P.S. On January 25-26 we are hosting an online event called Ways to Win at Home. It’s a two-night online event to help you build a healthy, holy, & fun family! Register today (messengerinternational.org/win) and make 2022 the year you win at home!
welcome to the very first episode of
conversation
for 2022 i’m lisa and i’m joined by my
husband john and this is actually a
first yes this is a first i’m super
excited that 2022
is here we want this to be a year where
you equip to win at home yes i love that
we’re talking about home we’re talking
about family we’re talking about winning
at home with your family and
relationships in parenting we get lots
of questions about that and why we’re
kicking off on a podcast this year this
year we’re answering all the questions
john that we got
last year so
let me just let me lay a foundation for
this
what does god desire he desires a family
yeah right right from the beginning
before any of us were ever created god
said i want a family so what we’re
talking about over these next two
podcasts is so important to the heart of
god tons of family things okay so i want
to ask you guys if you haven’t already
subscribe rate this show this really
actually helps us get it out there when
you share it with other people it gives
us greater reach when you leave a review
that also really helps and sometimes if
you leave something we might even read
it on the show
this is from ari he says john and lisa i
cannot tell you how much this episode
has ministered to me i’m not sure which
one it was but it ministered to him not
only have i listened to every single
episode but i just went through your
marriage course
on messenger x app a lot of people may
not know this but we have a marriage
course on the messenger x app as well i
just got married this past summer and
learning from the two of you has been
one of the greatest blessings i will
continue to share these messages with my
friends and family love and blessings
all right
thank you so much thank you
yeah he’s an answer to our prayers it’s
very encouraging we love it when people
share it with their friends and family
so we are we already kind of teased this
that you are about to hear us talk about
questions and answers questions and
answers and about winning at home
winning at home john and i we we’ve
reviewed a bunch of questions and we’re
just going to say right now
there are some things we know there are
some things we don’t know
we just answered to our best of ability
on all of these questions and answers we
want you to do better than we’ve done it
so we’re going to open up we’re going to
be transparent we’re going to hope that
you find a seed of encouragement
laughter
wisdom
insight in our conversations around this
kind of thing so let’s just jump in take
it away
so lisa here’s a question our partners
asked all right how do you protect your
kids in this time without sheltering
them wow and i don’t know that
sheltering i think they’re trying to say
without being overprotected maybe yeah
you know you and i had a policy of
permissive
but but uh disciplined and and i you
know i’m trying to think was that a
right term because i know that we had
friend friends that were completely
super strong with their kids sheltered
them kept them from every single
challenge kept them from ever any
encountering anything that would
taint them or whatever and again it’s
not that we want to expose our kids to a
lot of
things that are going to defile them
wound them or anything like that but the
truth is it is good as a parent
to navigate i saw something today on
instagram i saw this mama bear and a
baby bear scaling this iceberg and i
watched as the mama bear like you know
it was hard but she got up and the baby
bear kept falling and the caption read
it would have been okay for the mama to
carry the baby bear on her back but then
the baby bear would never have learned
how through struggling how to be able to
ascend and so i think we we need to
watch that we don’t out of fear
hide our children over protect them but
we position them to process things with
us so i almost feel like it’s kind of
like a controlled exposure yeah and if
you think about it lisa we did shelter
them from things uh we wouldn’t let them
watch uh our movies we wouldn’t let them
watch x movies we if we did watch movies
yes we don’t let ourselves watch xbox i
know we don’t either so but if we did
watch a movie that had some
uh some things in it that were violent
or something like that we would always
talk it through with them because we’d
rather have them talk it through with us
yes than with their friends and um we we
were protective in the area of dating
and phones there were some things we did
that we felt like hey there’s a certain
age when somebody should get a phone
there’s a certain age when they should
date but i think the thing that we did
is that we kept conversation open we
always told our sons you can talk to us
about anything and we welcome that and
we also introduce topics rather than
having those topics introduced to them
