Building a Household of Faith | Dr. Josh Axe’s Advice

Your kids will do what you do and they'll model your relationship. If you don't tell your kids what to believe about those things, culture and media will. Do you believe in spanking as punishment? My parents still feel like they have a lot of control over my life. How can I respectfully move towards independence?

Hey there, I am Dr. Josh Axe and welcome to today's episode where I'll be answering your questions on how to build a faith-filled household, how to deal with family relationship issues such as marriage issues, past traumas, and raising great kids, and a whole lot more on today's episode. Well, I'm gonna dive right in and start answering your questions.

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How can I instill— first question— how can I instill faith-focused family values and morals in the household? Well, I think it's a great question because I think today when you look at the clinic, when you look at the studies based on Gallup and Pew Research, morality and values are continuing to decline in the negative in homes and specifically with children.

And so this is really important that we focus on how can we infuse family values, morals, and faith in our homes? Here, here's what I would recommend. Number one, if you want to have a faith-filled home with family values, pray. And, and it's something I call— this is habits of the household. There's a great book, by the way, called this.

It's called Habits of the Household, and I'd highly recommend you get this book. So if you want to fully understand my answer to this, go on Amazon, buy the book Habits of the Household. But that one of the number one ways to instill these values is to pray with your family.

One of the things that I like to do with my daughter, Arwen, and by the way, this is something I know a lot of other parents do with their kids. I'm friends with people like John and Lisa Bevere and Craig Groeschel and a lot of others, and I know they do this with their kids, is when they're putting their kids down at night. I had a mentor who told me this is what he does once.

He has their kids lay on their back and he puts his hand on their chest like this, and he just prays over 'em. And he said, Dear Lord, I pray for strength. I pray for wisdom. I pray— he prays over our kids every single night. And then sometimes he'll have his kids, you know, um, you know, some— and he switches it up. Sometimes they both get on their hands and knees together and pray.

But having a household of prayer, praying at night and praying before meals, I think that's one of the habits that you want to instill in the family to build a virtuous household. The next one is, what are you reading and what are you watching together and having conversations about it? I think being aware of Who are your kids following on social media? What are they watching on TV?

What are they reading? And influencing that and saying, hey, I'd like you to watch this. I don't want you to watch this. You know, it always made me so mad growing up. My mom, who was very conscious of this, and my dad, they didn't let me watch The Simpsons. Now, this might seem even to some people like silly. Hey, it's a cartoon. But I think they were really aware of what sponges kids are.

And so, for me, you know, watching Bart Simpson, uh, you know, misbehave and talk back to his dad and insult his father and all those sort of things, you know, and, and, and seeing how, uh, unwise and, and lack of character Homer had, I think there was, there was an element of, uh, I would start to model that. And I think they were probably right. Yeah.

And so, all that being said, I think being incredibly conscious and doing everything you can to incentivize and make sure your kids are reading and watching and listening and being exposed to the right things, I think that's incredibly important. The other thing, one of the ideas that I'd heard from an expert in this, he's a psychologist, and he said, we write down our family values.

And so, we have 10 family values. As part of our home. And we actually sat down, my wife and I, and we write down what are our family values. Now, this is something Chelsea and I have done as well, is we have written out what our family values are. And a lot of them are very spiritual and faith-filled and character-driven.

And like, one, one family value could be we always have each other's back, we fight for one another. And so you're not insulting one another if somebody says something bad about you. You go and you— like, my dad told me this growing up. He said, listen, Um, you and your sister are going to be around each other for a long time. He said it could be next 100 years.

So I was— this is— I remember having this conversation when I was, when I was like 8 years old. And he said, listen, if anyone ever picks on your sister, you're her defender. You always stand up for her.

And I think having my dad sit down and explain to me, hey, you need to be a hero in this situation, you, you always have to have your sister's back, it's something I was conscious of moving forward. And so all that being said, what What are those family values, those things that really matter, that are going to be character builders that you keep pointing to?

