Transcription
Welcome to Orthodox Christian Parenting, where we bring timeless wisdom into the everyday chaos of raising kids. I'm Michelle Mujias, and I'm so excited to kick off our very first episode on our very first season with someone who needs no introduction and who is probably the premier thinker when it comes to Orthodox Christian parenting. Dr. Philip Mamalakis, who is the author of the classic Orthodox parenting book, Parenting Toward the Kingdom. Dr. Mamalakis teaches pastoral care at Helenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston, Massachusetts. He's been a longtime collaborator with us here at Faithree. And most importantly, he's the father of seven children and now he's a grandfather of two.
Orthodox parenting is different. It's not just about good behavior or raising perfect kids. It's really about forming the heart and mind in light of eternity with the ultimate goal of what Orthodox Christians would call theosis or union with God. Today, we're digging into what makes Orthodox parenting unique and why the vision matters so much in today's noisy, fast-paced world. We'll get practical, we'll have some laughs, and we're going to leave you with some real tools to bring faith into your family life.
[Music]
Welcome, Phillip.
>> Thanks, Michelle. It's a delight to be here.
>> I'm so happy that you're here. Okay, we just used a really big word. We said theosis. and that theosis is the goal for Orthodox Christian parents. So, let's talk a little bit about that because that is a big Greek word. Is it Greek?
>> Yes,
>> Greek. Okay, tell us about it.
>> I I want to say I'm so glad you're doing this program because I remember when George and I were walking out of the hospital with our first child, Kadana, 30 years ago.
>> Oh my gosh.
>> So, we're holding this baby and we're walking out of the hospital and I'm thinking to myself, they should probably not let us take this child home uneven.
>> That is so true. We felt that way. Like we have no idea what to do. Like at least in the hospital, the nurses were caring for us.
>> That's right. That's right.
>> But we're going home and you get this sense we're responsible for everything.
>> We have to keep them alive.
>> Right. We have to keep in mind and I don't know how to do that. You know, we're barely learned to keep ourselves alive at that age.
>> That's right.
>> Right. So, we see that right away. Parenting that that's not a flaw of parenting. That's a feature of parenting. It's about learning. Okay.
>> We have to learn. So, when you hear big words like theosis, what does that mean? Well, I think that's good to talk about because it's good to learn what is our role as parents, what is our job, right? So, I was just at a church recently and I was coming out of uh the church afterward into like the the the area outside and I right away I saw two little boys, an adorable four-year-old looking boy with his little three or two-year-old little brother. They were they were standing amidst the shrubs and on top of these rocks. It was like a rock little shrubs and in their hands they had fists fulls of rocks.
>> Oh, great.
>> Right.
>> That looks like
>> I think anyone who has boys has had that experience of that horror cuz I knew exactly what they wanted to do with those rocks. There was windows on the side of the building and they were looking at it and I had just talked to the parents about these experiences we have with our boys. So, I went over there and you think about this instinct, you know, is like to scream, "You can't do that. Stop doing that." But is that really like what's our goal for these two boys?
>> I'm going to go with not throwing the rocks at the window.
>> If I was the mom in the short term,
>> you would think our job is to not have them throw those rocks.
>> Yes.
>> Into that window. Well, if that's our goal, why not just scream at them?
>> Why not scream at them? Why not call them horrible children? Yeah.
>> And why not get them out of there and yell at them to go back to their parents? All right. We've stopped them from breaking the window.
>> Okay.
>> Is that really our goal?
>> Okay. Now, I'm thinking it's not the goal. What's
>> good job?
>> It is. My instinct is to panic and to think of that. Number one. And number two, that's that's kind of an immediate short-term goal. I'm not saying they can throw the rock into the window, but what's unique about orthodox parenting is that our long-term goal is not to raise two boys who never throw rocks in windows.
>> Right. I have a hunch they're going to learn that eventually.
>> Sure.
>> Right. But our goal as parents is what kind of men do we want these two boys to grow up to become? And we talk that we kind of think about well that talks about success, right? Right? And so for the Orthodox Church, um there's a sense that we understand that our our purpose in life is to be united with God. We were created by a God who's a communion of three persons to be in that communion with God. So in a sense, our goal is to raise up two boys who know who they are as children of God and have a sense that I want to respond to that love of God by being by offering myself back to God essentially to grow up as a healthy person but really to know God to know who they are and to have that true wisdom which St. John Chrysm says true wisdom is to know God and to respond. So like, oh, so our goal is not to get our kids to behave. Our goal is to raise up kids who know who they are, know what it means to be a human, know how to live and thrive, which for us is communion with God.
