FamilyLife Today®

Dave Wilson: A classic moment in parenting world for us was when our oldest son, CJ, was three years old. Was he three? Yeah, he was three. And I’m giving him a bath and he looks at me. And he’s a real analytical—you could tell it already. And today he’s an engineer in IT with Sharper Image.

But he’s three years old and he was always thinking and he’s just staring at my face. I'll never forget this, he goes, "Hey, Dad, how old were you when your head started sucking your hair back in?" I mean, that's how he—I could tell he's like analyzing, "What's happening to my dad's hair?"

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I’m Dave Wilson and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann Wilson: I asked all the boys one time as they got a little bit older, I said, "Tell me what you guys think about the most." And that son said, "Oh, easy. I’m constantly thinking about, 'How does that work? How does that work?'" And that was—that’s totally who he is and always has been.

Dave Wilson: It always has been. And you know, there's a part of being a parent where you can try and change that or you can celebrate that. And the reason we’re bringing that up is we have Bryan and Stephanie Carter back in the studio one more time, talking about their book *Made to Last*, which is *Eight Principles to Build Long-Lasting Relationships*.

And we've just had a blast with you guys last two days. I hope you've had fun.

Bryan Carter: Thank you for having us.

Stephanie Carter: It's been great.

Dave Wilson: And if we would all apply the principles that you talked about yesterday, we would have amazing marriages. So now we want to dive into a little bit of this parenting aspect. You guys have three kids. Pastor a church, you're on the FamilyLife board, so you make sure this ministry's going in the right direction.

Bryan Carter: I mean, after listening to you last two days, we are in good hands.

Dave Wilson: I thought that same thing, Dave. I really did. I thought, "Wow." You know, because I'm not in a lot of those board meetings—we've been in a few—but man, knowing that this is the kind of stuff you guys are talking about, thank you.

Stephanie Carter: It's an honor to serve. Thank you.

Ann Wilson: And you have a really cool marriage.

Stephanie Carter: Oh, thank you.

Dave Wilson: You do. Now we're going to talk about kids. I bet your kids are pretty great, too.

Stephanie Carter: So we have three kids. Each of them are completely different. I think about Kaitlyn and I remember just her being our oldest and then we kept feeling like, "This is so easy. This is all this parenting is? She just sits here, she reads her little book. She's just great."

Ann Wilson: And you probably thought, "We're the best parents ever."

Stephanie Carter: We were like, "This is all—what is this nightmare situation that is happening?" So then we had—we had Kennedy. And I would say she is our strong-willed blessing.

Dave Wilson: Yeah?

Stephanie Carter: Yeah. So between zero and seven, she brought it. It questioned yourself as a parent to the point where I'll never forget this—the little preschool that we had Kaitlyn in, the same teachers who had taught Kaitlyn had Kennedy and they were kind of like, "This is going to probably be her last year."

And the reason why we're letting you stay is because we just know y'all are great parents because of Kaitlyn.

Ann Wilson: Well, it's interesting, too, when you have a strong child. Our youngest was our strongest and I can remember we're driving in the car. He's five years old and I'm driving, we had dropped the kids off at school and he's coming home with me.

He goes, "Why are you going this way, Mom? It's way longer." And I'm listening to it like, "Oh, is it? Like, yeah, probably is. Maybe I should—" And I'm thinking, "How do you know how to get home? You know the other way's quicker?" He just had this natural leadership gift and he's just bossing me around all day.

Bryan Carter: Listen, we had to learn through having a strong-willed child not to break that spirit. Through prayer, through great mentors that kind of told us because we were calling anybody and everybody because we did not know what to do. And I think the best advice we got was not to break her spirit.

Dave Wilson: What's that look like? What do you mean?

Bryan Carter: Well, we had to learn to give her choices. So with the first one, you can say, "Do this." Yes, she’d do it. But this one, you had to say, "Well, either you can watch TV or you can do your homework."

It had to always be choices and let them feel empowered like it was their decision and their choice. If you focused them and made them, it was a battle of wills. And their will is pretty strong. And it's not worth that battle.

So you're constantly offering options and choices and trying to help them navigate. You're like, "Why am I negotiating with a three-year-old? What is this?"

Stephanie Carter: And they're good at it. She was so good. So I tell like young moms now, I'm like, "That little strong-willed blessing that you have—" and I got that term from Julie Richard who does this great ministry for moms called Fearless Mom—I would tell them, I'm like, "Just nurture that. Nurture that. They're going to be the strongest leader." And she is, like—

Dave Wilson: I was going to say, what's she like now?