And so, when your kids misbehave or they're not doing something right, you point out and say, listen, that's not in the character of the Axes or whatever your family name is or of being Christians or Jews or whatever your religion. Hey, this doesn't align with who we are and our values. Or if they do something right, praise them saying, hey, you know what?

You fulfilled our family value of being generous or kind or loving. And so, I think there's a few things here. But how do you instill faith-focused family values? Write out your values. Okay? Write those out. Write down and have a conversation about this is moral behavior and this is not. I think there's a lack of conversation happening in a lot of households.

There was a study done that found that, uh, families that have the most family dinners have the best relationships or family meals. And they, they, they found the ideal number to be 7. So if you could sit down with the family together 7 total times. Could be breakfast, could be lunch, could be dinner, but 7 total times, that was ideal.

And at least 3 is what you wanted, because families that never really sat down together, they tended not to have as many of these conversations and learning about each other's lives and giving that sort of parental wisdom and advice and passing that on. But I would say this, pray together, read and watch, be aware of what's going on and going into your kids and have influence over that.

Write down those family values.

And the other thing I would say is, You want to do those in the home, and you also want your kids to be attending places where they're also going to be instilled with some of these values, whether it be ideally— now listen, I know not everyone has the financial means for this, or not everyone has the bandwidth to homeschool, whether it's homeschool or private school or a Christian school, or it's just— or if you can't afford that, then sending them to a church service or a Wednesday night service or whatever it is.

But, but have a— what I would say is have a plan. If you want to build a faith-focused family with great morals and values and successful kids, write down a plan for, hey, we're going to do these habits of prayer. We're going to read and watch this together. We're going to— and then write down those family values, put them up somewhere.

Listen, the best companies in the world have their values written out, whether it be Apple or Amazon or Disney or The Daily Wire, whoever it is, they have their values written down of what they stand for, and they're continually aware of what those are and weaving in things to instill those values in the organization, the individuals in the organization.

But you want to do the very same practice with your family. Next question: How do you help your kids build a relationship with God? What is your advice on raising godly kids in an insane culture? Now, my piece of advice here is going to be incredibly simple. Your kids will do what you do, and they'll model your relationship. I had one of my best friends. He's an incredible leader, incredible man.

He's the sort of person that you really trust your kids with. In fact, if I sent my kids to be with him for a day, I know they'd come back better. He's this sort of guy. And he told me he tended to, in the mornings, read his Bible on his phone.

So he'd wake up in the morning and he was on his phone, and then his son Kai would— his son would come in and, and, and, and see him and be around him a little bit. And he said, you know, one, one thing I realized was Kai, or his son, might think that I'm just scrolling on the phone, and I'm— I could be on social media checking emails, but I was reading my Bible.

He said, you know what, I decided that I wanted my son to have the sort of relationship that I had, and the only way he could learn that is to model what I do. And so, what he started doing every morning was instead getting an actual physical Bible out. And he always did this before, but just the past year or two, he started doing it on his phone. He said, okay, I got a physical Bible out.

I started here reading it. And I would say, hey, Kai, come sit with me for a minute. And he would read a passage and he would pray, and his son would sit here with him, do it. And then once his son got old enough, he would have him start reading. He would do most of the reading, but he'd say, hey, read this line for me, son. And he'd read it with him. And then he said he would highlight it.

And he said he would leave it out for the family to read and also read his notes that he took or his journal. He said he would leave it out. And he said he knew over time his kids and his wife, they were— they would go and sort of read what Dad wrote for the day and go and look at it. But he, he brought— he brought his kids into his own personal relationship with God.

And I could give a more lengthy answer than that. I'll have a couple other little thoughts, but generally speaking, Your relationship with God is the greatest indicator or the greatest influence on what your own child's relationship will be with God.

I think the other thing I would say, and this is something I think I think about my in-laws and Chelsea's parents who are incredible godly people, and Chelsea and I are so blessed to have had really great parents.

But but her parents would have regular rhythms to where they would they would have family lessons, and so they would sit down like they would they would have one night a week where where the parents would say. Hey, listen, here's here. Here's something that happened in society this week. Here's how we should react to that, and it could be everything from today, right?

