Gospel Parenting During the Little Years

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TGC
Welcome to The Gospel Coalition podcast, equipping the next generation of believers, pastors and church leaders to shape life and ministry around the gospel. Today you’ll hear a conversation from Melissa Kruger and Jen Wilkin titled, “Gospel Parenting During The Little Years. This talk was originally recorded at TGC 2021 Women’s Conference

Melissa Kruger
My name is Melissa Kruger. And I’m here with Jen Wilkin. Three years ago, we did a session like this on parenting teens. And so we thought it would be fun to do a session on parenting littles is what I call them. Because that’s really far away. And we don’t remember.

Jen Wilkin
Yeah, we remember it only with fondness. Yes, we’re just going to tell you to love him a whole lot more guys,

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, we’re gonna say how easy? No, I’m just kidding, we’re not going to say that. We’re not gonna say that. So remember, I still remember sleepless nights. But I do want to first start by thanking our sponsor, our sponsor is the Good Book Company, who actually produces a lot of great resources for little kids. And so we just want to thank them for sponsoring this. And they are a book company who you can find actually in our bookstore. So just want to say thank you. So I’m just going to what we’re going to do is just kind of go through different questions and go back and forth, and try to answer them.

Jen Wilkin
Maybe we should start by talking about like, how far apart were our children and those sorts of things.

Melissa Kruger
Tell us about your family. Jen.

Jen Wilkin
I would I would love to Melissa. Well, Melissa, my family are currently my children are currently 25, 24 23 and 21. So I just want you to picture for a minute parenting littles, when they were all four and under, so I feel like I have something to contribute to but whether I remember it clearly or not, is up for debate. But I will try my hardest to recall things accurately. Melissa, tell me a little about your family.

Melissa Kruger
Godly. I did not have them near as close together as Jen did. So I right now have a 20 year old, a 17 year old and a 14 year old so I still have to him and I have one in college. And I think I remember parenting little kids. So I but it’s hard years. I do think a lot is forgotten. And see I hear a baby.

Jen Wilkin
We have we have like a soundtrack. It’s perfect.

Melissa Kruger
And I kind of want to hold that baby. I’m in that stage right now.

Jen Wilkin
So I have to tell you, so my husband does children’s ministry and we haven’t been meeting in person much or really at all much. And then he came on Easter he went in and he subbed in the first grade classroom because I needed a sub and we were driving home and he got really quiet and he goes, I just really miss having a little kids. And I knew what I was supposed to say.

And I was like, Uh huh.

Melissa Kruger
You’re gonna love grandkids.

Jen Wilkin
I’ve made a lot of love grandkids. I’m gonna be fun. It’s gonna be my turn to be fun, everybody.

Melissa Kruger
That’s right, because you were the No mom, you were the No mom. All right. Okay. So here’s our first question. Motherhood is so much harder than I expected. And so I started with this question, honestly, to get at how does it feel to be a mother and this season, we’ll get to parenting things. But do you think this is always a good question to consider? I don’t feel like I’m doing anything, right. I’m worn out and weary of work that never seems to end. I feel like I’ve lost parts of myself that used to be competent and in charge. What advice and encouragement can you give you that probably could have come from my journal about 15 years ago? Okay, so help me out, Jen.

Jen Wilkin
Oh, can I advise you now? Yeah, I do think there. There are two ways to think about this. It is possible to have underestimated just how hard it was going to be. But it is also possible that your markers for how it should be are not accurate. And I don’t know your situation. So I don’t know which of those it is for you. But I find it more often than not, it’s not that someone actually thought this was going to be easy, and it turned out to be hard. It’s that they got into it and they discovered that the grading system was not one that they were aware of and they are missing it. And so it It’s really important, I think, in the early years in particular, and this is so hard for young moms of your generation, because you have so many places you can turn to to ask, Am I doing this right? I had my mom, my step mom, my mother in law, that was pretty much it. And they were pretty life affirming, I gotta tell ya. And so I think there is a lot to be said, for guarding the number of inputs that you’re receiving on what a measure of effectiveness is, like, there are days straight up where you’re like, they’re all still alive. And they are in their beds, praise hands, you know. And so and that’s okay. And that doesn’t mean you failed, it means an Indian, you know, it’s not about winning a day anyway, I think that’s a big part of it is that you can have a sense that you’re not moving forward in the short term when you are, in fact, moving forward in the long term. Because one of the biggest frustrations that I think young moms deal with is, I clearly explained what obedience looked like. And he’s done it wrong. Three more times, you know, and it’s like, we do dramatically underestimate the fortitude of a small child that determinism of a small child. But it doesn’t mean that things are not moving forward, it just means that sometimes in the 24 hours or 48 hours that you’ve been inhabiting, it’s been rough sailing, what thoughts do you have?

