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Orthodox Christian Parenting, hosted by Faithtree Resources Executive Director (and mom of four!) Michelle Moujaes, is a weekly podcast for parents and grandparents navigating the holy struggle of raising kids in the Orthodox Faith. Each episode offers honesty, encouragement, and practical wisdom from the Church—creating space to exhale, freedom from the pressure to be perfect, and openness to grow as you raise children who are deepening their knowledge and love of Christ.
Welcome to Orthodox Christian Parenting where we bring the church's timeless wisdom into the everyday chaos of raising kids. I'm Michelle Mujaias and if you're a parent today, here's a feeling I bet you know really well. That sense that your child is being formed by a 100 voices that you never personally invited into your home. So screens and algorithms and friends or YouTube and AI, all of it. Just shaping what our kids think and what they want and what they believe and often it's happening before we even know it's there.
Michelle Moujaes:So what do we actually do? How much should we control and how do we raise kids who walk through this world with wisdom and courage instead of fear? That's exactly what we're getting into today with two of my favorite people to learn from Paul and Cindy Karos. Welcome back everyone. Now before we dive in, don't forget to download this week's free parent guide linked in the show notes.
Michelle Moujaes:It's an easy and free way to help you go deeper in discussion on this topic, whether with your spouse or a friend or even folks from your church. Now, I am so glad to have Paul and Cindy back with us today. If you've listened before, you know they are dear friends of mine and Waleed's, they're mentors to us in our own parenting and they really are two of the wisest voices I know on raising kids who love Christ in a culture that's constantly pulling them somewhere else. They've raised three kids of their own, now adults, who remain genuinely engaged in the life of the church. And more than just all the ministry work that they've done, one of the things I'm most excited about is that in just a few months, Faith Tree will be releasing our first parenting book which is authored by Paul and Cindy.
Michelle Moujaes:It's called, wait for it, Raising Orthodox Christians, focusing on what matters most when everything's competing for your children. Paul and Cindy, welcome.
Paul Karos:It's great to be back, Michelle. Great to see you.
Cindy Karos:Thanks for having us.
Michelle Moujaes:We're so happy you're back. Okay. So here's what we're talking about today. You know, as parents, we're constantly making these judgment calls and we're making decisions for our children around all sorts of things like sex and screen time and phones and AI and all the things. Are there just some rules that apply for Orthodox parents, like things that are a hard no or things that we should be thinking of as we make these decisions?
Michelle Moujaes:Because I'm never quite sure that I'm nailing it. Like I never know if we're exactly in the zone that we should be as Christian parents trying to raise up these children when it comes to all these inputs coming into their life. So give me some thoughts on that. Yeah.
Paul Karos:You know, first of all, you're right. There is all these inputs coming into our families lives, our lives too, by the way. And, you know, maybe just a step back where it really starts to make sense if we step back and take a look at, well, what is our goal as parents? And Mhmm. You know, for ourselves and for our children.
Paul Karos:And, you know, as Orthodox Christians, that goal really is to be with the Lord eternally, you know, union with God, to be transformed by Christ, you know, to become Christ like. And so it's that goal for our own lives and for our children's lives that kinda sets the stage to even begin to look at this topic, which is such an important topic about watching over our children.
Cindy Karos:There's a lot of steps to that. Mean, you think about from being a gatekeeper to really teaching our kids what is important, and that's how to discern what's beautiful and lovely and noble in their lives. And so that's our goal, is to try and help in that on that path.
Paul Karos:So there is this need to protect for sure, and that's an important role for us parents. But there does come a time where that protection will hopefully translate to them learning how to protect themselves too. And and so that's a that's a process. There's no easy, you know, guidelines. You can just say it's this way or that way, but the the the goal of that is important for the raising of our children for sure.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. Now I have to press in on that. There's no hard and fast rules. So I know we've talked with you, on this podcast in the past about the path, the journey towards that Christ likeness that you talk about. And so there are some things that are just not on the path.
Michelle Moujaes:So letting your kids watch porn will never be on the path towards Christ likeness. Like, that's not
Paul Karos:the I've never talked about that yet.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. But for other things, like, let's just say certain shows or certain apps or certain whatever it is, those are really maybe a case by case. Is that what I hear you saying? A case by case basis based on what your family I mean, it kinda feels weird to say, well, my family chooses this and yours doesn't.
Paul Karos:Yeah. But Well, I think
Michelle Moujaes:How do you make sense of that?