yeah like we we said okay we want to
have the first impression around this
rather than our kids coming out they’re
finding out something and think what
else are my parents hiding from us so
that was kind of it so yeah well done
anything else you want to say about that
nope okay what is your best tip for
parenting strong-willed
children stay calm and stay firm and
don’t make threats that you’re not gonna
carry through on in other words if you
do that one more time i’m going to spank
you and they do it three more times and
you’ve done nothing just just yell at
them so when it comes to strong-willed
children you have to show them that you
can calmly be stronger than them and
then if you do say
i’m going to bring discipline in on this
you carry through with your word i think
almost kids will learn that their
parents don’t mean what they say when
parents give
vain warnings
another warnings they’re not planning on
carrying through
i’ve i’ve watched sometimes when are you
talking about me when i would yell at
the boys and say i’m going to spank all
of you when i hang up this phone and
then you’d be like are you really going
to do that and i’d be like no well i
remember that conversation but yeah i
mean i’ve i’ve looked at i’ve looked at
i’ve been in situations in other homes
where i’ve watched you know parents
almost like i want to get them quiet so
i’m going to make a threat on them so i
can keep working
and yet they don’t carry through with
the threat it just tells those kids
right there my parents don’t mean what
they say john are you a strong-willed
child were you a strong child yes i was
a strong wheelchair i was a
strong-willed child i i want to say
actually i really love strong-willed
children both of us do i don’t like
rebellious you know but strong will i
think there needs to be a way to
celebrate
the strength of their wills and to
reward their strengths and one of the
things i didn’t like as a strong-willed
child is i didn’t like my choices taken
away and i know that one of our sons one
was just super compliant if you said hey
this is what i want you to do he would
just do it and the other one if you said
hey this is what i want you to do he was
like now i feel compelled to do the
opposite of what you just told me and i
found that what worked with him
was to give him choices so you give him
two choices that are both wins
excuse me
and then they can choose and so they
kind of think they’re in control but
you’re actually the one in control
because you’re giving them two choices
that you would validate that’s excellent
so i know i know i had to do that with
austin yep so that would be it
here’s a question what is the one thing
you complained about or couldn’t wait to
be over in your early days of parenting
but now you wish you could go back to it
i i know that um it’s not so much a
complaint it’s a regret you know i was
um i think i i was more concerned about
trifolding their underwear
bleaching the grout with the toothbrush
and our tile uh cleaning up and i was
surviving my family rather than enjoying
them i wish i would have gotten down on
the floor and played with my boys more
and played with you more i still like
there’s this memory in my head
of me sitting on the floor folding
laundry and you coming out of our
bedroom and saying
hey do you want to go golfing and i
looked at you i said look at what i’ve
got i’ve got all this laundry to do you
are you kidding look at what i have to
do and you said oh yeah i see that and
then you left but what i really wanted
you to do is say oh my gosh i’ll get
down on that floor i’ll fold that with
you and then we’ll go but because i
regret that because i wish i would have
done that but so i do because it would
have taught my boys a great lesson i
wish i would have enjoyed my husband and
enjoyed my children more and not
stressed about the things they don’t
remember your kids don’t remember
whether your their underwear is
trifolded or not but they do remember
whether you were
stressed out or whether you were
available that’s really good okay who’s
i think it’s my term as a married adult
are you a married adult yeah how do you
maintain your ground when you disagree
with your
long time since i’ve been asked if i’m
adult sorry i checked out on that
question
how do i let me look at this how do you
gain ground when you how do you maintain
your ground when you disagree with your
own parents well lisa we had two totally
different situations uh you and i had uh
different parents my parents hardly ever
were involved in what we did they
said to me one day they said when you
got married we
we pulled away from giving you
instruction and orders and things to do
however we had a situation with your
mother where she felt like she should
still be involved in telling us how to
raise our family
i personally believe and i’ve i’ve taken
that stance um our married children i
don’t give un asked for advice i may
suddenly try to give it would you be
interested in hearing what i’d like to
say about this if they say no i stay out
of it
um i don’t want to interfere with the
