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Hi, welcome back to the Christ Gives Hope Podcast. Today's episode is a special two-part series on parenting and encouragement for you as you navigate your role as a parent. In this special episode, I had the chance to interview my friend and fellow Stephen Minister Kay List. Kay has a wealth of wisdom, knowledge and understanding when it comes to parenting. And she has spoken to Bible studies to MOPs, Mother's of Preschoolers and she has previously taught parenting classes for over 30 years. I am thrilled to share this interview with you. Before we begin. If you are new to this podcast, this is all about you. We aim to bring you Christ healing love during the hard. The crises, the grief, the difficult life challenges you may be facing. And if Stephen Ministry is something you're not familiar with as Stephen Ministers, we are all about caring for you when you need it. most. Stephen Ministry is a free, confidential, safe space for you to talk through the areas of your life that you're struggling with. We want to be Jesus' hands and feet for you. As we walk alongside you. My name is Lisa Stasik And I'm your host. I'm also a Stephen Minister. I serve alongside many men and women in our Stephen Ministry program at St. Lorenz who have a heart for the Lord. They are full of compassion and truly wish to support you and be that steady, calming presence. As you face life's many challenges. All right. here is the interview. Kay. Thank you. so much for being here. Please tell us a little bit about yourself. I'm glad to be here. Yes. I, I love working with families and that was one of my favorite things to do when I was a kindergarten teacher, because many families were just starting out with that education academic role as parents and they were looking for answers. And so I also need to mention that I was not a perfect parent and my husband and I we were teaching parenting classes too. He taught a few classes with me, which was wonderful. So things that I really gained perspective or insight on were from family life radio. As you said, I taught school right after I got out of college and we were married. And then when we decided we wanted to have a family, we decided that I would stay, be a stay at home mom. And it sounded real good, but it was not easy. And so, I very often would turn on Family Life Radio, and that's when I would get lots of good ideas. I liked Family Life Radio because Kevin Lehman was on there, Randy Carlson was on there, and James Dobson, and they all, spoke to my heart because they were coming from a Biblical perspective I Wanted to be the best parent not only for my children, but for God so that's a little bit of my background. Oh, thank you for sharing I think we all do. We all want to be the best parent. Thank you for bringing up Family Life Radio. That is such good advice. It's important what we fill our minds with during the day. I To get started. Let's dive into the topic of discipline. I think it's so important and whether our kids are young or they're older or you have grandkids, discipline is needed. It is Biblical. So I was wondering, Kay, if you could share with us any thing you've learned or good pointers for anyone listening How can we discipline? Sure. And offhand, I just want to say, too, that children do want discipline. They want to know what is expected. It gives them a sense of security. So, one of the wonderful quotes I can't remember his name, but anyway I have taken this quote to heart. It's called,"Rules. without a relationship will bring rebellion." So you can have rules in your home and they might be very good rules. But if you don't have a relationship with your Children where you're just enjoying them and talking to them and listening to them, it can lead to rebellion. If you're just trying to enforce rules. Constantly, that can be a downfall for your family and for your relationship with your children. When it comes to discipline it, you know, it was very confusing because when I was starting to be a mom. And we were taught, you know, we had this Dr. Spock and he just kind of led a lot of parents astray was more or less a permissive, you know, just let your kids do whatever. And I knew that wasn't right because I wasn't brought up that way. But my husband and I both knew we wanted to do things that some of the things that our parents taught us, but we also wanted to do some things different. And so I've got some tips that I really learned for my family. And for teaching kindergarten for children to that I that I taught, and I call it the secrets of effective discipline. One of the first points is, it's so important to set limits. they need to be fair, but they need to be firm. And no two families are alike. So, my rules might be different than what your rules are, because you want to pick rules that work for you. But all children need rules. They will grow and become much more responsible citizens by knowing that there is an authority and that there are certain rules that they need to follow. Eventually, they're going to have a job and they're going to have to follow. Right. so. I didn't do this, but I think