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The most important fact this week is: you're not alone. There's nothing new under the sun. We must use this reality to find peace and learn from other people's mistakes. Thank you for all the E-mails this week. They've been very helpful.
Good morning.
Welcome to The Morning Motivation brought to you by the Public Square App, which is now a public company. They're a thriving and patriot gold group. This is probably the last episode on the strong-willed child. My main goal today is to make the point that whenever you're feeling down about something, about anything, it's so easy to fall into the trap of thinking, I am the only one. I'm all alone. No one can understand what I'm going through. And based on the many emails I received over the last two days, there are other parents with strong-willed children too. And that's so comforting. It's just so bizarre that you immediately fall into this place of, oh, no one. I'm the only one. This has never happened before. That is just so comforting to know that's not true. It doesn't solve any problem in and of itself, like it doesn't do anything, it doesn't fix the problem, but at least for me it takes me out of the spiral and helps me be able to think more clearly moving forward. So no matter what you're going through, no matter what, parenting or not, you're not alone. It's happened before. And that means there's wisdom that you can find and I believe that it's all in the Bible as well. One lesson we've been trying to teach our kids is you can learn from other people's mistakes. You don't have to make all of them yourself. You don't have to live your life making all the mistakes. I asked this question on the radio show to Ryan Holiday many years ago. He loves to read, he reads all the time. And I said, why do you like to read so much? And he said, because everyone else in the past has made a lot of mistakes that I can learn from.
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Thought that's a great answer.
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So the most important thing right now, and hopefully even if you don't have kids or kids are old or whatever, you're not alone. No matter what the issue is, you are not alone. So easy to fall into that trap, and that is not true. So the thing that my wife and I realized that we were not alone with the strong-willed child, we read a lot of, two days worth, of Focus on the Family stuff. It's really hard to find good parenting advice these days out there on the internet, because some ideas are terrible, but I think Focus on the Family, in our experience, has been at least a very good place to start. So there was a story of a strong-willed child who said to the husband or she did No, yeah, she the husband said did you eat all of these chocolates and the daughter said no And he said well hold on Why are all the chocolates missing and the kid said why didn't eat all of them? I? ate some of them and And that's the letter of the law of a strong-willed child. We always said about Jack, who again is six, we always called him Mr. Literal. But now he's using that literalness to push the boundaries. Jack, don't hit your sister. I didn't hit her. Jack, I saw you hit her. I elbowed her. Hey, Jack, let's not throw the rocks over there, all right? I'm not throwing rocks. Jack, I'm watching you throw the rocks. They're pine cones.
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It's just constant.
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Here's a focus on the family interview. She says, "'Cause we can always," so this is a person who's an adult now who was a strong-willed kid. "'We can always find just a little way "'to go around something.' "'My son did the same thing when we were toddlers in the backseat. By the way, this is me too. This is me. It's all coming back around. I heard the strong-willed one slap his brother on the leg. I said, Michael, don't hit your brother. He goes, I didn't hit my brother. I said, I just heard you hit him as hard as you could. And he said, I didn't hit him as hard as I could. I could have hit him a lot harder than that. That's just, that's normal for the strong will child. Not good, but normal. You're not alone if you can relate. Someone the other day sent me a book. I think it's called How to Raise a Strong-Willed Child by Dr. Dobson. So we read a little bit of it, just whatever's online before we actually get it. And he used the analogy of a shopping cart, or as my wife in Tennessee calls it, a buggy. And you have two different buggies, and one has straight, well-oiled wheels that go exactly where they're guided to go. And another cart, buggy, has crooked and bent wheels that refuse to yield, and you have to use 10 times as much energy to get the buggy to turn the corner as you do the other kids.