Hey, there's a war going on in Israel and Palestine. Here's what you should know about this. Hey, there are these you know that there's something going on in the LGBT community. Hey, here's what you should believe about that, and here's why. Hey, you know, here here this came up with bowling school. Here this something came up with gun violence, and I'm obviously talking about some really.

Really polarizing and controversial topics here. The reason I'm bringing that up though, if you don't tell your kids what to believe about those things, culture and media will. Some influencer on TikTok will.

And so it's so important as a parent that you schedule time to have conversations about those difficult topics and not only tell your kids what you believe, but also here's why and here's what the Bible says about it and why we should believe this. So that's the best piece of advice I can— I would have for building a strong relationship with God.

That first question is invite your kids into your own relationship. Have those rhythms of prayer and reading and going to worship, and they'll model you in encouraging them in that way and making them a part of it, your own relationship.

And the other one is having those conversations where you're not just relying on the church to teach them or the schools to teach them or media, that you're actually scheduling time, even if it's 30 minutes total a week, where you talk to your kids about those things.

I also found myself— I did want to say that, um, uh, I think, I think doing something like a youth group as well, in addition to that, getting your kids— we become who we surround ourselves with, so your kids will become mostly like you. But the next sphere that follows Dunbar's Law of those next 5 people outside of your immediate family, the next 5, that's who they become the most like after you.

So, you're number one, but then it's who are the 5 friends your kids are spending the most time with? And you're sending them to a church youth group or a synagogue or a missions organization like Habitat for Humanity or YWAM or whatever it is, and they're going to these things, they're going to become more like those people. And so, those are some other things you want to consider there.

Next question. What is the most effective way to discipline children? Do you believe in spanking as punishment? Here, here, here's what I would say about this. And by the way, I want to give you a, a little, uh, just my background. I was spanked growing up, um, and I'm incredibly grateful for it. I had a dad who was, uh, served in the military.

He worked on— blue-collar worker, worked on power lines in the freezing cold winters in Ohio. And, uh, was a man's man, you know. He was, uh, you know, lifted weights, a really tough guy. And, um, but also, you know, he, he, he also was— he was also really loving. I had a really loving father. But I'm so grateful he spanked me. I mean, my dad rarely ever spanked me.

Like, I don't remember my dad ever just spanking me or spanking me. I, I, I, I, I've misbehaved a lot as a kid, okay? So I didn't get spanked all the time, but I did get spanked when When, when talking didn't, didn't work. Okay. When they were talking and talking and I still just continued to misbehave. And so it wasn't all the time, but a few times.

But, but I, I'm grateful for it and I don't feel any sense of trauma because of it. I, I feel like it actually helped me grow, become more disciplined. And I think for me it was a healthy and a good thing. Now, here's my general philosophy though. It's you wanted to use the least amount of physical, uh, physicalness as possible. That's my general belief about, about disciplining children.

It wants to be— you want it to be as least as physical as possible. You want to primarily focus on, um, the emotional side in connecting with your child. You want to convict them emotionally. That's how you tend to— that, that's— I think that brings about the greatest change. And so if a child is misbehaving, I'll give you an example.

Like, if, if we go— if I went to the park with one of my kids, And, uh, and I was there with, with, with, with, um, with Arwen, and she doesn't want to go, and she's just absolutely refusing to. The first thing I'm going to do is acknowledge that she's, you know, maybe there's something going on there, okay? She's misbehaving. And just say, hey, Arwen, um, you know what?

I know we're having so much fun right now. I, I want to let you know I've had so much fun too, um, and I know it's really hard because we've had so much fun and you don't want to go. But it's getting dark and it's 20 degrees out. By the way, this happened, right? So, you can probably tell. It's 20 degrees out and it's freezing cold out and your nose is running.

And listen, we can come back tomorrow afternoon. We can come back the next day when the sun's back out, but we have to go home now. And I try and connect with her emotionally first to say, you know what? We are having fun. This has been special. I know that right now you don't want to go, and I recognize that. But we need to. And then I continue down that path as long as I possibly can, okay?

