Last week, I rubbed shoulders with an old friend:
Guilt.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
This week, I’m working through the final interior design and whatnot on my own parenting book (due out this October: Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts. #shamelessplug). And there are moments in real-life parenting when I’m whispering to myself, “Maybe we should retitle this thing I’ve Got Nothin’.”
But those moments give me all the more reason to get excited about other parenting books genuinely trying to step in with practical ideas to help us connect and shape and love well. So I’m tickled pink to be offering two copies of Becky Harling’s How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk (Bethany, 2021).
I don’t offer you books that freely (…there’ve been some I haven’t offered). I want to earn your trust when it comes to resources. And most other things. (Things you should not trust me on: Math. Athletic ability. How to care for straight hair. Potty training.)
But Becky’s got some gems tucked in How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk. Please, read over my shoulder.
Becky’s husband Steve asks her adult children this question–and Becky mentions that by God’s kindness, “I was able to receive all that they shared.”
What I love about this: Throughout the book, Becky seems to indicate that listening to our kids, to anyone, requires humility. There is a profound grace in asking good questions, seeking to really be present with the person across from us, and shelving our agendas while we receive someone.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote wisely, reminding people like me of the danger of always having a helpful response:
The first service one owes to others in a community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, the beginning of love for others is learning to listen to them. God’s love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear.
We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.
So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to ‘offer’ something when they are together with other people.
They forget that listening can be a greater service…Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either.
Becky peppers How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk with something unexpected: Wisdom and questions for self-care. Why? “Parents who are tired and overcommitted are more likely to lose it with their kids.”
Yes. Yes, we are. (I had to wrestle upon this tough realization in The True Cost of Overcommitment.)
So Becky asks great questions like,
She also asks…
I’ve written a bit about what it’s like to have a child that’s different from what you expected, or When You’re Scrabbling for Hope for *That* Child. or When Your Child’s Weaknesses Feel Overwhelming.
Every one of these has been me.
I find that my kids occasionally rotate in and out of my triage. And for better or for worse, that triage child determines not a small part of my life experience in that season.
But I’ve also been thinking about this: Those times of concern also increase my advocacy and attachment to that child. I have fierce feelings for my second son, for example, because of all we’ve slugged through with his ADHD.
These times have kneaded into me God’s advocacy and love as a Father, too.
As a question-collector, I love this genius question Harling posed to kids. Listen to some of their answers:
Now I want to go ask my kids!
I was relieved that this was something my husband and I (him even more than me) are already doing. We rotate through our kids (not on a schedule, per se), taking them for coffee or whatnot. (Much easier pre-COVID, but not un-doable now.)
This is one of those answers I anticipate in response to “When are you most likely to talk to me?”
Totally have not considered applying this verse to parenting (Proverbs 12:16). In fact, Harling counsels parents who want their teens to talk to practice not looking shocked.
This has been 100% true for my teens. Sometimes I’ve totally managed this–but I’ve had to pay for the times I haven’t.
Becky elaborates, “If you want your kid to talk to you, the ‘evil eye’ has to go.”
Shot to the heart.
What if you have little-bitty kids right now? I loved this quote she requotes: “In a child’s first two years, the desire to experience joy in loving relationships is the most powerful force in life.” Referring to the location of the “joy center” behind the eyes, the quote continues, “In fact, some neurologists now say that the basic human need is to be the ‘sparkle in someone’s eyes.'”
Becky opens each chapter with other thoughtful nuggets from other authors, too–like this one I love.
We’re called to see the preciousness of our children even when they are covered in their own “mess.”
Dr. Karyn Purvis
Here the Gospel in there? Jesus coming to us in our mess?
Me, too.
With my recurring anger issues, maybe I should get this one tattooed on my person somewhere. It’s an idea.
That said–there’s a lot of parenting gold to be mined in How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk. And I’m thrilled to give away two copies!
I’ll contact you via the email address you enter. Thanks for being a reader!
Reading Time: 2 minutes
My 16-year-old was recently awarded his driver’s permit–okay, yikes–and with it, was pre-registered to vote. We don’t fall down the line politically, which I’m generally okay with. (You may remember we’re a lot different: see When Your Child is Different from What You Expected.)
As my kids grow older…so do their opinions. Sometimes I’m unprepared for the ways my boys and I don’t see eye-to-eye.
