Better Parenting Starts Here: Reframing Negative Thoughts

0:00 [Music] hi friends welcome back I'm Stacy belward the host of the connected families podcast Welcome to our community we are people committed to pursuing God's grace and truth for ourselves and then daily working to pass that Grace and Truth on to our children I'm so glad that you are here so I have jimn Jackson co-founders of connected families on the show they picked our topic for today the topic is

0:31 reframing it's answering the question what's going on in me and identifying the thoughts that are inside of me that are unhelpful so here's one negative tape or thought when parenting gets hard it's this is just too much or here's another one I should not have to deal with this that was mine in fact the reframe that we're going to be talking about today is really a big part of what makes connected families unique we call it our special sauce and I'm going to

1:03 ask Jim and ly to talk more about that after our break okay let's get started well welcome to the connected families podcast Jim and Lynn hi Stacy and we get together with Stacy who's across the pond right now I am I guess Tod be another country but we're looking at each other face to face through our platform so it's great and you know what it's December it's not acting much like December just yet yet well it's the

1:31 month that we celebrate Jesus coming and it's beautiful month we're going to have a conversation that is near and dear to your hearts tell us like why did you pick the topic of reframing wow well I I think it was summed up for me in a conversation I had just yesterday with a parent had some struggles and was reviewing what happened and with great discouragement said I shouldn't have done what I did I shouldn't have I

1:58 should have done this instead and I'm like hm well what does it mean when you say you shouldn't have or you should have and what would be a different way to say that that might feel more encouraging to you and that's really the heart of the conversation today is how how do we take the scripts that we so frequently and naturally play out in our minds as parents as as married couples as friends as family how do we take

2:21 those scripts captive to Christ obedience and really understand where is the truth and where is the lies and the things I'm saying and what is the encouraging truth that we're headed toward and we get firsthand evidence of the sort of shaming things we're able to navigate our way through or that we habitually put in place that tend to keep us discouraged and we want to move parents as much as we can toward encouragement being filled with courage

2:48 to to do the words and the works of Jesus for them and through them and you say that often encouragement is to fill someone with courage I love that phrase and I think if people have been around connected families for very long their antennas are up because they're thinking I went through Grace and Truth and so I know Lynn has something to say about this because Lynn did Grace and Truth so so Lynn why is this in topic important

3:14 to you too well I kind of have personal experience with the verse that Jim was talking about 2 Corinthians 10:5 and it says we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ in that online course that you referenced Stacy I talk about how I used to really dislike that verse because it's like oh I have to respond well but

3:41 I also have to have the right attitude internally and that just feels like a big burden and then I just realized how oh no this is the steps to freedom and you know the context of this verse in 2 Corinthians 105 it's talking about false teachers but who is a better false teacher than Satan who feeds us lies that are the opposite of the Gospel in those situations that are so tender to our hearts when we interact with family

4:13 members and so this is just a a really important verse to think when I take captive my thoughts to the grace and just the the grace and truth of Jesus then I am walking in Freedom so it it taking thoughts captives results in Freedom and that's what our heart's desire is for parents that they're not teeth gritting out a better response they're letting God's grace and

4:43 hope fill their hearts so that it overflows to their kiddos it's a little by little process it's not this big leap from where we are to what Lyn just said when I first started thinking about it was like insurmountable I can't get there but then little by little over time as we make habits out of evaluating what we said is that what we wanted to say not what we should have said is it what we wanted to say and what's the why

5:06 behind that want and is that why rooted in God's word and in God's grace and truth for me or for the person that I'm talking to and oftentimes I had to admit and still today if I do that work which I could do a lot more too and would like to do a lot more I find that there's Redemptive potential here yeah and I like you Redemption and I like what Lynn said is life too think about John 10:10

5:31 I have come to give you life and life more abundantly but you you reference the enemy Lynn and I think that first John 10:10 also the thief is the one who comes to kill steal and destroy so as I've worked on this in my own life and the reason I feel like it's so important it it was when I realized wait a minute I need to be this Warrior against the enemy who is coming at me trying to kill

