409 | Why Your 5-Year-Old Isn't Selfish, Walking Through Repair, and the Gift of Just Showing Up (Chris Ammen)
Episode Description
What if your child's selfishness is actually a God-given gift? In this episode, Chris Ammen shares why understanding your kid's developmental stage changes everything about how you parent. Plus, he unpacks the "turkey hunting philosophy" of spiritual formation and why the most powerful thing you can do as a dad is simply show up and love your kids for who they are, not what they accomplish.
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Chris Ammen is the founder of Kaleidoscope, a ministry helping kids understand and love the Bible through chapter books, audio content, and a weekly podcast. A former children's pastor with 15 years of experience, Chris is passionate about meeting kids at their developmental level and equipping parents to disciple their children at home. He's the author of Raising Disciples at Home and the host of the Kaleidoscope Podcast. Chris and his wife have four kids ages 5 to 12 and live in the thick of raising their own disciples.
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Your children are growing out of egocentrism, not being punched out of it. Understanding their developmental stage brings patience and grace to your parenting.
Growing in your own emotional awareness is one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. When you learn to express the full range of emotions, you create space for them to do the same.
Walk your kids through the mechanics of relational repair. Chunk it up into small steps so they build the muscle memory for when they're older.
Spiritual formation is a longitudinal process. It's so slow you'll hardly notice the grass growing, then one day you'll look around and see what God did while you were faithful day by day.
Call your kids to where they already want to go. Shoulder-to-shoulder time doing what they love is where the real conversations happen.
Men in children's ministry matter more than you think. Boys need men who cheer them on for who they are, and girls need to see men who treat them with respect and kindness.
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Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
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We were just connected maybe a couple months ago and I hopped on your website, started downloading episodes of the podcast for my little girls, and I've been looking forward to this conversation. So thanks for joining DadAwesome.
Chris Ammen: Yeah, Jeff, thanks for having me, man. This is going to be a blast.
Jeff: Well, you've got two boys, two girls, if I have that right, in about the same phase of fatherhood. So 12 down to five, am I in the right ballpark?
Chris: It's wild, man. We almost have a teenager in our house, which feels like we just brought him home yesterday. And then we have an 11-year-old boy and then an eight and a five-year-old girl, which just keep us super busy. Every year I'm like, this could not get any busier. And then the next year it gets busier.
Jeff: And somehow there's more capacity. Somehow you just level up a notch and it's more crazy. It's wild.
Chris: With you. With you.
Jeff: I'd love to hear though what's been sparking some joy. In your family, on the fatherhood front, any story or just a moment recently or a new adventure that's sparked some extra joy for your family?
Chris: Yeah, you know, I think one of the things that's been refreshing for me in this season has been watching my almost teenager just kind of develop his own set of passions on his own. And one of the passions that he's developed is distance running, which is wild for a 12-year-old. He'll go for runs at like nine o'clock at night. He's a wild man. But I grew up as a cross-country runner and ran some in college and all that stuff. And then I coached cross country in my 20s and into my 30s and distance events and track and stuff like that.
And so I always told my wife when we had our first child, I was like, man, he is just going to make all my dreams come true one day if he's a runner. And I fought and fought for a couple of years internally, like, please do not put that expectation on him. Don't push him towards it. Let him discover it.
And he really, over the past year, it has clicked for him. Every once in a while I'll tell him a story about my running and my coaching and stuff, and he's like, whoa, dad, I didn't know that about you. And I'm like, yeah, man, I was kind of trying to play it cool. But it's fun watching your son gain his own passion, but it also be the passion that you share. And by the Lord's providence, I didn't have to really push him to it, which is just a grace in and of itself.
Jeff: Love that. I love that. I'm the dad who pendulum swung away from team sports. I was into all the team sports. My dad pushed me towards them. So now we're like a dance and theater family. We do some surfing. We do some obstacle course races. There's still a little bit of adventure on that side, but not team sports yet. And I'm like, have I swung too far? Because that was me. And it sounds like you're at a sweet spot of you actually chose not to push, but now you get to offer.
Chris: Well, yeah, and I get to go to cross-country meets and stuff with him now. Man, I'm living the dream.
Jeff: I read somewhere that you don't let your boys text girls or something like that. Is this accurate?
