Practice Makes Parent

Danny Huerta: Well, hey, we’re grateful you’re here. Welcome to Practice Makes Parent, where we understand it’s not about perfection but about transformation. I’m Dr. Danny Huerta.

Rebecca St. James: And I’m Rebecca St. James. So many parents are going to be able to relate to today’s conversation, and I have a feeling that we’re really going to change some lives today with this discussion. So, stay tuned because we are going to be giving some pointers on how to deal with frustration, losing your temper, and downright anger issues when it comes to raising kids. This is a very important conversation, right, Danny?

Danny Huerta: It is. In fact, one in three people have a close friend or family member with an anger problem. Anger is more contagious in families than positive emotions; that’s what research is showing.

This is big, and many parents are searching on this topic. In fact, some have said, "Why do I lose my temper so fast?" That’s what they’ve typed in. Another frequent one is, "Can I repair damage from yelling?" or "How do I stop yelling at my kids?"

Yelling truly is something a lot of parents struggle with. We’re going to talk about healthy communication in the home. We’re going to explore what anger reveals about what’s going on in our hearts and our stress levels. We’re going to give you some practical ways and practical examples to respond differently to begin to inspire change in your home.

Rebecca St. James: We’re also going to answer a listener’s question about what to do when children are disrespectful, but they’re not your children. Is it appropriate? Is it okay for an outsider to scold someone else’s child? We’ll give you some insight on that as well and ask our guest to weigh in too.

Danny Huerta: We’re glad that you’re listening, and we hope that you’re sharing Practice Makes Parent with your friends, your family, and people you know. Our guest today is Janelle Brittenstein. She’s an author, a speaker, a wife, and a mom of four kids. She’s a homeschooling mom, and she’s here to give us some insight on anger and to tell us her story on how she has worked through it. Her book is called *How to Stop Yelling up the Stairs: Keeping Your Cool While Raising Your Kids*. Janelle, welcome to Practice Makes Parent.

Janelle Brittenstein: Thanks, Danny and Rebecca. It’s so fun to be here.

Danny Huerta: We’re excited to talk about this topic. At one point, you had a moment of realization that anger was something that you were struggling with, and then you ended up writing this book. Tell us about that journey.

Janelle Brittenstein: I wish it was only one point. It’s so funny; I have this moment, especially when I’m speaking on this topic, that the moms seem to lean in with this look on their faces like, "You too?" I call it the Fight Club because I feel like we all, unfortunately, as far as my experience has gone, experience a level of anger when becoming a parent that you just never even knew was in you.

For me, I think parenting really highlighted that. But even before that, I remember maybe six months into my husband’s and my marriage, I could not believe the level of anger that I felt toward him. The funny thing is, I literally said this—I’m so embarrassed about this now—but I told him, "You know, I’ve never had a problem like this with anybody else before, so I think the problem is you." He owned that. I’m sure he just owned that that was totally his fault.

I remember my son melting down before nap time because that’s what a lot of kids before nap time do. It was these beautiful days; we were living in Little Rock, and the windows were open in spring. I would go around shutting the windows because I was "disciplining" him, but I was really just yelling back. In the name of discipline, I thought I was being a good parent. But what I was actually creating was no understanding between the two of us.

Was conflict actually leading to us loving each other better? No, we were both in fight, flight, or freeze is what I know now. I know now that my desire to protect the reputation of our Christian family had my priorities totally screwed up. I was loving my appearance more than I was loving my child.

Eventually, one day, I remember he drew this picture. I was so thankful for those days where I finally could understand what his drawings were about so I’m not like, "Oh, tell me about that," because you really can’t see it. We were flying kites, and I could tell which one was me because my hair is just super curly, and it looked like mattress springs exploded on this egg-shaped head. But the eyebrows were downturned.

He goes, "I made you look mad on accident, but you’re really happy in this picture." I was like, "Wow. Am I mad a lot?" He goes, "Yeah, you’re mad a lot, but you’re not mad in this picture." I started realizing that I really did have an anger problem, which is weird because I’m a really nice parent. I could have given you a whole card deck of ways that I was a really good parent, but it was ruling my home.

Psychologists will accurately tell you your home is going to be ruled by either truth or trauma from your healing or from your sin. It felt important for me to look this in the eye. Proverbs says that a wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, she can tear it down. I realized that that was the choice before me at that time: to identify the problem and start to let God transform that. I read an article around that time that just said a parent’s anger can incinerate the emotions of their kids.

