How and why to look for the God Given Gifts in Your Child's Misbehaviour - Podcast Episode #13

0:00 [Music] welcome everyone i'm stacey bellward i'm so glad you're joining us for the connected families podcast i was thinking about you all today and praying for you thinking about your children and your circumstances i know that there's many people listening that are in all sorts of levels of difficulty of their circumstances and so i was thinking of that and praying for you i just want you to know that here at connected families our mission statement is that we wake up

0:30 every day to help parents receive and pass on god's grace and truth by imparting a memorable and biblical framework for parenting that's what we want to do with this podcast today we just want you so through the airwaves we want you to receive god's grace today for whatever that circumstance is that you're feeling well today we are going to cover one of the messages of our framework called you are called incapable and if you've been following along with

0:58 us for the last few episodes we've been going through every level there's four the first one was you are safe the second one you are loved today is you are cold and capable next week is you are responsible and that's because we are launching the discipline that connects with your child's heart online course so if you're interested go to our show notes say that right away at the beginning go to our show notes and you're going to

1:20 get all the information so right now i would like to invite jim and lynn jackson the founders of connected families to the show hi you guys we're here welcome it's great to be here again we love this i mean we love all the messages but there's something special we want to share with listeners today kind of a little nuance that's so new to people it is we cover this in the online course and to be honest and upfront it's one of

1:43 the topics that i think parents sometimes have a hard time wrapping their heads around right away at the beginning of it isn't it we sometimes get a little pushback because people think it might seem a little soft and it can be a little hard to do yeah so within this level of our framework we want to teach parents to communicate the message you are called incapable and to teach you are called and capable we talk about something called the gifts

2:07 gone awry you are called incapable even when you are misbehaving even when you are defying me even when you are disobeying me even when you're doing something you ought not be doing that's dishonoring to yourself to property to others there's a gift in you the question is can we as parents see beneath the surface of the behavior into the heart even the holy composition of a child and see it what is that gift and we get clues about

2:35 the gift based on the nature of misbehavior that's why we call it the gift gone awry because it's coming out twisted by the child's sin by their selfishness by their tendency to organize life around themselves but it takes talent to do that persistently well yeah and i don't really think about it as talent you love the word talent i think in terms of when a child really wants what they want and they're going to misbehave to get it

2:57 they are going to access their strengths not their weaknesses they're not going to try to rely on their weaknesses to get something they're going to pull out the stop so if you've got a physical child they are going to use some big muscle and might get aggressive or if you've got a verbal child they are going to argue you to death about it yeah this idea actually came from an experience i had years ago working with high-risk youth a team did graffiti

3:20 art in the brand new van that we had been donated to the organization yeah and you know the first impulse is how dare that child and how could this be and we're going to make sure you're held accountable and this is against the law you've defiled our property yeah that's the first impulse the youngster ought to be held accountable to make right what they've made wrong but what i recognized when i saw the drawing was at first all of my own emotion and

3:42 the things that that had me bent on you know really going after this youngster but then i looked at the art and it was really good yeah it was dark it was devil-oriented art and so there was a whole bunch of stuff that was bad about it but we tend as parents to label things all bad right or all good and the truth is there was a mix of both because the talent was on display for me and whoever sat in

4:05 that seat to see for from now until time memorial and so my approach was to recognize there's a gift here and to go to that student and say hey you're really good at art aren't you and i've seen some of your art on the back of the van and i learned that you were the one that did it and i want you to know god gave you that gift for a reason and it wasn't this and so i'd love to work with you to make

4:26 write what you've made wrong to put those artistic talents to play to maybe earn some money to do some things that would help make right what that poor choice made wrong as well as to take that little chunk of graffiti and make it less dark and devilish we went shopping for fabric paint together and she picked the color mix that would paint onto the back of the fabric to cover that up oh cool i never knew

4:46 that about that story cool i can see how this is a huge paradigm shift for parents like i'm not gonna lie it was for me too and there are some of us who have personalities that do see things more black and white and also because of how we were raised right all bad or all good and it fits into our parenting ideas of needing to correct behavior and this is not okay and so i need to shape it

5:11 so but talk more about why this is so hard for parents that's why it's important to think about ahead of time your brain goes into fight or flight and you are looking for danger you know that's the brain function at that point is self-protection look for danger and so it's not at all natural in those moments to just go oh what's the gift behind this so that's where just in those spare moments in your car you know as you're

5:34 kind of reflecting back on something that your child did just ask the question so what was a strength or a gift that they used that was part of that scenario along with their selfish sinful inclination and start to kind of catalog that in your mind and pretty soon you'll see patterns of strength of character verbal skills just insight into people all sorts of things that you perseverance and you'll see these gifts under the surface and then