Paul Karos:Yeah. So I, you know, I I think one thing we could say is that because every family does have different circumstances, it's important for a husband and a wife, or if you're a single parent, you know, to have maybe a couple of compadres that you're talking with about, you know, what your strategy is going to be. And by the way, your digital tsunami ebook is awesome friends.
Michelle Moujaes:Oh, yeah.
Paul Karos:It really it really is. Good. And maybe we'll have you talk about that in Yes. Well,
Michelle Moujaes:if let me just clarify for our audience. If you want some actual practical inventories and helps and guides of how to create what is good for your family. Faith Tree has an e book called Navigating the Digital Tsunami, which is Orthodox Strategies for Helping Parents Kind of Navigate Tech. So you can find that on faithtree.org. Shameless plug.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. Go ahead.
Paul Karos:But it's great. And and so, you know, the the reason we are talking about this protecting of our kids' souls and our own souls, by the way, is that the fathers, the Lord, the scriptures constantly remind us that it's the purity of heart, our tender hearts. We all have tender hearts. And it's the purity of heart that allows us, the beatitudes say, to see God or to experience God or to know his love or to grow in him to allow him to transform us. So this is why this whole idea of protection of our own hearts and our children's hearts is a lifelong is a lifelong pursuit and is a worthy pursuit because it will impact our lives.
Cindy Karos:When we think about protecting, I mean, think about all the things parents protect their children from. I mean, almost relentlessly now. I mean, little plugs in the electrical outlet, you know, car seats, what they're ingesting, the food, everything. So why wouldn't we want to protect their beautiful souls Mhmm. Just like we would from a stranger?
Paul Karos:So as parents, our real goal is to have by the time they leave our home, they've had some experience, real experience in discerning for themselves what's good and noble and lovely for their soul and what's been harmful to their soul. And so that they actually leave our home with that inner desire to grow close to Christ their whole life. And to and part of that spiritual life for Orthodox Christians, for all Christians, is to be watchful over our hearts. Okay? So Love it.
Paul Karos:That is our parenting goal. And I don't if you'd add anything.
Cindy Karos:We do have a role in that. I mean, we don't have electrical plugs when the kids are teenagers. Obviously, they've learned Right. That lesson, but they didn't learn it on their own. So we would never leave our kids alone when it comes to teaching them about what's good and lovely and beautiful about media or activities that they're they're encountering.
Paul Karos:And and I think there are certain lies of the world today. And, you know, as Orthodox Christians, we've had this for many, many centuries where, you know, the world doesn't agree with the church or the Lord, you know, whether it's the pagan societies societies or maybe under Islam oppression or under communism or some of these things that the church has faced, you know, the world views of those cultures were very offsetting to the Orthodox Christian view of who God is and who human beings are. And so we're seeing that now. But we so we don't have to worry in the sense of, hey. Our ancestors have been through similar things.
Paul Karos:We do have to be watchful. That's for sure. But we can have confidence that the Lord will help protect us as we're trying to help protect our own children. And there are things that need protection. That is for sure.
Michelle Moujaes:Before we continue, I just wanna take a moment to say thank you. You know, when we started this year, we planned to release the podcast in seasons. But as more parents watched and listened and shared and told us how much these conversations mattered, it became clear that we were meeting a real need. And so we took a step forward and invited our community to help us move toward weekly episodes. And because of your generosity, we've raised almost $75,000 toward that $150,000 goal.
Michelle Moujaes:That's what's needed to help make that weekly episodic rhythm possible. The support has made a real difference. It has helped us keep going beyond our original plan and it's allowed us to reach so many more families. As we get ready for season three, we're taking a short summer production break so that we can prepare well and come back really strong in the fall. Our hope is to keep moving towards weekly episodes but to do that we are gonna need the remaining support to do it sustainably.
Michelle Moujaes:So again, I ask if this podcast has encouraged you, if it's helped your family in some way or given you words for hard conversations, would you consider making a gift today? Your support helps us keep creating faithful and practical Orthodox conversations for parents and families everywhere. You can give at faithtree.org/donate. Okay, it's so good, but at the risk of going into a therapy session for Michelle, I have some dissonance. And I don't think I'm the only parent out there who's going to feel this.
Michelle Moujaes:So I'm going to push a little bit and look for some clarity. One of the struggles that I have in my own spiritual walk and one of the things that my very patient spiritual father is constantly helping me think about hopefully more in alignment with the church's teachings. Like I want a list of rules, I want a step by step plan, and then I want to check it off that I did it right. And that is clearly not the Orthodox way. But what I struggle with is like, do we just have to sit and watch The Chosen all day?