You guys have had little kids, and you know how tender they are. I had one of my kids who watched *The Magic School Bus*, and I couldn't give him the chore of emptying the trash cans anymore because that episode had been on recycling and he was crying over everything that was going into the landfill. I just realized, "Yeah, do I really want my kids to have to protect a part of themselves from me?"

Rebecca St. James: Janelle, I think every parent relates to some degree, and probably to big degrees, to what you’re sharing. I think it’s very relevant to every parent that sometimes it’s just so hard to control our emotion when we’re relating to our kids and they’re not handling the situation well and we’re not handling the situation well. For those of us that recognize ourselves in this anger department, what do you feel like is the first step or the first few steps even in conquering our issues with anger? What was it for you?

Janelle Brittenstein: That’s a great question, Rebecca. I actually let slip a little bit of that in what I had just said about just first identifying the problem. I’m going to use an example that I think we can all also probably relate to as parents. It’s actually from potty training, which you will never, ever have me writing about because I was a terrible potty trainer. It felt like I was running a preschool, and I was just trying to keep two kids in diapers and not three, so I was trying to do it too early.

One of the things that I did learn from the potty training fiasco that was my life was somebody just told me that first kids have to learn, "Okay, I just went." And then they learn, "I’m going." And then they learn, "Oh, I’m about to go; I’d better get to the bathroom." I like to think of the analogy of potty training your anger.

Rebecca St. James: I love that. It’s very descriptive.

Janelle Brittenstein: "I just lost control and made a mess. Something stinks." I had a friend of mine that even just wrote on her calendar each day that she had an angry outburst; she wrote "AO" on her calendar. Honestly, for women, I’ll just say for me, one week a month I was more prone to being more angry. My mom was the one who actually told me, "You know what? What if you did less that week? What if you allowed more margin to just go with what your body’s doing?"

You’ve got identifying that first of all: "I just lost my temper." But then you start realizing in the middle of it, "Wow, this is really—I’m not showing Jesus to my kids. I think I’m Jesus turning over tables in the temple, and that’s actually not true. I’m actually just putting God’s label on anger that’s after my kingdom, not His."

Then hopefully, you can start working back to, "I’m about to lose it. I need to take that fight, flight, freeze time." Danny, I’d be interested to have you weigh in on this, but studies I’ve seen show it takes 20 to 60 minutes to get out of fight, flight, freeze. How much time do we need to take away in order to have a more holy response to our kids? But what do you think about that? I’m putting you on the spot.

Danny Huerta: It just really depends on the scenario. What I’ve seen is that if a person learns to stop and understand, "What is this emotion, and how does it come up for me?" parents find different ways to manage that anger.

I remember multiple times that parents—dads and moms—have come after sessions I’ve given on parenting, and they’ve said this one thing: "I have the best intention at the beginning of the day, and then I end up messing up. I end up angry, yelling, and it repeats itself. How do I get out of this cycle?" You’re right; it’s recognizing, "I am in a cycle, and something is triggering that anger."

Let’s talk about healthy anger versus unhealthy anger because there can be a healthy side to it, a healthy correction that has a firmness, and then there’s an unhealthy side to that. Let’s speak to that. You talk about that in the book.

Janelle Brittenstein: Part of how I started to eventually have victory over this was to think about, first of all, why does God get angry, and why did God create us to get angry? Is this something godly women get angry about? Because I think I had had some poor theology that was actually fueling my anger. I was thinking that godly women didn’t get angry, and so therefore, I was actually just not looking my anger in the eye. I was willing to suppress it and act like I wasn’t angry and not deal with it or the issues beneath my anger. That actually just ended up in me shotgunning that toward my kids when I could stuff no longer.

When I look at God getting angry in the Bible, He’s protecting something precious. There are some emotions that we have that actually put us into slow-mo. Sadness, I find, is exhausting. When I’m grieving, it’s exhausting. Depression. There are so many that can actually just put the brakes on our bodies, but anger is this jet-pack emotion. What does it do? It tells us to step up for something that we love and something that we care about.