Chris: That is very accurate. We've held off on the phone front, just a personal boundary for our family. We're not opposed to other families that choose other boundaries for themselves, that's fine. But we made the decision that when our children turn 12, we're going to get them an Apple Watch. And it just so happened that around the same time, our son was also building some friendships with some girls and was texting them and stuff. And we just kind of were like, hey, we're not going to text girls.
Really, the heart that grew out of was wanting to protect him and provide some boundaries, even still to slowly hand off some trust to him. But also recognizing that our kids just text each other all of these conversations that really should be had face-to-face and that honestly probably shouldn't be had at all.
And if you can't have a conversation face to face, it just should not be had. And so trying to teach them some of the interpersonal skills of relating with one another, of taking initiative in conversations and not just firing off texts anytime you feel like it, we felt like was a really healthy boundary and continues to be. So yeah, we're very happy with that decision and hopefully we'll continue it.
Jeff: We're similar. A family phone was introduced now at kind of 12 years old as a family phone, but for some communication. And we realized we had to reel back in one area. All of a sudden there was a couple of group texts existing. And we said, you know what, let's reel that one back in anew, because we didn't know. And part of it, you can seek guidance from parents ahead of us. And then you have to get in at some points and realize, oh, no, let's reel that one back. So yeah, navigating. I just thought that's helpful. Thanks for explaining the heart behind it as well.
I'm curious in this phase, call it the last handful of years as a dad, what are some of the sources of learning and growing for you to just keep learning? Is there a mentor you're learning from? Is there a book that's been especially helpful? I'm just curious on the side of growing as a dad, are there any sources of learning or wisdom that you have found helpful?
Chris: Yeah, you know, I think just growing in my own emotional awareness as a human being and as a person has been huge. I feel like probably before COVID, there was all of a sudden, maybe I had just awakened to it, but there was this explosion of energy in Christian communities to become emotionally aware and get in touch with your heart and all this. And I think some people really play that off as self-centeredness and kind of mixing modern psychology with Christianity. And there's a lot of pushback to it.
But I really always saw it as this is a way that I'm going to learn to love my neighbors better and my nearest neighbors, which are those who live under my roof with me.
Because I don't know about you, Jeff, but I grew up in a home that was, I had well-meaning parents. They probably did the best they could in terms of emotional awareness, but they were not very emotionally aware. And I was allowed to feel and express a very small handful of emotions in my house, but not the full breadth of them and certainly not the emotions and feelings that made other people feel uncomfortable to be around me.
And so I think as I've grown in my ability to express anger where appropriate, to express sadness, and to really just open up and be more vulnerable, I have also offered up a gift to my children of not feeling like they've got to hide and feeling like they can be themselves around me. They might tell a different story one day, but I hope that the story that they tell is that my dad was available. He was there and he saw me.
Jeff: I want to point out that your answer to my question is not tactics. It's not tactical. It's actually, who am I becoming? Who am I becoming? And I actually have an emotions wheel that has them all so I can help kind of reference back. I'm trying. That's a sphere that I'm realizing with an almost teenager as well, that man, it used to be that I could bring passion and encouragement to my girls and adventure and let's go. And they would just kind of follow dad's lead.
And all of a sudden we're in a season where there's a little more pushback to everything from what we're having for lunch to what we're doing for adventure to what we're doing this evening. And all of a sudden I'm finding myself pushing back and not realizing, where is this coming from? What am I actually feeling right now? So I think who we become is a massive gift, like you're saying. Even though this is very helpful, do you have anything on the tactical side that you're like, hey, this has been helpful maybe as a tool to share to dads that you've discovered?
Chris: Yeah, you know, on the topic of emotions and just development, it's just realizing you cannot control your children. You can coach them and guide them and offer counsel, but you cannot control what comes out of their mouth or what they choose to do with their body. That is a longitudinal project that Jesus is working in them, and He calls you to come alongside them to aid in that process. But at the end of the day, my children are and are not a reflection of my parenting. They are developing as their own independent autonomous human beings.
And one of the things that I found so foundational for me, because I used to be a children's pastor as well, and a lot of our children, when they're in that children's ministry phase, they're growing out of what psychologists call egocentrism.
Which is really hard for us as adults to understand, but egocentrism basically is a God-given gift to our children to protect themselves. Developmentally, it's actually a really good thing that our children, when they're five, six, and even younger than that, they say, I'm going to protect my body. I'm going to protect my personhood at all costs.
