I'm getting myself into trouble today. I'm going to share something

really personal with you, and it is my parenting journey. Like, what? Yes. I'm gonna be really open. I'm gonna be talking about where I started and where we've landed, and those are not the same place.

And I'm making this episode because, of course, as you know, this is part of the six part series where I'm kind of opening up about myself and my journey and everything that's kind of brought me to where we are today in our parenting and homeschooling and all of that. And our parenting journey is part of it. For years, we thought that we were doing biblical parenting. And by all appearances, it was working. But underneath the obedience, I wasn't seeing heart change.

I was seeing a lot of things including fear. But one thing for sure I wasn't building was closeness. The parenting style we used when we first became parents, it was building walls. And when I finally woke up and looked at the relationship, really looked, my heart broke. Because I realized if I keep going on this track, I'm gonna lose my kids.

And not necessarily to rebellion, though I do think we were on that track, but to distance. And eventually, I had to ask a question I really didn't want to ask. And that was, what if the way I was taught to discipline was actually pushing my kids further away from me and further from God? That question sent me on a whole journey, let me tell you. Part healing my own stuff, part learning to see my kids differently, part realizing that growing closer to God and growing closer to my kids might actually be the same path.

And honestly, I'm still figuring out what that looks like on a random Tuesday morning when two of them are screaming at each other about who breathed too loud in the other one's direction. This is episode three of Behind the Screen, the series where I'm getting real about the stuff that I don't usually share. We're getting personal. And today, I'm sharing about what I used to believe about discipline, what changed, and why. You might not agree with everything I'm about to say today.

That's okay. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, because I know there is common ground. And you know what that is? It's that we all want the same thing. We want happy kids who function well in society.

And if you're a Christian, you want kids who love God and wanna follow him with their whole hearts. The big question is, though, that we are all asking is, how do we get there? So if you've tried being stricter and that didn't work, and then you've tried being softer and that didn't work either, and you're wondering, is there a third option? There is. It's kinda funny that I mentioned that because we were just studying fallacies in our homeschool co op, and this is one of those false dichotomies.

Right? It's one or the other. Actually, no. It's not. We're gonna be talking about quite a bit today.

Yes. We're gonna talk about the s word, authoritarian, gentle, all of the things. I'm so glad you're here today. Let's go. Hi.

Welcome to the show. I am really happy that you're here today, and I love that we're having a big conversation about parenting. And speaking of things that weren't working and needed to change, can I tell you something else that we figured out? If you're watching your budget saying no to things for your kids and trying to make it all work and feeling stressed about money and health insurance, which you see your bill every single month is eating a huge chunk of your money every month and your budget, I get it. Six years ago, we were paying over $2,000 a month for health insurance for our family of six.

And we kept thinking, this is ridiculous. We're healthy. We're barely using our health insurance, and it's costing so much money. There has to be another way. Well, cool thing is we found another way and I hope you do too because most of us may not need health insurance.

We do need healthcare, but maybe not insurance. When we switched to health sharing, and by the way, we're on Summit HealthShare now, our bill was cut in half. Now what is health sharing? Well, it's not health insurance, but, yes, it does actually replace it. It's a health care sharing community.

And honestly, it's the way health insurance should be, and it's way better. We are so happy. It gives us true freedom. We get to choose all of our own doctors. We don't have to worry about those networks.

We can even go to holistic ones. We get free prescriptions. We have no co pays. We've never gotten a denial. We've never had a surprise.

Six years in, and I'm sure you've already were doing the math. That's seventy two thousand dollars back in our pockets. Zero problems. Now did it feel risky at first to take this leap because society has conditioned us that we need health insurance? Yes.

It did feel risky, but now that we're six years in, we realize it's not. Millions of Americans do this, and 98% of members love it. So I'll put a link in the show notes. Go to summithealthshare.com and run their savings calculator. It only takes thirty seconds.

You put your numbers in, you tell it what you're currently paying and what you're paying for, and then it will tell you what you should be paying and how much you can actually save. So give them a call. They are super nice. Real people answer the phone. Go figure, and they'll walk you through everything.

Your family deserves better, and you need some money back in your budget. Let's be honest. This is an easy way to get it. Okay. That was fun.