One of the questions I’ve learned to ask in my anger is, "What am I protecting that’s precious? And then is that actually about God’s kingdom or is it about my kingdom?" They really do get pretty conflated. Wanting my kids to obey is a really decent thing to protect, but when I do it with shock-and-awe parenting, I’m not doing it in a way that shows kids how God deals with anger.

I would say that there’s actually a caution I would have for families who say, "We never fight." I think that can actually be a really destructive place to be. In my experience and from what I’ve seen in scientific studies, those can be a little bit more high-subtext homes. The conflicts are not spoken; they’re quiet and they may even be going underground. When we have the conflict and we don’t deal with it, they don’t always just dissolve; sometimes they go underground. We get these kids who are hyper-attuned to reading the room, who get the idea that actually if they show anger or if they allow anger, they are actually being ungodly. But they haven’t actually understood what God’s anger is about.

Rebecca St. James: I’m definitely relating because I think pretty early in parenting, Gemma, our oldest, was two. I was reading a book, and it was all about the super-calm parent. You just don’t get ruffled. If they’re disrespectful, you just kind of keep—even if underneath you’re boiling mad, you just kind of keep calm and you’re setting the tone for the room. I was just like, "I have a two-year-old, and she’s strong-willed. What do I do with that? Because I am really feeling disrespected in these certain situations."

Danny, with your doctorate, you are a specialist in all of this stuff too. I’d love you to weigh in on it as well. Just a picture of healthy anger where there’s almost like a dignity or a respect that comes through—almost that kind of reigned-in passion. Can you just define what the healthy anger looks like?

Danny Huerta: It can be tricky because we don’t always know how we look or are interpreted just as far as the tone and the body language that we might show. One child may say, "Oh man, that was very firm," and they respond to it. Another one may go, "Man, why are you so mean?" There are different interpretations, so you can’t control that.

What you need to figure out is, "Have I listened?" because that’s what James talks about: be quick to listen, to hear. If I’ve done that, now I can come with wisdom into the mix and come with firmness. You can be firm without showing anger. Those are two different things.

Anger tends to be one that’s overpowering. Firmness tends to be secure and confident about something. You’re showing a seriousness with your tone but not one that is demeaning or scary. There’s a tone that says, "Hey, I mean something here," and it can be a justice thing that you’re coming in with, or you can say, "This is a value in our home, and I need you to hear. I’ve heard these things from you, and I’m concerned about you or I’m concerned about what’s going on."

What you’re showing is a firmness and assurance of where you’re taking the situation. It’s not a desperation. It’s not based out of fear, stress, or needing to gain power. It’s an assertion of authority but with warmth and gentleness.

That is so hard to do. All of us can probably give stories of moments where we’ve done it imperfectly. I still remember a moment where I came through the door. I’ve shared this one frequently because it stands out in my mind. It’s a day where I had a lot of stress that built up as a counselor on the line, and I just felt tired coming into the house.

My daughter came to me, just excited but also starting to complain about her brother. She was going, "Oh Dad, Alex did this and that," so she’s blitzing me with that. Then Heather was asking for something. It was just too much. I said, "STOP!" and I just yelled it really loud. I could see my daughter just looking—Lexie’s looking at me like, "Whoa." I felt it. That was anger; it wasn’t a boundary I put. It was all built up into that moment.

To see her reaction was so helpful for me to see that and to recognize, "Okay, I brought all this stress and just poured it into the home." That was an unhealthy moment. The healthy piece to that was soon after that, after I collected my brain that had been running around the house and everywhere else, I grabbed it and I came to her and I said, "Hey, honey, sorry. I unloaded all the stress on you, and that was unfair. I was frustrated, and that’s okay, but the way I handled it was not good. Do you forgive me for that?"

When we go into the unhealthy place, we can still go to the healthy place. There’s a crossover there where we show a repair, and many times anger requires that repair. When we do it well, it does model managing our emotions well.

I would just say one other thing to this: our anger reveals other emotions. Anger is simply a secondary expression of a deeper emotion. So it’s important for us to figure out what is that deeper emotion. Just go one or two layers deeper on what is the emotion driving this type of response to the situation in front of me. Many times, it’s shame, fear, and stress that are right behind all that. Or sadness. I feel like we might be sad about the situation, deeply sad or grieved or fearful. But I think all those bring anger to the surface.