6:00 that starts to lighten your load about that child and and even encourage you and how this child could have quite a future if i guide these things well yeah to answer your questions stacy what made it hard for me is that i hadn't been taught this we're taught to address a problem as if it's all bad and to fix it and you know the truth is as i learned to understand that yes there's a problem and we need to address it if we're going

6:22 to help kids learn to be accountable but that there's so much more going on than just a bad thing and then start to look for as lin said reflect on pray about what's the good thing that might be present here as well and how can i identify it and breathe some life into it recognizing that every misbehaving child is a child created in god's image for god's purposes to do god's stuff and they're also imprinted with sin and

6:45 so sometimes that gifting expresses itself through the child's selfishness and sin or tiredness or blood sugar level or developmental stage or any of the above right but we're not taught to look for this and what i learned is that when i learned to find the good beneath the bad if you will and breathe life into it that it bought me all kinds of new opportunities in relationship with children others and my own to help them feel

7:10 a sense of weight of responsibility for what they've done that they ought not do and a desire a god-given desire to use that gift in an honoring god honoring sort of a way so you've just taken it to the great place the product the fruit i guess but i'm still back at the place where i can wrap my head around the fact that i deeply and truly believe that my kids are made in the image of god

7:33 that god has bestowed them with special gifts and abilities that he's got purposes and plans for them like all of that stuff i just want to see it happen and then all of a sudden something happens in my house right and it's so hard to be aware of all that stuff in the middle of it right my actions just start coming out okay so give me some advice in that spot well that's a really typical response

7:56 for one thing so giving yourself grace it's like yeah it's unlikely right in the middle especially at the beginning you're going to see this so that's where you know later that night maybe you're tucking your child in and you're kind of reprocessing the day and you want to end with just something really positive then you can go in and you can say you know i was thinking back about that situation with where you were bossing your sister and brother and kinda we had

8:21 a little brouha about it i was thinking about that and i was a little sad that i didn't acknowledge i think you have really good leadership skills you have strong ideas about things you know just how you want to go you have big energy about it and i just want to work with you to make the best of that leadership skill and develop that potential for god's purposes if you circle back talk about it later then you're

8:43 just a little more likely next time you see the bossing because you've had that conversation and your child has context for it you're a little more likely to be able to go in and go hey is that leadership coming out maybe in not so helpful away and that's that really helps parents to start to turn that barge i just love that lynn because i feel like it's the spirit of what we're trying to teach at connected families

9:07 we don't need to like bang ourselves over the head with a hammer because oh why didn't i think of the gift gun awry in that place and i just reacted in anger again right it's like okay whoops i want to correct so i do that at night right i'm not going to like pound myself over the head with shame about it i'm going to receive god's grace receive god's truth about that and then go into an interaction later and speak life

9:33 and capability into my child you can recognize the opportunity and then go back and even say to your child you know what i wish i had said to you yesterday when you must behave that way in fact i'd like to have a do-over and we talk about do-overs in the context and the online course we talked about that a lot yeah and then address it today how you wish you had done it yesterday and that's all part of this learning

9:53 it's hard learning and parents tend to say are you kidding me i have to learn this no you don't have to learn it but if it sounds appealing you might want to and if you want to we can help you yeah that's really good all of this gift gunnerai idea falls under the message you are called incapable and so if listeners are interested in getting more information about this message and the other three messages which we put all together and call the

10:17 framework then i just want to let you know that in our show notes we're offering a free ebook and it's called four messages every child wants to hear and so you can go there click that download it it's for free we also have lots of free stuff on our website if you want to check it out but while you're there please check out our discipline that connects with your child's heart online course we only run it two times a year that's

10:39 why we're talking about it a lot right now okay lynn i have a question for you all that we do at connected families we we really work to make it biblically based and i'm setting you up i know you want this question and we love talking about it but how do we see the gifts going awry in the bible well for one thing it's kind of fun to just you know if you're doing a read through

10:59 the scriptures program look for that as you read and you will see it and we talk about three key biblical leaders in the course and what was their gift gone awry and then how did god use that gift on track later so that's just a fun little study but i did find one little parable that just where jesus just nails this and it's in luke 16 and it's the parable about the master and he fires his

11:23 embezzling manager but before the manager left he calls in each one of his master's debtors and reduces their debt to the master so that these debtors would welcome him when he became jobless now the master might have said and if i was a master i would have probably said something like why you little slime ball i'm going after you but here's what the master says there's this exact quote from scripture the master commended the dishonest manager because he had