way they’re raising their family it’s my
hope that you and i did a really good
job preparing them to be heads of their
home and that they’ll make wise
decisions with the way we we trained and
imparted to them up to their years but i
really feel like when god says a man
shall leave his father and mother
was he talking about because those guys
would build a house right next to their
parents um
back in the days the jewish days
i believe god is saying they leave their
parents authority so you still honor
your parents but you don’t obey your
parents so
i look at my parents they never really
got involved in our business they just
loved our kids they loved us they
supported us but they never told us how
to run our family and i really
appreciated that you know so i think i’d
speak to the person that maybe is having
a hard time knowing how to draw that
boundary
and i think that
you can do it respectfully where you can
say
you know i love that you want to be
involved in our family
here are some ways i’d really welcome
your involvement so that the parent
doesn’t feel like they have no value
because i’ll be honest with you i felt
like your parents
i would love to have seen him more
involved
so
i would love to see my mom less involved
and your parents were involved um this
is the way we’d love to for you to be
involved and invite us in to that
i know that even addison and julia have
said hey if our kids are at your house
and they act up we want you to
discipline them you know so they invited
us into disciplining their kids like
tell them how you want them to behave in
their house don’t don’t just tolerate
their presence and not train them so i
think it depends on the family so i
think having a conversation i was just
gonna say i’m having a
maybe over stepping in the bounds saying
i love your input in this area in this
area we’re just going to do something a
little different but how about a
preventative conversation i think as i’m
listening to both the challenges we went
through the thought just came to me well
if i was doing this again i’d sit down
and say
this is how much i would love for you to
be involved it was like addison and
julie asked us to be involved years
later and i think if they would have
asked it sooner it would have framed the
way we were handling things differently
if i would have said that to my parents
you know hey i’d like to talk to you i’d
like you to be a little more involved
and this is where i’d love for you to be
involved and they’d say well we really
don’t want to do that we’re not
comfortable with it yeah your parents
were like hey we checked out but maybe
preventative conversations would help
resentment not start building up because
one thing i’ve seen in ministering all
these years when it comes to families
what happens is people don’t address it
until the resentment builds up now we’ve
got a mountain going on in our heart and
our soul and we’re just like oh i’m so
frustrated with this instead of right
from the beginning saying okay how do we
want to handle this you know how how
involved you know maybe the kids sitting
down with the parents and say this is we
really want you to be involved in this
and this and this and and and what do
you feel and just having a real good
boundary conversation i think would be a
great idea awesome awesome
all right so
how did you talk to your kids lisa about
dating when they were teenagers well we
had we had some interesting
conversations one of the things that we
told our boys and again we’re not
against dating
um but we did tell the boys that if you
date somebody exclusively sometimes you
lose them as a friend
and we had to say to them are you
willing to like if you’re going out with
this girl
that means that you will go out with her
for a little while
and maybe three months later
she hates you and are you okay with that
because it seems like that a lot of
times that’s a cost and so we really try
to encourage them
to to date as
like friend in groups as friends like
hey hang out together as friends we were
not against dating um we
we also didn’t really feel like
dating should happen early on we we
tried to to delay it much later
and um we
we tried to foster that the kids could
bring girls to the house you know guys
to the house you know just all hang out
together and make it a really fun place
to be in a safe place to be
but
i think a lot of times there’s a whole
lot of pressure
on young kids to be emotionally involved
with
other young kids when they’re
emotionally immature and so i think it’s
you can put your kids in dangerous
situations you know i would have loved
to tell my boys you can’t date to your
22 that’s when you can get married but
that’s not that’s not feasible but you
know um one thing that you and i did
tell the boys that i think is very
helpful for parents
is that we said
if you and if you if you go on a date
with this girl and this is when they
were older of course because we did not
allow our kids to date until they were a
certain age we said i’m trying was it
like 15 no no it wasn’t it was it was
like 17.
