unlocking a great mystery that you can step into and love. When you understand what’s the motivation behind what’s going on here, when you get them to the place where they start to understand what’s motivating them, the why, that is completely different level. And in that this is about you got to pay attention.
Daron:
You got to get compassionately curious as quickly as possible in your parenting and reached out to a couple once again, some people in Julie’s life that have seen her parent. This is great. I love these moments. Here’s another one. One of Julie’s longest friends said this about Julie and her parents. She says, I’ve learned by watching and listening to her the importance of connecting with each child and loving them right where they are.
Daron:
She always speaks truth into their lives but also makes them feel safe enough to share almost everything with her. And Julie does that. And I think we know we’ve seen the benefits of that and that ability to connect with them, right? To know that whatever we’re connecting with here, it’s not going to be connected to who you are. We’re not going to deal with shame or separation here, but we are here to become compassionately curious about why you’re doing what you’re doing so that we can help you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Daron:
And I think this is a level that makes a lot of people uncomfortable or maybe they don’t feel deep enough to talk about it. But I know we’ve seen such growth in the boys as they have started to learn to connect in that within themselves. One of the things that we’ve done we talk about here on the podcast, often in spiritual DNA is taking you through understanding the wisdom of the enneagram. And it’s helped Julie and I a ton in our marriage, in our personal lives, personal relationships. It helps us a ton in our parenting. And the interesting thing about the Enneagram is most Enneagram specialists tell you that your child probably needs to be 16, 1718 before you really start to type them. And I want to strongly encourage you, don’t go read an Enneagram book, don’t go take spiritual DNA, think you’re a specialist and start typing your kid.
Daron:
You do not want to put them in any kind of box, especially as they’re developing. And so this is not for you to start verbally typing your kid. But here’s what I do want to encourage you as a parent, in a parental team, if you’re our team to do is to start getting educated on it so that you can begin to observe and get curious, to start to understand some of that. For us, when Cole was 1617, he went through took the Enneagram, and we think he’s probably a type one.
Julie:
Yes.
Daron:
And probably, definitely a type one.
Julie:
Don’t type your child.
Daron:
Don’t type your child. But verbally out loud. But I would encourage you is start taking some educated guesses and actually leaning in with curiosity. Based on that, you don’t need to tell him you’re doing it. But I can look back at us raising Cole. We’re about 99% sure he’s a type one. You took the test. He was a type one.
Julie:
And he’s old enough. I mean, 19 now.
Daron:
Yeah.
Julie:
Different situation.
Daron:
When he was we probably didn’t know really about the Enneagram till he was probably twelve or 13. Right. I wish we would have known this when he was two, three, four, because you could see some of the tendencies of that type in him, things that were motivating and driving him that were kind of mysterious to us. And we weren’t sure exactly why he was doing some of the things he was doing, but in the process of that, it allowed us to step into the role of parenting with so much more understanding, compassion, and then really mentoring him towards different results. And I think it’s helped a ton now as we talk to him through some of the bigger issues of life.
Julie:
Especially now that he’s like an adult, I mean, ish adultish an adult, but he’s an adultish. And you’re able to see him in his own independent phase of life. You’re able to see that and the strengths that come from that, and then also the weaknesses that come from that. But then I think about our Ty, who his personality. I think this is the other beauty of understanding your kids a little bit in this way, is that we’re pretty sure, and he is 16.
Julie:
We’re pretty sure Ty, he’s probably a two, but he could possibly be a nine. They’re so different. And I think that’s been one of the most beautiful things to understand those two so differently is to see that they have completely different, unbelievable, amazing things to bring to the table. So it’s given us an ability, because I think what happens sometimes in birth orders is that we assume that what one did, two will do. What two did, three will do.
Julie:
And the truth of the matter is that you will have three kids and they will all three do something completely different. And you could attempt your best raising them the exact same way or whatever. And it’s like Ty has an ability to love people and care for people and meet people where they are in a way that I don’t know that anybody in our house has. He just is very sensitive to people’s needs and to connecting with them.