you could you could sit down with your children and set up some rules. And you don't want to have a whole lot. You want to pick rules that are really important to your family. you can sit down and explain to your children why you're having this rule, and explain to them, What will happen if you don't follow this rule, you know, there will be consequences. it's really important to state your rules in a positive way. That's good. Rather than if you don't do this, this is what's gonna happen, I really wanted my children to treat each other with respect. they're going to have moments where they're going to have arguments. I don't remember many of them, but I'm sure they had them. My children I have got a 47 year old, a 45 year old and a 43 year old. So they're all grown up now and are being good parents too. those that have children. getting back to the rules you want to state them in a positive way, for instance, as a parent or as a family, you might choose a rule that we want to have peacefulness in our home. It's not always going to be peaceful, but that's one of our rules or one of our goals and. What does that mean? You know, to a child? Well, it means if you don't agree with your brother or sister on something, or if you don't agree with mom or dad, let's try to work it out in a way that is not violent, or that we're screaming at each other. Let's try to have a peaceful outcome. And that might take us sitting down and working through things. being respectful to each other. You can say"I as mom am going to be respectful to you. I'm going to treat you with respect. And when I don't, I will apologize." I had to apologize to my children there were times I lost it. and hollered then felt terrible afterwards. you can establish those rules, like follow a bedtime rule and set things up for them to know what's expected. Okay, seven o'clock. You're going to get ready put your pajamas on, we're going to read a book, we're going to get settled, you can decide what rules would fit into your family, that would be setting the limits, making them fair, but firm. once you do that. You have to follow through if you have rules established and they don't follow the rules and you just let it go. Don't expect them to follow them because you have to follow up as a parent when a rule is broken. And that's hard sometimes. Yes, it is. It's hard. You know, it's being consistent most of the time, We have to give ourselves grace to as parents. We are not perfect. God is the perfect parent And he doesn't expect us to be perfect. He wants us to, do our best with His help. But we're not going to be perfect. We're going to make mistakes. So that was number one, one of the secrets of effective discipline. Number two is using the power of consequences.. I think this is one of the most effective discipline techniques you can use. It teaches children that their actions do have results. it shows them that they're responsible for what they do. There's two types of consequences. Some happen naturally. For instance, if your child leaves their bike outside. And you've told them, bring your bike in and it rains and they've left it out there for days. Well, what is the consequence? It's going to rust and then they won't be able to ride it maybe, or they won't like the way it looks. So there's a natural consequence. If they miss their homework, what's the natural consequence? They'll get a zero or they'll get a bad grade. So there are those natural consequences. And sometimes a consequence may be because of poor behavior. It may not be automatic. You might have to establish a consequence. The trick is finding consequences that relate. to the misbehavior. For instance, if your children are arguing about what they want to watch on TV or if they're arguing that they want to both use the iPad or something and they can't come to an agreement. Well, a natural consequence would be to turn off the TV or take away the iPad and say, you know, I guess we're not going to use it right now. And that would be a good consequence because they can see that, okay. If I don't cooperate with my brother or my sister, I lose using it at all. So that's good. if a toy is misused you can take it away for a while. you can ask other moms or ask your husband, if you have a husband, or if you have a wife, you could ask them, what do you think would be a good consequence? That would mean something to the children. You might want to think some of those things through that are important to you as a family. Some of those rules that, you feel are important. And it can be difficult to stand by and watch your children learn a lesson, but if you try to shield them from mistakes, They're going to lose an opportunity to learn. I think that's such a good point to make right there. It might be hard to see, but they have to learn. How else are they going to learn? it's easier when they're young, learn now, versus when the consequences are minimal, right? You just talked about turning off the TV, But when they're in a job someday, or in college, you know, or in school, and the consequences get way bigger, it's really important. You're right. absolutely. Telling your children in advance