I love talking about Summit HealthShare because I really think it's absolutely amazing. But if you're new here, hi. I'm Christy Faith, and I've been in the education world for over twenty years, and I am a homeschool mom of four. I wrote the book Homeschool Rising. You can see it right behind me on my shelf.

And I am a mom still learning right alongside you. I also founded and run Thrive Homeschool Community. It's where moms get all the support, guidance, and training to lead their homeschools with confidence and create an excellent homeschool program for your families. And Thrive isn't always open because we like to have an enrollment period where we get all of you together in a bunch and we can walk you through our eight step framework together all as a group. It's a really cool experience.

It's kinda like a class. So if you're interested, please get on the wait list because that and only that will guarantee your spot. That link is also in the show notes. Okay. Before we go any further in the parenting topic of today, I need to clarify what I am not saying because people love to miss construe things and they're like, but what about or you're wrong about this?

And it's like, okay. Fine. Fine. And I welcome those comments because I really do want a conversation and a discussion. But before you think that today's episode is gonna go in the gentle parenting direction, pump the brakes.

I actually have some major issues with the gentle parenting movement. And if you've ever watched a mom at Target negotiate with her toddler for twenty minutes about whether or not that child is ready to leave, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And I think one of the biggest flaws, and also I think it's an extrapolation. I don't think the gentle parenting experts would agree to this, but this is definitely where people go with it. And it ends up being a huge flaw is this idea that a child's feelings need to be catered to.

Now I use the word catered. Right? Of course, our child needs help with their feelings. They need co regulation. They need a lot of support with their feelings, but not catered to.

We do not wanna teach our kids that their emotions are someone else's responsibility to manage or fix or make better. That's not helping them at all. If anything, that's sheltering because they're not gonna be prepared for the reality that they're gonna meet anyway in the real world. It's so funny that I'm saying they're not gonna be ready for the real world because people always talk about homeschoolers. Like, how are your kids gonna be ready for the real world?

Well, what I can tell you is they're not gonna be ready for the real world if we are catering to their feelings and scurrying around to make sure they're always happy. It's so funny. Scott has an aunt, and she had her kids around the same age that my mother-in-law was having her boys. Scott is one of those boys. And I remember they would talk about how she really got swept up in the never say no to your kids movement, and it's just hilarious because people just thought it was so weird.

And actually, she was pretty avant garde for her time. But anyway, just thought that was funny. Were you raised that way? I'm just so curious. Let me know.

My guess is you were probably raised more with the authoritarian style. Most people usually are, and we're trying to cycle break all of that. Anyway, I digress. Now I know I need to be careful here, although I'm not very good at being careful. But what I will say is I know there are gentle parenting advocates screaming at me right this second, listening to me or watching me on YouTube saying, but you don't understand.

That's not what gentle parenting really is. And, okay, I'll throw you a bone right now. And it is that gentle parenting is really undefined right now. Even the gentle parenting people are moving away from that term. Have you noticed that?

So maybe we're talking about two different things. I do think people confuse gentle parenting with permissive parenting. That's for sure. And the one thing I do know is that the jury is in on permissive parenting, and there's no way around it. It's damaging.

Here's why. And I'm just the messenger here, people. But here is what the research says, and not just like one study last year. Okay? Here's what we know, that kids raised without boundaries struggle to delay gratification, have a harder time in relationships, and often can't handle it when life doesn't go their way because it always did at home.

And then eventually, what's gonna happen? The world's gonna tell them no. A boss will tell them no or a spouse. Reality will hit. And kids raised that way, they won't have the tools to handle it.

I once saw a TikToker. I wished I had saved this video, but it was someone who was raised with permissive parenting. And she went on and she said, hey. I was raised with permissive parenting. Were you two?

How are you doing? And, of course, what I do, I ran to the comments because I was so curious, and it was so sad. These people felt abandoned. They never got the help they needed. They weren't given boundaries.

Anyway, and what did that TikTok show? The research has already told us, and that is that love without limits isn't love at all. It's abandonment in a cozy sweater. So clearly, no. I'm not going soft, but I'm also not gonna tell you today that more control is the answer either.

That if you just get the technique right, the right way to correct, the right way to reconcile afterward, the right way to restore, that that will get to a kid's heart. And how do I know that doesn't work either? Because I tried that. I did that. I did all the steps.

