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Hey, this is Mandy and Kim with nextTalk, where we are passionate about keeping kids safe in the digital world.
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0:00:28 – Speaker 2
Go to nextTalk.org and click on Give and check out our resources while you’re there More than cyber parenting conversations, to connect. We were recently meeting with our LPC, Jamie Mershan, who’s on our nextTalk advisory council. She’s fantastic. You hear us talk about her quite a bit and we were talking about all these things that we can model for our kids that make such a huge impact. But waiting is one of those things that are very important but often overlooked. It’s not something that we teach our kids.
0:00:59 – Speaker 1
You know I always think about waiting for sex, but I think it’s a whole lot of other things that we can wait for, right? Yes, of course I was. Recently we were driving in the car and my kid is driving now, right, and so sometimes I’m riding with her and we were getting the mail and she was driving in the neighborhood and I was going through the mail and we got a card with a cute little cousin picture on it and I’m talking to her about it and my son is in the back saying, oh look how cute she is, look how cute our little cousin is right. And my daughter was like, let me see.
And I was like girl, you’re driving, you got to wait. You got to wait until you park this car. You could not check your phone, you could not check the mail. You know it’s part of that Like you have to wait until that car is in park and you are done driving. But what was so funny is she looked at me and she started singing that Christian song. You know what I’m talking about. It’s in the waiting.
0:02:02 – Speaker 2
Oh, yes, yes, Sing it, mandy. I can’t sing it, I cannot sing at all.
0:02:09 – Speaker 1
That is not my spiritual gift at all, but it was. We had a kind of a laugh about it. But it’s true. I mean we order from Amazon and it’s here next day.
0:02:19 – Speaker 2
So we just the other day one of my kiddos needed paint for a project, and that was a conversation that we should have had ahead of time before like 8.30 at night and my daughter, like just off the cuff, said primate, like she’s six. She already knows she’s six, primate mom, like there’s not a problem, just get it done. But then I was thinking, man, like the skill of waiting and the process of waiting, what we learn in the waiting, is so important, but it’s just not something we have a lot of opportunity to do because we live in this fast paced world.
0:02:58 – Speaker 1
And I think that’s what God is thinking. When, when Jamie our counselor, you know that we work with closely when she said that you know we have to be intentional about teaching our kids how to wait and she said that, my mind immediately went to answering machines. You know, when we were growing up as kids, we would have to wait until we got home to see if that crush called us or, you know, to see if that exciting news is happening, and I was like, well, I know it’s such a stupid way to talk, but I have to say this this is기SmilingWh quiser Insomnia-readSINGINGWH. Now yes, so I would love to see that happening. They don’t even have to wait for like a message. Oh no, you know, everything’s in real time. It’s a text or it’s a post, or it’s a message right there on their device in their back pocket, and so I do think she’s onto something here. We need to think about teaching our kids to wait and what that means.
0:03:46 – Speaker 2
It’s got to be intentional, and I think there are some different ways at different ages and stages that we can really guide them through learning how to wait well and why it’s important.
One of the things that we talked about is wait before you take a stance or make a decision. If you have younger kids, like I do, the opportunity to teach this comes up all the time, because kids always want things and they always are talking about it and pointing them out. We’re currently in the process of moving, and so the kids and I were all dreaming about the future, like what will be in our house and what will come next and where could we put this and what do we need, and my two little ones have been looking at these giant bouncy houses. Now, I don’t know where they got the idea that we needed a bouncy house in our backyard, like a private one, versus that. You know you go to the place where they have these giant monstrosities, but they have been saving money and planning for it, and my first reaction was to say are you crazy? We’re not having a bouncy house in our backyard, no way, while your six year old is probably saying private mom just prime it Exactly, exactly as she’s bouncing.
So they’ve saved all this money and they had it in their minds that we’re getting it and I really wanted to shut it down. But I felt in the moment, literally as the words were coming out of my mouth. I felt like the Holy Spirit was like no, this is an opportunity. We had just talked about waiting with Jamie and I was like this is an opportunity for me to help them learn to wait before making a decision. And so, instead of shutting it down, I told them let’s really think about this.
Do you know the measurements of the yard? Do you know the measurements of the bouncy house? Will it even fit? Have you read the care and cleaning instructions? Just like practical stuff. And they were like well, no. And I was like well, you got to take care of it. When it rains, you got to fold it up, you know, clean it, wipe it down. And you know these big eyes are looking back at me. We talked about the yard like it’s going to kill all the grass. All these little conversations got them thinking. I said why don’t we wait to make this decision and think it through first and just pray about it? And I didn’t have to tell them it was a bad idea. They came to that decision on their own because we waited to make it and we thought it through. It may seem silly, but it sets them up at six and nine like the age of my kid for what the world’s about to throw at them at 12 and 15, when waiting is going to become really important.