what the consequences might be are good. then you won't be in the hot seat trying to figure out what to do when you're upset. Okay, number three that I feel is important for effective discipline is to be consistent. But flexible, and that's another one that can be hard, when your childern break a rule, try to deal with it the same way every time. that can be hard, even if they plead and beg and whine, because it just teaches them if they plead, beg and whine and you give in. Well, I'll just keep doing that. And I'll do that again, right? Yeah. On the road. Yep. Yep. I'm kind of, as a parent, I'm training them to do that and then they get their way and it's not in their best interest. Right. Sometimes when you give in, it's telling them that maybe this rule isn't fair or maybe this rule isn't that important. it's challenging to be consistent because kids can read us and they know our soft spots and they will work those soft spots. you don't want to be mean, but you want to set up a perimeter. Like my kids would come home and they had to do homework. I said before, you can go outside and play. You've got to do some homework. I know my daughters have done it differently. They will let them play for a little bit, which probably makes sense because they've been sitting for quite a while. And so let them play for, let's say, okay, every day you have 30 minutes. And when the buzzer goes off, and I like to use the buzzer, because they can't argue when the buzzer goes off they'll just say, you know, buzzer went off, it's time for you to do this, and then they would do their homework. And so, they got into their own little routine, and they knew that when they came home from school, they'd have their snack, and whatever, but then they would get into their homework. And I'm sure, like you said, they knew their routine. That was probably good'because it was consistent, so they knew what was expected of them. They had their, time, but then they knew they had to start their homework. That's really good. Thanks for sharing that. To reiterate how important it's for the kids to have that expectation and to follow through with it. Good example. Yeah. The tip about being consistent, it doesn't mean that you're not flexible. for instance, if you have a visitor over, or let's say grandma comes over unexpectedly after school, make an exception for a little bit of time, you want to have some flexibility there and let them know that there are times that We will be flexible, but most of the time, if there's not something that's out of the ordinary, we will continue to follow these routines and rules. So the fourth thing is to give encouragement and praise. And I think our parents do pretty good job of that nowadays. I don't know that my parents knew the importance of that. I came from a German family and this is what was going to be done. This is the rule in the house, and this is what you do and you don't ask, or you don't argue, it was just different. But it's so important for your kids to hear you praise them and to give them encouragement and especially for good times and bad times, I mean, not only praising them when. Things are going well or they did well on a test or they did well at a ball game. praise the fact that you gave it your best shot, and, and even if they strike out or they spend the whole night and they strike out every time. you come home and you still praise them. you were trying. you were giving it your best and maybe tonight was just not your best night, but that's okay. you're still out there, you're still supporting your team and you look for things in those down times it's really important that the secret of praise and encouragement can really impact their behavior too. If we're always, You didn't do this right. You didn't do that right. if we're always harping on them. What's that going to do? And some kids, as a teacher, I know this, some kids will act out negatively because they want attention and they don't care. They don't care if it's positive or negative, if they can get attention. Negatively, they're going to do it and many kids will do that like at home and, and I know it's probably hard. A lot of moms and dads are working full time and they get home and it's tiring. It's hard work. And yet they still need to hear We love you. We know you're trying Positive encouragement and praise. And another thing is setting up routines. You know, you're tired of all the hassles, maybe surrounding mornings or chores or bedtime. Try simple routines. Children thrive on routines. They really do. And once they're in place, They know what to do, like the homework thing, or in the morning, you're going to get up at seven o'clock. And my little granddaughter now, she's had an alarm clock in her room since she was, I think, six. She's very motivated and focused. she gets up and has no issues getting dressed. She makes her own breakfast I know that because she will FaceTime me sometimes while I'm down there and she'll tell me what she's eating. Anyway, she's, got that routine and bedtime, I think is one of the hardest, at least it was at our house too, because my youngest especially when she was in third