Even if that means hurting other people, even if that means pushing other people away emotionally and being really selfish. Because think about it, a seven-year-old living out in the wilderness 2,000 years ago, they've got to be that, you know? And for adults, if you interact with somebody at the grocery store and they're acting like an eight-year-old, you're going to be like, forget you, you jerk.
But then we bring those same expectations back home to our children and we expect them to act in this selfless way that gives away to other people. And they're still growing in that. That's something that has to grow over time. They grow out of egocentrism. It's not punched out of them. It's not beaten out of them. It's not manipulated out of them. That's something that they have to come to as their brain develops.
So tactically, that's a big thing that I work on.
Jeff: And that truly is so tempting to think what I see right now is not what I want to see in my child because I don't want it. I've added that adult expectation, like you said, and we rush or try to push down the emotions, the feelings. I'd love to hear from you, what are some examples with your own kids of how to gently say, you're going to be okay, and guide in a way that coaches? You even used the word coach. I'm not actually able to control, but I can assist in this moment. Can you take us into it a little deeper?
Chris: Yeah, you know, I think especially right now with my girls, eight and five years old, they are at each other. They are so competitive with each other and they just get in squabbles all the time. And I'm having to constantly mediate it. And you'll hear a lot of parenting coaches out there who say, do not force your children to apologize. And I think that there is some merit in that at a certain age. Children need to learn to own their own apology and their own feelings in the matter.
So for my 12, almost 13-year-old, I might suggest to him, hey, Jake, this sounds like a scenario where you need to go repair the relationship. Now it's up to him to go and figure out how he's going to take ownership over his own apology. My eight and five-year-old, if I were to say that, like, you need to repair this relationship, they'd be like, what? What are you talking about?
And so for them, walking them through the mechanics of it. Last night I was cuddling with one of the girls on the couch and the other one comes up and she's being silly and was trying to get to me and tickle me or something. And my eight-year-old accidentally kicked her in the face. And my five-year-old, she's just in tears, like my face is falling apart and I'm going to die pretty soon and all this stuff. My eight-year-old looks at me and she's like, I didn't mean to do it.
I'm like, hold up, this is not about you, this is about her. Both of our eyes right now need to be on her and making sure that she is okay. Then we need to take appropriate responsibility for both of us of what we did to cause this hurt, own it, and then let's move forward.
And it's walking them through the mechanics of relational repair, no matter how small you've got to chunk up the slices. We're going to walk through this because I'm going to build in you the muscle memory that when you're 13 and you need to repair a relationship, you're able to look at a situation and say, okay, I didn't mean to kick him in the face, but what do I need to own? How do we need to help him get better? All that. So I think that's one thing I would offer.
Jeff: Yeah, great example. I know this is a passion of yours, understanding our kids, their emotional, social, physical, spiritual development, all these. These are a huge area. We could spend a whole course of podcasts, right? More than just today, but that is an example of a relational interaction with a sibling. What would be some other examples on, man, we might be missing it because we're putting those adult expectations, and how we, like there's a development process. Can you take us into a few of the other ones?
Chris: Yeah, for sure. I think when we think about our children's spiritual development, a lot of times we get very frustrated in the development of our children's spirituality. And we have to recognize that spirituality is a lifelong process of growth. It's not a moment in time where all of this all of a sudden makes sense and there's like, you know, I mean, we still might have a moment of conversion and all of that stuff.
But even then it's like we haven't just scaled the wall and now we're on the other side of the wall and now all is hunky dory. We have a lot to grow and a lot of sanctification that still needs to happen. And even for some of our youngest children, many of the theological concepts about God are really abstract concepts.
People who get frustrated when their five-year-old or their four-year-old is not making sense of who God is, it's like, well, okay, your child is not able to think abstractly quite yet. They're not able to think about a person who exists that they cannot physically see, but who sees them, who exists all around them, who is in charge of everything that they see and yet they can't go up to them and give them a hug. That's a lot to wrap your mind around.
And so conceptually, to know the characteristics of God, a lot of the communicable attributes of God that he is love and he's kind and he's honest and he's good, he's gracious, all of these things. But to expect a young child to have a fully formed understanding of who God is is really rushing a lot of things.
I don't know about you when you're in children's ministry or still in children's ministry, but I talked to especially a lot of first time parents who get very anxious when their first child is three or four and they're like, holy cow, we haven't even started discipling our children. We don't talk about God at home. And I'm like, are you keeping them alive and fed? Yeah, celebrating. Are you taking care of yourself? Have you had a shower today?