>> Okay. So let me let me ask you then. So you're in this situation.
>> So you're in this situation.
>> So what's how do you do all of that when there's rocks in their hands? What's that look like? Well, think about how are we supposed to instill in our kids this sense that God is trinity, God madly loves you, and your call of fullness of life is to be in communion with God.
>> I don't know.
>> Right. Well, you can imagine maybe we should lecture them and keep telling them you are children of God. God loves you. While we're screaming at them to get them to not throw a rock in the window.
>> You know, you intuitively we're like, all right, that doesn't work.
>> It doesn't work. So it's not by accident that this story took place outside of church, right? That this was the kids were coming out of church cuz at the heart of instilling in children this internal identity, right? That who they are because they're going to go out into the world and the world is going to give them a whole lot of different messages.
>> That's right.
>> About what is success, how to get ahead, what you need, right? And we're not in the business of raising kids who are afraid of the world because we don't have a God that fears the world. We have a God that loves the world. We want to raise up kids who when they go out into the world, they have such a sense of the light of Christ that they don't really fear the world cuz they've experienced that God's love is the strongest force in the universe. That you will encounter crazy, you will encounter sin, you'll encounter different values and priorities. But I know who I am and I have a peace in that. So I don't have to hate the world. I just need to know who I am. So, it's not going to happen from screaming with our kids. It's not going to happen through lecture. In fact, it's going to happen through the hundreds and thousands of interactions that we have with our kids. Because if you use that window example, you know, the church helps us understand, you know, who these children are. Well, are they doing something wrong? Well, you could say throwing a rock through a window is wrong, but really, you know, are they choosing to do that? Well, when you're four, right? You have energy. And you know, God gave them this energy. They they're kind of creative. Their their brain is functioning, but their judgment hasn't quite developed yet.
>> Fair. I like that. I like that.
>> So, from an orthodox perspective, our goal is not to eradicate sin in our children. That's not how the church approaches sin. M
>> the church doesn't say you've got to crush the will of your child such that they never sin because the that's not the orthodox way. Our priests aren't preaching stop sin. Our our priests are preaching the orthodox understanding of the good news of the gospel of returning back towards Christ.
>> The church will preach what we are called to do. Patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control. not quit being rude, quit being mean, quit being selfish, quit, you know, quit being dumb. Right? So, the Orthodox way is to constantly, we might say as parents, redirecting us, redirecting us toward the good. Like in church, the priest doesn't turn around and say, "Quit getting distracted all the time." Even though we are all distracted all the time, all the time, he turns around and says, "Let us be attentive."
>> Yeah, I love it.
>> So, this is the beautiful Orthodox way. It's not that we don't understand sin or take sin seriously. It's not that mistakes are okay and we should celebrate them. It's just it's God's love which invites us toward the good, the true, and the beautiful.
>> So, let me just get practical then. So, you're standing and there's a 2-year-old and a four-year-old and you're trying to redirect them and stop them from breaking the church, you know, stained glass windows.
>> All right. You say stop them. Okay.
>> Is that really our goal to stop every boy from ever throwing a rock ever through a window?
>> So you go throw it over there. Is that what you do?
>> Notice that's a redirect.
>> Okay.
>> And that's good. But I want to take a step back. Okay.
>> Because I think for the first episode, we got to really understand what is our long-term goal.
>> Okay.
>> And we we have to reject the notion that my long-term goal is that my boy will never throw rocks through a window. Like our kids will never make a mistake. I mean, how is that a goal? That's a temptation.
>> Cuz of course in church, we want to make sure our kids never make a mistake.
>> Well, cuz why? Cuz we're embarrassed. We feel like a failure. They're going to make us look bad.
>> Yeah.
>> Is that really about the four-year-old? Is that about our pride, our insecurity, our image?
>> And the Orthodox Church invites us to kind of reject those types of masks cuz God can't heal the person I'm pretending to be. God can only heal the person I am.
>> Oh, that's so good. Let me say it back. God cannot heal the person I'm pretending to be, right? Or who I want everyone to think I am for everybody to think.
>> God can't heal the intact, healthy, matching outfit family we are in church.
>> So funny.
>> But he can heal the struggling family that's melting down on the way to church because we're late cuz we were fighting over whose shoes they really were or where are the shoes.