And I try and find every other way to, to, to not spank. And I, I think for, for the most part, like, we haven't had to yet. And so anyways, I think for, for, for me, it's you want to do that as little as possible.

And then if you do start to get to that point, let's say for instance you have a child and they're, they're hitting, I think you've got to realize something with, with somebody that's hitting is, is that you know what, if you have a child that hits other kids and they don't realize how bad that is, that is something you have to stop.

Because if not, you're causing more harm to them in the future, and your child might harm someone else if they think that physical violence is the answer. And I know one of the, one of the arguments against spanking is, well, physical violence will breed violence, right? You live by the sword, you die by the sword. It's that sort of idea.

But I also know that by— I also know that, um, I remember, uh, and he constantly said this, I want to say it was James Dobson, he said, you know, spare the rod and spoil the child. I believe that's a proverb.

And that being said, I do think that discipline is important, but I think if you— if there is a level of— by the way, this was taught to me, I remember Jordan Peterson got into this, he's a psychologist, behavioral psychologist, and, and he said, you know, if you are going to try and do things, you know, if your child is mostly something doing very physical— they're hitting, they're punching, they're, they're doing something like that— then, you know, the first thing you want to do physically is grab them and hold them.

Okay? And so there's a level of physicalness there. And if there is something before you go to spanking, it's, you know, it's, hey, listen, you just hit me. Here's what it felt like. This— that didn't feel good, did it? No. Okay. And so I, I think you're, you're trying to still instill a lesson there.

And the other thing I, I always heard about spanking And this is a, a pastor, very virtuous pastor. He's an author. He's wrote many books. And I was in a conversation with him and they shared with us, me, he said, you know, I never did it while I was angry. Anytime I ever spanked my son, he said, who was rare, he said, we tended to always, 99% of the time, we talk through things.

I connect with them emotionally. I would verbally, this wasn't the first thing, but raise my voice before getting— there was any sort of anything physical. And then I would start light. And he said, and still then, he said, I would not spank them. Then he said, I would go to their room later and I would have another conversation with them. And he said, here's the only time I ever spank my kids.

It's if I went then even later and they weren't repentful. If they didn't repent, if they basically were saying, what I did isn't wrong, I still don't like you, you're still— if there was still that sort of attitude. And he said, still, he said, afterwards, before then, he said, I would try and hug them. I would try and love them. I would say, this hurts me more than it hurts you.

This is sort of a long answer. And by By the way, this is such a controversial issue because I think it's so emotional, and I think there's a level of—it's very subjective. Every kid is wired very differently. Every situation is different.

But I do think that there myself is an example of this: is that I think that my father only spanked me when I was being really out of control, and I had you know I was at the point where I might I might hurt someone else. Uh, if, if he didn't show that, get to that, get to that point. So, uh, what is the most effective way to discipline children? Number one, connect with them emotionally.

Have empathy and compassion. So if your kid is acting out in some way and acting crazy, you want, you want to grab ahold of them, and then you also want to get them to look in your eye. One of the things we do with Arwin is we say, Arwin, look at me. Look at me in the eyes.

And so, we ask her to look us in the eyes and we'll say, hey, I know you're having so much fun now and I know you're just playing and I know you're being silly, but we need to stop now. Okay? Hey, we can play later, or here's the boundaries, here's the rules. We can do this. Let's have fun. Fun is good. Running around, getting your energy, that's all good. You've got energy. God gave you that.

And so, I think the first step is, again, connect with your child emotionally. Try and look them in the eye. Try and teach them the lesson. Explain, hey, here's why we can't do this right now. Part of a lot of kids misbehaving tends to be they're so emotionally worked up that they can't— they're not actually thinking. They're being driven by their feelings and emotions.

And of course, it's very hard to get kids, especially depending on the age, to think logically. But I think one of the keys is connect with them emotionally and work to calm them down. And sometimes that might be giving them, you know, a hug to where they stop squirming.