5:58 steal and destroy me and my relationship with my kids with my husband with my family like all of these places he's someone that just pouring out shame causing me to like look at what doing the shoulds Jim that you started with oh I should have and it's like a hammer that should is like a hammer that we do so often we Hammer ourselves over the head with the I should and I just think the enemy loves it he loves it so much

6:24 because it is killing us and when I realized that I was like wow this is the spiritual battle because I want to contend for life and life more abundantly that Jesus came to give me that was my why foren ret sister that's good that's really good that's good and I love how the compare contrast of John 1010 and 2 Corinthians 105 it's really the same idea in two entirely different contexts and two entirely different stories there's another verse in here

6:52 that I that I just love I even spoke it to Jim this morning as I was laying discouraged trying to sleep but not being able oh and it's Romans 15:13 May the god of Hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit and our hope in God's work in our family overflows to our kiddos and our spouse and and any other

7:23 significant others that are involved with our family and that's when things really begin to change and I just see on the Facebook group so often just discourage parents and you hear their love for their kids and how grieved they are at what's going on maybe it's bickering and critical attitudes towards each other but yet for that parent to make a shift and go there is an opportunity to lead with Grace and encourage my kids here with hope in a

7:56 way that they will start to overflow to their siblings with hope as Lynn talks about the Facebook group and the and the the different feedback we frequently hear parents make reports like this about their kids great opportunity for a reframe this child is always doing this really bad thing and they never do this things that they should do and and I feel that and I myself sometimes think that way even about myself gosh I've known this for so long I should get it

8:25 better I should figure this out by now what is wrong with me and it's a discouraged energy but the opportunity for the reframe and and we'll often jump on even on Facebook and just say well I'm guessing that there's some some times that your child does things that are not that thing you described and that maybe it isn't always is there a different way to phrase that and then this should language we often invite parents to consider not what they

8:51 should do but what you'd like them to do or even to invite them to say what would they like to do so this isn't about a hammering should but it's about about a learning opportunity into the want to and the wise behind that when I'm coaching a parent they say oh I really need to to learn to do this or to respond more like this I go hm need to which is like this burden on their back

9:15 or want to which is this uplifting encouraging thing that I desire so often when we ask that question of parents just you should to or do you want to they literally sit up a little higher and their countenance changes and they're like oh yeah that's what I want to do all right well let's talk about that and then what a Redemptive conversation that can be I hear the parents though because we know that parents are chronically tired

9:45 chronically overwhelmed you know so I just want to PL I just want to say that because we hear you parents that are listening to this podcast today but your message is loud and clear it's the choice do you want to do it and ask the Holy Spirit he'll help you weed through all of the things to know what is the thing the right thing to do right now so that's in coaching sessions when I think about reframing and I think you

10:12 us the word scripts earlier jim I've often used the word tapes we have these tapes in our head so I just want to name a few of them because I think there's some that are pretty common we've T we've all talked about them as we've done different workshops and speaking and online courses and stuff we all had them right I think one of mine was I shouldn't have to deal with this this just shouldn't be I don't know why or I know another

10:38 one that was that was big too and I hear it a lot with families it's like when the the younger child can I want to say this the right way but maybe the younger child is stronger in a certain area than the older child then there's just always this script of comparison well the younger one can do it why can't the older one do it or vice versa or totally yes but those are some scripts what are

10:59 some that you have heard or even had yourselves well before we get to those right here on the heels of hearing those let's explore the flipped script the Redemptive script let apply right now yes so Stacy you talk about this script of I shouldn't have to deal with this right now yeah what has been a reframe for you when you've found yourself saying that that's been encouraging and constructive in your life and in your walk with God and in your communication

11:23 with the people around you it was the work of empathy when I asked the question that we teach families and people to ask parents to ask at the second layer of our framework what's going on underneath the surface and you my child so it was really honestly like stop being so selfish it's not about me as the mom and it's what is my child need right now yeah and working to meet them and understand each one of them and