>> So great. And the beauty as orthodox is you recommend that God loves us. God came into the world for our brokenness, for our weakness. And parenting uniquely challenges us to face that because we don't know what to do. We as parents, we will make mistakes. Kids are kind of constant cuz you could I could tell you and I will tell you a strategy for those two boys, but guess what they're going to do in 20 minutes. Yeah,
>> they're going to see another rock and another window. And my son Marcos, who is a fine young man now, when he was four, he never saw a rock he didn't want to throw.
>> Right.
>> And should he be punished for being a 4-year-old boy? No. But he needs to be accompanied by an adult.
>> Okay.
>> So now, right away, we see kind of these elements of orthodox parenting. Number one, it happens within the life of the church because those two boys were part of this community. Because if we want to raise kids who know God and know themselves, it's going to happen within the life of the church. We want to raise kids who when they go to church, it doesn't feel like a strange foreign place, right?
>> It feels like they're home.
>> That's right. Which means we are living our family lives connected to the community, you know, oriented toward the cycle of the church cuz it's easy as parents to get pulled away to we got to get them educated, we got to get them, you know, into sports, we got to get them into music, they need to learn languages, you know, we got all these pressures and really what go what the church reveals to us actually success. You know they may have talent in these areas. We support education but to be living attached to the church community such that we raise up kids with a sense that life is not just about the family and learning stuff. Life is about the family embedded within the lifegiving community.
>> Okay,
>> number one. Number two, do you know those two boys who are by the window? Right. I didn't know them. I was visiting. Right. And it's really tempting as parents to get so distracted by misbehavior that we lose sight of the person who's learning something, who desires something, who's feeling something, right? Who's thinking something?
>> Yeah.
>> Right. And so the orthodox way is Yes. We have a lot of rules in our church. We have a lot of cannons and commandments, right? And remember, Christ didn't come to abolish the law, but he came to fulfill it. Okay.
>> And Christ fulfilled the law by as a person becoming human, taking on our humanity and encountering us personally. You know, he called the apostles by name. The people he healed was in a personal encounter. The Samaritan woman, he approached and revealed. So as the Orthodox, we are more concerned about loving persons and inviting them into this relationship with God in church than we are about correcting behavior, making sure everyone behaves the right way.
>> Okay, I want to say the back. So the first thing is that we are in community in the life of the church. So that's the first takeaway of what makes orthodox parenting really unique or what does orthodox parenting look like. And then the second thing is we really want to take time to be personto person. We want to make sure that we see the child in front of us before we're worried about behavior. Oh, I like it. Okay,
>> there's that there's that third thing which is really this is uniquely orthodox. We are not here to correct and eradicate sin.
>> That's a big one. Let's talk about that. I talk to parents who after I give a parenting talk, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I always thought it was, you know, I've been taught they come from other traditions where that's bad what my kid and we have to stop sin to get my kids to act like Christians." And the Orthodox way is like, "Yes, sin severs communion. Sin severs us from God. It it breaks relations. Sin is definitely a problem." But Christ didn't come to fix the problem. He he came he fixed the problem by offering himself in love. So the orthodox way about sin is it's love and this invitation to repent that what we're focused on. We're focused on redirecting our kids toward the good, not constantly telling them to stop the bad.
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Okay, I got I need clarity on this and I feel really bad for my own four children at home cuz this is definitely not what I did with them. I'm the one teaching and our parenting it's like we're not supposed to do this perfectly cuz remember the first thing I learned when we take our kids home parenting is about learning.
>> Yeah, for sure.
>> And the Orthodox Church invites learning, not perfection.
>> Amazing. Okay, so let's drill down for just a minute about eradicating sin. So the things that are coming to my mind, tell me what that looks like for parents. Like does that mean we have no boundaries and then we're just there teaching repentance? Does that mean that we I mean obviously if there's danger I'm going to go with probably we would stop danger but what does it look like to focus our children on
>> let's go back to those two adorable boys.
>> Yeah. Go for it.
>> Fist full of rocks.
>> Oh my goodness.
>> Right. First what do we see? Do we see something wrong? Uh or can you can you delight in these adorable kids who are just so filled with life? It's just their judgment hasn't caught up with their desires.
>> Okay. Fair.
>> We call that four years old.