Maybe you have to do that for 10 minutes until they finally Get rid of that information, that, that release that energy, and then having that conversation with them. So again, number 1, connect them with emotionally. Number 2, you want to have a conversation with them the best you can. Number 3, you want to calm them down.

Number 4, you want to use the least amount of— you want to try and hug them and love them and calm them in that way. But if, if— and then, and then, and then use other sort of discipline. Such as, you can't look at your iPad right now or your iPhone, or, hey, we can't watch a show now, or, hey, you can't have toys. Hey, you, you need to do this thing that I'm having you do. That's the next thing.

And then if you continue to go on and there's failure after failure after failure, and, and, and your child has, uh, just refuses to with no level of repentment at all, then I think there, there is a consideration of, uh, Of of spanking, or or maybe it's flicking to start before even spanking something small, and so they they they and and so they can really you know understand the repercussions for their actions.

And listen, everybody responds differently. Some people respond to like I'll give you an example. My sister, if you would look at her wrong or make her feel guilty and explain you hurt someone else, that's all it took for her. With my sister. Okay, she had a— she— my, my sister has a very high level of empathy and compassion.

When I was a kid, that, you know, you could try that with me all day and it didn't work. Spanking worked on— it worked, it worked, it worked on me, getting me to behave and become disciplined. And so, uh, I know some people may disagree with this, but I think that those are a lot of general thoughts about how to discipline your child. But always start off with Connecting with them emotionally.

All right, next question. My 13-year-old daughter got in trouble at school for bullying recently, and we're not sure where it's coming from. Do you have any advice on how to help her? Here's what I would say first. Um, hurt people hurt people. There might be a wound or trauma she has somewhere in her life that you want to find out what that is. Now, that might be something you can dig into.

It might be something you go to a, a, a, a counselor for. But I think understanding is there's a hurt. And I think one of the conversations you might have with your 13-year-old is, hey, what is it that you're feeling emotionally of why you are doing what you're doing in terms of you being the bully? I think trying to, trying to discern, is it— do you have anger you're, you're trying to release?

Did, did you bully them because they first said something mean and demeaning to you and it actually made you, made you feel insecure or, or, or made you feel little or small? So they actually bullied you emotionally, so now you're bullying them physically. But I think understanding cause and effect— hurt people hurt people. Where's the wound? Where's the trauma?

I think the mo— if you try and discover where that is, that's the first thing I would do. The next thing I would say is You want to help them connect and become more empathetic.

And so an example of this would be, you know, saying, you know what, I got a call from school today and, uh, there was another girl that you said something to or you did to physically, and I just want to let you know, um, that you're better than that. I think as a parent, letting them know the standard of, hey, our standard is here.

For, for, for our level of character and faith and this in our family. And you know, what you did is down here, but you know what? I know you're here. I know you're capable. Your identity of who you are in this family. And I think, I think pointing out, listen, I've seen you be kind. Hey, do you remember when you did this for your sister?

Hey, do you remember when your friend did this and then you picked him up and helped him get up? I know you've got great character. So I think first pointing out as well. Internally, I think going right to their identity of saying, listen, you are loving, you are compassionate, you are Christlike.

I think sharing that identity of calling out and speaking to who they are from the heart, I think that's something I would do. But I also— you want them to feel empathy for that person. Listen, this, this girl today, um, she had this happen. And by the way, you might not have known about her, about this about her, but she had a learning disorder. Can you imagine how hard that would be?

And can you imagine if you were in this situation? Where this happened to you and I said this to you and I did this to you, you would feel pretty terrible. So what I want you to do in the future is I want you to think about, and I want you to have a heart for those people and think about what this is going to do to them emotionally, that deep pain they're going to feel.

So I think really being able to, with bullies, have them understand and become more empathetic and compassionate. If you can instill more of that in them, I think that's important. A lot of this is learned behavior. What are kids watching and being exposed to and hurt? Who are they hanging out with? So I would start going through the list of who are your friends?

Let's look at our, your friend group. We might need to change that. Hey, let's write down, what are you watching? What are those shows? We want to, we want you to start watching shows with more empathetic and caring characters. Let's start doing that. And the thing also knowing a lot of times the hurt that they're feeling, a lot of times it's insecurity.