Melissa Kruger
I look back, and I think, I think I was really uncomfortable with not knowing what to do. And I think that’s just a place to lean into now. That it’s actually okay. And completely normal, that you have no idea what to do with that child. And I wish someone had just told me, that’s okay. And this will make you depend on God and ways that you have never had to depend on God most likely, before some people have. I’m not saying that motherhood is the only avenue for that. I’m just saying it is definitely an avenue, where and this really hit home for me when I looked at this child, and all I knew was that I desperately wanted this child to love Jesus. I knew at the end of the day, that was the only thing that mattered. And I knew I could do nothing to save this child. And that was terrifying. And it was honestly it taught me a different Well, actually, it probably started because I realized, first of all, I could not stop this child from crying. And I remember literally, I mean, this is this is first time, mom. Third time mom didn’t even hear the crying first time mom sat there, literally, on my knees by the bedroom door, same please let her stop crying, because I couldn’t I couldn’t make a child stop crying. You just can’t do it. And so I couldn’t make her nurse. I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t do anything. And it taught me a new level of prayer fullness. And I think in the rest of my life, I could handle it. I could get by kind of on working hard, asking the right questions, figuring it out on my own. And this was another human being that I could not control. And it was God’s means of pulling the veil back and saying you’ve never been in control in the first place, Melissa, you only thought that you were and so I just say embrace it. Embrace that there will be harder days than you realized. Embrace that you will probably feel like a bigger sinner than you’ve ever felt like before. Embrace that you will make mistakes and say unkind things to the people you say you love more than anyone else in the world. And that you will have to repent more and you will know you will need Jesus more than you’ve ever needed. And when you can kind of say, oh, that’s normal. There’s some peace in that may be rather than thinking, I’m supposed to be perfect because if you live that life, you’re going to be probably more angry and more mad and more frustrated. So I think just kind of embracing I’m gonna need to spend time with Jesus

Jen Wilkin
a lot. I love that your first concern for your child was spiritual, and mine was that they would go to bed.

Melissa Kruger
Well, the crime was actually the first it led to the spiritual, it led to the spiritual. Okay, here’s another question. So this gets to formation of our kids. I think we all ask this. So how have you proactively taught the Bible in your home with young children and what age did you start? What if kids are uninterested or bored?

Jen Wilkin
Yeah, well, they 100% will be uninterested or bored. So get your game face on for that. But you really do have to keep in mind the developmental appropriateness of what you want to do. And I think so often well meaning Christian parents are so concerned that their child know the gospel understand themself as a sinner. On and on and on, that they kind of get a little ahead of things like I have stood in the foyer of my church and heard a parent tell a child, repentance pleases the Lord, you need to repent before the lien. I mean, I’m like, Whoa, that’s a real big word. How about stop, sit? Like, you know. And so we tend to multiply words with children who are not ready for those words, out of an earnest desire to give them what we know is needful. And I would just say to you, you can exhale, you can communicate at an age appropriate level and trust that you will have time this is not a one time conversation it is it is years of conversations that grow in depth, you know, and what you want, really, in those earliest years, is to establish a rhythm of those conversations. And they can be tiny, little conversations, but to where there’s an expectation that I’m going to ask you a question about this. And you can answer right. And so it’s as simple as so with small children, you’re doing the typical things, you’re teaching them a prayer that you can repeat together, you know, you’re giving them tiny, little liturgies to help them have structures in place that you can then build more content into as they get older. So you pray with them at night, or whatever it is, you might read a Bible story, but it doesn’t need to last that long, right? I mean, really, and that everybody’s tired, they’re all tired. And then as they get older, you’re able to have more things that you’re building into it. And I do think you can be creative about the way that you’re doing things. But they’re still going to be bored. And they’re still going to and you’re going to be like this is the worst why are they so interested in Peppa Pig? And they don’t get is that some of the kids are you doing today? Now? Right, Peppa Pig? Is that him? He the one? No, is he old to Baby shark,

Melissa Kruger
you’re like five years off. Even if they’re all

Jen Wilkin
about Baby shark, whoever that guy is. And they don’t really care about the Jesus storybook Bible. And you have failed. But that’s just not really true. Because you are training them not even so much through those moments that you’re having with them. In those little years that truism that more is caught than taught is very, very true. They’re watching you. They’re watching how you relate to matters of faith. So what would you add to them?