Michelle Moujaes:Or do I have to feel really guilty that my 13 year old watches The Office? Because that's clearly not studying the lives of the saints. Like how do you reconcile that we are in this world but not of it and make choices that are not like I can remember when my kids, my boys, so I have three boys and a girl, when my boys were getting into their teens and I still had a younger boy and a little girl at home, the two older ones came and they're like, Mom, you can't just make us watch Looney Tunes all day long, like help us. And I was like, fair. We were super strict.
Michelle Moujaes:We didn't let them watch Marvel until actually a bunch of their Christian friends' parents came to us and they're like, Guys, your kid can watch Captain America. Take a second to think about what you're doing. And so with all of that as the chaos of Michelle and Willit's life, what do you do to make a decision that you can feel really good about knowing that not every show is gonna show Christ likeness or the path to theosis? What does that look like? Sorry.
Michelle Moujaes:That was like a long way. Sorry that That's great.
Paul Karos:That's beautiful. By the way, Michelle, we think you're doing a great job. That's in
Michelle Moujaes:The US. Oh, thank you all. You have the one.
Cindy Karos:Well, there's so many things to respond to there.
Michelle Moujaes:You're Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Go.
Cindy Karos:Wish we had this list of rules. Well, if we were parents and that's all we did is give our kids a list of rules, when they leave the home like, think about it as a gate. They've got this gate up and there are these rules that they have to follow. When they leave our home Mhmm. The gate goes down, and they're on their own.
Paul Karos:It's wide open then.
Cindy Karos:They haven't really learned to discern what is right and what may not be so great for their soul. Okay. It is a process. And along the way, we loosen up our ability to to control what they're watching, and we watch with them. We we watch with them.
Cindy Karos:We talk about it. Sometimes, we're really successful. We pick something that that was really great.
Paul Karos:Mhmm.
Cindy Karos:Many times and most of the time, something creepy sneaks in, and you shouldn't freak out. The at the end of the day, that's the perfect teaching moment, where you can actually say to your kid, what'd you think about that? Or many times, if they're kind of following you, they're gonna say, that wasn't very cool, was it?
Paul Karos:They kinda know
Michelle Moujaes:what we think.
Paul Karos:You know, they actually know what we think before we even say it. So by asking open ended questions and that actually happened. We asked some of our adult kids right now about this topic before we got on. And one of them said, well, he had gone and watched a a movie that wasn't good, came home, told Cindy about it. And then he said, but you did is you, Cindy asked open ended questions, and it made him process it real time.
Paul Karos:So that's one of the things, that's one of the techniques you can do is just ask questions, open ended questions, and then you can they're gonna probably say what you're hoping that they're gonna say. And then the key is not to panic. Because if we panic, they're just going to remember our reaction. So another technique is to literally just do a little extra work. Go to like plugged in, focus on the family, which has of the you know, most of the shows and, you know, what's good about it, what's harmful about it.
Paul Karos:You know, categorize it by, you know, violence or sex or this or that. And, you know, we we do wanna be aware that today in this world, there is a few messages. Like one of them is that violence is okay. You know, violence is okay if it's if it's achieving your goal. Well, is a harmful message for our souls and our kids' souls, so we don't wanna normalize that.
Paul Karos:Or another one is sex outside of marriage is okay. You know? You're your urges, and your urges will will bring you pleasure, and you'll be more happy. This is not to be normalized. This we really believe that harms the human person because sex sex for us as Orthodox Christians is beautiful in the context of a of a marriage, of an expression of love, and to have children.
Paul Karos:It's a beautiful vision of that sex is given to us by God for those reasons. So we do wanna watch what our the if we just leave it to the world and and all the media and whatnot, that is the message our children and ourselves are gonna be hearing over and over again. And we have to be able to say no to that.
Cindy Karos:That message is it's kind of interesting even in our lifetime. Think about how movies are rated. It used to be x rated movie. Now it's an adult movie. You know?
Cindy Karos:Really? Interesting. Is now that I'm an adult
Michelle Moujaes:You knew you were going, yeah, into some deviant place. Right. But now
Cindy Karos:you're in old age. I Yeah. I should I should watch that. Or how about this one? Restricted to mature.
Paul Karos:So when you're mature.
Cindy Karos:When you're mature, you can watch people have sex with no clothes on who aren't married. You know what?
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. Yeah.
Cindy Karos:I necessary I don't wanna do that as an adult. So that is not what I would consider mature.