I think I, I remember a bully and he was more of a physical, uh, a, a verbal bully in school. But he also was a physical bully. And I remember looking back at him and he did it because when he made people feel small, it made him feel big. He had a lot of insecurity and, and that's why.

And so I think also explaining, I, I, and so I think getting into the insecurity and being able to know this is where my kid is insecure, helping them not feel as insecure would also help. So I think those are the reasons. So those are several things, but I think if you go and look at all of those things individually, I think it will, I think it'll make a really noticeable difference. Yeah.

Um, how can I approach the topic of building healthy friendships with my teenagers? Well, I would say a few things. One, here's a question I would have for you. Do you have great friendships? Remember, it always goes back to this modeling.

If you have great relationships— and listen, if you're a, uh, a mom asking this or a dad asking this, but let's say if you're a mom, do you have, do you have other great relationships with other women? Do you have a great friendship with your spouse?

The first thing you should do for your teenager is build a great relationship with it, with another woman that your daughter can see, and have a great relationship with your spouse. If it— that's, that's where you should start. And build a great relationship with your own daughter.

So that's the first way, and the thing by far that will have the greatest impact is your own relationships and your daughter seeing how you function. That's the biggest thing. The next thing is, is facilitating Friendships that are with other virtuous kids, kids that are high character, kids that have a great faith in their life, kids that have a lot of virtue.

And so going and facilitating those friendships. Again, I've repeated this. I look back at my parents. I am so glad my parents made me go to not only church but Sunday school every Sunday. I am so grateful my church or my parents had me go to Wednesday night youth group. I'm so grateful my parents also had me do a growth group that I also went to.

So my parents didn't just prioritize sports, they prioritized even above that, me being around other high-character people and being really conscious of, and maybe inviting other, you know, saying, hey, we can't invite that person over. Why don't we invite this friend over? And then here's the last thing. Explain to your Child what good relationships are.

Hey, listen, even if your friend talks negatively about you, here's what you should do. They're hurt. They're saying something. Say, hey, why would you say that? That really hurt me. Right? Teaching your kids now how to be emotionally intelligent, I think, is another thing that would really help, uh, help in this way. And I want to go back to this question.

The question is, how can I approach the topic of building healthy friendships with my teenagers? You know, there are good books on this topic as well. Reading a book together, talking about it, you know, asking your, your daughter at the dinner table, hey, uh, how did that go? Um, or, or, uh, and, and by the way, I'm saying now, this is, I don't know why I have a daughter in my head.

Maybe it's cuz my own daughter, but healthy friendships with my teenager. This could be a, a, a, a young man as well. But I would say that again, I think having great relationships yourself and getting those better and having your child see that. Facilitating virtuous friendships, especially in terms of going to religious services or camps, those sort of things.

Um, and, uh, in having those conversations and teaching them, here's what a good relationship looks like. All those things are important. Next question. I don't feel comfortable sending my children to public school anymore. How does homeschooling children affect their development?

You know, I used to— I, I think there used to be this stigma about homeschool in that kids that were homeschooled were strange, or I think the word that typically comes to mind are they don't have, uh, maybe they didn't learn proper social behavior. I don't really think that's the case anymore.

I think that, you know, if you had— let's say you had a child who, uh, and by the way, Just being like everyone in society isn't necessarily a great thing. Maybe we are called, uh, to be really different and unique and to stick out like a sore thumb because we don't believe what everyone else believes.

Now, I do believe if we're going to step into the world, we want to have a level of exposure to the world and society. If you're homeschooled, to where you know how to best interact and influence and connect socially with those people. So I do think you want to go and connect in that way. But I think you wanna choose the way to do that.

So I, I think homeschooling children, um, can actually exceed a public and sometimes even private school development if you're incredibly intentional about it.

I do know there's a capability of learning more in a shorter per— period of time, learning extra things kids should learn, like money management, how to have great relationships, more about, uh, you know, spiritual growth, philosophy, psychology. There, there, there are a lot of things. Even home ec, right? Survival, gardening.