Melissa Kruger
The only thing I would add, I think one thing kids do like our songs. And so one thing that we did a lot of was just have versus to song now that sometimes would come back to haunt me, because I was be complaining about something and I would hear the Steve green, I’m not going to sing it because my voice is so bad, do everything without complaining. It was this little jingle and it would ring in my own head and come back and convict me. And I’m like, this is for the kids. Not for me. I’m not supposed to be convicted by this. But it’s interesting I was reading in where was that? It’s at the end of Deuteronomy. God tells Moses to teach the people of Israel a song. So that when they fall away, which he knows they will, these words will convict them. And it’s interesting. He’d give him the them the whole law. But he taught them a song. Because I think song is powerful. You know, if it comes back, I could tell you certain jingles. And I’m sure you could all sing them right away. Because song comes back. And so I really do think when we teach our kids these verses in these songs, they’re different. And there’s so many good ones down so many out there that you could do. It has the power to come back I think verses that are memorize John, even before they can understand the concept. It’s so good to hide it in their heart at a young age, because later that’s going to be hidden there and it doesn’t go away things I memorize John, I still remember to this day.

Jen Wilkin
Yeah. And I would even say, you know, you look at the studies of children who stay in the church in adulthood like, you know, they hit 18. And are they going to stay? Are they going to go? And the Lifeway study that came out a few years ago noted that the number one factor that keeps a child in the faith, you know, as a practicing Christian after they leave the nest, is where they taught how to read their Bible. So you guys know, I’m the Bible literacy girl. So this is the most predictable thing ever that I’m going to say. But if you think about it with small children, you know, teaching them something like the song that teaches them the books of the Bible, it can seem like a party trick, or is it helping them to be familiar with the most important book that they’ll ever read? One of the things that we came up with at my church that I just love, and I’m pretty sure it’s available. And we we wrote a song to teach children 40 big events of the Bible. So from Genesis to Revelation, and we actually have little cards that they have to that goal. Long with it, but so that they’re learning the story of scripture in song with hand motions, you know, in our little village and kids village areas. So if you start to think about, you know, are there some simple ways that we can give them things that are just sticky? They’re sticky content that down the road, we can build into something else.

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, it’s, it’s, I think that’s the best way to describe it a little thing. You know, it’s a little thing here and there. One thing we did in our family was a children’s catechism. Actually, there’s a new city catechism, the sun for children with TGC. And there’s their songs for that now

Jen Wilkin
to the New City catechism. Yeah,

Melissa Kruger
yeah. But we did. The version that we used at the time because this one wasn’t around yet was it was just who made you? And the child answered, God, what else? Did God make all things? Why did God make you in all things for His own glory? Mom memorize it as well. But it we just it was just a q&a. And I promise it wasn’t miserable. At the table. It just was the habit.

Jen Wilkin
It were you handing out m&ms Every time they got an answer. We didn’t sing hymns.

Melissa Kruger
Because we can’t sing. So we didn’t sing. But it was one of those little things. And I will say, you know, sometimes you forget to say who made you? You just assume things. And so it was just a great teaching tool. Like, where do you start? Well, you start with who made you?

Jen Wilkin
Well, and you just brought up a really important point. And I know you and I have talked about this a great deal. So I’m not Presbyterian. So catechisms were like, what is that? Is that a new thing? You know, we don’t have any idea. But the Catechism starts with the right place. But a lot of times an overzealous parent forgets to start where the Bible starts. So the Bible doesn’t start with the problem of sin. Right? The Bible starts with theology, who is God? And then what does it go to next? Anthropology, who are you? But often with small children, we go straight to your you’re a sinner and you need Jesus Christ, you know, you were born a sinner. And you wouldn’t say it that, that, you know, that bald face, but like, you know, when they’re doing something rotten for the 45th time that day, you kind of want to give him a little lecture on the serpent in the garden and why they’re like this instead of just, you know, reiterating what children most need to hear. And even what they need to hear developmentally is you are, you’re made by God like you are, you are precious, because you are made by God. And don’t ever think that you’re avoiding the issue of sin, because you drove home anthropology in those early years, when they’re developmentally ready to understand what is an abstract concept. They’ll be ready to receive it, if you have built a foundation of your you are a value because you’re mainly image of God.