I read the books. I made sure we were reconciled after giving consequences. I thought I was reaching the heart. The books told me I would, but I didn't. Okay.

So here's something really interesting. A meta analysis of over 1,400 studies found that the harsher the discipline, even when done biblically, even with reconciliation, even with all the right intentions and so much love, the more likely the behavior is to get worse, not better. And only that, you get more anxiety, more hiding, more I'll just make sure they don't catch me next time. Super strict parents have sneaky kids. So if you're thinking right now, but I'm not harsh.

I reconcile. I do it the right way. I thought that too. And I'm not here to shame you. Not at all.

Please don't construe it that way. But I am here to say, what if there's something missing in that approach? And I can hear the other side right now screaming at me, screaming at YouTube, screaming into their phones. Christy, you don't get it. You must have been doing it wrong.

To which I need to respond right now, actually, I wasn't doing it wrong. I'm a pretty intuitive person. I've always been a thoughtful parent. I made sure to do everything that they tell you to do before, during, and after giving consequences. I followed the steps, and I did it for years, and I didn't like the outcome I got.

It wasn't what I wanted, and it wasn't what was promised to me. And by the way, parenting that way is hard. It wasn't the life that I wanted for me or for my kids. But even more than that, and I'm gonna quote a friend of mine here, and I can't say her name because you'll know who she is because she's in homeschool leadership nationally. But she told me at a conference that we were at last year, and we were there together.

But she told me while we were getting coffee and her kids are grown, she said that she just told her adult daughter that she cannot find a solid biblical argument for the s word. And I'm gonna say the s word as s word because we don't need this video flagged or anything that would ruin the whole point of what we're doing today. We'll open up that can of worms in a bit. So I talked earlier about a third option. What is this third option?

Well, there actually is a fancy term for it. You've probably heard it, but you may not know what it looks like. It's authoritative parenting, not authoritarian, authoritative. A completely different posture. It has high warmth and high expectations.

It has boundaries and connection, and it has clear standards and a safe place to fail. And good news for us, there are 428 studies across cultures and across countries that tell us the same result. The kids who are emotionally regulated and are socially skilled and have supportive parents who have boundaries and love, these are kids who actually desire inwardly. They want to do the right thing and not out of fear. And why?

Because they've internalized it. And that's what I'm really after. You know, every parenting book on the planet talks about getting to the heart, and they all promise that. But where's the proof in the pudding here? To me, it's if you see a changed heart in your kid, and if you're consistently not seeing a changed heart in your kid, maybe something needs to change, and it did for us.

When we come back, I'm gonna tell you about the moment where something my son told me stopped me cold. It was the moment I realized that my biblical parenting journey had backfired. Stay with me. As a homeschool mom who values a family together approach and leans towards the classical and Charlotte Mason styles, I often struggle to bring my educational vision to life with my kids' diverse ages and learning needs. With all our interests and super packed schedule, bridging that gap between the dreamy homeschool I want and reality, I gotta be honest.

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Visit ctcmath.com to start your free trial today or click the link in the show notes. Okay. Welcome back. So we went into the research. We know that permissive parenting is damaging.

We know that authoritarian parenting is damaging. What we also know is a lot of people who are in these camps don't think they're in those camps. That's really up to you to decide. I don't know. And maybe you aren't.

Maybe you're in this fluid area. I don't know. But let me tell you what I actually saw in my own home, and that was that consequences weren't stopping behaviors. I was following all the steps and nothing was changing. Then one day I asked my son how he felt about the way we used to discipline him.

And what he said, it just, it tore my heart open. It's just so sad. And I'm so thankful he felt safe to communicate this to me, but he said, mom, I just endured the punishment to get it over with. Endured. Ugh.

That's the word he used. Like, was something to just survive. Have you been there? Not a moment of connection, not conviction, just wait until it's done. Were you raised that way?

And here's another gut punch. He said something after that made me just sick to my stomach. He said, when he got the consequence, he felt like that was his penance. Like, that was his payment for it. Transaction complete.

By the way, that is never the way we communicated it. This is a real case of actions speak louder than words, I think. But what that meant is he never actually sat with the weight of his behaviors and what he had done and how he had hurt somebody else maybe, because we already settled the account for him. And by the way, we never even used the word punishment. Do you see the irony?