There's a lot of things that kids don't learn in school that they could benefit learning in homeschool that they could never get in a traditional school. So, I actually think children can develop in a greater way if you have a parent or a small group of parents that are really focused on teaching a small group of kids. I think there's potential for that.

Now, I also think there's potential— by the way, I know both groups. I know some parents who homeschool and their kids are learning and growing so much. In fact, one of of them I'm thinking about, they also had their child in sports. He's excelling more than ever because he gets to practice an extra hour a day. And it's so, so, so there are benefits, right? There are great benefits of development.

The, the parents and the families I see go wrong on this is to where it's sort of like, okay, we're gonna give our kids an extra 3, 4 hours of free time to do whatever they want versus a structured environment of making sure that they are growing and learning. With the time that they're actually given. Now, I do think some extra free time to be outside is good.

My point is you can have too much of a good thing, um, if there's not structure there.

So, uh, all that being said, and I do think that social interaction piece is important, but what I found is if, if kids that are homeschooled, if they are also plugged into hanging out with other kids during the week, if they're plugged into sports, music, Uh, you know, just other extracurriculars where they're around other kids daily anyways.

I don't really feel like they, they miss much of not being in school. So how does it affect their development? Well, if anything, if a parent has a really wise and detailed plan for growth, it can actually exceed public and private school in most cases.

But if it's not the parent's gift and there's not the great resources and they're not putting them in extracurriculars, I do actually think it could be negative. So, so I think again, it's, it's, that's a, it's a very broad answer. I think it could be incredible and I think there's so much opportunity. More and more parents are homeschooling, uh, today than ever before.

I think it's just parents having a, the right resources and plan makes all the difference in the world. All right, next question. Do you have any advice on how to deal with conflict in a marriage? I do, and I'll share with you what I think some counselors and psychologists would recommend it as well as what Chelsea and I do.

You know, I think the first thing that I think I'm very aware of is that when we have conflict, uh, we oftentimes— there's maybe some, um, unmet expectations. So there's expectations that are unmet, and I think maybe we both have some goals in our mind of where we're moving towards and what, again, part of those expectations are. And if those aren't met, that's when conflict arises.

And so, and Chelsea and I, you know, we went through a season here recently where I had a spinal infection and couldn't walk for a long time, and then Started regaining my health, and then Chelsea was pregnant, and then we moved, and then Arwen started preschool, and just a lot of change in life.

And, and there was a— we'd usually talked more, and we hadn't talked for a little bit, and we had this thing of conflict came up, come up. And, and what we did is we sat down together, and I, I started off and I said, you know what, I, um, I want to let you know that, um, here is my goal and here's my intention. I want to be more deeply connected to you.

I want to feel like you and I are on the same page. I want us to be like this, you know, one, the same team. I want to be more close and connected to you, and I want to be iron sharpens iron. I want us growing together. I, you know, and so I start— just started sharing like, this is what I want for you. I want to be a better husband. I want to be a better father.

I want to be a provider for the family. So I started sharing my goals. And I said— and then I allowed her to speak and her start to share her feelings and, and some of her expectations. And we both had a few little unmet expectations there. And we said, okay, let's talk about this. We're sharing the same goal. What do we want? We want to honor God with our lives.

We want to raise up virtuous children. We want to be deeply connected together and grow together. We want to have a great house. So, so, so we, we started laying those things on the table and we said, okay, In order for us to raise up very virtuous kids and do this, um, here's what we need to do. Okay?

Can you agree that if this, you know, can you agree that when we go in, let's say for instance, Arwen misbehaves. Okay. When we go in that conversation, here's how we're going to handle it. Okay. I think you should do this. Okay. Are you sure? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'll, I'll submit. We'll sacrifice. Well, you know, we had that conversation together. Okay. We agree we're going to do this.

We agree we're going to do this. Hey, I'll be home from work by then. Okay. Well, hey, I'm going to make sure to do better about this. And we started agreeing on those things. And also, we never attack each other. We say, you know what? I feel like I'm not as close to you as I want to be. And that's something I deeply want. You know what?