11:52 where they're at that was the shift for me so if I went even a little bit deeper it was curiosity of what was going on in them so that first thing is kind of a a judgment a resentment that's fueling probably built on the last time this happened that's unresolved as well so now there's two or three or four or more things sort of stacked on top of each other I've been dealing with this all week but I hear your reframes is saying

12:15 well man there's something going on here I can get a hold of and maybe understand differently I wonder what that might be how could I do that um how could I understand what it's like to be my child in the middle of this I know what it's like to be me and I tend to put that front and center how do I understand what it's like to be them what's going on in me what's going on in my kids

12:34 beautiful reframes yeah and kind of underneath that I hear is just a shift and maybe this wasn't super conscious but a shift to wow what's the opportunity to understand my child better have a closer relationship with them and represent the empathy of Jesus as he is doing for me right now in in my overwhelm as a parent he understands yeah an underlying sort of an underlying I mean I'm just listening to this now and haven't thought of this but really

13:04 the underlying flipped script is this is all bad there's some great potential here and I'd like to see it and I'd like to get some Holy Spirit wisdom for for jumping on board with what he's doing because God is always doing things he's always active always present but we tend in our in our binary thinking it's either all good or all bad miss this opportunity to do Redemptive reframes yeah yeah I think that the connection became much more apparent as I practiced

13:32 this and really developed this as the first response instead of those negative ones because now I saw it you're right as an opportunity I can now connect with my daughter they're both daughters in this cuz I want them to know that I really want to know what's going on inside of them or what happened today and how that's affecting them or whatever it is I care and I want to connect with you in it M and I care more

14:00 about the connection than the fact that maybe you were just snotty to me or something like that yeah and so often then when you get that connection kids will Circle back and and spontaneously apologize sometimes they do sometimes they don't but that connection facilitates their vulnerability in being willing to apologize so I think there's there's a bunch you kind of ask what are some classic things that that parents can reframe and I just had picked out a

14:28 few of these that I just feel like are so common and one is how do I get my kids to blank and that's like whoa You Feel The Angst and even the manipulation in that belief and then just a shifting to how might I encourage and help my kids to blank yeah and that's just a really helpful shift and similarly you know when we do something as a parent well did that work you know yes evaluating

14:58 something that way way and it's again it's like was this helpful for my child or not is a better frame versus did it work feeds my sense of this is all about me trying to get my way as a parent I think to get real practical I can remember that when we first launched sensitive and intense with all of the occupational therapy and sensory suggestions you have and I remember a parent saying I installed the swing in

15:25 my house but I don't think it's working right I wanted to transform my child right now the swing yeah and even there's another opportunity for reframe this isn't working I'm trying this thing that you taught me and it doesn't work so then that calls into question the veracity of what we taught right like well the thing you taught me isn't effective because I'm doing it and it's not working and I get that but I think the opportunity for

15:51 reframe here is if it's not working a what's that about are you trying to get this to work for your benefit like is there something going on inside of when I say that that's like I need this for me to work and it's not and I'm frustrated and I'm feeling exasperated and where's the child in that line of thinking I reframe this like okay it's not working to what I'm doing isn't as helpful as I'd like it to be I wonder

16:13 what else I could do how might I tweak this y then discover it and we have such a difficult time I think looking at at what happened back there in the past near past and say and saying to ourselves all right that was pretty bad things did not go well but I wonder what went well and I wonder why it went well I wonder what was going on in me at that moment and in my child at that moment

16:35 that contributed to the wellness of how things unfolded that was helpful so I'll work at doing that a little bit more yeah you want to help your child that point right there that you made was a huge thing for me in my journey of reframing which was naming even the smallest little success or change and then like naming it to myself naming it to my kids high-fiving myself patting myself in the back to move on and keep