I was trying to teach him that actions have consequences, but our system taught him the opposite. That consequences are just something that adults impose on you to absorb and get through. Pay the toll, move on, don't let it touch you. So what was the fruit of all of that biblical parenting? Well, it was no outward change, no inward change.

A kid whose heart was getting harder, a kid who was getting sneakier, because now the goal wasn't doing the right thing. The goal was don't get caught. Because you can so easily slip into the goalpost moving to instead of doing the right thing, the goal now becomes for the kids, how do I not get caught or how do I not get in trouble? And I am really embarrassed to be admitting this because this is the last thing I wanted. I actually feel a lot of shame right now telling you this.

All I wanted was for my son. And the reason why I'm saying my son is because he got the brunt of it, and the three girls are have not experienced this type of parenting. But I'm just so curious. Is this your kid too? Can you relate at all?

Please don't feel judged. Just come in the comments and say that you need help. And the part that broke me is he stopped coming to us with his problems. Now, keep in mind, he's not an older kid. We stopped this method of parenting when he was pretty young.

But still, what we had become as his parents somewhere along the way is we became people to manage instead of people to trust. I wanted to raise a kid with the heart of Jesus. Instead, I was raising a kid who learned how to manage me. And here's what makes this even harder to swallow. I wasn't even raised this way.

I chose this. I got into Christian authoritarian parenting circles, and they gave me the books, and this was while I was having our babies. And I was in small groups with other moms who were sitting under this teaching, and we all thought that we were being faith ful. And that the parents who weren't disciplining their kids in this way were weak, and their kids were gonna end up messed up. We literally thought that.

It's so embarrassing. I wasn't failing at the method. The method was failing us. So where are we now? I have a high schooler.

I have two junior high girls. I have an elementary girl. Where are we? Healing, connecting, naming things we never had words for before, like shame, fear. I thought control was love.

I am so sorry. We're no longer asking what consequence fits this crime anymore. We're not telling ourselves we can't possibly let our kid get away with that. We're removing ourselves from that mindset. And instead, we're asking what's going on underneath?

What does this kid actually need from me right now? And do they understand how their words and actions actually affect someone else? And how can we get them there? How can we pray for them? So their posture moves towards God and not away from it.

That's that accountability piece, not a punishment to be absorbed and then just forgotten. We're looking for real understanding in whatever capacity they are in their age and stage right now. We seek out real understanding conceptualizing the weight of our words and actions, and more than anything, we seek out repair. And the beautiful thing is the walls are down now, and they come to us, and that's everything. Even if it's crashing into mama because a sibling was mean to them saying, I'm having big feelings.

I'm I'm feeling hurt. I'm feeling left out. I'm feeling blank. We're putting words towards it. I'm not just swooping downstairs and saying, what's going on?

Like, it's somehow about me and that I'm owed peaceful household. That's not helping them become siblings that will support one another when Scott and I are dead and gone. I want my kids to know that they can call each other up on any given day and someone will drop everything to help them out. That's the family culture that we're after. And I wanna say something before I go to where I'm going next.

I'm not trying to convert you to my way of parenting. Oh, please. Don't think that. How you raise your kids is your call. But my healing journey with God and my parenting journey ended up being the same path, and I wasn't expecting that.

I really can't talk about one without talking about the other. So here's me, big girl pants on, letting you in on where I've landed. Here we go. My views on the s word. I told you we'd go here, and now I have to.

I almost regret promising it. And I know some of you are already tensing up. I kinda am. Whoo. Because this one feels really black and white.

The Bible says it, end of discussion. But remember what my friend at that one conference I just talked about told me? She said she can't find a solid biblical argument for it. And she is not liberal, right, in her theology. She is not woke.

She's not soft on scripture. She's someone who takes the Bible very seriously, as do I, by the way. And she landed somewhere that completely surprised her. Now, although I do have a minor in bible from Biola University, that does not make me a theologian. So I have prayed about this section of the podcast and prayed and prayed and prayed.

So I don't know. Let's just go for it. Here's where I stand. I generally align with the theologians who point out that punishment is about payment and discipline is about training, and there is a distinction there. And if the debt for our sin was paid at the cross, what are we doing when we exact payment from our kids?