Rebecca St. James: Danny, I feel like what I hear you saying too is there’s almost like a groundedness to when that kind of anger rises up and we’re handling it well. It’s not out of control, right? Our kids can sense that groundedness—that we’re not losing it, that they’re not going to be scared of the weightiness of that situation in our response because it’s grounded.

Janelle Brittenstein: I think that’s a great point, Rebecca. One of the things that’s very interesting about Jesus turning over those tables in the temple—counselor Brad Hambrick points out that in one of the accounts of that, immediately after, it says that the blind and the lame flocked to Jesus. It’s interesting to me that the most powerless in that situation did not feel vulnerable or scared; they felt like they could come to Jesus.

When I look at scripture, in Galatians 5, it contrasts the work of the flesh, and then we have the fruits of the spirit, which still apply in anger. It’s where it says "fits of rage" are part of those works of the flesh. But is our anger self-controlled? Is it gentle? Is it peaceful? Do those define my anger, keeping in step with the spirit?

The verse that you were quoting a little bit earlier, Danny, from James, where it says "slow to speak" and "slow to become angry"—that’s the thing that we notice about God’s anger, that it’s not, in the words of Tim Keller, "no anger" or "blow anger" like blowing up; it’s slow anger. I think that’s a big differentiator of the anger of God. That’s not because He’s stuffed it; that’s because He’s had self-control.

Rebecca St. James: We really are wanting to help our listeners go, "Okay, how can I in these situations when I relate to these moments practically live this out?" When a parent feels triggered, what do we have to understand to really regulate ourselves well?

Janelle Brittenstein: Great question. There are a lot of ideas that are colliding in my head right now, but one of the things I’ve touched on here is the fight, flight, freeze part of our brains. I think that in some of the works of secular psychologist Dr. Dan Siegel and different things like that, we understand that the prefrontal cortex almost just disengages. The prefrontal cortex, which really—and you can feel free to correct me on this, Danny—but I consider this almost the image of God part of our brains because I see the prefrontal cortex, according to God’s design, helps us with things like impulse control, decision-making, planning, emotional regulation.

Danny Huerta: It’s just making sense of emotions, really being able to make sense of them.

Janelle Brittenstein: Very much. So I think sometimes we can tell when we just feel out of control; we feel like we’re flipping our lid. So first of all, just being aware that there’s some brain science that’s going on in there that often we do need to step away.

Now, to be clear, sometimes you’ve got little kids; they’re about to run after a ball in the street, or they need immediate discipline because their brains are still—their prefrontal cortex isn’t developed, and you need immediate calm discipline for them. But sometimes I tell my kids, "I actually need to step away from you because I am angry and I am about to sin against you." Mommy timeout; that’s exactly it. I think there’s self-control in that, and then obviously closing that loop and coming back and talking to our kids about it. We don’t just avoid; we do actually come back and we calmly explain what’s going on.

Danny Huerta: So what do you think about making a list of those triggers? What are your thoughts about that? Have you ever done that with moms?

Janelle Brittenstein: I’m trying to think if I’ve actually written it out, but I do think it’s helpful for me to know. One of the things when we talked about potty training your anger and identifying—part of that phase is also to realize, "Wow, for me, strangely enough, leaving for Bible study was a trigger for me." The reason why was because I was terrible at making margin.

I’m the kind of person who was like, "Oh, if I can unload the dishwasher while my kids are eating lunch when we get home, then we’ll be able to go down for naps and I won’t have to do that." I was thinking ahead, and then I thought, "Oh, but I should go run and collect all the dishes around the house," and it balloons to this idea that as soon as you’re ready to go out the door, of course, you can’t find the three-inch shoe that one of your kids has lost. Somebody has pooped in the pull-up you just put on to go to Bible study, and somebody else has decided they want to sit on the stairs and not go to Bible study.

I don’t have time, and therefore, I have set myself up for failure. In that simple act of not being aware of my trigger—kind of like making sure you don’t take your kids to Target during nap time—in that simple awareness of triggers, it really does help me to be the more holy version of myself and for my kids to actually see Jesus when I go to Bible study. Imagine that.

Danny Huerta: That’s good. I think this is important that we cover on the show, Janelle, and that is anger can show up different ways. It doesn't always show up as yelling. Passive-aggressiveness, other ways that come into play as parents—speak to those. What are some other ways that anger shows up that may not be as obvious?