0:06:11 – Speaker 1
I love this example because there’s so much here. You know, I love that you waited and you didn’t shut it down.
You didn’t know, I wanted to but you didn’t shut their dreams down I’m about to but you wanted them to kind of think through, and by waiting you were able to throw these little things out, not in a lecturing type of way, but over a period of time to kind of say hey, have you thought about this? What about the grass that it’s going to kill? You know what about taking care of it? That sort of thing. Instead of just shutting them down, you literally made them think through the process and without the waiting you never would have gotten to those conversations, and I think that’s the lesson here.
0:06:59 – Speaker 2
Well, unless, and waiting is hard for me. So I know that it’s important for me to start early with my kids and this learning the skill, because it’s not easy to wait, but, man, that space in which we can have these types of conversations, even over something as small as a bouncy house, helps them learn the process of deciding how they’re going to feel about something, if they’re going to take a stance about something, if they’re going to move forward with a decision, and that’s a process I want them to learn as young as possible so they carry it into these bigger decisions when they’re older.
0:07:30 – Speaker 1
Yeah, and when they’re older, I mean it is a big deal, you know, because everybody’s checking a box about their sexuality. Now they’re gender. You know political stances, even faith, Like I’m not this or I am this jumping on the bandwagon. Mentality is huge because of social media. There’s just a constant stream of new trends and new fads that are thrown our way. You know, influencers get paid to push these things to our kids and if we can teach them to kind of wait and make a decision on these little things when it comes to these big things, as they get older, they will pause, they will process, they will collect data and then they will make an informed decision, just like your kids did about the bouncy house. I think this is such a great example on how to start it little before it becomes big issues.
0:08:27 – Speaker 2
I love the way you framed that. Mandy, all right waiting helps you sort through emotions to see the truth. I think this one is so important because emotions are so strong and they feel so real and if we can teach our kids to sort through that and look for truth, I mean that’s gonna affect them for the rest of their life.
0:08:48 – Speaker 1
Yeah, you know one thing about emotions and feelings they’re real. I mean, it is real that your kids wanted that bouncy house, that is so true.
0:08:55 – Speaker 2
They were passionate about it.
0:08:59 – Speaker 1
It didn’t nobody’s denying that they would have primed it if they couldn’t right had their finger on the button, girl seriously. But by having them wait and go through the logical thought process, you were able to take those emotions and they were able to process them to make sure they were OK and accurate in pointing them to something good and something they needed and a good choice.
0:09:24 – Speaker 2
And with emotions, it’s important that, yes, we know they’re real and we don’t wanna teach our kids to stuff them or pretend that they don’t feel them, because then they learn to sweep things under the rug. We want them to say out loud how they’re feeling, but then we can help them process and pray to determine is this truth or is this an emotion that’s just passing? It’s one of those things.
0:09:45 – Speaker 1
You know, when we talk about waiting, I think about your setting with it. You’re stewing, you’re letting it stew in your mind. Is this really what I want? Is this the choice I really wanna make? And that space, like you said, in our world has kind of been taken away from us because we’re moving fast and furious and instant gratification is so part of our life, it’s just our normal life, and so, again, being intentional about teaching these qualities to our kids is so critical.
0:10:20 – Speaker 2
Well, and you brought up sex in the beginning of the show and it is part, it’s in the waiting, it’s in the waiting.
0:10:26 – Speaker 1
Sing it, girl. It’s in the way. It’s so bad.
0:10:30 – Speaker 2
I remember having this conversation once at a marriage conference and I was talking to this woman about how she said she never had the opportunity to understand how strong the emotions were gonna be when she was in that moment with her boyfriend and if her mom had sat down with her or talked with her about this is what it’s gonna feel like, and it’s gonna be real and strong and you’re gonna wanna do these things. She felt like she could have that space to prepare in the waiting for what those emotions would feel like. And that’s really what nextTalk is all about. We wanna be talking about those things. We wanna be preparing our kids for how hard it is sometimes in the waiting, how those emotions are real in the waiting, but what can we do with them? And yes, you can come to me and talk about it and we can come up with strategies or ideas how you can manage in the waiting. But if we’re not talking about these things, then our kids are out there on their own trying to figure it out.