i know arden dated before well
it was that that’s another that’s
another
that was something he kind of
did outside of our council and he still
talks about how much he regrets it so if
i if i look at what we did tell him is
we said look you got to realize this
young lady
if she doesn’t end up being your wife
you’re actually out right now with
somebody else’s wife in the future and
treat her the way you would want guys to
treat your future wife we would say that
to them and that really helped bring
them perspective and i think
scripturally that’s what paul says to
timothy who says treat younger women as
sisters so in other words she’s not your
wife yet and if she’s not going to be
your wife
which is there could be a very good
chance if it’s a dating situation she’s
going to be somebody else’s wife one day
right treat her the way you want
your future wife to be treated by the
guy she goes out with all right i love
that okay
when disciplining how do you facilitate
a change of heart in your kids and not
just a change in their behavior
that’s an interesting question because
sometimes sometimes a change in behavior
creates a change in heart and obviously
sometimes a change in heart
takes a while for a change in behavior
to work its way out so what would you
say i know that we always disciplined
our boys and talked about the why
well i mean i i’m gonna challenge that i
mean jesus said out of the heart comes
evil thoughts adultery murder i mean out
of the abundance of the heart that’s
that’s where our lifestyle comes from
and i i i but i would challenge you back
that if you have actions of love the
feelings follow so and absolutely hate
the feelings of hate follows so it’s
something it works both
start it yeah it start you can start
both ways yeah
but i think what we did is we appealed
to our sons on a heart level which is
wisdom level and we would always say
okay here’s the wisdom behind this
here’s here’s why you don’t want to do
this
and
i think when you continually rather than
just saying don’t do this if you show
the wisdom behind it because god even
gives us wisdom of why we don’t do
things right
i think it helps them with the heart
change
and
i think
the other thing that really helped is
hey guys
life is a long long life
i mean it’s a long time and you want to
do things now that you’re not going to
regret later so here’s what you want to
do now because if you do don’t do this
now you’re going to have regrets later
and you’re going to look back and say
why why did i do that right
and and i think we would constantly show
them the wisdom of why they didn’t want
to do what they were doing i’m thinking
as i’m holding a lollipop it made me
think about addison there was um there
was a season where addison had a
ridiculously long habit of lying where
he would just whenever he got in trouble
he would lie and he was a horrible liar
i mean he was obviously all over his
face fine
and i remember
we had kind of a rule that lying
received discipline yeah and i remember
i gave him a lollipop which i have a
lollipop so i don’t cough i gave him a
lollipop and he you know got it at the
bank he really wanted to hold it and i
said you can hold it but you can’t eat
it because we haven’t had lunch
and i’m driving in the car he’s in his
car seat and i hear the rapper and i’m
like addison
are you eating the lollipop he’s like no
no okay maybe he’s just kind of
making noise with it and i couldn’t
really see him and i get get him out the
car seat and
the lollipop it’s a stick it’s gone i
mean it’s completely gone i’m like did
you eat the lollipop which now obviously
i realized that that was a stupid
question i said just said you ate the
lollipop and he said no because he got
just getting so afraid of the cycle
of discipline and so i sat him on my lap
and i said all right
i’m going to give you mercy here because
you ate this lollipop and and you lied
about it
yes but you disobeyed and you lied but
but i could tell he was more afraid of
the discipline than he was learning of
the lesson and so i remember
when i gave him mercy in that moment
about the lollipop
he never lied again until much later
until he was a teen but yeah he stopped
the pattern of lying and so i think
sometimes when you when you want a heart
change you have to be spirit-led with
your kids with the discipline it can’t
just be rule-led because then it’s just
rule-led you’re going to only get change
of behavior but if it’s spirit-led you
can get change of freedom you know and i
want to encourage everyone on this
jacob jacob was a liar he was a deceiver
and until
he had an encounter with god at bethel
and that’s when he became israel the
prince of
god and you know prior to bethel it was
the god of abraham and isaac it was the
god of my father and grandfather
once he became my god
things changed and i remember that
happened with addison addison was at a
certain point at 16 years old he was in
a meeting i’ll never forget the meeting
it was actually like a four-hour meeting
yeah and it just so happened i i was
doing the meeting he’d been how many i
mean hundreds of services that i’d done
before but in this one particular
meeting presence of god fell and addison
was never ever the same again we never
had problems lying after that because
why he encountered god now i will say
