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You should require obedience from your children.
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This is going to sound self-serving or self-justifying, but part of your job as a dad is to teach your kids what the Bible says, to teach them to do what God is telling them to do, to teach them to obey all that He has commanded.
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This is not just the great commission, broadly speaking.
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This is part of our responsibility as parents, is to pass on the word to the next generation.
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And part of that word includes things like this: children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
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Honor your father and mother, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land.
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Also, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline instruction of the Lord.
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Part of my job as a dad is to teach my kids to obey me, to discipline them such that they obey me.
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Now, discipline is training.
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It's not just saying, it's not just telling.
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You know, teaching is not the same as telling.
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If it was, everyone would be a lot smarter.
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So it's not just telling them, but it's teaching, which requires developmental creativity.
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But I need to require and help them obey the Lord, right?
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When the Bible says, love your neighbor, I'm teaching my kids to love each other.
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How do I love uh the kid at school who's annoying?
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How do I love my sister?
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How do I be kind?
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How do so I'm I'm reinforcing to them, here's how you obey that.
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When you struggle to obey that, here's what you do.
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And so part of my job is to teach them to obey and hold them to that standard that they would be obeying their parents.
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And so here's some of what that looks like.
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So, you know, my kids are playing in the playroom.
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I hear my wife say, time to clean up.
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They go on ignoring her.
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Part of my job as the ruler of the household, right?
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So Titus chapter two talks about husbands.
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Uh, so it's talking about the qualifications of an elder.
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And it says, if a man does not manage his own household, how can he manage the church of God?
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But the word manage, I think, is best translated as to rule, that it's to lead.
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It's not just like middle management, but it's rulership, that I'm called to be the ruler of my household.
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And I want that rule to be congruent with the rule of Christ.
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I want to lead like Christ.
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I want to rule like some dictator, but I want to rule like Christ, which is warm, patient, congruent with the fruit of the Spirit, but it is my job to rule.
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And so part of my job is to make my kids listen to my wife, to cause my kids to respect my wife.
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And so some of that also comes from Genesis 2, that God put Adam in the garden to serve and protect or work and keep his garden.
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And so my household is mine to serve and work and keep and protect.
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And so when my kids ignore or disrespect my wife, that is the swiftest to discipline instinct that I have.
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That when I will remove them from the moment.
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So practically speaking, my wife says, time to clean up.
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They go on playing, ignoring her.
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Now, I'm not always there to reinforce it, but when I am, this is a dad swoop-in moment.
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So my wife and I on the same page of this.
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Sometimes it feels like if I cut in, I'm reinforcing disrespect to my wife, saying she's not capable of parenting.
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But there are times when I, as a dad, want to, with some aggression, cause my kids to respect.
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Another word for respect is fear the Lord and thus the authority that's proximate, which is my wife under my leadership of the home.
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And so I swoop in, I get on their level, I have them face me, and I say, when your mother speaks to you, you stop what you're doing and you look at her.
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And it's a pause, it's a calm, I'm not elevated, but I am stern.
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When your mother asks you to do something, you had better not ignore her like she didn't speak.
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Do you understand what I'm saying?
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Okay, if you understand what I'm saying, say yes, dad.
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Okay, no, say yes, dad.
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Yes, dad.
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Now look at your mom in the eye and say, I'm sorry for ignoring you.
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I'm sorry for ignoring you.
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Now, what did she ask you to do?
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Oh, you don't remember because you weren't listening.
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Say, I'm sorry I wasn't listening.
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Can you tell me again?
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I'm sorry I wasn't listening.
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Can you
Load full transcript
tell me again?
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I said, time to clean up.
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It's time for dinner.
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Okay, kids, let's clean up together.
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Let me help you.
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So I take the toys out of their hands and I put them in the bucket and say, now let's do the rest together.
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And so I'm trying to teach them, here is how you obey.
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I'm modeling for you how to obey.
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Let me show you what the right response to what mom just said is.
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So I'm not just saying clean up and yelling down from the hall, but depending on age, so my kids are six and four.
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This is kind of works for five and three as well.
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I'm present, modeling for them, showing here is how we obey.
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We do this, we put this here, we do that, we put that there.
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And if they go on being disrespectful, I take them out of the environment.
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This is a go to timeout.
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I like timeouts.
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I know it's kind of faux pas now to do timeouts.
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I like timeouts because it takes them away from whatever was stimulating their disobedience.
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A lot of times it's all the other things that are more interesting to them than obeying.
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They're more interested in the toy or the person or the thing.
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And so let's get you away from the thing that's inhibiting your disobedience.
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Go to timeout, and I go with them in a timeout and I talk through here's what you did wrong.
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Let's go back and let's try again.
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So sometimes people say it's not good to send them in timeout because that's saying you're going away, you're sending them away from you.
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No, I'm sending them away from the thing that was tempting them to sin by disobeying their mom.
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And I'm then I go with them into the timeout.
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Maybe they go in there for 30 seconds to cool off, but then I go, I go to them in the timeout, we talk through it together.
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But it's my job as a dad to require that my kids respect and listen to my mom, to their to their mom.
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I guess my mom when grandma's around too.
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You respect and listen to grandma.
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But they're listening to mom, they're respectful, they're kind.
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Because I'm not just teaching them in those moments how to listen to their mom.
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I'm also teaching them how to
listen to and respect authority, generally speaking.
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Teachers, uh, Bible study leaders, uh, future pastors are going to be under.
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That it's you you respect by you, you stop and you listen and you orient and you turn.
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And so I do think a lot of this kind of licentious, gentle parenting, where you're not really getting on their level and engaging with them and teaching them how to obey this, right?
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Hey, like this, as you have teenagers, another way of doing this.
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You know, like, hey, let's put our phones down.
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Let's treat our phones like a landline.
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Kid goes on texting.
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Hey, sometimes you have to break the line of sight.
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Say, hey, your mother's talking to you.
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Did you hear what she said?
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Well, I'm still doing this.
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No, try again.
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What you can say is, hey, mom, can I finish this text message?
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Can I have one more minute?
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Try it like that.
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Hey, mom, can I?
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Yes, that's okay.
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So you're teaching them, try again.
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Don't say it like that.
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That was disrespectful.
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That was respectful.
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And so you're not just shutting down all negotiation, but you're trying to age appropriately develop, hey, instead of saying this, you could say this.
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Why don't you try again?
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Okay, nope, you're not speaking to my wife like that.
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You speak to my wife like that again.
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Here's the consequence: no more phone for the next 48 hours.
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Would you like to try again, or would you like to not have your phone for the next four hours?
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So you're still giving choices where you're able.
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And so we want to reinforce and help model for them that when they're not sure how to obey, here's what obedience looks like.
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And so that's part of the teaching is uh prompting and giving examples of what obedience would look like.
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At every different age, that's different.
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But it's my job as a dad to require and hold the standard that they obey and listen to their parents, chiefly their mom, who's the more proximate parent, especially as the kids are younger, but then also with me.
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And this is not about yelling and screaming and throwing a fit and being dysregulated as a dad.
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This is about calm, direct, teaching, disciplinary words that help them see what obedience might look like and help them see that it's possible.
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Because sometimes for little minds, obedience feels impossible.
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How could I possibly put down the lightsaber when I'm having a lightsaber fight?
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It feels impossible.
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Here, let me show you how to do this.
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You can do this.
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And so I'm showing them the possibility of it.
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And so require obedience of your children, require that your kids respect their mothers and be a calm, present, but stern dad as you need to be.