0:11:27 – Speaker 1
Well, and that’s why it’s so important, I think, to recognize the real feelings and emotions and not make our kids squash them, like we don’t want them to hide how they’re really feeling from us. And then that’s where we have to just pause and not make a snap judgment just like you didn’t make a snap judgment about the bouncy house and then really pray about where we’re going to take this conversation and then throw out questions to them Like well, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And then work it out in their minds exactly how they need to process those emotions and feelings. You know I love Lamentations 325. The message version is pretty cool of this one. It says God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It’s a good thing to quietly hope for help from God. I love that Quietly hope for help from God in the waiting as we’re seeking. What a beautiful verse to remind us of how important waiting is and how much God can speak to us in those moments.
0:12:38 – Speaker 2
I want to point out one word in that verse that is just standing out to me, and that’s quietly. And I think this speaks to what you were saying before is our life is so loud and our kids’ life is so loud. There are rarely times that we can steal away and be quiet, unless we are intentional about it, and I want to teach my kids how important it is to make space to be quiet so you can wait on the Lord to speak into your heart, and that’s something I need to practice myself and model for them.
0:13:10 – Speaker 1
You know I have one kid still remote learning and you know we’re on screens a lot and it’s become a normal part of our life to even be on them more. And that’s one of the things we’ve been talking about is quieting your mind. Going out to the back porch without any devices and just listening to the birds. You know, again, it’s in that soft, those soft moments, in that waiting, where you can hear God the most. But we need to quiet our world, exactly like you said. I love you pointed that out Quietly. Hope is just beautiful. I love how it’s phrased in that scripture and this goes perfectly into our next point Everything allows us to hear the Holy Spirit. Yes, there are so many times as a parent that had I spoken off the cuff and not waited and not prayed and not processed through what I was going to say to my kids, I could have done so much damage to our relationship and I’m putting all this effort into building a good dialogue with them. I don’t want to tear it down with one bad response.
0:14:19 – Speaker 2
It’s so incredible that we have the Holy Spirit as our advocate, who is speaking to us for as much as we’re willing to listen, and so that waiting and hearing him is such a key thing when we’re parenting or in our marriages, in life in general, in our friendships. I mean. We recently had an experience over here. You know, we’re building this new house. I talked about moving while we’re building this house and we’ve talked about this big decision that we have to make and I feel like we’re just going in circles around and around and we’ve talked it to death and I have one perspective and he has another.
And the other day we had spent a lot of time talking about it and he just looked at me and he’s like what are we doing? We spent all this time talking. We just need to wait on God to speak into this decision. This doesn’t need to be about your opinion or mine. This needs to be God’s decision for us and we’ve got to be quiet in order to hear him. And I love that he pushed us into that space, because we were missing it, Like we were going back and forth and not just being still and prayerful and letting God guide our decision. And as soon as we did that. It’s not like we instantly got on the same page, but it was like God opened our eyes to what the other one was saying and we were able to come to a decision that we both felt strongly about together, With such a blessing and such a reminder that God’s willing to speak into our spaces of confusion and frustration if we wait on him.
0:15:46 – Speaker 1
But so many times we rely on our own strength or we rush instead of wait Because we just need a decision made and we don’t have time, and it’s the instant ground of the patient. It’s all those things all over again. I love this example, though. How many times do we just talk and talk and analyze and do the spreadsheets and do all the things, but we’re not praying about it or we’re not just giving God the space to speak into it?
0:16:12 – Speaker 2
Another great verse is Psalm 2714,. Wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord, and I gotta be honest, when I read that I thought he had to say it twice there.
0:16:25 – Speaker 1
Yes, wait on the Lord, because we are such a stubborn people, you know, it’s like a parent telling us exactly how we tell our kids to clean their room, like we say it twice, like God is, like you’re gonna have to wait on me.
0:16:40 – Speaker 2
Yes, wait, I know what I’m saying here, wait, but yeah, such a good scripture and reminder. Yes, wait on me.
0:16:48 – Speaker 1
I love how a simple conversation that started out with one of our counselors then spiraled into a teachable moment with your kids about a bouncy house, and then how we can relate that to even older issues like checking boxes for really big things. And God showed us and reminded us the importance of waiting. He took us back to his word, he showed us scripture to back it up, and I just love that we were able to share this on our show today. I think it’s a really good reminder for all of us. So, to wrap up one wait before you take a stance or make a decision. Two waiting helps you sort through emotions and see the truth. And three waiting allows time for the Holy Spirit to speak.
Transcribed by https://podium.page