11:52 acted shrewdly but then of course jesus went on to teach about the value of trustworthiness the bottom line is be shrewd but use that shrewdness that cleverness to be trustworthy not dishonest so it's a great example of jesus identifying a gift going awry in someone and challenging people to use that gift for good purposes and that's what we teach about these gifts on a rise to help kids learn to use their gifts for honor and not dishonor i love that story about

12:21 jesus seeing the gift gone awry because then it means that i'm not being soft or not dealing with the disobedience of my kids in the way that you know although very black and white good or bad way but i'm modeling my parenting after him and i like that and we go through lots of other people and situations in the bible in the chorus and those are really fun especially for me because i love bible study so jim why is it important not to

12:46 suppress our kids gifts yeah and i think parents don't set out to suppress their kids gifts they say well of course i want my kids gifts to flourish what i'd like to suggest is that we just recognize discipline scenarios differently as opposed to a problem to correct or fix to recognize we have an opportunity here to mine some treasure in a very unique and powerful way and breathe life into it and i spoke to that just a little bit earlier it's

13:12 important not to just punish the misbehavior that might be driven by you know a strength of will so oldest kids frequently in fact i talked to a dad last night at a graduation party who basically said my older daughter taught me humility like nobody else but everything she was good at she used against me he said and interesting i know it right and she argued and she defied and i felt like she was smarter than i was and so i had to do what i

13:36 could to put her in her place to recognize i'm the parent around here and i said so how's your relationship with your daughter now and he said not very good she's not chasing after things that i would want her to chase after yeah and i said so it sounds like she's using the same gifts in ways that aren't as constructive as they might be and he said absolutely and that's what we see i mean even in

13:54 the prison populations we often see people who are really crafty who are really shrewd who are really good at things and there's actually organizations now building around recognizing that what it took for this person to commit the crimes that they committed was actually quite a bit of skill quite a bit of strength as lin said only twisted by criminal intentions right i mean i think we can see that picture right like people who rob a bank

14:16 they've really thought a lot about strategy never have the courage to do that yeah courage strategy oh sure there's desperation and there's thoughtlessness for other people and there's a whole bunch of other things in there which is what we tend to go after but imagine what would happen if we just said to every misbehaving person whether it led to them being a criminal or not wow what you did to commit that act was actually a pretty good use of your

14:40 strengths yeah and or an effective use of your strengths without putting a moral judgment on it you used your strengths in a way that got you what you wanted and you almost got away with it what would happen if you used those strengths in ways that were more honoring to other people right and so with the child who is very persistent in fighting back can we as parents have a vision for that strength of character to fight back and

15:00 say you know i love how strongly you feel about what you're talking about right now but you're using that strength to dishonor me and so i'd love you to use that strength to figure out a better way take a break until you're ready right so what i'm hearing is clamping down on that behavior or suppressing it because we don't like it right that dad who was like i didn't want her fighting with me all the time i

15:22 was just you know so doing that means we can also suppress some of those giftings in them and when we can catch a vision for that gift and how it could be used for good purposes god's purposes is when we then can call it out and think more in terms of we're teaching our child we're teaching them that the way that is coming out is not appreciated at this moment and i want to teach you a better way is

15:48 that right for sure and even the way that you're using it right now is driven by your sinful impulse what would happen if you use that strength driven by your god-given impulse by the presence and the purposes of god for you and in you and i'd love to help you do that i really love that i know as a parent as i've learned to grow in this area and to think in these terms of what's the gift underneath that

16:10 it helps me not to react as fast or too like my brain is working hard in the midst of this disciplined situation to see the good to call out what is the gifting yeah well last week we had a parent testimonial she was somebody who had gone through the course and we have another one today she has a story about how she used the gift gun awry so i want you to listen to it now i had picked my three children up from

16:37 school and daycare and we were on our way to religious education for my oldest son and he's always kind of challenging right after school you know in the car with the siblings he like antagonizes and can pick fights with people and he just put his money feet up on the back of the sea and the console of the car and i'm always asking him not to do that because it's getting scraped up and dirty and you know my initial reaction

17:02 was to yell at him be like get your feet off the seat and just instantly get big and loud and something came over me i remembered the course because we had you know i had done it just the night before and i thought all right let me try this and so i pulled the car over and actually you know i turned off the radio put it in park turned around and looked at him and said you know god has

17:25 blessed you with this wonderful gift of determination and that is going to be so great for you when you're older it's really going to serve you well to have this you know gift of determination because when you're older and things don't go your way you're going to be able to work through it you're going to face these obstacles and and you're going to rise to the occasion right now this gift is not helping you you're hurting the car you've got to put