grade, she was five years younger than our oldest daughter and three years younger than our son. And so they got to stay up later. That was just the privilege for being older. She wanted to be up like they were, but she had that bedtime. And, so it was a routine, but she still didn't like it, but it's important, because if they dawdle I would say, if you're gonna ask for water, and if you're going to ask for another story, she always wanted me to tell stories. so I said, honey, you know what, now it's already 830. And you were supposed to be in bed quiet by eight. So we're gonna have to start earlier, instead of having you start getting ready at eight o'clock or at 745, we're gonna have to start another half hour early. Well, maybe they don't want to do that. So that might be a consequence to dawdling, but you can set up routines where they get ready for bed at a certain time. And if you do that consistently, you're not even going to have to ask them anymore. They'll probably pretty much do it. And then one thing that I really learned was don't sweat the small stuff, like little things, whenever possible, try to ignore the little things, pick and choose your battles. That's a good one. Yeah. Decide what is really important to your family. And then those are the things that you really stick with. And you sometimes have to ignore their silly behavior or their destructive behavior. If it's not hurting anybody, sometimes it's best to just ignore it and not let them get your attention through it. And the last point is love works magic. When you're loving on your kids. And you're telling them, I love you. I love the way you did that, or I love how you helped me tonight, setting the table. I didn't have to tell you a second time that just brought such joy to my heart, letting them know and telling them, I love you. let them know that you love them and that you're so proud that God put them in your family. Those are just things that they will treasure and, and help them to know mom and dad are on my side, even though I get into trouble or this happened, I've always said to them, you can't do anything so terrible that your dad and I would stop loving you. So those are some of the things that I see as far as discipline that I feel are important. I do have a whole list of Scripture verses on discipline that I used when I was speaking at MOPs So I, I know it's important because God has, mentioned it. I have, I think about 12 verses that talk about discipline and how it is important for us as parents to discipline as God disciplines us when we stray. Sometimes I would say, you know. I want to do what God wants me to do as a parent. I wanted them to be open to see that this is my responsibility as a Christian parent, God wants me to do this so that you can be the best Christian that you can be. Yeah. I really liked that you brought up The scripture, because it's so important, and discipline is in the Bible, it is Scriptural, and we are commanded to do that, family is His design. I like how you, told us that you would remind your kids, you're so thankful that God had chosen you. Chose them, to be a family. And I, remind my kids that almost daily, we pray together and we thank God, for choosing us to be a family, it's so important. And that's His design. And He also designed us as parents to discipline and to teach them and to raise them in the right way. so thank you for sharing this. It's such a good topic. I think it's needed All right. That ends part one of our interview. Part two. We'll dive deeper into taking the time to listen. We talk about scheduling, helping your children have responsibilities around your home and why that's so important for your kids. And we also talk about feeling guilty. Any parents out there that are feeling like you're just not doing it right or not doing enough. We'll talk about that too. Wherever you are in your role as a parent, whether your kids are young or you have adult children, you are not alone. If you're feeling stuck. Overwhelmed inadequate, exhausted. A Stephen minister can faithfully come alongside you. Stephen Ministry is a confidential, free ministry. It is nonjudgmental. There is no judgment here. It's a safe space. Talking with a compassionate, trustworthy, Stephen Minister may be just what God has planned to help carry you through. If you are feeling overwhelmed and broken right now through the cross of Jesus, God can make you whole. and the heart of Stephen Ministry is rooted in the biblical principle that Christ cares for people through people. And at St. Lorenz, we have a team of Stephen ministers ready to support you to care for you. More information about our Stephen Ministry program can be found at christgiveshope.org. If you're interested in Stephen ministry for yourself. Or for a loved, one more information can be found at christgiveshope.org. Please take a moment to subscribe. So you don't miss future episodes, especially part two of this interview coming next. And a quick note. This is not medical advice. If you need professional care or care from a physician that is beyond the scope of Stephen Ministry. Thank you so much for listening. God's blessings to you.