Janelle Brittenstein: I really appreciate you asking that because I think that with different parents, each one of us has our own anger DNA—not only the things that cause our unique anger and the things that trigger us, whether from trauma in our past, big T or little T, or patterns of how we’ve learned, and our biological makeup. There are a lot of different things that go into that.

But I think if you’re having a hard time understanding how your anger manifests and wondering if this even applies to you—"I’m quiet all the time, that’s not how I express my anger"—one of the ways that you can actually just be curious is first of all looking at your home of origin. How did your parents deal with anger? Were they stuffers? Were they blowers? What did you consider healthy about how they handled anger? What was maybe unhealthy?

I do think passive aggression can be very sly in people who don’t want to lose control. When you see yourself being sarcastic to your kids, one of the questions that you might consider asking yourself in general is, "Is there ever a time when I’m hoping to punish my child rather than discipline my child?"

I’m not saying that one is evil and one is good, but I think it’s good to differentiate in our minds. "Am I ever seeking revenge on my child through my discipline? Is that really the purpose of discipline?" The root of the word discipline is disciple. Are we making disciples of our kids, and is the way I’m angry at my kids actually discipling them to be more like Jesus?

What about it is destructive, even if it doesn’t look like someone who yells at their kids or certainly someone who touches their kids in a destructive way, like laying a hand on them in an abusive way or even using nasty verbal words? I will say there are a lot of people who say, "Well, my husband wasn’t abusive or my mom wasn’t abusive because she never laid a hand on me." I think that’s actually a very low bar, and I think we can set the bar for holy righteous anger higher than that.

Danny Huerta: There’s also the apathetic anger where somebody’s disengaged, especially with teens. There’s just a "You know what? Fine. Do whatever you want to do." They completely disengage; they stonewall; they start giving silent treatment. That can be sometimes just as damaging as yelling because what you’re doing is creating now an avoidant attachment with that child where they just need to figure it out, and it’s because you’re overwhelmed. Really, it’s the intense anger, and maybe that’s how you’ve learned to handle that.

So let’s talk to that anger piece. Since it shows up in different ways, it’s not really about the behavior then. It’s about what’s below that. Let’s talk to that. At the core belief area of the parent, how can we dance there? What happens in there? How can a parent begin to shift that when they come into a moment with a child in the perception area, the belief area? What can be changed there so that the behavior changes? Because if it’s all about us trying to control our own behavior, we will usually fail at that. It’s something that needs to shift in the way that we enter a room. It’s not always going to be perfect, but it certainly can be a rhythm that we begin to bring into a room. What does that look like?

Janelle Brittenstein: I love the direction where you’re going there, Danny. When you look back to what I was doing when I was slamming shut those windows, what I was doing was managing appearances. That was the most management that I was doing there: to protect my "testimony" to my neighbors, despite the fact that I clearly was not from my heart actually solving the anger problem.

It’s interesting, too. I think we often see the problem for anger as outside of ourselves. "My dog puked on the carpet. My kid baptized the cat." The things that kids actually do—it’s really funny when I talk to moms what they confess. One person was like, "My kid pooped in the driveway!" You just want a little validation. "Do you see what I’m dealing with? These people are crazy!"

But the truth is, when we think that the problem for anger is outside of ourselves, we surrender our capacity to change because you’re absolutely right: the Bible is all about the issue truly being in our hearts. If you look at what Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

The missionary to India, Amy Carmichael, wrote that if you have a cup of water, no matter what bumps the table, the only thing that can spill out is water. No vinegar can spill out because the only thing that’s in that cup is water. So if I think of whatever jostles my heart, what comes out—that’s where the anger is. Jesus says that’s where sinful things come from: in our hearts.

So that’s where we need to start letting Jesus do His good work, is to confront, again, looking our hearts in the eye and the sinful issues there. What I usually go back to is you’ve perhaps heard those things that become greater than God and His ways in our hearts talked about as idols. I think that’s an accurate description. Sometimes when I’m yelling at my kids, something has become more important than God’s ways about how I should treat that child. Maybe it’s the state of my house, which for me reflects on my ability as a mother or as a wife. Or perhaps it’s my convenience. Man, kids really rub against your convenience. That is true.

There are just all sorts of different things that can really take their good desires, and then they become greater than God Himself and how He says I’m to love my neighbor, my child, as myself.