16:59 going we have to get to a break but Lynn I know you have a couple of more tapes or scripts that are typical that we'd like to get through well this one I I bless Lydia for her thoughts on this right now but just the phrase I can't take this anymore the phrase that she has suggested is a question what do I need from the Lord right now and that can help parents step into his compassion for them and then as we

17:26 receive his compassion to be able to just stop and listen for Holy Spirit wisdom so that's an important one and then just this the thing of this child is too much for me it's it's hopeless God has given me this child and he will give me what I need to parent him or her today is a hard day but God isn't done writing our story I can have hope for tomorrow all things can be redeemed God

17:51 is always up to something so those are some examples thinking that to just bring God's peace into the midst of the chaos the craziness Satan's lies whatever is in the in the jumble just bringing the Lord's peace and comfort into it can start you on a just a different trajectory with your kiddos yeah you know before we go to a break I feel that I just want to say this too we've given lots of options for what the

18:18 reframe could be but really the most powerful the most potent reframe will be when you parents sit down in a quiet moment it may is 3 minutes and you identify what that belief is and you have a conversation with the Lord and ask him what is the truth and whatever comes into your mind that is what he's saying to you because you just asked him and he wants to talk to you so just write that down and that will be

18:46 something that you can hold on to okay you guys we need to go to a break we will be right back Hi friend Stacy here in this season of gratitude we here at Connected families are celebrating the precious gift of transformed family relationships and you are cherished Community are an essential part of that story for 22 years donors have been an essential part of the team impacting tens of thousands

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21:48 like mine tap through to the show notes to easily find our donation page or text parenting to 50155 to give any amount your gift today supports transformation in families for generations to come well I'm back after the break with Jim and Lyn we're having this great conversation about reframing our thoughts and it's because the Lord asks

22:19 us to we've covered some of the verses at the top of the show but it's also because we want to and we know that as we do this hard work continually in our lives we will show up with the joy and the life that Jesus offers us as an inheritance because we are his children and I also realize that this is kind of a core concept to who we are as connected families we call it our

22:46 special sauce we have a full document that all of our staff read regularly and it's a part of how we think and how we write so I would just love you Jim and Lyn to start off the second half of the show and and just talk a little bit about that special sauce and where it came from you know how you think about it yeah well years ago Stacy when we started this work you know we were just

23:10 sharing what God had taught us through our work as myself worker with high-risk teens and Lynn with occupational therapy with with children and their parents you know we just kept getting told over and over again that as we talked about parents this is really different we're hearing something here and so we got challenged to name it and that's kind of this document you refer to has has really resulted from quite a quite a long period of time of us really digging

23:32 in with depth which is part of the Special Sauce like we go deep we think deeply about this so much of parenting teaching is transactional and we think deeply we think theologically we we think through the lens of God's grace and truth for for all relationships for the church for all people for all time and that's that's sort of the underpinning of this thing we call the Special Sauce but I have to tell you we're uncomfortable a little bit with

23:59 the term Special Sauce we are so special we got something you don't got we you it's like no no that's not it no it's like there's a hundred great restaurants in town with chefs who have special sauce and some nights we want to go get that special sauce on like man I want I want that taste and some nights we go to this one and you know God has given us a unique look and God has given others

24:20 unique looks and in different ways but we just felt compelled to do the best we could to hone in on what are the things that in the Legacy that Lynn and I want to pass on to to Generations the the key components of how we've talked about parenting now for three decades and that's what the Special Sauce is at the high level if I had to put it in one sentence I would say it all centers

24:42 around a deep desire to honor parents and children the way that Jesus did and that just that just flows throughout our whole thinking and we're grateful to uh John Trent and Gary SMY for their book The Blessing and and then they wrote a book about honor and just such a precious way to look at parents and children and just wanting to roll that out in how we teach how we talk who we are we had a a coach's training