>> Yes,
>> that is not a problem. That's a feature of childhood, right? So, what it looks like is we got to celebrate these two guys as we're coming in cuz remember, we're going to do everything we can so that rock doesn't go through that window, right?
>> But that's not our highest goal to engage these kids to learn. Think about our goal with these t boys is not that we control them, but over time they learn to control themselves.
>> Yeah, that makes sense.
>> But that's not going to come from a lecture. It's going to come from us journeying with them and it's going to come from these thousands of interactions where their impulse is to do this. So we want to be in a relationship with them. We want to be close to them. We want to know their name. And so like I think about the children in your church that are not your own. Our goal is to know their name, right? So we can say I wish I could have said Johnny or Billy. What do you got going there? Yeah. Yeah.
>> If I had known their name, I wouldn't had to run over there. I would have called them, right? Because any sort of teaching toward the good requires a relationship, right? And
>> I want to say that again. That's good. Any sort of teaching toward the good requires relationship because I want those two boys not just to learn that it's I can't throw this rock through the window. I want them to feel this this sense that this this guy loves me. This guy knows me. Me, this adult actually delights in me, takes an interest in me. Because parenting is about setting a limit. You may not throw that rock through their window. But look, it comes out of someone, someone who knows me, someone who delights in me, someone who takes an interest in me.
>> I think it's so much easier to take feedback from people when you know that they love you. If they delight in you, even better because you know think about the context of what helps us repent.
>> It's when someone who has your back who says, "I love you." And that frees us up to say, "All right, I really screwed up."
>> Mhm.
>> Right? Cuz the temptation is, "I'm going to help you realize your faults by criticizing you and correcting you." That's not love. What helps us realize where we need to learn and grow is get the sense that someone who really knows me, delights in me, takes an interest in me, and is walking alongside me. That's parenting. Cuz then we can say it's really not okay what you did.
>> Right?
>> And so there's that kind of an appropriate type of I feel guilty about what I did, but it's not going to crush me. It's actually going to compel me to do better.
>> Okay, that's great. You see how this discipline which is really important from the word disciple comes out of that relationship cuz what's really interesting in Greek the word for disciple is a translation from the Greek word matheis
>> mis
>> mitis actually means student
>> so it's over 200 times it's used in the New Testament they talk about Jesus's matas Jesus's translated disciples But actually these are Jesus's students. So just think about what it means to be a Christian is we are students of Christ. And what I learned at seminary was that was the title Jesus preferred is to be teacher.
>> And so we see this orthodox parenting and the is comes out of the Orthodox Christian life that we're called to be students. And the most significant characteristic of a student is learning.
>> Sure.
>> Which means we're not supposed to already know how to parent. A a four-year-old is is already not supposed to know that you don't throw rocks.
>> Right.
>> Right. So, we the church nurtures a culture of learning.
>> So, I'm gonna push on this one then. So, a four-year-old doesn't know. So, let's get practical for our audience. Does that mean that we allow them to figure it out or that we're always doing kind of total redirection without letting them make the mistake? Like, what does that look like in practice? Think about cuz if we come from a a disposition of teaching,
>> okay,
>> I tell parents we can't expect mastery from our kids, but we expect learning.
>> Okay?
>> And if we start to learn how to teach, we have actually an array of choices. Sometimes it's just saying no, you may not do that. Think about how we teach our children to drive. We're not giving them choices.
>> You know, by the way, we're doing that. It's my least favorite part. You know, no, there are some things. This is how it's done. We are very directive. But if if the our whole parenting relationship is constantly being that directive to our children like we are when they're learning to drive, our kids will go nuts and as soon as they're old enough, they're going to split.
>> Yeah.
>> So learning parenting is first of all learning that it is about teaching and now learning in this moment kind of the different choices I have cuz sometimes we actually have to yell. Like I if I had seen this little guy winding up
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> I might have said, "Hey," I might have startled him to freeze cuz I don't want him to throw that rock.
>> Right.
>> But in this moment, we talked about another strategy. Redirect. Like you said, "Hey guys, how about we throw a ball over there on the grass?" That's a great redirect.
>> Okay, great.
>> Right. So, we got a lot of different choices.
>> I love that in in your book. I know in the beginning, if you don't have the book, get the book. This is the book. The book. Get the book. Parenting Toward the Kingdom. Orthodox Christian principles of child rearing. Uh it's so fun. But you talked about two of your girls. I think they were fighting over like pillows. And in the book you kind of chronicle I had to think about what was my highest, you know, desire at that point. Did I just want to get through my meal with my wife? Did I want them not to break, you know, the vase in the living room? Did I want them to learn peace? Did I just want them to be quiet? So I like that that as much as you have an array of choices on what you're going to do, you actually have an array of highest desires. What is your highest goal? So talk to me about that.