Bryan Carter: Well, you know, we had to read, ask a lot of questions, we had to unpack the uniqueness that God had given her, right?

Ann Wilson: How’d you do that?

Bryan Carter: Reading, asking questions, we went to therapy, trying to figure out, "Okay, how do we raise our daughter? How do we raise our children well? How are they gifted? How are they wired?"

And so part of us discovering this strong-willed nature was figuring out how valuable that is, how the leadership gifts are there, how this would turn out later in life if we're able to cultivate that.

Our son, who was kind of—he's the baby. Very easy-going, very nonchalant. I mean, he's focused, he knows what he wants to do, but he's very easy-going. So we had to figure out, "How do we cultivate each of these personalities in such a way that they feel loved, they feel valued, we're not comparing them to their siblings?"

"Why don't you do it like this? I don't have any problems with them." So we had to put all that kind of language away and say, "Let's learn to value them, affirm them, celebrate them, coach them based on how God has uniquely wired our children."

And so that's something we had to wrestle with, but now we watch them and it's interesting to watch them as teenagers, young adults, that we've been able to try to coach them through some of those unique seasons. But early on, it was—

Stephanie Carter: We were like, "What is happening?" It was hard. It was really hard. And I think we had to learn just the different stages of parenting. I feel like in the beginning, it's kind of like a dictatorship. Like, "Okay, you do this, you go sit here. Okay, uh-huh."

And it eventually gradually comes into kind of like a coaching season and so on. I feel like with all of our kids, we had to learn to give them responsibilities and so on. As far as like, "Hey, you can sort clothes. This is a color game."

So at five, you can, "Okay, towels, whites, colors," just helping with the wash, but just giving them some type of responsibility and accountability. Our kids grew up with social media, like social media and phones and all that was introduced at a young age, even like working through that situation.

But just being really clear with them as far as, "These are the expectations in our house," and sticking with them, but then also not comparing your kid to somebody else's kid. With having one kid that would do whatever they were supposed to do and then having the other kid who'd be like, "Yeah, no, I'm not doing that."

Like, I remember when I was pregnant with Carson—just a transparent moment—when I found out I was pregnant with him, I was like, "Oh, I don't know what I'm going to do. The other two, I don't even know what I'm doing with those two. How am I going to have another one?"

Bryan Carter: Our last child was a complete surprise. So the first two—we're school teachers, right? And so our first child is born in June, June the 4th. School teachers, we get out in May, June, birth, so we had a summer.

Our second child is born June 16th. Right June, right when we get out of school, know they have the summer together. We had two girls, we wanted to try again, but weren't quite sure. And then this third one comes and it's a total surprise that she's pregnant.

Like, we don't even know. This is just—and so she's kind of wrestling with the depression like, "What?" And then our child—it's the terrible two thing happening at the same time. She was bringing it.

She had separation anxiety, so when we would drop her off at school or just at like preschool, she would just completely scream, completely fall out. Even if my mom was watching her—we're blessed that my mom lives like 10 minutes away from us—so even if my mom was watching her, she'd be like, "What is with this crying?"

And I was like, "This is what she does." And then you feel like people are judging you, especially—

Stephanie Carter: That's a church baby.

Dave Wilson: That's what I was going to say, at church.

Ann Wilson: And then you're the pastor.

Bryan Carter: Yes. There’s that pressure.

Stephanie Carter: So it was that pressure of—oh y'all, I can think of all these memories coming up. Okay, I'll tell this one story real quick. Okay, so Bryan is preaching at a church in Los Angeles.

We go, I'm pregnant with Carson, Kennedy has to be like two or three and she's in rare form. Oh, she's in rare form. Kaitlyn's just sitting there, obedient, whatever. So in this particular church, you had to do the offering, you had to get up and you had to walk around.

So I'm thinking to myself, "This is not going to go well," but then I'm just going to talk and kind of reason with this child and be like, "All right, now here's your little money that you're going to put in." And Kennedy was having no part of it. She literally, as we get to the altar, she throws herself down.

Dave Wilson: No!

Stephanie Carter: She throws herself down. I'm like, "Okay, put it in there." She's like, "No! No!" And I was like, "Not now. Don't throw this tantrum now. Please, Jesus."