Danny Huerta: We did a family insights study in 2022, and we’ll be doing one again here at Focus on the Family. We looked at each stage of a child’s development and what the issues are in the marriage at that stage. For couples with children zero to three in the home, the number one issue was conflict and communication issues. So that will tend to spill into that parenting where you’re taking in other issues that are not related to the child and you’re already at a nine and ready to go to a 10 pretty quickly.

The other things they put here is number two is stress, then busy schedules, then a lack of sexual intimacy, and then a lack of emotional intimacy. Those were the top five things that parents with children zero to three in the home were dealing with.

Now, if we keep going, four to seven, eight to 12, 13 to 17, stress is still very high. Eight to 12, number one is stress, then busy schedules, then communication issues and conflict, and that’s the same with parents of teens. There’s a lack of emotional intimacy there as well. When we look at four to seven, busy schedules go to number one.

If we think of all those things pressing in, it’s hard to take the time to have this reflection time. It’s hard to take the time to have that moment of caring for your soul inside. So if we’re thinking about that busy parent that’s right now listening, going, "Man, I have this issue of anger," and we’d say maybe more than half would probably say that, then what would be one step to take right now, right after the show, to get into that deeper place and begin to address all these things pressing into the emotional world when you’re trying to do your best?

Janelle Brittenstein: I completely can relate as a mom because I think there’s a certain phase of your kid’s life, especially when they’re toddlers, where you’re just hoping you can get a shower once in three days. I had a friend of mine, a guy, who was just like, "Yeah, I had poop in my eyebrow this week."

Danny Huerta: There’s a theme here, Janelle. Poop in the driveway, poop in the eyebrow.

Janelle Brittenstein: I’m just letting you know that is a major part of childhood. But James Wilder, the neurotheologian, has a great example of what you just mentioned. He mentions a circuit breaker. In my personal kitchen, I have my Instant Pot and my toaster oven on the same power strip. When I totally forget about the fact that I can’t run them at the same time, the circuit flips because I’m already running too much power on it.

When you have stress or lack of sexual intimacy or all the different things, your patience is low. You’re bearing more and more of a load. Yes, your emotional circuit breaker is about to flip. You’re getting so many different things through your brainstem, so many different stimuli that your prefrontal cortex isn’t able to keep up.

What are the things that we can do practically? We’ve covered some of those: first of all, just an awareness. Another one I will say: there are studies that link an ability to keep our voice calm. If you think in James where it says if a man can control his mouth, he can control his entire body, right? So if I can control my tone of voice, it actually helps me to be the one who manages my home in a godly way.

We can also—Seth Freeman, who’s a Christian professor of conflict management and negotiation, has a three-step process of how to just use constructive communication as well. He offers the idea of first of all, paraphrase. Repeat the gist of your child’s thoughts. Danny, you touched on this a little bit when are we listening? Can we? Because part of conflict is actually to empathize and to understand the other person better. Let me tell you, parents, we can win every battle and actually lose everything that matters.

And the energy taken there is worth it, right? Even though we don't feel the energy going into that space, it can be worth every minute of energy consumption. For sure. And don't we see God doing that in scripture too? Like when Jonah is angry, Jonah actually is being—he’s kind of throwing a temper tantrum, but what does God say? "Why are you angry?"

The number of questions that God asks of His people in scripture continue to boggle the mind because God knows the answer. You probably know the answer to why your child is angry, but God still chooses to engage with us in conversation and engage our hearts, and it helps cultivate that in our child as well: self-awareness that we need to eventually identify the log in our own eye.

Freeman’s second tip is to praise: highlight anything they said that you can sincerely honor. What’s the scriptural principle there? That we can empathize and we can find unity and we can acknowledge actually that "I can understand why that’s important to you, and I’m going to say yes, that is valuable. I can affirm what is God-like about that."

And then Freeman follows up with—so we’ve done paraphrase, praise, and then probe. Ask about your concerns and curiosities and confusions as you seek the truth alongside your child. So when you can—there are definitely times when we just need to make a declarative or imperative sentence—but on the whole, can we ask our child questions to cultivate the heart rather than just tell them how they are going to be? Can we create ownership in them? If we can create ownership for them in their hearts, I would say they’re 100% more likely to have actual heart change rather than just sin management and behavior change.