>> So the book talks nicely about our short-term goals and then our long-term goals. And I think the two boys with the window, right? It reminds us of any situation. Our kids are they're backtalking us at bedtime or they're making noise and fighting at the dinner table. It's like right now I just want to get dinner served. Right now, we just have stuff to do. I just want a peaceful house. I just want that kid not to break the window. Those are short-term goals. And it's easy to get distracted by our short-term goals and lose sight of our long-term goals. I want to raise boys. I want to raise children who learn, who have acquired kindness, who've acquired patience, who have acquired self-control. Right? And so often times these short-term goals are actually distractions because the way we work toward our long-term goals is in those little moments thinking long term.
>> Yeah.
>> Those boys don't need to be yelled at. I don't need to yell at my kids. I need to engage them and say, "What's going on?"
>> Right?
>> Because the parenting is not a short-term strategy. It is a long-term commitment. How will our children acquire patience over time, right? How will they develop uh you know forgiveness? How will they learn to forgive each other over time? How will they learn that God loves them and we are created in his image over time?
>> That's really actually quite freeing for parents because it gives this um understanding that we're not going to nail it at the beginning. Like, you know, have you ever seen those parents that their kids are just so well behaved and they just do everything that you would want your kid to do? They're not messy. They're totally kemp beautifully and everybody's tailored and everybody kind of sits where they want them to. There's that and then there's the other end of the spectrum which is I know we went to visit one of my children in college and the family in front of us in church literally and it was hilarious. The boys were like kicking, you know, where they do that really hard kick against the pew. One of them actually was ripping the pages out of the Bible. The parents were so trying to stay calm and nurture and redirect. I think most families have moments of both and typically fall somewhere in the middle. But what does that what does that look like then? How do you measure if you're on, you know, the if you're trending in the right direction? How do you know that? Like are you winning?
>> That's a great question cuz don't we kind of want to know? Cuz there's something about parenting where I feel like I'm always failing. Like you know how when you're when you're a parent that's so true.
>> You got all these things to do in a day and you never get to any of them because this came and this came. So it's really hard at the end of the day to not feel like this day was just lost.
>> We lost. We lost. It was a war and they won.
>> I think that's a temptation because the goal of orthodox parenting is an inner goal with the life of your child. We we direct and teach external behaviors for an internal purpose.
>> I love that. You don't just let your kids do whatever they want, right?
>> But what you're doing is you're you're setting limits to your child, giving choices, disciplining them for an internal purpose so that they acquire this internal disposition, oriented toward God, self-identity about being a child of God, tasting the joy of of the values and the virtues of the kingdom of God. So that when they grow up, all right, they walk away, they grow, go to college, they know what's true and right and good about themselves. And that comes through the messiness. So you can have a day of what looks like failure. You go to bed and you know the the house is still trashed. You never got to the dishes. You never got those projects done.
>> But really, did you engage your kids? Were you present? Were you did you try and be peaceful? Did you apologize? Were they learning to apologize to each other? Did they get back up again? Right? Like cuz the day is filled with life. The day is filled with learning to love. So I tell parents, focus on the number one thing. I'm going to just try and be peaceful and just stay in that game cuz that it's the inner life we're focusing on, not to have a clean house. Now the next day I would you go to your kid and say, "All right, that was not okay. We need to clean the living room. We need to pick up our toys. We may not go out to play before you're doing this. We have rules and we have discipline, but the way we teach them is aimed at transforming their inner life. Our goal is not we have the cleanest house, we have the most orderly kids. Cuz often times that's almost our pride that wants
>> Yeah, for sure.
>> We want to look like we have our act together.
>> Yes.
>> It's a temptation so much. And it's a temptation in church because we're afraid that, oh, look at them. That that family is a wreck. So, in my church, everyone knows I wrote a parenting book.
>> And I'm I'm really committed. Do you know what kind of kids I have because I wrote a parenting book? Uh, normal children. They do not care. I wrote a parenting book. They barely paid attention to my parenting book. They were just and my boys were just boys. And my goal was not to have not have perfect kids. My goal was to follow these principles. So I am peaceful. I am in the mix with them. I am walking with them, guiding them, teaching them about how we live.