Julie:
And because of that, the way I have had to learn to approach him very differently. Because when Cole was little, I could come at Cole with force, not like physical force. But if I raised my voice or if I showed Cole responded to authority immediately. So if I demanded authority with Cole, he responded immediately to it.
Daron:
And I think one thing I want to interject is if Cole is a type one, the coral eye of a one, they’re in the gut triad. The coral eye. There is I am what right, which there’s an identity statement. I am what I accomplish. So when Julie would interact with him to parent towards force of accomplishment right? It hits and he responds.
Julie:
Responds, right? If I realizing I didn’t realize this when he was young because that’s the way I had done it. But with Ty, I would come at him with force, and he would crumble. And I was always like, what is wrong with like, I don’t understand. And then as he began to evolve more and mature as a person, I realized, this doesn’t work. I’m not getting through to him. And it’s not his fault. It’s mine. It’s my fault.
Julie:
I’m wrong. I’m the one out of line. I’m putting on something on him that he can’t even understand. Like, he can’t process the way that way. So since then, our exchange is very different. I have to go to him more of like, hey, let’s talk about ways that can help you. Maybe do it this way, that’ll help make this easier or make you feel better or make you happier. And when I go into it with that way, it’s still the same. The goal is still the same.
Julie:
But the approach between the two of them has had to be completely different. And I have found now that my relationship with Ty is so I always joke in our house and say, ty’s a Caribbean vacation because overarchingly. He doesn’t really require a lot of force because he’s full of love and kindness and sensitivity, especially to me. Of all three of the boys, he is the most sensitive to me. And I realized that I was impairing our relationship by putting force in a place that force wasn’t at all strong because I have a very strong personality. So my strong personality would come out at Cole, and it worked. But. Cole has a strong personality, so sometimes it would come back at me.
Julie:
But Ty and I got older. Yeah. And Ty and I don’t it’s not like that. It’s a very more low key, peaceful, back and forth relationship that then creates healthier production in our friendship relationship parenting than it did before.
Daron:
Well, and the thing is, if he is a type two, right, he would be in the heart triad, which the core identity lie there is I am what others say and think of me.
Julie:
And he is very much that.
Daron:
So that’s something probably we’re getting curious about, which that would be. The thing is that if he felt that his mom was thinking or saying things that were aggressive, he’s going to receive that immediately. That’s not true.
Julie:
Probably shut down. Honestly, they don’t receive that well.
Daron:
Right. And that’s the challenge. Like you’re saying it’s like every kid now, it’s a whole different approach to it. But that’s the thing that’s coming back to who, right? Who are they? Right? They’re dear loved children of God, dear loved in our family. But they’re unique. Why do they do what they do? And where this really rubber meets the road with this one comes to what they’re doing, because that’s where we’re interacting, right? Like, I’m reacting, I’m yelling, there’s being consequences, I’m concerned, I’m worried, all these things. The trigger point is they’ve done something.
Daron:
There’s an outward action behavior. Right now, I’m responding to what has happened and we’re going to talk about it in the next episode. The understanding of choosing our role in our parenting, whether we’re going to be a parent that brings love and perspective or we’re a parent that brings punishment in fear. I can’t wait for this next episode. But a lot of this comes down into it to where when we’ve dealt with them on things, where a what has happened, an action, a behavior has happened that is undesirable or not. What we would have loved is I think we’ve tried to do a decent job on this, is initially we may respond to the what within a way that we don’t love, but eventually coming back to a conversation with them to really begin to understand why did you do that, what were you thinking? What were you feeling? What was going on inside of you? Like, I need to understand why you did this so we can go to the next level and help you understand why you did that and connect back to that motivation. Because that’s where things go. Awry.