Melissa Kruger
It and I just, I hadn’t really even thought of that it starts on a positive to God made you well, why did he make you for His own glory? We were actually made for a glorious PR purpose. Whereas when you start with you are a sinner? Yeah, it’s kind of like, Yeah, I mean, it does affect it affects them to know that they and every other human being was made for God. And so that that starts this conversation. And actually, the other thing I like about the Catechism, you are asking them questions, rather than telling them something. And so it puts them in the place of oh, they’re participating in the learning, rather than just let me tell you about God, they get to answer back. And so just a dialogue. Yeah, just what you’re looking for. Yes. And I would say that’s been the most helpful thing with teens. It continued that dialogue. So you’re starting that dialogue at a young age that I really felt like continued into the teen years. Anything else? So let’s Oh, this will be fun. Let’s get into discipline because everybody wants to know, how do I get a perfect child? How did you discipline your children? And at the same time, how did you teach them about grace? And does teaching them about grace mean that we don’t punish wrong behavior?

Jen Wilkin
Do you want us but they already know I was the No mom. And I just wrote a book on the 10 commandments. So what do you think I’m gonna say?

Melissa Kruger
I just remember you wouldn’t let him eat Oreos or Oreos,

Jen Wilkin
Oreos, and then they were eating them as teenagers.

You were like, they knew that I Yeah, Calvin wrote on his mother’s day thing like my mommy loves He wrote Oreos. Do don’t ask me Yes, I do. And I eat them after you go to bed. Ready, kid? Double stuff, if you must know. Okay, so I have often joked that if I were going to write a parenting book, it would be titled give them all. Which is horrible to say, but only because because I’m obviously children need both. Law and Grace, right? We all need to understand law and grace. We can’t understand grace without the law. You know, it all works together. But I would say it’s important for us to identify our generational lien. Okay. So like, my parents parents leaned heavily on an authoritarian parenting style. They were not particularly emotionally available to their children. And they were heavy on rules. So you see, that pendulum began to swing and about the time that I’m being raised, at least in my home, I actually had a pretty good blend of, of law and grace, right. And of rules and relationship, let’s say it that way. But what I see in the current iteration of parents, and I’m not judging you, I’m just helping you see the ecosystem is an understanding that rules prevent relationship, that if I enforce the rules, I will sacrifice my relationship with my child, this child will not love me, because I followed through on this and they will be sad. And that is a pendulum shift, we’ve shifted back to a heavily relational model of parenting. Andy Crouch wrote a great book called strong and weak, and it’s about power. But in the opening chapter, He gives a four by four, or a two by two chart, right. And he talks about how we think that you have authoritarian parenting here. And you have he used parenting as his example, you have authoritarian parenting here, and then you have permissive parenting over here. But he said, What you actually have is a two by two chart. So if you were to draw four squares on your notes right now, the Hold on, I can’t do it, facing you. In the top right quadrant, you would put authoritarian set, right? Nope. Oh, I’m sorry, on the top axis, put authoritarian and then on the other axis, she would put permissive. And what you what you want is you want to transect those she want authoritative, you want those two things in tension with one another. So I just did a terrible job of drawing that for you. And I hope you’re all like that was pointless. Get the book, get Andy’s book, leave me alone. But the point is, you want those two things functioning together. You don’t want to be high relationship, low rules. And you don’t want to be high rules, low relationship, but you want you want to be high relationship and high rules in the early stages, where children have not yet internalized the mechanism for choosing wisely. And the way that a child learns wisdom is by watching you faithfully follow through with the teaching mechanism, read negative consequence that helps them to learn. But it is important again, along developmental lines to know when a child has passed out of a phase in which you are using a a physical consequence and into the phase where you can use natural and logical consequences. So we’re not going to talk about whether spanking is right or wrong. That is a loaded issue. But we are going to say there are ways to make your child physically uncomfortable, like we used to have Calvin I can say his name because he remembers this and loves it. He was not fazed by many forms of negative reinforcement. But if we made him stand on a little stool over in the corner, where he couldn’t talk to us or come out until he had, you know, gathered his wits about him, he was just physically uncomfortable enough. And he wasn’t in our face. And he absolutely hated it and was perfect. But as he got older, it would have been inappropriate for me to put a 13 year old on the stool, right like you notice when they’re aging into the next stage of how can I help reinforce this in ways that are logical or natural? So I do think

Be aware that your generation tends to lean toward the relational more than toward the authoritarian and ask is there do I personally need to correct now in any given marriage, you could have one member of the marriage who is more authoritarian and one who’s more permissive, you could kind of both be on the same page. This really does mean we have to pay attention to the dynamic within our own home to know how best to make sure that we’re hitting that balance of high rollers high relationship, but would you say?