I think when you come from that perspective and you come from that why of like, hey, listen, or also listen, sometimes it may not be purely about your family. It might be, you know what? I've been spending— by the way, this is not me, but it could be. A lot of people might feel this way. Like, I imagine a lot of moms feel this way. You know what? I feel overwhelmed right now.

And I feel like I can't get my head above water. And I might be taking that on in you, but that's how I feel right now. And you're not saying, you make me feel overwhelmed. You're not pulling your load. You're not pulling your weight.

I think instead of it's like, listen, I feel overwhelmed and I would be incredibly grateful if there are things you could do in order to allow me to get 2 hours, 2 hours a week where I could go and Go to the spa, go for a hike, go for a workout, do lunch with the best friend, whatever it is. And so, I think there's a few things there. One, share your heart without pointing fingers.

Go to what the goals are, the long-term goals, those priorities of the family and values that you share. Make agreements. Hey, we agree to, we're going to do this. And I think if you can do this, you'll deal with conflict in a much, much more powerful way. Last question here. My parents still feel like they have a lot of control over my life. But I'm an adult now.

How can I respectfully move towards independence? I mean, this is such a great question. You know, I, uh, by the way, almost everybody has this in life. I think most parents tend to, especially when you're in your 20s, hold on there a little too long. Um, both especially when you're in college, but even post-college. And here, here's, here's the way that I would handle this.

Number one, have empathy for your parents and understanding. Okay. Honor thy father and mother. Be aware that in all likelihood, they're doing it out of love. So, I think that's the first thing to recognize going into that. And I think that really changes things is that they're just trying to control you. They're trying to own me.

They're trying to— yeah, it's probably more likely they just really love you and they want what's best for you. Okay. That's the first thing. You got to go in with that mindset. The next thing is this. Go in and have a candid conversation and explain how you feel. Listen, Mom or Dad, I feel like— listen, I'm independent. I'm 21 years old now and I'm an adult.

And I feel like when you tell me this or do this or try and— I feel like I'm trying to be controlled. But I do want to let you know that you're doing it because I know you love me. And I want to let you know I am so incredibly grateful for how you're always trying to protect me. You're always trying to share wisdom with me. You have life advice and you're doing it because you love me.

But I want to let you know, I'm feeling a little bit smothered right now because you're doing all these things. And then I think from there, so you share how you feel, you recognize all of the, all of the benefits, all of the love, all of the things. And then you let them know, I am so grateful for you and for your presence in my life. Because you know what?

There's a lot of kids out there whose parents are not involved in their life. Okay? So I think you recognize that. And the last thing you do is you lay down boundaries. An expectation, or you lay down boundaries and you make agreements. And so with boundaries, it's okay, here, here, here, here, here, here are what I think are healthy boundaries. And you don't need to say the word boundaries.

You're not sort of counseling your parents on this, but to say, hey, I would love if, and I would feel more respected and honored if you were able to do this, this, and this. Right. And so maybe there are a few things like you can point out, like if you did this less and this less.

But also let them know, but you know what, I love it so much when, uh, you speak into my life in this way, and I want to let you know you have full permission to do that, and I am, I, I'm, I, I'm very open to it, right? So, so, so I think that's it. I think you, number one, understand your parents love you and they're coming from a good place. You try and recognize that.

You have a candid conversation. You let them know how grateful you are. For raising you and all the things. But then you say, hey, here's what, here's what I feel like I would be the most comfortable with. And you try and lay down kind of some of those boundaries and, and say, hey, can— and then try and get to an agreement and a conversation about it and then go from there.

But I think the, the more that you handle it and act like an adult, the more that your parents will respect, respect you. If you get in arguments and Essentially throw a, a childlike fit as an adult, they're going to lose respect for you versus you going in this way and you maintain a level of gratefulness and understanding and responsibility and laying those boundaries.

I think that you're going to see that you're going to have a great relationship with your parents and they will most likely be very understanding. Hey, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. By the way, if you're not subscribed, Hey, make sure to subscribe.

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