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Tell me what you mean by inner life.
>> Great. It's a great question. Number one, how I feel. Like, am I sad? Am I scared? Am I bored? Am I lonely? Like we have this whole inner world which at some level we can just talk about feelings. To thrive as an adult in adult relationships requires us to be able to name and communicate and express our feelings. And how do we learn that? When are our children going to learn that I feel sad and here's what I do when I'm sad. That I feel angry and here's what I do when I'm angry. That I feel lonely and here's what I do when I'm lonely. That's parenting and it's going to happen through the struggles of family life. The other aspect of inner life has to do with do I feel loved? Do I feel valued? Do I feel known? Do I feel cared for? That's a part of our inner life. And that there's a lot of evidence that kids do best when they feel like someone knows me, someone cares about me, someone has my back. Mhm.
>> It's almost like, and it's really interesting, the research will indicate kids who have that sense do better. They resist temptation, they have good self-discipline, they're more motivated, they essentially feel successful than kids who don't have just that. And what's interesting is that the social science research parallels the teaching of the church because the goal of parenting is for a child to know that there's a God who knows me deeply.
>> Mhm.
>> Cares about me powerfully, takes an interest in me. Like we're created for that, the church tells us. And so parenting is about living like that toward our children such that they internalize this sense that we have an all-knowing God who knows everything about us and madly loves us, delights in us, and takes an interest in us and desires for us to be in communion with him. So that's this inner life.
>> Love it. Thank you.
>> When do we teach kids that? Well, let me tell you.
>> Tell me.
>> When they're picking up a bunch of rocks, getting ready to throw them in the window.
>> Getting ready to throw in the window. Amazing. Okay, we have a bunch of questions that came in from our audience and I'm just going to ask you two. So, Aaron asks, "How can we adapt the aesthetic wisdom of the fathers about anger to domestic situations when losing your temper and being overwhelmed that inevitable occurrences like babies crying or toddler stubbornness happen so often?"
>> It's a great question. And you notice inner life, I mentioned sadness and anger because these are some of the powerful ones.
>> Yeah, they show up. I think it's important number one to talk to someone who understands the Orthodox aesthetic tradition who understands it well because there's two things we can't really do. You may not we may not apply the aesthetic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church which is written for adults to a four-year-old or a six-year-old wisdom.
>> A six-year-old is supposed to get angry because they get overwhelmed cuz remember the goal is learning such that when I'm an adult I know what to do when I'm feeling angry.
>> That's right. Great.
>> Number two, it's really important to understand this whole aesthetic tradition is in the context of what we've been talking about learning and growing. We're not supposed to have mastered self-control. We're supposed to have learned what to do when we get angry.
>> So my answer to that is we take every anger episode very seriously, right? But we don't condemn ourselves. We're not trying to control ourselves. So what I recommend is that whenever you feel angry, you can learn to start noticing I'm getting angry. I'm getting and learn what to do. And part of that is taking a deep breath and saying the Jesus prayer, saying a prayer.
>> The other part is when I do fail, we have a beautiful tradition of getting back up again, trying again.
>> The Orthodox tradition of sin is beautiful and I've heard some of your beautiful work on this, right? It's missing the mark. You know what that means? I failed today, but I'm going to live to parent another day. So for parents, we take it seriously and we take responsibility for it, but there's not this psychological pressure that you may not get angry. Well, the scriptures are clear in your anger, do not sin, right?
>> So anger in many ways can be trying almost trying to tell us something like maybe there's something that I need to do differently. So I encourage parents whenever you find yourself getting angry often times parents are like are lenient lenient lenient don't know what to do and then they get angry and then you know what they're really strict and that strict is actually good and appropriate.
>> So one of the things we can learn in parenting is how to be that strict before you get angry because the church understands anger is actually a power of the soul that God gives us. And as a parent, I know sometimes you need to have that strength of anger to be strict rather than to react and attack your kids. Right? That is a good learning and that's what I would suggest.
>> I love it. Okay, one more. Andrew wrote in who has four kiddos and says, "What are good tools or ideas for consequences or discipline?" I mean I guess that would just in general just in general maybe like how do you come up with I would say Andrew why are you looking for consequences right
>> tell me more
>> because I that's one of the most common calls I receive my child has done this my child has done this my child does listen I've taken everything away from them I've punished them in any way possible
>> there's nothing left
>> and so I asked them something like well do you know why your child's misbehaving I've never thought of that
>> yeah yeah yeah
>> the temptation as parents is to think I need to stop the behavior. Dr. Malak is give me some consequences so my child will never do that again.