Melissa Kruger
Yeah, absolutely. And and one thing like she was saying, so when the child is older, let’s say they throw a baseball through a window, right? The punishment would not be standing on the table, but it would be or sitting on the stool, but it might be you pay for it, you pay for the window, right? So they may have been saving their money for something special. And now it’s going to go to that window. Yeah. So

Jen Wilkin
it’s appropriate. That would be a logical consequence. Yes, yeah. So it’s appropriate, but sometimes we’re fatigued and we lack creativity. So we go for something that we’ve used at an earlier stage of development, and we need to make sure that as quickly as possible, we move toward those kinds, because those are the kinds life is going to deal them, life is not going to spank them, life is going to take their money and their self esteem. So don’t take their self esteem. Other people will do that for them.

Melissa Kruger
Yes, yes. I’ve read this, and I’m just gonna read it because I want to make this really clear. Gracious parenting does not mean a lack of accountability or consequences. It means that we are sympathetic and understanding as we discipline. So Grace does not mean you do not hold your child accountable. Gracious parenting does it from an attitude of I need the same graciousness to me. And I’m not coming at my child from a point of perfection. So I can be extremely sympathetic in the fact that I am still struggling to obey. And I’ve had a lot longer to work on this. And I still struggle to obey. So I am the unmerciful servant. If I go to my child, and I demand perfection in my heart from them, when I cannot offer that same perfection, and I have the Holy Spirit living in me, that does not mean I can’t hold them accountable for it. And that is a teaching opportunity for them to say, if you run in the street, there has to be a consequence, because I love you. And so it’s a good thing to provide consequences, because that is loving to the child. But I also think it’s really important to see discipline as a holistic approach to the child. Sometimes we think, because we told them one time, they should not hit another child, they should never forget it. And they should never do it again. The Israelites got reminded over and over and over again, remember the Lord your God,

Jen Wilkin
sometimes the ground opened up and swallowed some of them? Yes.

Melissa Kruger
And sometimes that’s grounded. Yes. But they were reminded, again, and again. And again. I think as parents, we’ve got to realize, we need to remind them and I would say with young children, it is really important in the car, on the way to the grocery store, have the conversation every time how are we going to get in the car? What does it look like to get in the car? How mommy’s asking you to get in the car? What is you know, I used to tell my kids, are we going to act like hooligans in the store? What does the hooligan do tell me and they would list out all the crazy things like they pull things off the shelf, they scream when they get in the car, they do have the 7am i Are we gonna do that when we get in the car. That is gracious parenting. That is saying I get you may forget, I’m here to help you remember what it looks like to do the grocery store how we want to do the grocery store. I also think it’s really important, especially when particular children are going through a really hard season. And sometimes all they feel like is everything they do is bad. Everything is now for that child and they are struggling. Catch them doing something, right? I mean, if it is that they took the yogurt top off and threw it in the trash can praise them up and down and say, Wow, you threw that away. So well. Good job. I mean, kids need that. And if all they’re ever hearing from you, is what they did not do right. That that’s not good. Either. They need to hear Hey, you did that? Don’t assume I’ve heard some parents say this? Well, they should know how to throw that in the trash. Can. You know what? I’ll be honest, I haven’t planned in this conference. I have written a lot of conference emails you have received a lot for me. I am sorry. But there were some days. I did it. Not because I love all y’all. I did it because I was getting paid to do it. Okay. And so there is a reality that our kids need that positive reinforcement to do what they’ve been asked to do. We all do.

