Revolutionary Parenting
I just finished a book which really rocked me entitled “Revolutionary Parenting“. I didn’t agree with everything in the book, but man did it get me thinking.
In the book Barna discusses the research that uncovered a number of common denominators to raising kids with a life-impacting faith.
One of the key factors which won’t surprise you is simple quality time in dialogue between parent and child. Parents who raised kids with a life-impacting faith spent between 90-120 minutes a day engaging each other.
To place that in context, the typical American family spends less than fifteen minutes of direct parent-child conversation.
This is something we’re trying to be more intentional with. When I’m at home and my kids are awake I want to be engaging with them not the…
newspaper
computer
television.
When I pull into the garage everyday I have to say a simple prayer that goes something like this: God you know I’m tired. You know I would love to go into this house and just hide out for a few hours to recoop. But God what I’m about to do is the most important part of my day. Give me energy I don’t have. Give me wisdom I can’t find. Allow me to go in there and give the best of what I have.
One of the things Brandi has recently introduced which has really helped is a question book we use at dinner. This has really helped our communication at dinner from becoming boring or routine. Here’s a little video that shows you how it’s working for us.
How are you doing at engaging your family in face to face communication? Any ideas on how to improve this?
Being intentional with our children is a must. I’m hope for about two weeks for leave from Iraq–I’ve been truly able to put this into practice. When there are things, I think I could be doing I remember that the kids come first. They are only young once, and if you blink your eyes, you’ll miss it. Good job on the dinner conversation video, as well–sometimes I like to just sit with one of my daughters and ask questions and listen to her answers.
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We have 3 kids and I went online last year and googled “family conversation questions.” We’ve done this twice. You can find random questions online to print out. I then cut the questions into strips and fold them up. I place them in a bowl and we all grab one at dinner time. It’s amazing to hear what your kids will say. And it gives my husband and I a chance to let the kids in on our opinions as well. We don’t always get dinner together because of sports/work/events etc. but we usually get 4 out of 7 nights a week to eat together.
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One of my favorite conversation starter questions are what was your favorite thing from the day and what was your least favorite. A lot of times you can get out of them what’s not going right at school, etc.
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I have no kids, so I just wanted to take this opportunity to say “Good morning/afternoon” to everyone. Have a great week!
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Pete, I love the intentionality. I believe this is key. I’m at a different stage right now with 2 boys ages 17 and 20, but I am realizing the need I have to still be intentional, just in a different way.
Not in an attempt to market my blog through yours (although that would be an incredible idea too since your blog is so popular), but just because I’ve spent so much time teaching in this area, feel free to check out some of the posts I’ve done on the topic of parenting: http://www.ronedmondson.com/category/parenting I very much encourage parents to be thinking through these approaches when the children are young and to have a purpose and plan for their parenting. Sadly most don’t think about it until their kids are past the best shaping years.
Thanks Pete.
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Good morning Dubhow!
Good post. One thing that has been on my heart recently regarding my relationship with Elias is my perspective when I’m at home with him a 1-2 days during the week. At first, while this is embarrassing and selfish, I often viewed his needs as distractions or interruptions to my day. One day a few weeks ago he was wanting my attention, and for some reason it dawned on me, “What about his day?” I mean, I can either be a distraction to his day or we can engage the time together. He’s only 8 months old, but I’ve been making an effort to view our “time” as equally important. Just something I’ve learned. Regarding HOW I engage him, I make up songs and sing them to him on a regular basis. Most of these songs have silly words and are to the tune of popular songs. For instance, I made up a song on Saturday to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus. It was called the Elias Chorus.
Oh, and we talk politics. So far he’s an independent.
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Pete, this is an area that I prayed over a lot–still do–when our children were born. It is an area I did not get training in while growing up, BUT the Lord is faithful, and He gave us some great ideas.
1. Good/bad part of the day. When our children started talking, we started asking what was good and bad about their day. We would give them a start and let them go. You learn tons about your children this way, and it helps you parent better. Sometimes Rob or I was the worst part of the day. A painful thing to hear, but it gave us a chance to work through the feelings and circumstances. It allows for healing and any necessary change. And that leads to being an example by asking forgiveness, which does wonders for teaching your child about God, Jesus, and repentance. Putting words into practice.
2. Would you rather? There are books with a series of questions about this, but we would make things up. Would you rather walk on the moon or on the bottom of the ocean? Would you rather fly like an eagle or swim like a dolphin? It was exciting when the chidlren started asking us the questions.
3. Go for a walk. No computer. No TV. No cell phone. Just two people with nothing to distract them. Wondrous!
4. We limit TV to no more than an hour a day, usually only 30 minutes, but we watch it together. Simply talk about and process what you watch on TV together. What good or bad thing did the main character do? Was that what God would want? Do you ever face situations like that? Do others treat you like that?