And the older saints are looking at me like, "I mean, you better spank her. I mean, get her up, spank her." And I'm like, "Spanking her is just going to really energize her even more into the Incredible Hulk." So no.

I was like—and Kaitlyn's just looking like—and then Bryan is sitting there and he's just looking at me like, "I'm so sorry."

Dave Wilson: And you got to get up and preach?

Bryan Carter: I have to. I have to. His daughter right there. Oh, man. And we're having another one. Oh my goodness. Nothing like parenting to keep you humble.

I just think the Lord gives you kids to keep you humble because you just never know what you get. But I mean, we've been blessed. Our kids—man. So we've got three, they've got total different interests.

Our oldest is a dancer. She did dance, ballet, modern, much of her life. Our middle one did gymnastics then she did cheer. Cheer is kind of her thing, right? She loves to be a cheerleader, competitive cheer.

Our son, he does basketball. So he loves basketball. You're tired, right? You're tired all the time. I think at one point we had three kids, three different schools. We had extracurricular stuff going on. It's crazy. It's just it's so demanding.

Stephanie Carter: In that season between the time of their infants to the toddler stage, no matter what it's hard. That potty training, it's hard. I just want you to stay encouraged because it goes so fast.

Ann Wilson: I just talked to one of our daughters-in-law. She sent some pictures of their four-year-old talking very close to his two-year-old sister. My daughter-in-law says Bryce, our son, is telling his sister that today's the day she needs to be potty trained.

She can hear him saying, "Now today's the day, Autumn, you're going to go potty and whenever I go, you can go." And she's listening to him like, "Okay." She never had an accident the whole day. This little boy has a teaching gift.

Dave Wilson: He's a teacher!

Ann Wilson: He is. He's a trainer. So we asked him late last night, I'm like, "So how did it go?" They said, "Well, our four-year-old just potty trained the two-year-old. He's a magnificent teacher."

Dave Wilson: Yes! He is gifted.

Ann Wilson: He is. He's a trainer. But you guys talked yesterday about how you sit down as a family and make goals. Is that once a year that you sit down? So you must have done that with your kids. Like parenting goals for your kids, did you do that for each child? Do you had goals for the year?

Stephanie Carter: We do. We kind of sit down like right before school starts and we just talk about goals that you might have. It's helpful for them to set their own goals, but realistic goals. Not my goals.

Like I had one friend, she was like, "I set my goals for them." I'm like, "No, no, that's not you." But you do when they're little. You do when they're little, but middle school and high school, no.

My goal as a parent, my parent goal could be, "Yes, they're going to be a 4.0 student. They're going to be this, they're going to do that," but realistically, let your kid set their goal.

Dave Wilson: What's that look like? You're all sitting around the table. They're in middle school, high school.

Stephanie Carter: Before we have the meeting, we say, "Hey, you know, we're coming together to make goals. So what are going to be your goals? What could be your friendship goals? What could be your academic goals?

What could be some like your social goals?" Because sometimes you might have a kid like one time our son, he's kind of shy. And so our girls are leaders. So they were like student council, they're this and they're like, "Listen, Carson, this is what we do.

We lead. So we're the Carters. You need to—you need to run for something. And so then when you're a senior, you can be the president because that's what we do."

Bryan Carter: This is last year. This is six months ago, this conversation of his oldest sisters with him. And I was like, "Hey, no pressure."

Ann Wilson: Was he looking at you, Bryan, like, "Help me, Dad"?

Bryan Carter: He's like, "Okay." He's like, "Okay, I got it. I got it." I think the goal is designed for the kid. Sometimes we do them one-on-one, right? We may go to Panera or restaurant, sit down one-on-one and let that child just kind of talk about, "Kind of what are you thinking?

What do you want to do? What do you kind of see happening? Do you want to play sports? Do you want to do this club?" like what do you kind of see and just trying to help them set those goals, coach them along.

Because sometimes they're going to need help to get the goals accomplished, right? Whether it's academically they may need some additional help, athletically or even spiritually. "How do we help you? You're going to have to get involved this year.

So what are you going to do at church?" I mean, that's one of the questions we try. You can pick whatever you want, but we need you to do something at church, right? Either this or that group or youth group.

But it gives them the space for them to be able to talk about how they see their lives being, how they see God working, those kind of thing. And so that's kind of what that looks like. And so when they get to college, they do the same thing.

"This is what I'm thinking about. I want to get in this. I want to do this. Next summer I want to do this." So we're trying to help them to think, be forward thinkers.