Jen Wilkin
I’m actually a big fan of that, like, you know, if it’s like, well, that was their chore that helped keep the family going. I’m like, you can still say thank you like, that is gracious, that is agree. No, I like when they thank me for making dinner, you know, I mean, so if you model it with them, you will start to hear it back. I mean, that goes both ways, right? Like, if you model yackety yak at them, then when they hit middle school, you’re gonna start to hear that back at you too. But if you speak words that give life you will be I will never forget. When I got the text from my daughter asking me how she could pray for me that day, you know, and you’re like, oh, my gosh, it worked. You know, I mean, I mean, the Lord the Lord. Yeah. And so that’s really an I hope you were noticing the way that Melissa was talking about setting an expectation. First of all, think about how gracious the Lord is to set an expectation for us. The expectation is so that we can all love God and love each other the way that We should write, it’s not so that I can be the ruler in your life, or so that you can prove to me that you will toe the line. It’s because our family is healthy when we all observe rules that help us to live in community with one another. So never think that discipline of an individual child is not something that relates to the family as a whole, because it does. And that’s why consistency matters. But Melissa’s way of setting expectations, and it was mine, too, as soon as they’re old enough is it’s Ask, Don’t Tell. Ask, Don’t Tell. So often, we’re so busy saying, Put your shoes on pick up your toys, you need to do this, you need to do that. And that kid, what are they doing? They’re like, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. And, and you need to draw them in. Hey, what should you be doing right now? And then what you know what that is, now they’re confessing, they’re not just acknowledging there confessing that that little son of a gun knew all along exactly what they were supposed to do. But you don’t have to be a snark eponymous about it, you can just say, Hey, Baby, what are you supposed to be doing right now? And then when they say putting on my shoes, you go, that’s right, you know, like, give them some praise for actually giving you the right answer. And then they’re like, I did something right. Instead of she’s yapping at me again, ask don’t tell keep it a dialogue, you are subtly putting the monkey back on their back, instead of you being the one who’s responsible for constantly calling them and you’ll get to a point where they’ll say, can I go to so and so’s house? And you just kind of give them that look like a little smile? Because they know the list? And you can say I don’t know, you tell me? Are you able to go or not? Because they have to internalize it at the appropriate age. So if we ask and don’t tell, it makes them have to do the work inside of what is wisdom in this moment.

Melissa Kruger
And they’re telling themselves, so it’s reinforcing. And the more I mean, this is just education one to one. If I say it to you, you’ll retain like 10% I think it’s a really small percentage. If you see me do something visual, you retain more. But if you teach it to someone else, you will retain the most. So basically the people who are going to get the most of the session, are you in me, but that’s okay. But the reality is, so every time you have your child, say what they should do, it’s actually teaching them better than when you say what, yeah, if

Jen Wilkin
you’re an educator, you know this, it’s called turn and tell, like they learned something, and then they have to turn and tell it to their neighbor, they can turn and tell you what you just told them to do. That’s fantastic.

Melissa Kruger
It’s it’s yes. So it’s a good just, again, keeping the conversation going between the kids. So we’re going to shift just a little bit. So that’s kind of young kids. But quickly, when you have little kids, they start going to school. And so one of the biggest things that starts to weigh on people is how do we make school decisions with our children are for our children?

Jen Wilkin
No, no one is nervous about this at all. And I never get asked this question. It’s not going to be controversial. No, it will not be controversial whatsoever. is now where I tell everyone that I bottle fed my children so that we can just get to the whole get it all laid out there. Yeah. So I don’t know what your Yeah, and they’re not in prison, guys. They’re not. Yet. Yeah, this is a this is a big concern of mine. Personally, it’s something I’ve tried to talk about constructively. I know that everyone makes decisions based on their unique situation to some degree and you should like you should evaluate does a child have a learning disability? Is there some special need to take into consideration? Is there something in our family dynamic, that means that one option is better than another? We we educated our children in the public school system in the hallway through the number one question I have gotten in recent weeks is, but would you still do that with everything that’s going on in the public school system now? And I know you can you can think I’m lying, but the answer is yes. That we would. And I had a really interesting conversation with Rebecca McLaughlin about this to the topics that are being discussed around sex and sexuality, you should be talking about with your children, regardless of the education choice that you make. And in most cases, the reports that have come to me about what are going on in their school system are not accurate. They are overblown, someone told someone that something was happening and your child and they’re not going to tell you that they’re going to talk to your child. In most cases, those have not been true. So I would ask you when you hear the alarm, go off, to do your homework and find out if that is actually true. And here why we’ve had a year of COVID. And a lot of people pull their kids out of the public school system for valid reasons, right. But we’re going to come out of that year. And it concerns me a great deal that a large number of the Christian population who have the ability to choose an education option might opt out, because they’re afraid of this conversation around sexuality. Because many people only have a choice of the public school system. And when we opt out of it, what happens to it? So that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will hear me say that and go great, I’m going to put my kids in public school because Jen said I should. That’s actually not what I said, Okay, I understand that there are a lot of factors at play, and a lot of reasons. But what we must not say is, I’m going to make the choice that is best for my family, as though the choice that I make for my family doesn’t impact the community. Because it does. Now, that means that if I make a choice, that is not the the one that others have to have, if they don’t have a choice, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. But it probably does mean that I should be looking for ways to actively invest in my public school system, even if my children aren’t in it. Because that’s something that is good for the community. And it can just be not top of mind for us anymore, once we pulled our own children and put them somewhere else. So that would just be something I would lay be for you to consider. And then I would just say that for us public schools, were actually a really positive experience for all four of my kids. And so if you are a Christian, evaluating education choices, and you think that is absolutely off the table, I would urge you to take another look at it, and then make the choice that is best for your family, and keep the community in mind.