you and i prayed passionately constantly
that all our kids would have an
encounter with god and when i look back
at all of them
i see encounters i remember arden’s
encounter specifically right now comes
to mind and when they had those
encounters we saw the change and i think
you can only do so much parenting but
then there has to be that supernatural
element of when
god and your child have an encounter
when that child no longer sees it as the
god of my parents
but now he is my lord jesus christ when
they wrestle with god and they get that
blessing
i love that
here’s a really good one
how did you create a fun environment and
maintain your authority as a parent well
i probably was i probably blurred those
lines a little bit where i was probably
more the fun environment and you were
more the authority environment if i
remember right
and it was kind of a dance so sometimes
i know that excuse me it would get
confusing to our boys because they’re
like hey we’re just all and then all of
a sudden i’d go into mom authority mode
and they’re like what just happened
so i i think
understanding that complication
and
maintaining your authority without ever
abusing it and understanding authority
is for provision protection and
direction
and you can do all of those while having
fun
i think that i think it was um
having conversations again i mean i i’m
thinking everything with our kids always
came back to a conversation so like well
how would you answer that awesome i had
very specific
conversations with each of the boys and
i and what i said to them is i said i
want to be your best friend
however i am first your parent i am
second your best friend so if we’re
playing if we’re having fun and i got
the friend cap on but all of a sudden i
see a need that you need to be
instructed you need to be corrected you
need to be disciplined i’m going to put
that dad cap on and you’re not dealing
with your friend you’re dealing with
that and i’m always going to be dad
first and foremost
i’m too rough with each other yeah it
comes out yep yep and they knew that and
they could see when that would change
with me because all of a sudden they
were like they’d stiffen up because they
know
uh there’s consequences if you don’t
listen to what i say
so
that’s that’s the way i did it because i
i think sometimes
parents are afraid to be to do fun
things and be friends with their
children
because they they risk losing that
ability to be a protective authority and
i think if you sit down you explain it
i have two caps
one cap is your friend i want to wear
that as much as possible but the other
cap is my god-given responsibility
and that is your protection and i’m
going that cap takes top priority over
the friend cap that’s good and so i
think if you do that i think you can
keep both environments all right let’s
go to the next one okay looking back
what’s one thing you wish you would have
known as a parent
i really wish now this is me i really
wish i would have relaxed a lot more i
was uptight with especially my older two
boys
um
and you know i was so concerned my kids
were going to end up
like other kids were going during the
day that i was seeing and i didn’t want
them to end up in
drugs and and you know getting a girl
pregnant and all of that and i wanted
them so much to be walking with god i
was a little too uptight at times and i
wish i would have relaxed a little more
and enjoyed the moments okay and i would
say to every young mother that i would
agree for different reasons but that you
can relax because your baby has no idea
you don’t know what you’re doing and so
i think that if you just kind of chill a
little bit because kids pick up your
cues and if you’re stressed they’re
stressed and so i think you kind of can
reflect that and then the other thing i
wish i would have known
is
that the mistakes you make
they’re not deal breakers like if you
you can mess up as a parent and
and your kids are gonna still be okay
because i think a lot of parents are
really hard on themselves and i think
one of the things they can do is have
that conversation like hey i just yelled
and i didn’t need to and i’m so sorry or
i just you know reacted in a way or i
snapped whatever it is you can you can
model humility for your kids and that
doesn’t diminish your authority it
actually helps establish it well i think
it’s one of the
i think it was one of the wisest things
we did without knowing it was wise
is
we apologize to our kids when we were
wrong
and i want everybody to listen to this
carefully there’s not one perfect parent
on the planet which means you’re going
to make mistakes as parents so if you
make a mistake own it
and repent before your kids
and our kids have said to us since it
made them feel safe here’s a question
lisa
how do you deal with the fear of
repeating the mistakes your own parents
made that’s a good question so
fear is a horrible counselor
it’s almost a guarantee that if you
listen to fear that you will repeat
those mistakes
i think the number one thing that stops
you from repeating the same mistakes is
forgiving your parents for their
mistakes i don’t think it’s enough to be
like hey i’m not going to ever do what
my parents did to me
that’s going to be a reactionary
response rather than a spirit led
rather than a wisdom response
i think you you just can forgive your