These are the things that matter, that you're showing up as a gracious presence in their life, as a representative of God in their life, so that one day when they're learning that God is kind and good and gracious, and by the way, he's also a father, all of that kind of makes sense together. So respecting the longitudinal process with kids is really hard for parents when they're in the moment.
Jeff: Yeah, even the phrase longitudinal process. Let's take a deep breath. There's a bigger, more expansive view. We've chatted about this multiple rounds here at DadAwesome, that we're gifted this role of being their earthly fathers, but that actually, like you said before, we're not controlling. It's not like it's all up to us and on our shoulders, the outcomes. Take that concept just a step deeper. I know that's a passion of yours, to like, let's not live within the lie that it's all up to me.
Chris: Yeah, I think for dads, let's just say Western US fathers. I've traveled to other parts of the world and I have found that fatherhood in other contexts and other cultures looks very different for better and worse. But in the Western US, we have timelines and we want to see results.
We're a culture that's addicted to exercise routines and diet culture and climbing the ladder at work and all of these things. And if I do X, Y, Z, then this will play out in this amount of time. And if I don't do this, then I must be behind everybody else. And actually, I look out at everybody else and nobody else is showing me their bad side. So I think I'm behind. We just live in this really toxic culture of fatherhood.
Where honestly in my line of work, I work with a lot of moms and moms are much more willing in my experience to show the dirt under the surface than dads are. And so I feel like for moms, they can still be lonely. They can still experience some wallowing and like, my gosh, I'm not meeting the standards of other moms around me. And that varies city by city and area code by area code.
Zip code by zip code, really. But for dads, there's not a lot of that. There's a lot of hiding. And instead, I think we need to say, hey, you know what? This is not going to happen in 24 hours. This is not going to happen in a year. This is going to be so slow that I'm hardly going to notice the grass growing underneath my feet. And then I'm going to look around one day and say, holy cow, look at what God did while I was just being patient and faithful day by day by day.
Jeff: And one of the gifts that we can give ourselves and our kids is acknowledging the long time horizon, but also acknowledging that we don't have to have it all together in every phase and stepping towards vulnerability, stepping towards that campfire conversation with a few buddies saying, hey, this is actually how it's going. Because in the church lobby or at the soccer field, I've probably been pulling on an image that it's going really, really well. Maybe that's, so I think it's a gift. If we frame it that way, it's a gift that we're giving our kids, our families versus my vulnerability is actually a deficit or a liability. I think it helps.
Chris: Yeah. You know, Jeff, one of the most powerful books that's really shaped my life over the past 10 years is called The Voice of the Heart by Chip Dodd. Have you heard of that?
Jeff: I've heard of it, but I have not read it personally.
Chris: It's fantastic because what he does is he has eight emotions, like there's lots of emotional awareness systems out there, but he takes eight emotions and all but one of them seem negative on the surface. The one that seems positive on the surface is gladness, but he'll take fear, sadness, anger, and all of us feel those things and there's an unhealthy, but there's also a healthy side to those things.
And so as a father, lots of dads find themselves living in fear land. I'm afraid that I'm not meeting a standard that I've made up for myself. I'm afraid that my wife is really disappointed in the person that she married. I'm afraid that I'm not as good of a dad as the other dad across the street. And what we do is that leads us into depression, that leads us into shutting down.
It doesn't lead us to the place that we actually want to move towards, which is trust and wholeheartedness and acknowledging that we are vulnerable and asking for help. That's really where our hearts want to go, to be like a little child who says, dad, I need some help. Will you push me on the swing? We're still those children even though we're 40 years old.
And yet we try to move away from that need into depression. So many dads do that. And I think if we could open up with other dads, but also acknowledge our own neediness, we would really change a generation of dads.
Jeff: I'm so with you on this, Chris, but also I know another deep passion of yours is bringing God's word to our kids, but also to these big kids. So I just listened to one of the podcasts. Kaleidoscope, you started in what, five, six years ago? Is that about right?
Chris: Well, so the podcast actually came along later. Kaleidoscope came around about five or six years ago. So I'll tell you the short story of how Kaleidoscope got going. I was, like I said, in children's ministry for 15 years. And one of the areas where I saw a gap was in the middle of elementary school. So kind of that second to fourth or fifth grade gap.