Melissa Kruger
That’s good. And for Jen say this, too. The first thing to acknowledge is that you are it is a luxury to have a choice. And so that’s what we’ve had to acknowledge the whole time we have done surprisingly, I am I did public school the whole way I did public college, I taught in public high school. And we ended up doing private Christian school for our family through the years. And we’ve we’ve loved it. My daughter is now at a public university. And she’s having all those same conversations there. And so I think one thing just always consider is other people’s choices. Jen’s choice to do public school is not a condemnation of me and her choosing. That does not mean I don’t care about the last and I’m a terrible person and I don’t care about my community. And my choice to choose Private Christian School doesn’t mean I think she is going to hell in a handbasket and her kids are as well. Yeah,

Jen Wilkin
it’s mainly the bottle feeding that caused all my problems.

Melissa Kruger
And so I think it’s there’s a point we think communally. But we also have to follow God’s call on our life. And that is not a judgment call on her what her decision. And I think this is really sensitive among women. And I think we need to love each other better than that. And we need to accept that people are going to make different choices. And this is an area we can be extremely judgmental. And there is no verse in Scripture that is telling anyone directly do this or do this. And so I think we need to pull back. And remember that this is a place that we need to first act and love towards one another and bear that burden with each other and know, they’re going to be struggles in the public school, they’re going to be struggles in the private Christian school, there are going to be struggles in home school. And so we need to love each other in that, and here the struggle. And here are the joys of each and try to help each other and be the Christian community, whichever choice we make. And with that, I’ll give you three questions to consider. I’ll give you questions because I can’t tell you what you should do. How will this decision affect our family? How will this decision affect our neighborhood in our community? And how will this decision affect our calling in our ministry? What has the Lord called us to particularly because each family’s called to different things? And so as you evaluate those questions, prayerfully not fearfully. The Lord will guide you. I really believe that.

Jen Wilkin
And I love what you pointed out about I mean, you know, if there’s one place where we could really look like the New Jerusalem, what if the church decided not to embrace Kancil culture with one another? Like, I expect you to feel strongly about the choice you make about how you’re going to educate your children? Of course you do. It’s a big decision, and it involves a lot, but feeling strongly about your decision and feeling like it’s absolutely the right one for you doesn’t mean that we have to turn and cancel someone else right? We could just say no, we’re not going to do that. Because I love and respect that I love and respect this person. and, and and also we don’t know all the factors and someone else’s decision, right. And so we can actually be gracious with each other around this and even pray for each other. And I loved your questions is a really good, I should have let you go first. It was more organized.

Melissa Kruger
But yeah, I do just what Jen said, I think just knowing God is working in all these choices is going to help and preschool choices because that can even be stressful when you’re picking preschool. I know that can be really stressful. So just all those things,

Jen Wilkin
they’re like teaching them to read in preschool now.

Melissa Kruger
I got things, I think about that. It’s okay. If your child can’t read when they go to kindergarten It is okay. It is okay.

Jen Wilkin
Yeah, my my oldest child did not learn to read until first grade, like he was kind of like, what are we doing? And he’s he’s getting a PhD in material science. So I’m not saying your kid will get a Ph. I’m just saying a lot of those early developmental markers are straight up party tricks, and they all catch up. So yeah, it’s fine.