Paul Karos:And so to our kids, to to you know, it's it's to say, hey, when you're older, you can watch this. No. That's not the message. The message is, you know, mom and dad, we don't like watching these either. So Mhmm.
Paul Karos:Because mature means that there's gonna be things that I I I'm just trying to guard my heart. And we would say that Yes. We would say that, you know, kids, we're trying to guard our hearts too. We're all in this together. And that's a struggle, right, for us parents.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. It is. And here's where I think it gets really dicey. So there are some things where everybody is just clear in our household that that's out of bounds. Where we'll have people just be like, turn it off, turn it off, turn it off, right?
Michelle Moujaes:So there are those things which are just obviously outside of anything that we would assume is Okay. The ones that get tricky are the ones that are kind of partaking in American life. Like the Marvel movies, right? Or like our family doesn't consume this at all, but I know a lot of our friends do is true crime stuff. Right?
Michelle Moujaes:People are fascinated with these true crime shows, which are not necessarily sexual. They are violent, but they're not really edifying. Shouldn't there be some benefit bringing it in? Or is it just like, you know, you're watching the Super Bowl, got a little dicey at halftime, you fast forward the halftime show, and you are still a part of American culture? Like, it's the ones that are right on the line, though.
Michelle Moujaes:I'm like, of course, we can watch that. Yeah. But maybe not. So those are the decisions I find a little bit trickier.
Cindy Karos:Yeah. Would I would say to something you said earlier in that conversation, Michelle, is that your kids knew that it wasn't right. Alright? And I just wanna tell you and really applaud your efforts. Had you not done something early on, your kids would not have known that.
Cindy Karos:They would have just thought it was fine. And so it shows that at a young age, our involvement as parents is important if in the end, we want our kids to see a naked person on TV and go, oh, that's not right. Mhmm. If you say nothing about it ever, they're gonna feel like, it's just great. It's normal.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. That's really good. And I think it applies not just to TV, but to apps and to video games and to all the things that we consume. I guess this may be an issue of integrity. Like, we integrated?
Michelle Moujaes:Which is I don't want to go down the street and see people doing something unclothed. I don't want to see it in their schools. I don't want to see it in my home on TV. That's just not who we are. So the same could apply with I don't want to go down the street and see people beating each other up.
Michelle Moujaes:And I don't wanna see it as I'm watching, like, some true crime drama that normalizes that kind of aggression.
Paul Karos:Yeah. And and so one of the other things is I just listed the two of you on that topic might be, you know, as they get older and you're gonna, you know, see watch things, whatever, some of them may be marginal. You know, afterwards, it's really good to be able to look at the good things that the good messages. Because even in some of these shows that sometimes are over the border, there will be some good messages. And to to bring those out, hey, what did you guys think of the way that person forgave that person?
Paul Karos:Or what do you think about that Mhmm. The way that person sacrificed for the other person? Isn't that cool? Or, you know, what did guys think of that one? Yeah.
Paul Karos:I didn't really like that. And so they they couldn't you know, because in their workplaces and in their lives, they are gonna see things that are really not good for their heart or for anybody's heart. And we're trying to help them see what is good and beautiful and what's harmful. And and be able to call that out and yet not judge their friends, discern, definitely see what's right and wrong. But, you know, I don't know if you wanna talk about that.
Cindy Karos:I mean, I think that's a really fine line and a very important thing to help our kids understand. It's important to learn to discern what might be good and what might not be so good for their heart. But judging people is really, definitely not
Paul Karos:good for
Cindy Karos:any of us. And the temptation
Michelle Moujaes:I know.
Cindy Karos:I is so great. Right? So your kid goes to somebody else's home and they watch a movie that you wouldn't have watched. You know, they're not bad people. And the tendency is to judge them.
Cindy Karos:And it's really important. And as the kids get older, they are judging meters. They, like, are all over whenever we make any kind of a judgment.
Paul Karos:If we're condemning somebody, they will they will get very uncomfortable. And because
Cindy Karos:It's probably good.
Paul Karos:It's good. You know?
Cindy Karos:They know the right thing.
Paul Karos:You're not so we are gonna we are going to discern what whether it's good or not. Right? And the lines like, hey yeah. And lines like, hey, this is what we do in our home. You know, not everybody does this in their home, but we this is how we run our home.
Paul Karos:And then when they we hear about somebody else's family and hopefully, we'll get to know our kids' parents, you know, our our kids' friends' parents.