It's a worthy question to ask. The Greek word that Paul uses in Ephesians six four, paideia, it means training, instruction, same root as disciple. And that reframe changed everything for me. And yes, I know the rod passages. Proverbs thirteen twenty four, Proverbs twenty two fifteen.

Spare the rod, spoil the child. But here's what I didn't know for a long time. And there's a consensus on this. I'm not saying anything avant garde. That's not my intention.

But in the ancient Near East, the rod wasn't just a tool for hitting. It was a shepherd's tool. We know this. I'm not dishing anything profound here. It was used for guiding, for protecting, and for directing.

Look at Psalm 23. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Comfort. That's not a picture of pain. That's a picture of presence.

Now am I saying that the rod verses aren't about correction? No. They're absolutely about correction. But correction towards what? Training or payment?

And when you look at all of scripture, which is what we should be doing, not just picking out certain verses that serve how we wanna do things. When we look at how Jesus corrected and how he discipled, I don't see punishment. I see questions. I see restoration. I see him cooking breakfast on the beach for Peter after Peter denied him three times.

He didn't exact payment. He restored relationship. And then he gave Peter a job, feed my sheep. When you look at the life of Christ, it really changes your parenting journey, at least for me. Jesus wasn't a finger wagging shame machine for people.

He certainly wasn't legalistic or tit for tat. Are you with me so far? And I know what's going through your mind right now because it went through mine when I was in a different spot, and so I totally get it. You're thinking, well, I was disciplined this way, and I turned out fine. And maybe you did.

Maybe you have a really great relationship with your parents even though they disciplined you in this way, and I'm not here to tell you that your story is wrong or you're not a good person now or anything like that. But I turned out fine isn't the same as this is the best way. Some of us have survived things. That doesn't mean that we should repeat them. Let's look at Hebrews 12.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. What comes after that though? It yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness for those who have been trained by it. Trained, not punished. Right?

There's that word again. So where does that leave me? Well, certainly not with all the answers. Yes, with stuff to chew on. This isn't an easy issue that just you can tie up with a bow, although people love that and we crave that.

Right? We want things to be black and white. But I followed that method, the punishment way. I followed it. I did it right.

And the fruit of that was not what I wanted for our family or for my kids. And when I went back to scripture with fresh eyes on the matter, and when I looked at the posture of Jesus and how he interacted with sinners, and looked at the purpose of discipline, I saw the distinction between payment and training. And when I saw that, I just couldn't unsee it. Does this mean there aren't consequences in our home? Absolutely not.

Remember, permissive parenting is damaging. Here's something no one told me. Authoritarian parenting, even done gently, even done biblically, feeds shame. Strict parenting feeds shame, and shame does not produce heart change. We know this.

Shame actually shuts it down. Shame was nailed on the cross, by the way. Psychologists actually distinguish between guilt and shame in this way. Guilt says, I did something bad, and that can be healthy. We need to understand when we've done wrong, and we need to make it right.

But shame says, I am bad. Guilt can actually be productive, and it can lead change. Shame is correlated with addiction, depression, aggression, hiding, and disconnection. It doesn't make people better. It makes them smaller.

And when I learned what happens in a child's brain during harsh correction, it changed everything for me. You see, what happens is the reasoning part of the brain, the part that learns and reflects and connects cause and effect, it goes offline when shame hits. The brain shifts to survival mode. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. You know, there's different ways to talk about it, which means when a child is being punished, they're often not learning what you think they're learning.

Right? News flash. They're not thinking, I shouldn't have done that. They're probably not thinking at all. Or if they are, they're thinking, I am bad, and I need to survive this, or I'm mad at my mom for punishing me.

That's why my son said what he did. His brain wasn't in learning mode. It was in survival mode. Oh, what a gut punch. And honestly, that style of parenting, it is control.

Even when you think it's not. Even when you're calm, even when you follow all of the steps, the posture is still, I need to manage your behavior because you can't be trusted with it. And by the way, it's not giving our kids any tools or skills. Telling a kid what not to do is not teaching them what to do. So it doesn't teach kids self control.

It doesn't lead to heart change. It feeds shame. It teaches kids, I am a problem to be managed. And so what do they do? They end up performing.