I still to this day, if you let me choose what age kids I'm going to work with, I will go pre-K all day long. I love pre-K-ers. I love their curiosity. I just love the people that they are. And also, I feel like there's lots of resources out in the market to help support our young kids as they come to know God. There's lots of storybook Bibles and all that stuff.
What I noticed was that as kids move into second, third, fourth grade, they start to drift a little bit. There's not as much engaging material for them, which is part of the process, but there's also just not a whole lot of people who know how to engage them at their new developmental level of asking questions and wondering about things they didn't wonder about when they were kindergartners.
And so I thought to myself, what if we could produce the Bible in an age-appropriate way that was in a form factor of a chapter book that children in elementary school would find appealing. And so that's where Kaleidoscope was birthed out of.
And we actually started as a Kickstarter before COVID, a few months before COVID. We kind of conceptualized and came up with Kickstarter. We were fully funded in our Kickstarter the day before our city shut down from COVID. Of course, we think, oh, this will probably last about two weeks. We'll be back to normal in two weeks. And eight months later, still...
I always thought that I could start Kaleidoscope on nights and weekends. It's a little side project. Got four kids at home, no problem. We'll do this and no worries. And immediately what God did on day one of me having all the funding I needed for Kaleidoscope was to say, I'm going to take away your children's ministry right now. And you're going to be fully locked in on starting Kaleidoscope for the next eight months while you don't have a children's ministry at church to attend to.
So we did books for a number of years. We still do books. About two years ago, we started doing audio. And audio has been very, very popular for our audience. So we're on Yoto players. We do all that.
But then we also started around that same time the podcast of trying to be in kids' earbuds and their Yoto players and their radios, whatever, on a weekly basis to bring God's word to them in a format that they enjoy.
And one of the interesting things, Jeff, is that, I mean, talking to you here, you probably noticed that I'm using a different voice than I use on the podcast.
Jeff: That's true.
Chris: And so people who listen to the podcast, they know the Mr. Chris voice, which is just a slight variation from my regular voice. But it's the voice that I use when I'm teaching kids at church. So it was very natural for me to take on that persona in a podcast form, which just feels so fun to do every week.
Jeff: Do you do the exchange with the kazoo or whatever? Do you do that real time or do you add that later? The character that you go back and forth with.
Chris: We have a production company that we work with over in Texas and that was the producer's idea. He sent me back an episode one time where I was like, I think I need an assistant. I don't know what you want to do with this. And then he put this little kazoo guy in there and I'm like, that's genius. It's perfect.
Jeff: I got to watch my daughters react to the first episode just a few hours this morning. And it was the way you gamify it. I pulled up the quiz and my daughters filled out the quiz in real time. And it's, yeah, so thank you for this approach to a very needy, I mean, dad of that exact age. I see the need. I actually had to have my 12-year-old help me figure out how to load a podcast on the Yoto player. We've done all the books. So she had it in a second, she had it all loaded.
And truly thinking about our kids' love for God's word. Their attention spans are ready for more than what they have in most of our bookshelf for our girls. You're right. You're absolutely right. The library is a source of so much of their reading, not God's word because of resources. So applauding what you guys are doing at Kaleidoscope and sending our dads your way. Even though I know you resource a lot of moms' ministries, movements of mom influencers, I'm like, let's get the dads going direct.
Chris: That's right. That's right. Yeah. I long to reach dads. I'm not one of these people who's like, dads have to be at the head and they have to do everything. Moms have a really, really important role in the family and in the discipleship of their kids, a very important role.
That being said, one of the things we talked about before we started recording was the fact that I am in a space where there are a lot of women. 95% of our customer base with Kaleidoscope is female. And that's always been an interesting part of my work, that I live in a woman's world. Our entire team with Kaleidoscope, it's me and a bunch of women. When I was working in children's ministry, it was me and a bunch of women.
Which is an interesting space to learn to live into as a man with some of our culture's power dynamics and stuff like that. So yeah, it's an interesting thing. So whenever dads come along and they're like, oh man, I love Kaleidoscope. I love what you guys are doing. I'm like, yes, you're one of the 5%. Love you.
Jeff: I mean, I just want to talk for a moment about men, dads in kids ministry, because I'm a volunteer in our church's kids ministry. I'm leading this Sunday. I am six foot seven inches tall and I will be upfront leading the worship with these kids. It is not expected when parents drop off their kids. They don't expect to see this giant in the kids ministry, because they just expect that they're going to see women leading.