parents and say hey
they they did as good as they knew how
to do
and i know better so i’m going to do
better i’m not going to make excuses for
myself or blame them i’m just going to
i’m going to live in a different realm
and you and i sat down together and this
seems to be a conversation i remember
more than you and we talked through a
lot
of our decisions that we were how we’re
going to raise our kids
you brought things to your to the table
how your parents did things and what you
loved about it and what maybe you
you wish you’d seen more of or less of
i did the same with my parents we sat
down we strategized what are we going to
do how do we want to approach this and i
think having a plan is important ahead
of time instead of saying i don’t want
to do what my parents did we figure out
what we do want to do whenever you have
that kind of attitude i don’t want to do
what my parents did you swing the
pendulum almost every time which means
you go from one extreme behavior to the
other and neither are right it’s the
it’s the perfect balance you know being
in athletics all my life
there’s something that every athlete
knows
the very worst performance you’re ever
going to give is when you try not to do
something when fear is your your
governor like i i don’t want to be i
don’t want to be up because there’s two
outs out and there’s two guys on the
base and if i blow it well you are going
to blow it wow the the athlete that has
the right mental
outlook says i want to be the guy that’s
up when there’s two outs and there’s two
guys on play
because what that does that it’s amazing
that’s more of a faith whatever is not a
faith is sin that’s more of a faith
attitude right
a positive faith attitude
you will end up performing well because
something goes between your subconscious
and your whole muscle memory everything
as an athlete you perform well if you
say i can’t leave this putt short you’re
going to leave the putt short i mean
i’ve learned this so many times so when
it comes away so i can’t leave this putt
short and you’re going to leave it short
what would you say
i need to make sure i do oh i’m going to
run this putt right smack dab in the
middle of the hole okay so
it’s it’s the way you look at things and
if if and i look at this with the way
people parent
if you if you doing everything out of my
parents were horrible at this i’m not
going to do it you’re probably going to
swing the pendulum the proper way of
saying okay i’m not going to do it that
way what does the word of god say about
this area and operate out of that
so in other words i looked at things
that my parents did that were healthy
right according to the word and i said
okay leave it alone i’m gonna i’m gonna
i’m gonna mimic that
but now things that were not good i had
to look and say well what does the word
of god say about this instead of just
saying there’s no way i’m going to
behave like that you’ll go to the other
extreme
and i’ve seen it time and time again
with young parents they’re like doing
the exact opposite of their parents but
yet they’ve gone to the other extreme
i’m just gonna say this have grace for
your parents
because you’re gonna make mistakes with
your kids and you’re gonna want your
kids to have grace for you
thanks for joining in you just listened
to part one that was just part one we
got lots of those lots of questions a
lot of answers there was there was some
trepidation there on family and
parenting
i just really want to say thanks for
your questions you guys were so
transparent you you just really dug deep
on some of those things really good
questions lisa yeah and we want to we
want to kick off your year
to our best ability answering these
questions again i just want to say
please please please rate review
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why haven’t
why haven’t they already if you haven’t
already download the messenger x app
john there is a bazillion courses in a
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films there is audio books why wouldn’t
you just like there’s stuff for children
there’s probably you stuff
just go
to the app store and type in messenger x
do not do a space between the r and the
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already it’s not even a year old over 14
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that have downloaded it in 220 nations
of the world that’s mind-blowing in less
than a year yeah and we’re highlighting
when at home so there’s things like
healthy relationships moms of men so i
want to close out happy new years and
until next time this has been
conversations with lisa and john bouvier
thanks for listening to conversations
with john and lisa we want to let you
know about something really exciting
that’s coming up on january 25th and
26th john and lisa are hosting a
two-night online event called ways to
win at home two nights to build a
healthy holy and fun family these two
nights will help equip you in the areas
of family and parenting and begin 2022
by winning where it matters most at home
to register for the ways to win at home
event simply visit
messengerinternational.org
forward slash win that’s
messengerinternational.org
forward slash
w-i-n you can also find the link to
register in the show notes of this
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