17:48 your feet down and he took his feet down for like a second and put them right back up and i turned back around and he just kept doing that for the first few times and i just finally i sat there and i was like okay i'm just gonna wait for you and for that message to sink into you and he did eventually put his feet down never said another word and i got back you know onto the road and we went to

18:09 religion and gave him a hug and a kiss and said i'll be back to pick you up in an hour and everything was great and i was surprised that he listened i was surprised that it worked i mean it did take a couple of minutes but he did put his feet down and he he didn't put them back up typically that would have been awful it probably would have been me like getting out of the car going around

18:28 to his side of the car screaming at him it just would have set the stage for you know an awful evening such a beautiful story i love it because it really represents all four of the levels of the framework that we teach in the course and those levels have the messages right you are safe with me you are loved no matter what you are called and capable and you're responsible and that first level of you are safe

18:55 with me is how you calmly pull the car over and i could even hear it in your voice right like you just calmly told him what he needed to do so what else was going on in you in that you are safe with me how did you get control of yourself in that sense to make the change how you would have reacted in the past i just really took a deep breath and kind of remembering you know what we

19:20 had been doing in the course thought i don't want to send him this message that you know you're frustrating you're a problem you're annoying and i do feel like i give my kids especially my oldest son that message a lot because when we come home from school you know in the evenings we have like three hours to get everything done homework dinner backpacks and i often feel frustrated and stressed out and it comes out you know with my kids and i didn't want

19:46 to do that to him again i didn't want to send him the message that you know you're a problem you're annoying and i just took a breath and thought there's a better way to do this that's where the god's gift gone awry came out right we talked about the gift gone awry underneath the misbehavior and being able to call that out and that's in the third level of the framework the message that says you are called

20:08 incapable like under this misbehavior is this actual gift and i see that gift but we're gonna give you a chance to use that gift in a better way right now right the first few times i've used that at first my son was like what are you talking about why do you keep saying this to me all the time like what is this god's gift thing like why are you saying this mommy and now he just i say it and he's like

20:32 he gets it that's cool and it just it helped me to view him in a different way because i was kind of internalizing this idea that like ah he is a problem he is frustrating he's always antagonizing someone he's you know he just he's always annoying and this is not the way i want to think of my son i love him i want him to know that i want him to see that and feel that and it became pretty apparent to me that

20:57 he wasn't feeling that why he would act out more doing anything he could to try to get my attention and at that point it didn't matter if it was negative or not he just wanted some attention i guess i was always giving him that negative attention instead of the positive and the course has really helped me to slow down and acknowledge that and be more patient with all of them really but with him especially describe your

21:21 emotions as you look back at it it could bring me to tears honestly it was a turning point for me because there have been times when i stopped that car got out of my door opened his and pulled him out of that car pulled him out of that car by his shirt yelling at him and i did not want to be that parent and so this course has really given me the tools to recognize that in myself

21:47 and to change that and when i see these you know positive changes in myself and then in my son too that's what keeps me going that's what you know keeps me continuously using these tools and helps me to calm down so that i don't enter the situation big and loud like that anymore so that i can take a breath and say we can get through this in a better way again i had the opportunity to listen to

22:14 this interview and kind of help capture some of these thoughts and i love this picture of little guy in the backseat all feet muddy and kind of defiant and and all of a sudden mom loving on him and being safe with him and in a way that it's like he didn't know what to do he's off balance now yeah and then pretty soon as he's sitting in this realizing there's no power between my defiance and my mother right now

22:35 and you know i don't we don't know but what was going on in his brain as he's starting to realize my mom isn't going to engage in this the way she always did she's changing and you know his heart settled his behavior settled and the resolve was there and we see this happen so often when parents learn this idea of drawing out the gift gone awry in the midst of this stuff now if he'd stay defiant you know

22:57 there might have been a different effort needed but he didn't and we hear this time and time again you know when i was talking to her she was very aware that this was on the foundation of you are safe with me which we talked in depth about in the last couple episodes ago she was calm she wasn't reacting and from a mom's standpoint like i just congratulated her and i could tell she was really proud of how this had

23:22 gone different and she said how it could have gone before you know that wasn't great she didn't like that and it went differently because she had a new vision for how she wanted to engage with this guided by the framework absolutely thank you jim and lynn for being with us today it was fun to talk about the gifts gone awry and just unpack that so if this topic has sparked some more interest in you i want everyone to please go to our

23:47 show notes and check out the discipline that connects with your child's heart online course thanks everyone you