Dave Wilson: And they didn't roll their eyes or like, "These dumb goals"?

Stephanie Carter: No, I think our son initially was kind of like, "Oh, what's this about?" But seeing his older sisters do it—and I think the example is you have to model. So as parents, we have to model.

We have to model prayer. They have to see us praying. And so sometimes we can be doing so many other things that they see us doing, but if we don't model how to pray, if we don't model how to forgive, if we don't model these things for our kids, if we don't model how to communicate and talk to people when we have a conflict—they're going to have problems.

They're not going to know how to do these things. If we're not showing them, who else is going to show them? Just giving them those realistic expectations and that's the key: realistic expectations.

Dave Wilson: I like how you said like, "Hey, what are you thinking?" It's not like, "Hey, what are your goals? Let's—" It's more of a conversation.

Stephanie Carter: It's a conversation. Like, "What were your wins last year?" or "What were your wins this past nine weeks? What would you like to see moving forward?" and so on. So for each kid, it is different.

With my son, his sisters are about to be in college and so on. Well, I said, "Okay, Carson," so he's a sophomore. "So what are your—what are the schools that you're thinking about?" So now his dad is like, "Oh, I want him to do this.

I want him to do this type of major."

Bryan Carter: They don't get paid very well.

Stephanie Carter: And so I had to tell him, I said, "Bryan, you have to let him—"

Bryan Carter: I'm going to let him, but I'm also going to expose him to math and engineering experiences because sometimes if we don't know it exists, right, then we don't know to even choose it.

Dave Wilson: See what else might peak his interest.

Bryan Carter: Right, might peak his interest. So I'm going to send him to a marine biology camp, but then next summer I'm going to send him to a couple engineering camps so he can at least learn there's a world out there because he's gifted in math and science.

Dave Wilson: How about the spiritual area? You know, how do you guys as parents develop—I mean, every parent probably listening is like, "Man, one of my top goals is that they're walking with God when they're men and women."

And you know, we've just done several programs recently with the epidemic of our kids walking away. It's an epidemic. It's never been seen at these numbers in history. So parents are afraid and they're like, "What's our role to help see that happen?" What do you guys do?

Bryan Carter: I think spiritually, we try to get them cultivated in church. We try to get them connected church. We pray with them at home. We pray before we leave for the day when we drop them off.

One of the things I miss when they start driving is we miss those times in the car where you could talk about your faith, talk about those things. So I miss that. One of the things we often do, we try to put them in spaces.

So we often send them to Christian camp each summer, which really gives them a good foundation. And then we also try to figure out, "What are your gifts and how can you use those gifts in the life of the church?"

Our girls, they both been on leadership councils. That's allowed them to use their leadership gifts in the context of the local church so they can see that connection. If it's mission trips that happen, we try to get them connected there.

And then also at the home. Our talk time is also kind of our family devotional time. So that Sunday night is also the time we may talk about prayer. We may ask them to pray. We may ask them their prayer needs so that they get a connection there.

The other thing I've longed to do but I haven't done is I've loved to do a personal Bible study with my kids. It's something I wanted to do over time. I haven't been been able to do it like I would have liked to have.

I've got a sabbatical break, so I've got margin to do it to do a Bible study with them. And I'm super excited. Matter of fact, one of our kids—she decided to be a counselor at a Christian camp that she had gone to for a number of years.

Which was shocking to us that she would want to be this counselor for six weeks here. So she left college to do that last summer. And I told her, I said, "Man, we're so proud of you, man. I mean, there's a lot of places you could have spent the summer, but you went there and you invested in those young girls as hard as it was, as challenging as it was."

So then when she got back to campus, she says her friends asked—said they wanted to start a Bible study. And she said, "They've asked me to start the Bible study." I said, "I'm so proud of you!" She said, "Dad, this is not what I do.

I don't know how to do this." Then it clicked for her. I said, "I'll give you all the stuff if you need help. I'll give you a Bible study." She says, then it clicked for her. She said, "You know what I can teach them?

The same material I taught last summer for six weeks." I said, "That's a great idea! You already have the workbook." She pulled her workbook out and so she was able to be able to lead that Bible study for the first time.

So I think part of what we've learned is, as she mentioned, modeling it, helping expose it to them, teach it to them, encouraging them as they have wins in their spiritual life. In a church space, PKs, preacher’s kids, they sometimes have to deal with so much.