Cindy Karos:That's a really important one. Because you know you can send your child off to such and such as home, and you know that whatever is gonna happen is gonna be good. And then you have some people in your life that you think, maybe have the play date at our house instead.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right.
Cindy Karos:You know? So there's ways to do that. But I think one of our adult children said, I guess I should just say one of our children, whatever, he's an adult, but made the comment recently that he knew what our family would allow in our house. And when he went to somebody else's home that was they were doing something that we didn't allow, he said he could he felt he could feel a little pain of how it may not have been what we thought was right or maybe what was good. You know?
Michelle Moujaes:So Yeah.
Cindy Karos:That's kind of a backward helpful thing.
Michelle Moujaes:Being a teenager today is tough. I mean, and loneliness, questions about identity. It's a lot. And as a parent or a youth leader, I mean, we don't always know what to say or how to help. That's why Faith Tree created The Relationship Project, a three part series that equips your parish to guide teens through conversations on identity, intimacy and good mental health.
Michelle Moujaes:You'll get videos, a leader guide, student workbooks, really everything that you need to lead meaningful Christ centered discussions with your teens. So if you've got a youth group or a Sunday school class or just a small group of families, this is definitely for you. Grab the relationship project for your parish today at faithtree.org. One of the most important things we as parents can be mindful of is just like our bodies are made up of the food we eat, right? So if we eat a bunch of synthetic junky like I mean, could eat Cheetos all day long.
Paul Karos:They're addicting.
Michelle Moujaes:Eating nothing but Cheetos, yeah, they're so addicting. But your body is literally being regenerated by and fueled by plastic and chemicals and what have you. And in the same way, it's important for us to remember that while we never want to act out of fear, but there is a responsibility we have as parents to watch what they are being formed by because those conversations, those songs, music is such a big The things that they watch, the shows that they watch, it does build them up and form how they think and who they are, how they respond. So I don't think we can understate the importance. I would just ask, when you talk about and I know in the book you talk about Philippians four:eight, I think all the time with what you just said, Paul, whatever is good, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely.
Michelle Moujaes:I think at the very least, we have to make sure that we are feeding them the nutrition of that before the synthetic less desirable Do
Cindy Karos:want to talk about the
Paul Karos:other things?
Cindy Karos:But how do
Michelle Moujaes:we do it? That's what I want to know. How do we actually do that as a foundation? Like, again, I go to a scorecard, like if we do 80% good food, they can have ice cream on the weekends. But that doesn't really work with I don't think that works with what they ingest on, you know, their phone.
Paul Karos:Alright. But go ahead.
Cindy Karos:I think what's what's easy in our lives right now is to turn something on the TV or let our kids play with whatever, you know, electronic things that are available. But I think it's really a call to all of us about the things outside of electronics that we wanna do with our families. The kind of memories, you know, camping or or cooking. I mean, I remember coming up to the cabin and having really not sure what we had. Everybody pulled something out of the cupboard and we had like a a chef game that we played with creating some food.
Paul Karos:You Competition.
Cindy Karos:Yeah. You can you could do that with your kids' friends, you know.
Paul Karos:Be in nature, you know, building something. Crafts.
Michelle Moujaes:So good.
Paul Karos:Right? So that You know? Relieve the pressure on the electronic side of our lives because our default in our world today is if we have if we have downtime, boom. We go right to the electronic
Michelle Moujaes:It's so I I had him a meeting one time with he's, I think, a Protestant author. His name is John Eldridge. And I remember him saying to all the parents in the room, you can take away your kids' phone time and lessen that. But don't do it to just stick them in front of TV. Go do something interactive, exactly what you're saying.
Michelle Moujaes:Have those real life experiences because we do tend to do that when there's downtime. And we almost feel like it's kinda like a badge of honor. Oh, I just wanna veg out in front of the TV and play, you know, Candy Crush or Blockbuster, whatever it is. I totally do that.
Paul Karos:I I think that's a really you know, it's a it's a couple thing to kinda brainstorm. What are some things we can incorporate in our daily life that we can, you know, have some fun at that's not just defaulting to the electronics? And the world I
Michelle Moujaes:love it.
Paul Karos:You know, there is dopamine involved in some of these things. Right? So there's other there's good dopamine and lots of things, and it doesn't have to just be electronic. So I think that's a that's a really powerful point.
Cindy Karos:And I think the the longer you can hold off on some of those electronic things, even even TV shows or whatever, I think the better. Because there are so many other things in our world to explore. One of the things I loved so much with our kids when they were little was reading out loud.