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And if you have a strong-willed child,
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that analogy makes a lot of sense. So let's take the comfort in knowing you're not alone. Whatever it is, there's nothing new under the sun. And that's the theme of the long episodes that we do that are about politics. Knowing that all the political thing we're going through right now, knowing that there's nothing new under the sun, relieves so much of the stress. Same with parenting. And it's also good to know that this strong-willed childness can be turned into good. I got an email from Alan, who's a father of four. His kids are now in their 20s. And he said each one of his four kids showed their independence. It's a nice way to put that as well, at a different age. He said, it's important to remember that with each passing year until around 20, your children are capable of understanding just a little bit more in complexity and perspective. The challenge we share as parents is to encase the adult lesson that we want to share into a digestible child tablet. You gotta keep reassessing that. And I think I haven't reassessed that with my oldest now that he's almost seven, which is crazy to say. All of Alan's kids are now successful God-fearing adults, even though they had their strong-willed moments. They've been raised surrounded by our love, faith, and example over the last 38 years of marriage, and despite the rollercoaster moments of parenthood, they share a very strong bond of family as well. So take a deep breath, keep praying, live the example you wish to impart on their spirit. That's the ultimate thing, right? They learn by observation, even when you think they're not paying attention, that's for sure. Little by little, it will take hold in each of them and come back to you in joyful ways that you can now only imagine. Best of luck to you and welcome back to Tennessee. The idea that these strong-willed moments can be channeled for good, that's hopeful as well. Last night, the kids wanted to catch fireflies. We're on vacation in my old hometown where I grew up, Skinny Atlas, New York, and they wanted to catch fireflies. We said no. It was late. We were tired. And John, my three-year-old, said, okay. And Grace, our five-year-old said okay and Jack said why not why not why can't we why not why not why not and it doesn't matter how many times you tell him he'll keep on it's wild how can the other two why don't they ask all the time and Allison something similar to that in his email something about DNA he's like it's It's amazing how different DNA, same kids, same family, same raising, everything's the same as much as it can be. You think it's so different. Generations of historical DNA picked the oddest times to show its veins. Why are you the one who keeps asking over and over and over again, but the other two don't? But maybe one day, if we pray and if we parent this right, that desire to know the reason and know the truth and that desire for justice can be a really good thing. Give an example, we were at a bakery yesterday and the three-year-old said, I want that cupcake. And Jack said, that's a muffin. No, it's a cupcake. No, it's a muffin. No, it's a cupcake. I say, oh, Jack, don't worry about it. He said, well, I can't lie to him.
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Now, part of that is an excuse
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for he wants to pick on his brother, right? But there's also this desire for truth there too. And we just gotta make sure we channel it in the right way. There's been another interesting thing that I've learned over these last few days because of your insight, is that the compliant child isn't all sunshine and rainbows in the end either. Because that compliant child, although very easy now, and that's good, but perhaps that could be channeled in an unhealthy way as well. Maybe that child just wants the parent's approval and that child will people-please their whole life and won't be able to stand up for themselves at all, even when they're they should. It may be easy to parent when they're young, but if we let that go without careful attention and prayer, then it won't turn out great for them either. Parenting is hard. I'll end with this insight from Focus on the Family. The Bible tells us for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. We read this yesterday. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by Hebrews 12 11 this idea of fruit our kids talk about Tablets, you know bite-sized child tablets they can understand They love this idea of fruit like you plant a Pumpkin seed and it grows a pumpkin an apple seed grows an apple a they get you plant the Word of God You love God you pray and then you get the fruits of the Spirit. This idea of fruit, they understand. Later, it yields the peaceful fruit. I love this, a discipline. Doesn't seem peaceful at the time. It leads to peaceful fruit, that's great. We must discipline and train our strong-willed children so that they can grow into the fullness of what God has for them. Training requires intentionality through goals. Creating structure takes time, repetition, and hard work. What are you training your strong-willed child to pursue and do? I picture strong-willed children as wild stallions clamoring to run and go no matter what. And you get to, I love that, you get to, you've been given this wild stallion and you get to train and lead your child toward what God has in store for them within the kingdom of God. You get to. As the Bible says, Proverbs 29, 17, discipline your son and he will give you rest. He will give delight to your heart. Thank you for these last few episodes and helping my wife and I so much. I'm gonna tell you about Patriot Gold Group. Price of gold is high right now and I think going higher. Why do I think that? Just look at it over the last thousands of years. And I don't think the economy is doing good. I think it's being held up as much as it can because there's a lot of people that will get very hurt if it does collapse. So there's a lot of people doing whatever it can to make sure it doesn't collapse, but I think you can only hold up that weight for so long before it finally does. And then what's left when the dust settles? I think that's gold. JP Morgan says, cut stocks, buy gold. Financial Times, investors are gaga for gold and searches for how to buy gold on Google record levels in April. I love that. How to buy. So the idea that I want it, that's already, of course I want it, but how? How do I get it? Patriot Gold Group. A plus rated, consumer affairs top rated gold and silver company nationwide. So these guys are the best. So if you want gold, you have to go to the best, and that's Patriot Gold Group. Why would I tell you about the third best? That doesn't make any sense. They have a no fee for life IRA, where your IRA or 401k can be in physical gold and silver as well. That's great. Ask all about that. I have physical gold. I just own the gold. And they FedEx it to you. It's crazy. I'll never forget the FedEx man. Rolls up with his truck and hands me gold. That seems impossible. 888-617-6122. It seems illegal to just have gold. Well, it used to be. FDR made it illegal.
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