>> Right?
>> And my gentle answer is those two boys by the window they are going to do it again.
>> We just over time we want to have a strategy such that those boys learn over time self-control. Our goal is not to stop a six-year-old from making a mistake. Our goal is that we have a 26-y old or let's say a an 18-year-old when they go away to college, they have a sense that I am valued. I know my identity. I'm connected to this life in Christ in the church. That's really tempting. But I've learned that that's a dead end. I want to do what's right and true. Teaching them self-control. Consequences are not the best strategy and they are certainly not the first strategy.
>> Fair
>> to teach self-control over time.
>> I love it. I love it. All right. Well, before we wrap up this episode together, tell us what you told those boys.
>> So, I go over these two boys and remember they don't know me. So, I walk over there almost as quickly as I could cuz they were they were getting ready. It's happening.
>> And the other thing I didn't want is I didn't want another parent, maybe their mom, to see them cuz she would probably immediately freak out cuz you know when it's our kids, it's way tougher. So, I felt like I'm on this mom's side. Let me get there. So, I kind of walked over and I said, "Hi, guys." And they froze. They looked at me. I said, "What you got there?" And they're like, "Rocks." And then I said, "Do we throw rocks at windows?" I just asked them. You just You're kind of inviting them to think.
>> Okay.
>> Because long term, Michelle, we want our young men to develop a habit. When they have a thought, we want them to develop a habit of thinking for a moment, is this a good idea?
>> That's right. That's great. How are they going to develop that habit if we don't ask them to think through the hundreds of times their brain stops working?
>> I was smiling because I don't think this is a problem. I think there they are delightful. This is delightful. There was a sense of urgency, but it's not really an emergency.
>> They had the best answer. The four-year-old says, "Um, no, we don't throw rocks." The second two-year-old says, "Yes, we are actually about to throw rocks in a window." And I looked, I tried to keep a little bit of a serious face, I was laughing on the inside. And then I asked him, sort of like what you hinted. I said, "Do we throw rocks or do we throw balls?" I asked him another thinking question and they said, "Balls." I said, "Yes, we do not throw rocks, but we can throw a ball." And I just stood there and the implication is I'm not going anywhere and I'm not going to let this happen.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Great.
>> They were kind of busted. But you see how it was really it was kind of strict. I was I wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't s giving them a suggestion to consider. I was actually giving them a directive. You're not throwing those rocks.
>> Yeah. Great.
>> But you see how you do it? You do it with a relationship. You do it with a kind of I respect you and I kind of delight in kind of how you're thinking. Under no circumstances are those rocks leaving your hand.
>> Perfect.
>> Right. And so they just looked at me, dropped the rocks, and ran off.
>> Went to find a ball.
>> Went to find a ball. I said, "You go to your mother." And it was kind of beautiful. Yeah.
>> Now, are they never going to throw a rock in a window? No, they will.
>> What they need is good supervision.
>> Yes. Yes. Okay. I love it. Well, this was fun. Thank you for being with us.
>> It's great to be here. Thank you for your beautiful ministry here.
>> Thank you. We are um certainly thankful for all the work that you do. I really do wish this is like the 10y year anniversary of this book.
>> Yes. It's coming up on 10 years.
>> 10 years. A little bit later than my kids needed. I wish it was 10 years before that. But
>> I always wish that, too. But they're going to have their own kids.
>> They do. Yes, that's right. Thank God for the grandkids. All right. Well, you keep doing your great work and God willing, we will see you again in another episode.
>> Thanks, Michelle.
And thanks to you for listening to this week's episode of Orthodox Christian Parenting. You know, every week we're here to help you raise children who know Christ, who love him, and spend their whole lives trying to be like him. And hey, listen. If this episode blessed you, would you consider doing us a favor? Consider leaving a review or sharing it with a friend. And here's why. When you do that, it helps more families like yours find the show. And one last thing, if you want to go deeper, you can download this week's free discussion guide in the show notes, or you can go to faithree.org. org/parenting. This guide is a free gift to you and your family, and it's just a great opportunity for you to think more deeply about what we've talked about today. You can go through the questions with your spouse, your friends, with a godparent, or your community at church. Check it out, and we will see you next time.