Melissa Kruger
Yes,

Jen Wilkin
I have another one who learned to read really early. And is not a

Melissa Kruger
POC, we just have four minutes left. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Okay,

Jen Wilkin
we’ve got around a time

Melissa Kruger
Oh, well, let’s do this.

Jen Wilkin
How many more? You got? A few?

Melissa Kruger
I’m just a window with any mistakes you made that we can learn? No. Okay.

Jen Wilkin
Yea, that’s a really good question.

Melissa Kruger
We can come back to that one, too. And you can think about actually,

Jen Wilkin
You know, I don’t I don’t know if we should phone my kids, let’s have them call in. I don’t know if we’re there yet. You know, my kids are young adults. And I don’t know what your experience was. But it took me a little while to debrief my childhood. So I’ll get back to you on that. But I think probably if we did anything, we probably were over. We were overly vulnerable sometimes in a way that caused anxiety. We tend to just talk about every single thing. And so I think sometimes because Jeff and I are such verbal processors that sometimes we process things in front of the kids like not conflict, we actually don’t have conflict, but talking through things that were going on not realizing that maybe they were absorbing it from a child’s perspective and carrying stress around something that they didn’t need to. So we were probably more vulnerable than we should have been at times in front of the kids.

Melissa Kruger
I would say that sometimes that probably wasn’t as gentle as I should go in tap one, two, I mean, well, right,

Jen Wilkin
You should go first, every time. Sorry.

Melissa Kruger
I read this analogy down. Like if your child comes to you with a splinter, you don’t get a knife out and start just cutting away the flesh. You know, you go and you get the tweezers, and you gently sit with them. And you try to pull it out gently because it’s painful. And if you think of all of their sin like a splinter, and you there, our engine wrote an article on this. They are human. They’re people, they are your nearest neighbor. Would you say it to a friend about her son? Like you are now saying it to your child? And that’s really a good marker. How gentle would you be with your friend, when you’re confronting her and her son is different. I’m sorry, when they’re two and they’re running the street. It’s stop. You know, I mean, you can just say stop. It’s but just to remember to be gentle. When dealing with their son, I think that’s

Jen Wilkin
and I think along those lines, I was definitely too slow to seek medical attention on more than one occasion. But I would say also that whole thing where they’re dealing with something difficult, and you’re offering solutions, instead of just empathizing. Like, it took me a while to get to that. Yeah, don’t fix it. Or don’t don’t go well. Why didn’t you do this? Or why don’t you do that? Because you’re basically going Why are you dumb? Why are you dumb? Why are you dumb? And I hate it when people do that to me, but with a child we forget, you know that it’s fitting them in much the same way. So when

Melissa Kruger
they fall off their bike because they’ve decided to go hands free and they’re sitting there with

Jen Wilkin
skin and you’re like, well, didn’t you know that was gonna happen? Why did you do that? Why did you

Melissa Kruger
just say I’m sorry? You skinned her knees and things? Yeah, things like that. Okay, one final fun.

Jen Wilkin
I really am enjoying this part of the program.

Melissa Kruger
We’ve got one question. Any parenting tips for young children that really helped you? I’ve got one quick if you Okay, you go ahead.

Jen Wilkin
Yeah. And I’ve written on this to be a parent of your word. Whether it’s following through on a positive reward or on a consequence, children are asking in both of those instances, can you be trusted? And I think if we understood those moments as a question of our trustworthiness, we would be quicker to follow through as we should. And so Being a parent of your word means that they know that you will do what you say you will do. And that’s whether they like what you’re doing or whether they don’t like it. So just and that’s, you know, that’s consistency, but be a parent of your word.

Melissa Kruger
The parenting advice that I’m going to give came when Tony Morrison was on Oprah before I had children, so I might fall into the crown or something like that. But it was probably the best piece of parenting advice. And I tried to live by it. And I’m glad I did. And she said, when your child walks in the room light up every time. And I think sometimes we get so busy with our lives or busy with our phones or busy with our world, that we when our child walks in the room, we sigh and they think, Oh, she doesn’t want me here. Oh, I’m the problem. When they walk in the room, look at them. Like the first time you looked at them light up, when they walk around and tell you I think if we could all just do that. It would it just makes them feel like oh, this is a person created in the image of God who has worth thanks so much for being with us. We’re so glad you’re here guys.