25:12 gathering this fall and one of the coaches came and said at the end of it and she said I noticed there was no sarcasm throughout the whole time and she was kind of shocked because usually that shows up somewhere and it was just it's because it flows from this deep desire to honor parents honor children honor each other the way Jesus did yeah we kind of don't ever want to say anything about our children or other

25:37 people's children that we wouldn't say to them in a way that our desire would be to encourage them and we still fail sometimes honestly but that's a goal that's what we strive for and we call each other out Lynn and I do if there's a Miss on that and we do it we do it in Grace hey that thing you said was was a little different than I've come to expect from you what's that what was

25:57 that about so it's Grace filled language and I know we want to get into some specifics what does it look like and I I bet you that once you go through them Jim Lin people are going to realize oh yeah when they're reading our blog posts or they're reading an ebook they're they're going to be able to see the parallels so why don't we why don't we start with the first one well just we kind of touched on it before just the

26:19 absolute thinking of always all absolutely never you know that that usually means we're in fight ORF flight and we need to sort into two categories bad or good so instead you know just getting the frontal lob on so you can think more complexly usually often many sometimes sometimes I'll ask coaching clients a scaling question so oh my daughter's always negative okay so zero is she is absolutely 100% of everything comes out of her mouth as negative and

26:51 10 is she struggles with negativity but sometimes she's really filled with joy and then they'll go oh well it's like a four or five and then oh okay well let's talk more about the good stuff there another always statement that we hear frequently is my child always lies we've learned in the reframe to say well let's examine that and same scaling question on a scale of 0 to 10 where zero is every word that comes out of that

27:18 child's mouth is dishonest and 10 is I mean yeah they're human and so they say some things that are untrue once in a while but it's really not that big of a deal I would suggest lying is always a big deal by the way but it's dishonest it breaks the heart of God you know when I ask that scale they'll be like well it's not always when isn't it and what kind of energy does that get and how do

27:37 you would you compare the energy when they don't lie that that gets versus the energy that they get when you do catch them lying what's How does the energy compare and is that what you'd like to be communicating and what are you thinking about where that All Leads so it invites this wonderful conversation to live in this in between space of absolutely good or absolutely bad admit number one you know hey parent like why does my child always lie well has your

28:01 child ever heard you lie about anything or seen you lie or watched you lie or do you ever lie uh not that we want to point a finger of condemnation but but it's it's this admission like we're humans here together in this and we live in the middle zone of the Fallen nature of our flesh and the perfected nature that we're promised for eternity and so we want to lean on the side of Grace filled language which is that it is not

28:25 always it is not never it's not absolutely and I would add here that we also talk about ourselves in that way right as a as an organization we don't say that this is the answer for you it will always work or four ways to a b and c we don't we don't talk like that we say this may help you it it might be an option or you could be struggling with something we're not going to assume

28:52 those things okay Lynn what's the next one just the whole area of identity labels you like mean kid or wher or bully or picky eater angry mom and sometimes you'll see a phrase like that in our materials because we know that's what parents are searching for a lot of times because it's kind of the easiest language like we have a picky eaters ebook but right away in the beginning we help parents to reframe that into a

29:19 child that's learning to increase their diet selection or their food selection so we've been given an identity in Ephesians 1 and 2 and all through scripture as precious and beloved you were just looking up a scripture yeah Isaiah 622 says you will be called a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow yes we used to love this worship song that came out of our experience in a Vineyard Church I will change your name you shall no longer be called

29:48 wounded Outcast lonely or afraid I'm going to give you a name confident confident joyfulness overcoming one fath friend of God one who seeks my face let's call names that Inspire in that way right like this kid is a whiner well sounds like your child whne sometimes don't we all what would be the identity you'd like that child to embrace as their own and go away from home believing is true about them do you want them to leave believing they're a whiner

30:18 or something else well no they strongly Proclaim what they believe in oh yeah there it is and that's where you know this thing we call in our ministry the gift gone arai is one of our most potent reframes like here's this bad thing my child does and it's always bad well no here's this thing that your child does that comes out Twisted by sin that is compelled by that child's god-given strength that's how God built them