My prayer is that there's a shift, there is a shift in that. More dads think, how can I help? And you will be a better dad on the home front if you serve in your local church the kids in your church. It will be a slingshot back to the home front. What would you add to encourage dads to consider joining a kids ministry volunteer team?
Chris: No, Jeff, I did not grow up in the church and I didn't grow up with any strong male figures in my life, other than maybe the occasional coach who was overly energetic about the score on a scoreboard or my performance. And I didn't grow up with a whole lot of men who were cheering me on just for the sake of who I am.
And when I read the Bible and when I look at the character of God, I don't see him cheering on very many of my accomplishments. I see him just loving me simply for how I was created, that he loved me before the foundation of the world, that he loved me before he knew what job I would have or what I would look like or how many, maybe he knew how many kids I would have. I don't know. I've got lots of questions for God one day when I meet him.
But I didn't have a lot of men in my life who just loved me for the sake of who Chris was. And so I think as men, we should step into the realm of being coaches and being teachers and doing things in places where kids do achieve and we can celebrate their achievements and all of that stuff. But to have men in spaces where we're just celebrating a child for the sake that they exist is a really powerful teaching tool and formation tool for children.
And so don't underestimate that, both for the boys in the room and maybe even more importantly for the girls in the room. To have a man who looks at them with respect and kindness and graciousness, not as an object, is deeply formational for the girls in the room too.
Jeff: Thanks for that, yeah, framing through that lens. It's like, yes, we want more men to cheer on regardless of results or scoreboard, and that can happen in the local church.
Chris: That's huge. And I'll just say this too, I've done the volunteer chasing game and the volunteer recruitment game, and I've heard every excuse in the book of why men do not want to volunteer in children's ministry. Typically it's something along the lines of, well, it's just not my gifting, or kids are just not kind of my thing, or I don't feel smart enough or knowledgeable enough to do that.
And what I always, whenever that excuse is kind of thrown at me, I'm like, well, what if none of those things were prerequisites to begin with? What if none of that had to be true about you to help? You just have to show up with who you are and know that even if you feel awkward and you feel like you'd rather be a fly on the wall or leave the room, there's probably a child in the room who feels really awkward too.
And you could connect with them. You don't have to be a champion in the room. You can just be an awkward dad who's learning how to be around other children.
Jeff: Yep. So good. Yes, I agree with everything you're saying. I want to land here and it's just, man, we want our kids to love God's word, to love the Bible, to seek promises, truth, God's plan for their life, guidance, wisdom.
And you brought down the bar earlier of just like, hey, we don't need to force, it's not our control. There's a longitudinal journey. God's doing a work and it takes time. It takes time. We plant seeds. How would you just encourage us maybe in closing around dads with a desire for God's word to be in the hearts of their kids and for them to love God's word? What would be just your encouragement of a next step, a gentle next step to move the dial in the right direction?
Chris: Yeah, Jeff, do you ever go hunting?
Jeff: So that's one sphere that I want to learn and grow in that I have, I shoot clay pigeons. I've been out bird hunting a couple of times for turkeys, but very little hunting.
Chris: Yeah, so I hate hunting. I don't like hunting at all. I shouldn't say I hate it. It's just not one of those things that I do. But I worked with a pastor years ago who had a philosophy of ministry that he called the philosophy of turkey hunting.
And so I've never been turkey hunting. I'd imagine many of your listeners probably have. And if you know anything about turkey hunting, it's all about calling the turkey to where he already wants to go.
You're not having to convince the turkey that this is a good thing for him to come towards. He's like, I'd love to go over there. And then, bam, you blow his head off or whatever. Not encouraging any dads out there to go and do that to their children.
But I think that when we take the spiritual formation of our children and we divorce it from everyday life and we're like, okay, now we're over here in this artificially created space where we're going to do spiritual formation. The kid's like, wait a sec, you mean I have to put my game down? I have to stop being myself to enter into this space? This feels artificial.
And so I think as often as you can with your children, call them to where they already want to go. Children want to spend time with their dads. They want to feel relaxed around their dads. They want to feel like they're doing something where they're shoulder to shoulder enjoying life together. And by the way, that's where conversations are going to happen.
And so go turkey hunting. Call your children to where they already want to go. And while they're there, give them some truth. And know it's a long process.
Jeff: I love that. Immediately my heart went to bike ride and a Bible verse because I can take a bike ride up to get a free cookie at Publix grocery store. And my girls in that context, I'm just going to talk about a verse, something I've learned. Yeah, just we can bring small to the everyday versus let's sit down for devotions. I appreciate that.