And there's lucky kids who have the skill set to be able to do it, and then there's the unlucky kids who don't. And they're the ones who are always in trouble, and then that feeds more shame. But the last thing we want our kids to think is that compliance equals love. That's not the heart. You know, just like we want our kids to not do misbehaviors, we also don't want them to do the right behaviors for the wrong reasons.

Right? That's not transformation either. So anyway, I feel like the Christian space has just really lost the plot. And I'm not saying I have figured it out, but I am saying I think we've lost the plot. Taking the last piece of pizza, tantruming over what to wear to church, being a sore loser after the game of chess, holding grudges, not sharing, sneaking treats, cheating on an assignment.

I used to look at all that and think, I need to stop this behavior. Now, I ask a different question, and that is, what is this behavior telling me? We know this behavior is communication. People have said behavior is a language. You know, there's different ways to say that too, but it is true.

And especially with kids who may not have all of the language necessary to be able to say, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I feel unseen. I don't know how to handle losing. So things come out sideways. And here's what changed for me practically.

I had one kid who I was correcting all day long, all day. Do you have one of those? And you know what happened? We got in a rut and the relationship became very negative. It was all correction and no connection.

I had to choose what hills to die on. I have this vivid moment that I remember when we were exiting this style of parenting and entering into this new reframe. And my dad was over with my mom, and he was watching me parent. And one of my kids did something minor, and I let it go. And it wasn't a great thing, but it was something that I let go.

And my dad rolled his eyes. We laugh about this now. My dad rolled his eyes, and I could tell that he thought I was being taken for a ride, totally manipulated. I was being too soft in the moment. But you know what he didn't know?

And I was able to have a heart to heart with him later about it, that I was working on something much bigger with that particular child. And I no longer was willing to just correct this child all day long. Because if I corrected every little thing, I would lose that child entirely. So and thankfully, my dad understood, but I also had to let go what people think of me. And you know what came with that?

I let go of judging other parents too. Can you relate to that? When you're not as hard on yourself, and you come from a more grace filled place, you end up having more grace with others. I'm much happier there. Like for example, when I see a kid tantrum in public, I don't side eye the mom.

I actually think about all the possibilities that could be going on there. Lack of sleep. Maybe the child is sick. Maybe the child has a diagnosis that's not just visible right there in the store. Maybe there's neurodivergency going on.

All things that really have nothing to do with weak parenting. It's not my business. I have four kids of my own to worry about. Right? Plank in your own eye, but sure do we love to judge others.

Right? So how I respond just looks different now, and how I see everyone else is a little bit different too. Am I perfect? No. But I'm much happier in this different space.

Okay. So I know some of you still have questions. Maybe you're mad at me right now. I don't know. I get it though because I had a lot of questions too when I thought about parenting differently.

Some of you might be thinking, so you're saying no consequences, Christy? I used to think that about other people. And no, of course not. That's not what I'm saying. Consequences are appropriate in certain circumstances.

We don't punish anymore. We focus more on training, not payment for wrong and retribution. My kids still experience the weight of their choices, and we help them with behaviors that they don't like about themselves, and we work on skill building so that they can do those behaviors less. But we're not exacting a debt. I can tell you that much.

Last week, one of my daughters came to me up in the room and she kinda plopped down on the couch up in our room and she's like, I'm just really struggling with responding in it was a particular way that I don't wanna share right now with this particular sibling. Will you help me? Man, what an amazing moment. Right? She had acted in a way that she wasn't proud of and didn't wanna do, and she was asking for tools so that she could stop doing that in the future.

That is so cool. Now some other of you are probably wondering about defiance. Oh, man. What about when your kid is just flat out defiant? Isn't that so triggering?

That was a big one for me. And yes, of course, we still address defiance. But with curiosity first, and we look at what's driving it, is this a heart issue? Is this a lagging skill issue? How can we help you with this?

Are they being defiant or are they drowning in a certain area? And sometimes I was surprised by the answer. Maybe you're thinking, my kids just need to learn respect. They have one commandment in the Bible, and that is to obey their parents. Oh my goodness.

Right? Yeah. And I believe that too. I still do. Of course, humans should respect one another.