30:44 god-given wiring whatever it might be talent and that can be reframed into a whole different thing so the child who screams in hurtful ways can also use that strong and powerful voice to speak in constructive and helpful and supportive ways yeah and we could do a whole podcast or even 10 maybe on the gifts g arai so Google that everybody you can go on to our website you're right it's so potent I love it and okay

31:11 we have one more that we want to talk about that's battle language can you talk about that Lynn because you feel so intense in Conflict it's easy to start using battle type language like I got to win these power struggles or you know I'm in the trenches with my kids or I have to pick our battles so we really have moved away from that because we feel like the only battle we are in is the spiritual battle against Satan and

31:41 his lies and he wants to get us thinking that we are in a battle with our children instead of we are on the same team to solve problems with our children so in our language we don't defeat bombard slay squash or beat anything you or your children that implies that you should dominate or win and that's not the heart of the Gospel yeah there's a very subtle winning and losing language in in much of the parenting literature

32:08 that we reviewed particularly as young parents there's a lot of really great stuff coming out these days that speaks just more gracefully about children and relationship but you know there's so much and then it's ingrained in us in our culture and in the culture of you know that the elders and churches who teach parenting still have kind of that history and they're coming out of that place where these phrases were just common place and we taught them at you

32:31 got to pick your battles you're the parent you've got to win this one you know and when you battle be sure to win I mean that's popular teaching from just not that long ago and it still is ingrained in folks right yeah I can remember watching a reel about a dad who was doing the uhhuh I won this when he was took the door off of his middle school child's room right it was like he can't you know I won see that's an

32:58 example of this that's absolutely an example of this and as you know as we think about stepping into empathy we can communicate to our child wow that was a big slam you know we might talk about taking care of the house in just a little bit here but I want to know what that door would have said if it could talk what was going on in your heart and to step into that and then move towards

33:24 helping the child make right or just learn a different path for the next time that they're really upset and they feel like they need a powerful voice and so I'm going to slam my door well and there is a brewing dominance culture here that we you know that we just have to say out loud we're noticing and that dominance is glorified and The Human Condition is to dominate The Human Condition is is to be in control is to be the winner is to

33:51 be the right one and at all costs and without argument and our suggestion is that that's really not a Biblical way to think about our leadership as parents as people but that yeah just this whole language of Grace this thoughtfulness this this wondering about what God might be up to and how we can join it rather than oppose it are there things that I'm doing that might be opposing God's work in my child because we're stuck in this

34:15 struggle and how might I look at that differently and we're not saying abdicate your Authority as parents this is about stepping into your true Authority for the spiritual care of your children and I had some really intense healing prayer at one point and the biggest difference in my parenting before and after was I stopped working so hard to control and dominate and I began to walk in my true authority to guide and teach and encourage my

34:45 children and it was it was a very significant transformation that helped me to walk much stronger as a parent than I was when I was insecurely battling for control well we've come to the end of our podcast today and I just appreciate you Jim and Lyn that you lead connected families you you lead us and guide us especially along these lines of Special Sauce and reframing and Grace filled language that really is bringing

35:18 life to literally millions of parents around the world and so I'm grateful for this conversation today and I know we've gone long but I always love when you pray for us so maybe well one of you just close in a short prayer for us go ahead father we are so grateful for that you give us scripture to help us reframe that you don't leave us at the mercy of the liar but you encourage us with your

35:48 love with your truth with your compassion over us I just pray that more and more that would become a reality for the parents listening that they would would walk in knowing they are beloved to you and that you guide them and have good purposes for their family so we speak those words into these families listening by the powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ amen amen amen thanks jimin thank you Stacy thanks for tuning

36:19 in today friends we are a listener supported organization over 50,000 parents like you listen to this podcast every every month individual donations make the work to equip and encourage families possible for more information about connected families follow us on Instagram or Facebook or go to Connected families.org I will see you next time [Music]