5. Do the same thing with books.
The reality is our children want our attention more than we can really grasp, and they aren’t picky. Rolling a ball, playing in the sand, reading on the bed…Very often if we let them, they’ll direct us into relationship, conversation…their hearts. They want to be known, and they want to know us. It requires us to have the discipline to put everything else aside and hear them.
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Great stuff….and so important.
I will be the first to admit that life gets wicked busy that we don’t always make the time to talk within our crazy family as we should (four kids ranging from 6-17). We do have “family meetings” a few times a month….a great opportunity to hash things out if needed (which you can imagine *is* needed)…open the communication doors on who is doing what annoying thing to who…and then we take a vote on what we are going to do as a family outing (we get two a month allowed in our budget, things like bowling, out to eat, movies, etc). As you can also imagine, it’s hard to find a happy medium with six diverse personalities but we can usually pull it off without anything more than a wrestling match or a food fight.
I have been trying to make a more conscious effort when we are driving together to not crank up the music, blab on my cell (did I just admit that?) or tune out the chaos. I encourage the boys to yank the earbuds to the iPods out or their head and strike up a conversation about whatever I can pull out of my back pocket that won’t make them yawn, mumble or look at me like a deer staring into headlights.
Unfortunately, we don’t get to have sit-down dinners as much as we’d like….sports, part time jobs, work schedules get in the way…but I do believe that the kitchen table is a fabulous place to connect.
Have a fabulous week
~*Michelle*~
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I really work at that – especially becuase I have teenagers and as parents we HAVE to be involved in this day and age. I took a volleyball coaching position at the local high school so I could spend time with my daughter who is on the team. And, I just got back from youth camp which my son attended. While I was in the kitchen most of the time, when I got a break I could hang out with my son (who still thinks it’s cool to hang with mom even though he’s 13. Suh-weet!).
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Thank you for your post. I enjoy reading everyday! We have 3 children ages 5,7,9 and at dinner we ask everyone their sunshine (best thing about the day) and cloud (not so good thing about the day). My 5 year old will not let us forget either. I just showed the video to him and he loved the book idea too. So, what’s the title of the book? Again, thank you for your inspiration each day. And…in regards to who has the best blog…why do the kids always pick Daddy. My kids do too.
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I search all the time for a best way, my kids aren’t kids any longer and I still search. There is so much I could learn even now.
BTW I loved the video.
@Michelle, I’m glad you mentioned the car. That’s another place I need to get more intentional about. So easy to just turn up the radio and ignore them.
We are having “family time” issues…We moved about 6 months ago and our new house has a bar in the kitchen where the kids now eat…Hence, we no longer sit at the dining room table together. This used to be a must in our home, now it’s a never…
What book is Brandi using? I think that is an amazing idea and it might just be what we need to get back into the old groove of eating and spending time together! I know my oldest son will love it especially (6yrs old)!
Thanks Pete!
LOVED that video of the question book! The kids are just too cute and smart!
I pick up my 8th grader fromm school everyday. He knows my questions. Starts with, ‘let’s go through the list – Homeroom? 1st Period?… and he tells me everything he did, whether he had homework or not, etc. It may seem too routine, too rote, but he is not so communicative about school and it is how I find out about his day.
Your kids are so funny! Each one is definitely a character! I don’t have kids but I work with them and not so long ago I was one. I think it’s important to just talk to kids. So many times parents just talk to their kids when they want to know something and it becomes an investigation instead of a casual conversation. Lighthearted convos are just as important as those deep intense ones. I always find it fun to start a story with a child (usually only works until they are in middle school or so). It’s amazing to see their imaginations! Little kids especially rarely have a time when “they are in control” and allowing them to narrate their own story gives them a sense of control in a good way. I have heard all kinds of things doing this! Just keep asking what next and why and how and who questions and see where it gets you!
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I need to be more intentional. I do well in the car though. I just need work at it!
You guys are doing a wonderful job!!!
Yes Jennifer Aninston and Beth Moore can be mentioned in the same sentence.
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I also find the car to be a good place to have a conversation with one of my kids. Works best if it is just one child and one parent. Seems like that’s the place where the kids will suddenly blurt out something that’s been bothering them, talk about what’s new with their friends, ask whether there’s really a Santa Claus, etc.
It’s great that you have made this a priority in your life. I wish I had done this! I’m afraid now that my kids are older, that I am falling into the “15 min.” category. They don’t want to talk and act like I’m a Special Forces commando trying to torture information out of them if I ask more than 2 questions about their day at a time. Sigh.
@Heidi, I’m glad you agree with me.