But what I've also learned is that respect doesn't come through fear, and you can't force respect. It's built through relationship. And then here's another one, and boy, do I understand this fear. Right? Well, the world won't be soft on them.

They gotta toughen up. They need to learn how to live in the real world. And you know what? You're right. The world will not be soft on them.

I'm not trying to prepare my kids for a soft world. I'm trying to prepare them to handle a hard one and give my kids tools instead of trauma. And last, some of you might be thinking that this sounds too permissive, and I hear you. Like, kids shouldn't be allowed to act this way or treat others this way. But I already told you where I land on permissive parenting.

This isn't that. And I think I said this was gonna be the last one, but I have one more. I know some of you might be thinking right now that I have let culture influence my theology. That's a fair concern, and I would never want that. But where I am with it right now is what if it's the other way around?

What if I'm actually letting the Bible challenge the culture that I have absorbed? It's a worthy question to ask. Right? And look, you can disagree with me. That's okay.

But what I don't think you can say is that I haven't thought deeply about this, prayed about this, searched scripture about this. I have. I'm just a mom like you trying to figure this out. I wanna raise good humans. I'm trying to do right by my kids, and I'm trying to do right by you listening right now.

That's all I want for this podcast, for us to grow together. And it's okay if we don't have everything figured out, and we grapple with things together. I think the conversation itself is worthy, and we don't have to have all the answers right now. And you know what I find wild? Seventy years of attachment research, 428 studies across cultures.

And what does it all show? It shows connection plus boundaries. Relationship plus high expectations. Being the safest person in the room for our kids and holding the standard. That's what science tells us works.

And what I love is this is what scripture has told us all along. Training, discipleship, Jesus cooking breakfast for Peter after he blew it, restoration before assignment, and relationship before correction. I'm not abandoning the Bible. I cling to the Bible. And next week, I'm gonna share with you the times where I've had two pretty major crises in my faith, and how I have just clung to scripture, and that is what has gotten me through.

What I did on this parenting journey is I just went back to it, and it turns out science just caught up. Wild. Right? Okay. I am not done yet.

And those of you who right now know where I'm about to go with this, go ahead and do your thing. You know what to do. But I need to share that what actually gets podcasts in front of more eyeballs is engagement. Those little robots behind the screen, they count everything, every follow, every comment, every share, every like, every five star. So you might wanna finish the show before you decide you like this show.

I don't know. But I sure would appreciate some type of engagement even if you disagree with me. I can't tell you how many times sending this show to a friend is what helped that friend get out of a spot that she was in or gave her the help that she needed. So not only does it help other people and you're paying it forward, but it also helps our community and what we're trying to build here, which as you know with this series, I wanna build something real. Wanna have important conversations.

We can be big girls, and we can disagree on certain things and have a really good discussion about it. We can be the iron sharpens iron. I don't wanna be an echo chamber. So please turn on the notifications so you get a little ringy bell whenever a show drops. Subscribe to the channel, whatever platform you are watching or listening on right now.

Share your story. Ask a question. Encourage another mom who's struggling in the comments. We read all of those comments, and what brings me so much joy is when I see you guys encouraging one another in there. And it gives me warm fuzzies when I see you showing up for each other in there.

So if someone is coming to mind right now while you're listening, go ahead and send this show to her. Is it a personal favor? Yes. But it's also helping other people and the community that we're building here. And it might be exactly what someone needs today.

So thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I appreciate you and I love you. I've got some news. There's a new reading curriculum that ditches workbooks and drills for fun and games.

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So where does that leave us today? Well, I'm not the mom that I was ten years ago. And honestly, thank God. God, really, I'm still figuring this out, still calibrating, still asking, is this connection or chaos? Is this a boundary or is this control?

But we also have a culture of grace and apologies in our home too. And this is what I do know, that my kids talk to me differently now. They come to me with hard things. They're challenges. They don't feel shame.

They're not embarrassed to come to me with something that they're struggling with. They know that I will help them. And when they mess up, and they do because they're human, they come to me instead of hiding from me. And that's not because I got softer. It's because I got smarter a little bit.

And I kinda took a step back and said, is this what I want? Is this how I want our daily life to look like? Am I getting the fruit that I seek in my kids? And here's what I keep coming back to. I'm not just raising kids.