Paul Karos:That was a great
Cindy Karos:You know, a chapter book. I mean, whether it was Little House on the Prairie or Peter and the Starcatchers, whatever it was, I mean, just to have the kids huddled around excited, having to stop at a chapter because we'd be reading till midnight, you know?
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Know, that's great.
Cindy Karos:It's like that. I mean
Paul Karos:I love the two being a blind guy. She read out loud.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what's so interesting? A lot of those basic activities, we have kind of Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Lost in current culture. Like, we just don't do that so much anymore. So that's a great call out.
Paul Karos:Yeah.
Cindy Karos:That's a great call out.
Paul Karos:And I but I and I think so, you know, this idea of, you know, maybe some tips on when it is media, is we do have to walk alongside them and walk if we if we are gonna watch something that's gonna be on the question mark when you decide to do something like that or if, You watch with them Mhmm. And help them process it together and let them see how you see things. Even as adults, we see things and we if we're on the path to Christ, we'll say, that's not good. And okay, but I'm gonna look for the good here. Oh, look at the way this person loved the other person or look at the way they, like I said, forgave them or, you know, some Christian virtue that we're gonna see in a show.
Paul Karos:And then to be able to call out that wasn't good. You know?
Cindy Karos:You know, when you're tired, it's a lot more work to do that. You'd like to just plant your kid in front of the TV, but we're two people who don't have kids at home anymore, and we would love to do it again. So it goes really fast. And when you're tired and you don't feel like it, just remember there's gonna be a time when you don't have the chance to do it. I just wanna mention, it is important that you do the work to look into even series.
Cindy Karos:If you're choosing to start watching with some teenagers or whatever, you know, a series may start really great. But what you notice is that over time, it gets darker Yeah. That could be. And darker and darker. So even if you think you've found a good one, kinda Mhmm.
Cindy Karos:Go to some of those online sites for parents. There's so many of Let
Michelle Moujaes:me just mention a few practical ones for our audience listening. Focus on the Family does great stuff. Common Sense Media is another good one. And of course, we will mention our friends and partners at access.org which if you don't know Access, it is a beautiful organization that helps parents walk along and disciple their children. Faith Tree actually puts out a monthly newsletter with them which gives you a parent guide on all sorts of topics.
Michelle Moujaes:So if you want that, you can just go to faithtree.org, another shameless plug, and sign up for it. Or go to access.org and you have a whole library of resources. They
Cindy Karos:do so such great work. I wish we had them when our kids were younger, because they
Michelle Moujaes:Me too. Me too.
Paul Karos:Me too. One of the thing one of the thing, Michelle, I just thinking about is this, you know, this idea of by the time our kids leave the home, they have a really experiential understanding of what is good and noble and lovely, good for their souls, and what's not. So big part of that is the the little church of the home. Okay? It's it's our prayer life at home.
Paul Karos:Teach them maybe to have their own prayer life. Definitely to take to confession doing confession at young years when they're they're kind of, you know, silly little things because when they do experience, do, or, you know, have something happen, then they'll run to their spiritual father because they'll they'll want it they'll they'll want that off their heart. You know, holy week services that are so powerfully beautiful that they'll know that they will know what's beautiful and lovely. And when they see it and it's not, they'll say this isn't good. And and
Michelle Moujaes:that's It's some synthetic version of good. Yeah.
Cindy Karos:It's going back to being looking at the church as kind of a wise friend that teaches us how to live our life. And if we just follow the life of the church, we it it sure helps.
Michelle Moujaes:You know, one of the things that you said made me think about the intentionality. So when you said you're now empty nesters and you wish you had kids and the stamina to do that, some of that is planning for margin or considering the amount of things you put on your plate because in simplicity, it's so much easier to account for those opportunities where you're not just crashing on the couch because you've hustled all day long, but you actually have left room to go outside and kick the ball around with your kid. And it makes me think one of the things Walid and I have loved learning from you guys. So we call you the masters of frameworks. You always have kind of an overriding framework to put some thoughts in so that you can make sense of it.
Michelle Moujaes:And I wanna share one which actually didn't come from you. This is some brilliance that came from the daughter of one of my teammates at Faith Tree. So Cheryl's daughter sits with her husband every year and they kind of plan out some of the bigger decisions they have to make on what would it look like for this year to help our kids have had a wonderful and peaceful childhood.
Cindy Karos:Wow.
Michelle Moujaes:So what does that look like? Isn't that so smart?