And so being a listening ear to them, but still encouraging them to be in there and learn and grow but not feel that pressure. Praying for God to send spiritual mentors in her life, because sometimes our voices are not heard, but if there's somebody that loves the Lord and loves them—we've had coaches at school step in and be those voices.

So I think spiritually, it's a whole experience, right? That you're trying to use everything that you can to try—and the other voice that's been helpful is their grandmother. Their grandmother, her mom, who lives 10 minutes from us, picks them up, drops them—just is an extra set of hands.

But she would always say to our kids, "Have you prayed about it?" When we as mom and dad would forget to, you know, sometimes, she would be that voice, just like she said to you over the years, Stephanie.

Stephanie Carter: She did. She's been a voice in their lives spiritually, texting them prayers and texting them verses.

Bryan Carter: Other thing we did was try to make our house that house, right? So for sleepovers, for birthday parties, end of the year parties, spiritually, right, where they just can see us and know us.

The last thing we do spiritually, I started a father-son camp about four to five years ago.

Dave Wilson: At your church?

Bryan Carter: Really amongst some friends, amongst some friends in our church. So it started because my son has about four young men that were all born around the same time. So they were all turning 13 and we were all getting ready for the talk, right?

This may have been—they had been 12 at the time. So I called the guys up. I said, "Listen, why don't we do it together? Let's do the talk together." They said, "You know what? Let's do it together!"

So we got our sons together, we spent the weekend together and we did the talk together. It started as we were talking about purity then and it's just every year we have these conversations, we go fishing, we hang out, play games.

It is the best. I'll never forget sitting there and like they were asking all these at 10, 11 when they first started, they're asking questions that—I don't know, you know what I mean? "Why does this happen? What is this?"

But it was the best. But again, other fathers, other men available speaking into each other's lives. So I just say it's a whole community. Just throw in all you can.

Dave Wilson: You know what'd be really cool? If you're doing that in 10 years with the same guys. They're married men now, they still would want it.

Bryan Carter: Wouldn't that be cool?

Ron Deal: Hey friends, Ron Deal here, Director of FamilyLife Blended®. Did you know *Blended and Blessed®*, the only worldwide livestream designed for couples in blended families, is free this year?

Saturday, April 18th, we're going to be live in Oklahoma City. If you show up there, we're going to charge you for lunch, but other than that, it is free. Free to livestream. Churches can bring a group of couples together and enjoy the day absolutely free.

Gayla Grace is going to be with us, David and Christie Blackburn, Cheryl Shumake's going to be with us, Kathy Lipp and Brian Goins, our MC. It's going to be a wonderful day. I hope you can join us.

Learn more and get the link in the show notes at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann Wilson: One of our sons became friends with a group—they were in a small group from our church and a guy that was in his 20s started leading their group. And now these guys are 37 to 40 and they still meet.

Bryan Carter: Really?

Ann Wilson: They don't live around each other, but they meet for vacations once a year together with their leader, who's a lawyer, but they're still friends. They still stay in touch with one another. It's pretty sweet.

Dave Wilson: You guys, this has been so rich.

Ann Wilson: Yeah, that is rich.

Dave Wilson: Bryan, I'm just sitting there thinking I got stuck on the part when your daughter came home and she's saying, "They asked me to lead this Bible study," and your enthusiasm, like when you said, "Yes! You should!"

I thought if I had a father that was just cheering me on and a mother who was saying, "You can do this," like that's—our kids are needing that. They don't need our critique at that age, they don't need us to tell them what they're doing wrong.

They already feel the pressure of the culture, of the world. But for us as parents to pray for them, to cheer for them, to ask them, "Hey, what are you thinking right now? What are your goals?" Go for it. You guys are impressive.

Bryan Carter: Oh, bless you. Thank you.

Stephanie Carter: Wish you would have raised me!

Bryan Carter: Oh my goodness. Thank you guys for having us. Great to spend some time with you guys. Love what—the work you guys are doing. Incredible job.

Dave Wilson: Thank you. That was a great day with Bryan and Stephanie. That was our third day in a row and man, good stuff. Their book is called *Made to Last: Eight Principles to Build Long-Lasting Relationships*. Doesn't everybody want long-lasting relationships?

Ann Wilson: Yes, we all want long-lasting relationships.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. So go get it now at FamilyLifeToday.com. Just click on the link in the show notes. And thanks for being with us on FamilyLife Today.

Announcer: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry, celebrating 50 years of God's faithfulness as marriages grow stronger and families flourish in Him.