My goal is not just to have a smooth day to day. That's self serving. I'm raising future adults, future spouses, future parents. And one day, God willing, I'll be the grandma. And I wanna be the one that they want to bring their kids to.

I want my grandkids to want to come over. I always wanna be the safe person who gets the call when life falls apart because it does happen. That's the long game, and I'm playing it. Are you feeling this? Have you thought about this too?

Like, how do I parent now so that my kids wanna call me in their twenties? Let me know if you've thought about that too. And if you are that grandma, what's your secret? Okay. And I love giving you a quote of the week when I can, and today, this one is mine.

And here is the quote. The goal isn't a child who never messes up. It's being the safest person in the room when they do. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Not perfection, not compliance, safety. Because when they know that they can come to you at their worst, they will. And that's when the real parenting happens, and that's when you can teach them how to lean on Jesus. Not in the moments where they're perfectly behaved, but in the moments when they're not. And what do we do with that?

If you like this quote, I've got it for you on a beautiful note card totally free. You can stick it on your coffee pot, on your bathroom mirror, or on your car dashboard. Somewhere you'll see it on the hard days and when you need the reminder. The link for that is in the show notes. If this show resonated with you at all, I've done other shows kind of in this vein that you might love.

You can look at episode 75, the three phrases I will never say to my kids again, and also episode 80, are homeschool moms really more patient? Those two links are in the show notes, so you don't have to go and hunt. And as I was writing this, at the very end, I was reminded that I've written a twelve day connection challenge for parents. It's something I made that coincides with a talk that I give at conferences because I don't just wanna leave you hanging. I know that some of you might be sitting there thinking, okay, Christy, I hear you and I get it, but now what?

Well, that's what you can do next. It helps you rebuild what feels broken. It's called the twelve day connection reset challenge. I think I said it wrong before. That's the title.

And what it does is it walks you through each characteristic of secure attachment, which is what the parenting style that we've been talking about today is. It names it, tells you what it is, why it matters, and the steps that you can actually take to foster that with your kids. And it's not theory. There's no guilt. It's just here's what to do tomorrow morning.

It's structured as a twelve day challenge, which can be kind of fun, but honestly, you don't have to use it that way. And normally, it's $19.95 on my website. But for those of you who made it to the end today, yes, you, I wanna give you 25% off. Use code connect 25. You don't have to memorize that.

I'll put that in the show notes too. Just for those of you listening to today's show. Stronger bonds, calmer days, that's the goal. Right? Before we wrap up, I almost forgot to mention this and I have to.

I need to. And that is my heart and soul, Thrive Homeschool Community. If you're realizing you want more support on your homeschooling journey, not just tips from the internet that you have to piece together, if you want real guidance, real training, access to real experts, and healthy community. That's exactly what we do in Thrive. It's why I built it.

It's what I wish I had when I started. And it's for anybody, whether you're just considering homeschooling or you've already been homeschooling for ten years. In Thrive, you can direct message our mentors. You can attend live coaching calls based on your kids' ages. You can attend master classes.

And all of it is so that you can lead your homeschool with confidence because you, my friend, you are the secret sauce to your kids' education. And it makes me so sad when moms don't think that they're worthy of equipping themselves to do this job well because you are. Your kids deserved a well trained mama, and that is what Thrive does. And might I add at a fraction of what it would cost for you to get all of that help piecing it together yourself. What we've built is pretty darn cool.

And remember, Thrive's doors are not always open, so please get on the wait list. That's the only way to guarantee your spot. When we open to the public, we open to our wait list members a day early, and that link is where? Yes. In the show notes.

Okay. So we are now halfway through my six part series on behind the screen. Next week, I'm going somewhere I have never gone publicly, and that is the two times I almost left my faith. In that episode, we're gonna do a little bit of a deep dive into my infertility story and the seasons where I just felt like God abandoned me. Have you been there?

If so, join me next week. Maybe you're there right now. All I want is to be a help to you. So I'm so curious. Have you been rethinking your parenting journey?

How were you raised? Are you doing it differently? Please drop a comment. And if you are a mom struggling with behaviors in your home, would you also comment? We can point you to as many resources as we can find.

And I wanna hear from you. Thanks for being here. I do not take you for granted for one hot minute. You are amazing. Thanks for being here.

I'll see you next week.