Daron:
Instead of just stepping in, punishing the what and thinking we fixed something or helped our kid, right? Like, oh, you lied. Guess what? You lie. Here’s what happened. Here’s what’s going to happen. Well, when I correct you because I’m mad at you for lying, I’m going to tell you that you’re a liar. Like, you’re a liar. This is a problem. You’re losing your phone. You’re grounded. You can’t play fortnite for three weeks because you’re a liar, right? And we think somehow that we’ve punished the what. So therefore our kid, we fixed it. They will no longer lie because they got grounded and we gave them a good talking to.
Daron:
Well, you just damaged your kid’s understanding of who they actually are. Now they actually think their identity is a liar. Two, they have no freaking idea why they lied. And guess who else doesn’t? You. You don’t have any idea what was going on in that to lie. You just dealt with the what, and you feel like, well, we fixed it, whereas you may be in a situation we’ll talk about this in the next episode where there may not have been any punishment that was actually needed for the what.
Daron:
Because if you figure out why they did what they did, you help them own the problem they have, help them figure out a way to actually mend whatever broken trust and connection was brought about by that. And then they realize, you know who I am. I’m a deeply flawed human being dearly loved and redeemed and restored by God and by my parents. And I’m someone who actually can own and come and bring and fix problems that I’ve created.
Daron:
Like, when we walk through this the right way, we have kids that are empowered to be strong in their identity, to get compassionately curious about what’s going on inside of them. And those actually do begin to shape the what or the behaviors that we want to see and that they really want to see out of their life.
Julie:
And it shapes our response. It has drastically helped me because I came from a black and white upbringing, like, don’t do this, do this. That’s the only way you’re going to make it. And not like, begrudging my parents by any means. That’s all they knew. That was the best way to do it. There was a lot more fear based parenting, and that’s something we’ve worked really hard to stay away from, fear based parenting because fear based parenting, it severs trust.
Julie:
It severs honestly the truth. I think the truth of the Holy Spirit being raised with a fear based parenting is not how God that’s not the fear he means. And we’ve really tried. I would say in the early years, we weren’t great at it by any means. And then the more we would in our parenting together would talk about it and be like, this and with our counselor, is like, this is not creating open space for them. And so sometimes it feels like prior to a major implosion of behavior, they’re compassionately curious, coming to us and saying, hey, can we talk to you about this?
Julie:
How do you feel about this? Or what do you think, mom and dad, about these choices we’ll make in our life and when’s the right time to make them, or when’s not the right time to make them or the boundaries you want them to have as they grow, but you create an open space where they can talk to you about anything. I think that’s been a big part of it. And then, like I said, each child’s different. Our youngest one, he’s 13.
Julie:
We’re in that weird window, like, that weird, that puberty pre, whatever. It’s just really weird. And they’re not fully themselves. So you’re having to not be reactionary. Like I said, we may have been this morning when we shouldn’t be reactionary. Because they’re really like you’re in a really critical time in that 1314 because they don’t even know who they are. You don’t know who they are and they don’t know who they are.
Julie:
It’s a very unique season in parenting because they are becoming the beginning stages of who they are independently created to be. You’re still holding tightly to that independence. They don’t know who they are. You don’t know who they are. And you have to sort of like, ride the wave out a balance between discipline and grace. And it’s challenging. So if you’re in that, good luck, give us a call. We’ll tell you the things we did wrong. There were plenty of them, like this morning when we yelled about the holes in the shorts. But it is really interesting to see doing things less out of fear and less out of punishment and more in understanding who they are and allowing them to understand who we are. Because that’s another thing, is, like, your home may not be made up of any of the numbers that our home is made up. So if you’re not made up with a seven and a six and what we believe is a one and a two, that’s our dynamic for our home.
Julie:
You may be a six and a nine with maybe you’re not sure yet. Like a three and a two, that’s a whole different dynamic. And you can’t base everything on one personality test by any means. This does not bylaw define you. It’s just a tool and a guide to direct you to touches of understanding. But know that your interactions and your exchanges within your family will also look unique to your personalities.