Cindy Karos:That's beautiful. Way
Michelle Moujaes:to go, Amy and Tom. Way
Cindy Karos:to to
Michelle Moujaes:What would it look like? You know, do we do Christmas? Do we want to travel somewhere? Or do we want to be with family at Christmas? Do we want to go to church every week?
Michelle Moujaes:Or, you know, what are what are the decisions that we're making that will allow our kids in ten or twenty years to look back and say, that was a really awesome childhood and there was peace in our house? And I think that kind of framework is really useful.
Paul Karos:Well, that's what I can do and that What else?
Michelle Moujaes:Twenty years ago.
Paul Karos:Yeah. And you know, I think that's powerful, Michelle. And it it's kind of another form of protection, if you will. Yes. Right?
Paul Karos:Because you're you're kind of saying, look. We're gonna look at how we're gonna protect our time. You use the word margin. You know, protect our life so that we can actually have some family time, that we're not so crazy. And, you know, we will get we will get too crazy.
Paul Karos:Right? In this world, most families experience as we did for years where sometimes we are way too busy. But just to be able to say no, protection is another way to say no. And then we say yes to we say yes to to other things. We say yes to good things.
Paul Karos:You know? And, oh, that's a great technique with your kids. They wanna watch this movie. No. You guys we looked it up online, and here's what it says.
Paul Karos:We don't wanna watch it. But how about yes? How about this? We found a great one.
Michelle Moujaes:This will
Paul Karos:be fun to watch. So no for a good yes, you know.
Michelle Moujaes:I love that. Do you have time for one listener question before
Paul Karos:we sign
Michelle Moujaes:off? Okay. This is from Andrew who has four kids and asks, we've said no to a lot of things, certain shows, certain games, social media entirely for now, but I worry that we're raising kids who will rebel the second they leave our house. How do we build real conviction in them instead of just compliance?
Paul Karos:Wow. Okay. You know, the first thing would be that however you're parenting about the no's, that it's Mhmm. It's not sort of authoritarian where it's kinda like, no, get over it. No is good by the way.
Paul Karos:No is critical. But can you do, you know, can you do it in a way that allows the kid to express their disappointment that you validate what they're disappointed about? Okay? Kids will not be hurt by being disappointed, but they can be hurt if you just so dismiss their disappointments over time. Then this over time makes them feel like their opinion doesn't matter.
Paul Karos:Who they even are as an individual doesn't matter. And so part of that is to say, you know, no, and here's why. But I can understand why you're disappointed. You wanted to do this with your friends, and I get that. You know, I I can say that's really hard.
Paul Karos:So I understand, son. And but here's what we're gonna do instead, or here's why we're doing it. So it's a it's so that they actually start to experience, you know, themselves what it's like to, you know, be dignified in their choices. Yeah. You know?
Paul Karos:Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:And and and at the same time honoring and attuning to their, you know, emotional reaction or their wants or things that they're still desiring and not just poo pooing it, but giving them the respect of, yeah, that's hard. It's still not who we are
Paul Karos:Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:But we're gonna walk together through that.
Cindy Karos:I like that I think the time that you can spend with your kids doing fun things kind of kind of takes care of that in a way because they love to spend time with you, especially when they're little. And when they're older, finding things that you like to do together, that's valuable. And then to bring their friends in on that, it shows that you want them to be a part of your lives. So you're not trying to keep them out or, you know, it's not a judgment thing.
Michelle Moujaes:It's not always pejorative and punishment and horrible. Right. That's good. I like it.
Paul Karos:And one of Alright. One other thing, Michelle, just on, you know Yes. Because a lot of this does get to our kids are gonna be disappointed and or they're gonna feel hurt or maybe even rejected possibly. You know, we gotta be very sensitive that they do need friends and that we do want them to belong to a nice friend group. Okay?
Paul Karos:And friends do change. But one thing not to protect our kids from, it's not healthy for us to protect our kids from disappointment or suffering. Okay? We don't ignore them in their disappointment or their suffering. We do need to come alongside them and let them know that we're right there with them.
Paul Karos:But it's not healthy for us to to protect our kids from suffering or disappointment because them experiencing bouncing back from a disappointment or some suffering or realizing they can go with the flow and it's gonna be okay. This is healthy. We just gotta come alongside them.
Michelle Moujaes:Okay. But as that relates to what we're talking about, like, what they consume, so are we saying that if they are kept out of a friend group because they don't know all the Marvel movies, we can walk with them? It doesn't mean that we have to say, well, if it's good for everyone's family, it's good for ours. But we understand the pain of that. Is that what you mean, Paul?