Chris: Yeah. And just a parting thought on that, sometimes as dads, we forget how we are most drawn to God. I've known very few dads who are like, yes, like right off the bat, I'd love to go do this really intense Bible study. I'd love to, no. You're drawn to your friends and you're drawn to people that you know care for you.
And if we can draw our kids into that kind of environment, they're going to get drawn towards God as well as us.
Jeff: Yeah, well, I had a whole other set of questions about your book, Raising Disciples at Home, and I'm going to instead just link in the show notes, send the dads your way. If anything's resonated that Chris has brought up, he's got a guide for us dads to go after it, so that'll be linked. And Chris, I want to invite you, will you pray over all of us dads?
Chris: Absolutely, yeah.
Father, you are just that for us. Lord, I pray that you would help us to know all that it means for you to be our father and humble us under that title that you have given us. What an honor to be called something that is entrusted with care for another person, to be someone who sees the needs of others and meets them in the ways that we're able to be able to be vulnerable and to be honest about our limitations and where we have need and want of help.
Lord, I pray that you would help us to see these things in us so that we might serve those around us better. Lord, I pray for the dads that are listening to this that they would know that they are dearly loved and cherished. That they would know that God thought of them before He thought of the mountains and the seas and the oceans, and He called them very good. He does not regret them. He does not resent making them, but He has set them here in the very place that they are for a very good purpose.
Lord, would you send us out from even listening to this podcast with a renewed energy and encouragement to trust You with both ourselves and with our children. Amen.
Jeff: Thank you so much for joining us for episode 409 with Chris Ammen. I want to remind you four practical ways that we can take a step forward this week. And these will be listed at the show notes, dadawesome.org/podcast. You can find these typed up there along with all the show notes, like always the links to Kaleidoscope and other resources from Chris. But here's four reminders from today's conversation that you can put into action this week.
Remember dad, intent doesn't help anything. Our kids don't feel intent. They feel when we put things into action, we actually take steps forward based on what we're learning. So we don't want to just think about fatherhood. We want to put things into action.
So here's four examples:
First, join them where they're already at. Shoulder by shoulder, something your kids love to do, they're already doing, join them there. Legos on the beanbag while your daughter's reading, out for a bike ride. Do what they love to do and let conversations flow naturally.
Second action step, walk through the "I'm sorry" together process. This is the repair process that Chris talked about. And it's basically pressing into, I want to own my part. I want to make it right. And there's these steps. Check if everyone's okay. Own your part. Make it right. Basically you're building new muscle memory through this "I'm sorry" process.
Third, text another dad and bring something real into a conversation. This could be through a conversation as well, but he recommended, text another dad. This is what's really going on, will you pray for me? It's basically resisting the posturing of everything's okay. Instead it's saying, no, I'm actually going to be honest and bring one other dad, a friend, someone who maybe you've kept things a little shallow, saying, hey, can I just be real with you and ask for prayer or ask for your support? This is what's actually happening, being real.
Fourth, love them for who they are, not for what they do. You're emphasizing with your words your love for your kids, not based on an accomplishment. You don't love them because of this. You love them for who they are, that they're your children, that you get to be their dad. And then make real specific things that you're showing them and telling them, I love you, and it's apart from anything they've accomplished.
So there's just four little reminders on the way out of today's conversation. Thanks for being DadAwesome and prayerfully taking action this week. Thanks guys. Have a great week.
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"This is not going to happen in 24 hours. This is not going to happen in a year. This is going to be so slow that I'm hardly going to notice the grass growing underneath my feet. And then I'm going to look around one day and say, look at what God did while I was just being patient and faithful day by day by day."
"They grow out of egocentrism. It's not punched out of them. It's not beaten out of them. It's not manipulated out of them. That's something that they have to come to as their brain develops."
"Hold up, this is not about you, this is about her. Both of our eyes right now need to be on her and making sure that she is okay."
"Call your children to where they already want to go. And while they're there, give them some truth."
"Don't underestimate that, both for the boys in the room and maybe even more importantly for the girls in the room. To have a man who looks at them with respect and kindness and graciousness, not as an object, is deeply formational."
"You don't have to be a champion in the room. You can just be an awkward dad who's learning how to be around other children."
"God thought of them before He thought of the mountains and the seas and the oceans, and He called them very good. He does not regret them."
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