Julie:
And that does make a difference. And highly encourage using that as a tool, but definitely not as a hard and fast only standard for your home. Because there’s so many things that impact who our kids are and their own way of learning who they are. And it is interesting to have adult and then adultish and then junior high all right now in this season of life because you really are seeing who God created them to be. And it’s really exciting.
Julie:
It’s definitely hard and challenging and very scary, but it’s cool to see them become who they were born to be.
Daron:
Yeah, I love it. I think it’s a great way to end it. And some of the things you’re hitting on there we’re going to talk about in the next episode. And just to bring it to kind of bring this one to a close with the what part of it about what they’re going to do is here’s one thing I want to give you confidence of. It is, for one, your kids aren’t yours, right? They’re actually God and they’re Gods and he’s given them to you as a gift to steward and understanding that is that there is a what that your kids are going to do. And here’s the beautiful thing. The word of God says that in Ephesians chapter two, that we are the craftsmanship of God created in Christ Jesus to do good works. So there’s some what to do good works, the what right that he prepared in advance for us to do.
Daron:
And one of the things we tried to drive home with the boys, right, is who you are. You are a dearly loved child of God. You are created in his image and you are his workmanship. He’s put so much great gifts and abilities in you here’s things that are motivating you. And guess what? There’s a what out there that you’re going to step into that God has planned. And we get to help you walk that journey and discover what God already knows in that.
Daron:
One of the tools that we’ve helped our older boys have gone through this is not as age-sensitive. In fact, Gallup just came out with a student version of the strength finders. It’s one of the things that we take people through in spiritual DNA. And I remember when we took Cole and Ty went through it know, one of Cole’s top strengths that he went through he found out was competition, which we knew that right.
Daron:
But there was a part of helping him understand and understand the Strength Finders, right? Your top five strengths are what you could do if you focus in on them, what you can do practically perfectly. And you can do them better than 33 million other people, which is a crazy stat. Think about your teenager knowing there are five character traits strengths that are actually the way that God hardwired my brain, that when I do these things, I can do them better than 33 million other people consistently.
Daron:
This next generation needs this kind of teaching because here’s the deal. What breaks my heart as I’m dealing with kids in schools, as we’re doing, taking our purpose paradigm course, which is basically spiritual DNA without the spiritual part out into schools. What I’m noticing when I work with high school students right now is this next generation, they have more words and abbreviations and terms to define their dysfunction than they do their function, right? Oh, yeah. I’m OCD add BBB. They’ve got all these alphabet words and terms that can help you them define here’s what’s broken and wrong with me and think about what that feels like for a teenager and their sense of identity.
Daron:
I am broken. I am damaged. I need to be defined by dysfunction when the reality of it is and what we get to help them discover as their parent is no. Before you ever did anything, you are absolutely perfectly loved by God and by us. And we’re going to help you understand what’s going on and working in the motivations of your heart, what’s happening in the unseen areas of your life. But you have gifts and abilities that God has hardwired into you that are all about how you’re exceptional, not about how you’re broken, not about how you’re dysfunctional.
Daron:
And we need to bring that into our families conversations and the ethos of our culture. So the kids know, first and foremost, I’m who God says I am and I have amazing what to bring to this world. And that’s the kind of environment that we’ve tried to create, not perfectly, and we want to hopefully inspire you to do the same. So we’re going to wrap this one up. Next episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about a lot of it, I guess, about the role that we play, whether we’re somebody who brings perspective and wisdom or for the punisher in the role of our children.
Daron:
It’s going to be a challenging one, I think you’re going to enjoy it. And we’ll talk about next time. Until we do, remember these three things. God’s for you. He’s not against you, he’s near you, he’s not far away. And he’s created you on purpose and for a purpose. We’ll talk to you next time on the Daron Earlewine Podcast. See yeah.