Danny Huerta: Maybe take a squeeze ball with you to this conversation, just kind of regulate.

Rebecca St. James: Janelle, I also just hear you saying that when our kids too are feeling understood and heard, how diffusing that is of the anger that’s present coming from them. If we’re curious and we’re just saying, "Hey, I really want to understand where you’re coming from on this," we’re asking those questions and engaging their hearts in that way, I do think it helps them to regulate and calm down. My mom, my dad really cares about me; they’re pursuing my heart in this moment. The regulation that can come from that is pretty beautiful. It repairs; it knits you together. My mom has often said that resolved conflict leads to intimacy, and I just think that’s true of any relationship. If we can repair after an angst-y moment and get to the other side of that with that love intact and that affection for each other intact, we’re stronger on the other side of it. I think that’s the hope, right?

Janelle Brittenstein: Yes, that is so well spoken. I think you’re really touching on the belovedness that undergirds biblical conflict and why conflict is actually important in our marriages and in our homes because it can actually replay the gospel for each other. We show our kids, "This is what God is like when we mess up. He closes the distance and He comes toward us."

So that’s another reason why we don’t just suppress anger. It can actually make our relationships stronger. There’s something to be said for when you have a conflict with your spouse or, for those of you who are single, conflict with another family member or a co-worker; it can make the relationship—you can understand each other better. You can over and over create a culture in your home of confession and forgiveness, starting with the parents. "I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?" And the parents become the people to race their kids to the cross. It’s just such a powerful cycle in homes that every time we feel angry, rather than a chance for destruction, it’s actually a chance to replay, "Hey kids, this is what Jesus’ death and resurrection does for us."

Rebecca St. James: Replay the gospel. I love that phrase, Janelle; that’s so beautiful. That we’re in these situations that can be toxic if handled incorrectly, that can actually be replaying the gospel over and over again, the grace of it. I think that’s just such a beautiful way to close out this part of our time together.

Danny Huerta: One thing, Rebecca, repetition is what it’s about. Once you do it once correctly or well or you have that one moment, you know you can do it a thousand times the same. It’s rinse and repeat. It’s about continuing to practice. Remember, we have a new sunrise and a new sunset every single day.

New mercies, praise God. So you get to start over. One tip that I give in my counseling sessions for parents is when you show up to a moment, look for one thing you love about that person. Just stop, challenge yourself with that: "What’s one thing I love about them?" It just shifts your mind to a different place where you remember to come in with warmth. Even if you’re frustrated, you look for something you love about your spouse, you look for something you love about—even if it’s "man, nice shirt" or "man, I love their hair" or their shoes are really cool. You train your brain to look for one thing that you love about the person in front of you, and that helps soften some of that sting that you may be bringing as you’re practicing this. Again, this is about practicing. That’s why this is called Practice Makes Parent.

Rebecca St. James: Not about perfection but about transformation. Replaying the gospel. I love that. I think one of the takeaways from this time is that parenting has a way of exposing both our deep love and our deepest need for grace. The beautiful reminder today is that God meets us right there in the middle of our mess—right when we slam the doors and the moments when our voices raise higher than we wish they would and sometimes when we don’t handle things as we would have liked.

As we close today’s conversation, we are so grateful for the wisdom shared by Janelle Brittenstein. You’re amazing, Janelle. We just love you and love your sense of humor but your deep, deep wisdom. Her book, *How to Stop Yelling up the Stairs: Keeping Your Cool While Raising Your Kids*—we want to absolutely encourage you to get that and really dig deeper into this subject. For a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family, this book can be yours. All the details are in the show notes.

Danny Huerta: When we have that moment of failure, as we all do, remember what Janelle said here: that the gospel truth tells us that God’s mercies are new every single morning. The same grace He gives us is the grace that we can extend to our children as well. We love that God is faithfully at work in you, in us, in your family, in all of us.

Another wonderful resource you’ll want to take a look at is our Age and Stage resources that you can find at mykidsage.com, and we’ll have the link in the show notes. This is really—it’s guidance for you at every stage of your child’s development. You’ll receive a weekly email giving you some ideas of what to do in response to challenges in your parenting. You get an annual resource sent to your inbox, highly illustrated; it tells you what to expect developmentally, what to build in your child intentionally, and then it gives you some ideas on how to live out the seven traits of effective parenting and then how to get into these rhythms as a Christian home. It just gives you some great places to begin as you are investing in your child that new age that they are in. So be sure to check that out at mykidsage.com, and again, the link is in the show notes.