But I’m actually more concerned about statistics I’m reading: A shocking 22% of evangelicals believe civility is unproductive in political conversations. Twenty-five percent consider their candidate’s insulting personal remarks toward an opponent to be justifiable.
(Friends, how did we get here?)
It’s one thing to steer clear of Twitter or Facebook for a few months as your feed blows up with political polarization and vehement, loaded, or snarky political statements.
It’s another thing when the political polarization lands in your living room, or on that phone call with your dad.
So recently for FamilyLife.com, I wrote “A House Divided: Navigating Political Polarization“–namely, with family.
It’s can be alienating to find your own mom, your own aunt, your own sister could so enthusiastically endorse a candidate representing so personally painful. Or when a child so casually sets aside a deal-breaking ethical issue.
Grab some ideas to help you navigate. My prayer is that it brings a little more peace to your home in a tough season.
When Anger’s Hot: Raising Self-Controlled Kids in Outrage Culture
Election 2016: How can I talk with my kids about all this?
When Your Teen Yells at You: 8 Win-win Ideas
Reading Time: 4 minutes
They’re socially-distanced, hormonal, maybe driving someone crazy. Grab 71 ideas for the quarantined, bored teens in your life.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
So I got a call from the principal. I confess to even wishing her (rather brightly) a Happy Friday.
She responded pretty kindly, considering my son was there in the office with her. (It was only 8:40. What could happen before 8:40?)
So the details are a little sketchy. But the not-so-sketchy part: My nine-year-old was definitely in a a “substantial scuffle” (her words) over a kid not taking turns. Y’know, the student council member, chess club participant, after-school choirboy (literally), ex-missionary kid?
…Yeah. That’s the one. We used to joke he’d either be president someday, or leading all the other felons in prison.
None of my kids ever went to the office. But then again, I was homeschooling in Africa for a big part of that time, so I was the principal. I have joined the ranks of mortified mothers.
But then again, I’ve been a member for awhile. In case you have an idea that missionary kids are generally perfect kids, don’t worry: Mine are 100% far-from-perfect.
And this is after I did (this very morning) what I told you I do: Tell my kids as they’re walking out the door to listen to the Holy Spirit, to love on other kids, to make a difference.
(At least that last one happened. Maybe I should have said what kind of difference?)
I write this to you because on some days of parenthood, we feel like we’re brightening our little corner, conquering just a little bit of darkness.
And on other days? Our candle gets blown out. Or someone sits on our helmet. And maybe we’re bleeding, limping a little.
I’m guest posting on my friend Kristen Welch’s site again today, WeAreThatFamily.com. From one idealistic-slash-disillusioned mother to another, I hope you’ll hop over and check out these thoughts for the hard days you’re wondering if your kids are conquerors…or being conquered.
Wherever you’re at, I hope it encourages you.
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Reading Time: 3 minutes
Which is why this mother of two teen boys and a preteen girl, without stating any opinion on the turmoil of the U.S.’ Kavanaugh proceedings, wants to ponder aloud one particular sentiment.
“Boys will be boys” is a bunch of hooey.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
And there’s this leeettle part of it that scares the bejeebies out of me.
Seemingly separate note: I have recently acquired an agent for a non-fiction book I’m writing, which makes my heart do little cartwheels of happiness. It was a moment I wasn’t sure would ever happen.
Back to the terror: There’s nothing like teenagers to keep one humble and, well, pretty much groveling before God. (I make this sound funny, but I am serious as a heart attack.) As a former missionary recently remarked to me, “Once kids turn about eleven, you really start hitting your knees, realizing it’s their choice to follow God.” And indeed, every day, I am receiving the message, Do all you can to love and parent your child well. But ultimately, your child has to make the choice to make Jesus the center of his life. And it’s God who creates that desire in us.
And trust me: I’m encouraged by so many signs of God’s life in a son I love. But as kids age, the stakes of their decisions only get higher.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Allow me to sketch for you a brief (yet oh-so-vivid) moment from about eight years ago. You would have found me slumped against the wall in the hallway one afternoon. He was only a year and a half old–and the potential for catastrophe was spreading before me.
Funny thing is, I don’t even remember what my then-toddler did to cause me to groan in despair. I just remember a lot of the stories that give me a pretty good idea: like that time while I was in the bathroom, when he pulled a barstool up to the counter, snatched a packet of drink mix from the top of the toaster oven, wrenched it open, and sprinkled it around the house like fairy dust.
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