Paul Karos:Yeah. Just go ahead, Cindy. You wanna say something?
Cindy Karos:I I was just gonna say, first of all, we should have some empathy because we all feel it. Right? There are times that we don't participate in things that maybe the world is doing because and that may keep us out of some friendship groups. So we shouldn't we shouldn't dismiss, you know, how they're feeling. We should have empathy.
Cindy Karos:And we should think of clever ways to maybe help them in those social circumstances. If everybody's talking about a show that they're watching, maybe we watch with them instead of so that they have a little bit of an idea. But maybe what we do is we watch it ahead of time and identify the areas that we wouldn't be excited about. Kind of fast forward. I know, Michelle, you've
Paul Karos:done that. Yeah. You've done that, Michelle. Right? Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:Did a lot of that.
Paul Karos:Thank you for your
Michelle Moujaes:All the time. We started during COVID. We watched Ted Lasso. And season one was like A plus and then it was not A plus. And we had to kind of navigate, do we just ditch the show?
Michelle Moujaes:We love the show and there were so many wonderful conversations we had about fatherhood and forgiveness and the impact of our behavior. But we didn't have to watch all the sexy, sexy scenes. Right. So we we Walid and I pre watched, and even some of it we chose not to watch.
Paul Karos:And then what? You fast forward it? Is that how you We
Michelle Moujaes:would fast forward it, and there were some episodes, a lot of season three that we didn't watch. Or didn't, we didn't watch and we didn't let our kids watch. But at the end of the day, it was the only way that we could figure out, in real time it's really like, and you know what I find, this is just a side note, I can't believe some of the stuff my mom let me watch in the eighties. Like, The Smurfs was they are so demonic, The Smurfs. But I was like, kids, let's watch The Smurfs.
Michelle Moujaes:I watched it and I didn't remember Michelle,
Cindy Karos:that is such an important thing because I don't have any I remember winning a basket of old movies at a school function.
Michelle Moujaes:Yeah.
Cindy Karos:I was so excited to bring this movie home and show my kids because I remembered it being so great. And halfway through the movie, I was like, oh my gosh. I I I it so yeah. And you know what? You're gonna have a lot of those kinds of things happen.
Cindy Karos:And then you laugh it off. You you work with the kids on it. You help them see that Keep going. Yeah.
Michelle Moujaes:That's right. Exactly.
Paul Karos:But
Michelle Moujaes:I love it.
Cindy Karos:That's an important point because what was PG back when Yeah. We grew
Michelle Moujaes:up Wild.
Cindy Karos:Is probably not PG anymore. So That's if you have your favorite things but you know what? Just a point on that. Make a list of some of the good movies in advance of movie night, so that you're prepared with things that you know that will be good.
Michelle Moujaes:Options. Right.
Cindy Karos:Because I'm gonna tell you, flipping through movies, it's a time killer for all of us. Right? But Yes. Yes.
Paul Karos:To shoot. It's
Cindy Karos:You know that one? How about that one? If you come with three or four and give them a choice, that's so much easier.
Michelle Moujaes:Perfect. Oh, you guys, we love you so much.
Paul Karos:We are.
Michelle Moujaes:Thanks for always being willing to come and talk it through with us.
Paul Karos:We love it, Michelle. We love love the work that you're doing. May God bless you in everyone.
Cindy Karos:Work you're doing has been so helpful. We hear from so many parents around the country. Keep We'll
Michelle Moujaes:wait until yeah. We're going together and when this book, gets ready in just a few months to launch, we'll bring you back so you can tell if people
Paul Karos:sounds great.
Michelle Moujaes:And thank you for listening today. Remember, the goal was never to create some sort of strict rule book. The goal is to raise kids who know how to walk toward Christ on their own, wherever the path takes them and whatever it puts in their way. That means we don't have to control every single input or engineer some perfectly sheltered childhood. We get to walk alongside our kids, teaching them to love what is good, what is true so that discernment becomes theirs not just something they borrowed from us for eighteen years.
Michelle Moujaes:And on the days when it feels like we're getting it all wrong, remember, grace is still there. God isn't asking us to be perfect parents, He's asking us to be repentant ones and He invites us to keep pointing our kids towards Him even in the midst of it all. Again, don't forget to download this week's free parent discussion guide and if today's episode helped you, do us a favor, share it with another parent who needs to hear it too. We'll see you next time.