I also read Revolutionary Parenting and Voddie Baucham’s book “Family Driven Faith” at the same time. I didn’t agree with everything in either book, but between the two books, I was overwhelmingly convicted of the need to be discipling my children while they are young and really just passing on my faith to them by showing them Christ. We also are intentional about making memories with our kids ages 9,7,5,3 with camping trips, “surprises” to special places, going through the car wash, playing tag on hay bales, picnics, etc.. and we always say “Isn’t it fun being a Pace?!”
I am afraid that as a pastor’s family sometimes we get so busy with our church obligations, that we miss a few opportunities to win our own kids’ hearts and show them Christ. Lord, help me not to miss those moments…fill in our gaps.
@alison the book we use is just called conversation starters… it has great questions but i simplify them for the boys.
not only does this start conversation at the table… but our kids are so much better behaved at dinner because the focus is on something other than “food”. we don’t have to tell them to stop goofing off or eat their veggies as often because we’re focused on learning about each other while we eat!
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@Brandi – You are so inovative! I’ve shared your secrets with several of my girlfriends who have picky eaters (tasty club – wow) and I can’t wait to try the book thing and pass that along as well!
Thanks so much!
Our power went off for 5 hours last night and we decided we need to shut everything down at least twice a month from now on. Once for date night (and we’ll, of course, get a sitter.) And once for family time.
The candlelight throughout the house makes date night more romantic…even when playing Rummy or Scrabble. And for family night, I’m sure it will add a cool dimension and softer feeling, kids love it.
I remember loving the flashlights and candles on the nights our power went off as kids.
And your wife has a blog? Why didn’t we know about this before?
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Isn’t my wife awesome???
good stuff!
we try our best to engage at the dinner table and in the car as well. It’s difficult when you have 8 kids ranging in age from 18 down to 2 however! My teenagers usually want to engage at about 11PM sitting on our bed…that’s not my best time of day!
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Mercy your kids are cute. Um, is he eating a potato like a roll?
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What a great idea to use around the table. It sounds like something that we may start to try once stuff becomes a little more “normal”
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Very creative! We tried something a little different the other night. After our memorized prayer – I asked each child to say something they were thankful for. I think they thought I had lost my mind! Guess that’s what I get for stepping outside our comfort zone.
Maybe I’ll try questions tonight!
Sounds like a good book and I must say dinner at your house does seem to be full of fun!
Thanks for sharing!
~Kate
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Have to say I LOVE this idea! I don’t have kids…YET…but when I am lucky enough to have some with me I love using car time to ask ALLLLL kinds of open ended questions. What book is Brandi getting those questions out of? I have to say my favorite is the way your oldest son was eating his baked potato when asked the question about his favorite holiday. TOOO FUNNY! I love kids! They have the best answers don’t they?
That video was so sweet! I’ve got some connections. I may be able to hook you up with a monkey. I hear they make WONDERFUL pets! You might even train him to fix leaky chimneys.
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Definitely something I need to focus on….this hits home.
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Can you share the name of the question book that you are using at dinner time? I could really use something like this at my house.
Thanks!
Well I am smiling with tears in my eyes. Too many times I gave up on interaction like this. It is great to see your and Brandi’s efforts and it is even more great that you share and challenge each of us to make an effort.
dang it.
im crying.
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Hey Pete,
Normally I don’t comment here, but I just enjoyed the video so much
The boys put a smile on my face today. Jett, with his wanting a monkey (I wanted a monkey when I was in grade 5), and then Brewer at the end.
Thanks for posting this
This is great. We tried this tonight at dinner and it was a total riot. I think it’s something we will adopt on a regular basis. Thanks!
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Pete – Like the closing video!
We decided that our kids were the top priority (next to our relationship with Christ and our marriage) and that led us to homeschool.
Even though somedays I would REALLY enjoy a break from my two crazy wild boys, I thank God for every moment that I am able to love on them, educate them and teach them about God and His plans for the world and their lives!
A great conversation game we play in the car is “Either, either” pronounced “eeether,iiither.” You list two things and then everyone has to choose one. After the round, everyone expresses WHY they chose a certain item. Eaxample that my hubby used yesterday, “Stinky skunk or stinky underwear?” The boys LOVED that one!
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Ha ha! Amazing. When all my family were together we had the most hilarious conversations round the table. Somehow with my 2 stepbrothers it kinda always came down to what we call ‘toilet talk’. Kinda gross really, but memories are of us all laughing and joking together.
So how did you bribe them to choose your blog over Brandi’s, eh?!
Just kidding it’s great to see how your kids love ya!
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I am 7 months pregnant with our first baby and this is a constant fear that I have. Will I have enough left in me at the end of a work day to show him how important he is to me? Funny, I never thought to pray for energy. Thanks for the encouragement and enlightenment! Maybe I can parent after all.
(You can pray for more sleep, right???)
~ Katie
http://www.marriageconfessions.wordpress.com
I tried to e-mail you with a response I did not want to make public but didn’t connect the right way I guess.
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