Rebecca St. James: Now we have a listener question that we’d love to get your unique perspective on, Janelle. This question comes from Nate, who writes:

"Danny and Rebecca, my son and I just heard this young girl, maybe 13 years old, speak to her mother so disrespectfully. It took everything in me to keep my mouth shut. If she were my daughter, her hide would be tanned, if you get my drift. She was rude, selfish, and even cruel. Just recounting the scene in my mind makes my blood boil. My son and I had a long discussion about it on the way home. If my grandpa heard that girl, he would have said something. He was part of the greatest generation, and I’m afraid we’ve lost that mindset of honor and respect in today’s culture, but I think it should make a comeback. Is it okay for an outsider to stick up for the parent when their child is unruly? If we say it from a place of love, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Just thought I’d get your perspective. Appreciate you both. Thanks for the podcast."

Janelle, what would you say to this listener’s question?

Janelle Brittenstein: What a great question and one that’s very relevant right now because I think part of the relevance to this entire discussion is that in the nation that is the majority that will listen to this broadcast, in America, conflict management is not something, in my opinion, that we’re doing particularly well. It is reflecting on the church as well.

I think one other thing that Nate brought up that was really appropriate is he brought up the word "the greatest generation" because how we handle conflict also has cultural elements. We have three different people around this table right now who represent different cultures, and I know that in Uganda, where my family and I worked for five and a half years, it was appropriate for other parents to come up and say things because in Africa, as you’ve heard, it takes a village. So it’s more culturally acceptable.

But Rebecca, you said something earlier in this conversation that I thought was very wise. You pointed out just the belovedness that undergirds good conflict management. One of the things that we do yield when we’re engaging with strangers—and I’m not saying we shouldn’t—but when we do not have that Hesed covenant love that undergirds that, people often do not know what heart we are coming with. We are treading on a sacred American cow of how people raise their kids, and Nate has touched on that.

Yes, it’s very difficult. I do think tone is going to be a lot of how this could be done well. But on the whole, I would simply if—and this is a big if—if you feel the Holy Spirit leading you to intervene, I would use part of the question-asking that we talked about earlier. "Ma’am, is there a way I can help you? It seems like this is a really tense situation." Starting with facts that we can all agree on rather than judgment. "Ma’am, is there a way I can help you? I’m so sorry; it seems like things are in a really difficult place right now."

I think that comes in as a learner rather than as a teacher with someone you have not earned yet, and they do not know whether you are somebody who normally wears an orange jumpsuit or whether you are somebody who plays video games on your mom’s couch. Because they don’t know whether they can trust you and you have not established that trust, coming in with empathy, I would say, is paramount. We are likely not going to change cultural values with one interaction. So I wonder if that’s always the best way. I don’t want to leave that mom who’s being berated by her teenager in public vulnerable. There are very likely situations where it may be appropriate for you to come in as it’s been called "low and slow" is what I would recommend if you feel like you need to come in. But I think it needs to be done with extreme delicacy and cultural awareness of how it will likely be perceived. What’s your thought on this? I’d love to hear from both of you.

Danny Huerta: Love the heart behind this. I think there’s a heart of wanting to be helpful for this mom, but there are way too many unknowns in this one. I can just see a reaction where the mom’s anger may turn towards you intervening. She’s ashamed, probably. So Nate, if you step into that, just know all the anger things that have accumulated, she may say, "It’s none of your business," and you may get a complete download of her anger on you. She’s already embarrassed, and she may not be ready to receive anything because of all the embarrassment; her brain may not be ready to receive any type of help. There may be mental health issues that the mom’s aware of and she’s trying to navigate that. There could be other relational brokenness that has a big history there.

I think a good thing that you and your son can do is pray for them. Go to the side and go, "Hey son, let’s pray for that relationship." That’s not a cop-out; there’s a ton of power in prayer. In our culture today, this can be a bit offensive and can create even less power for that parent. If you do have a friendship or relationship, or you see that mom again or you see her at church, over time—like you said, Janelle, the slow burn where you maybe say, "Hey, we’ve got a great community at church." If you see them again in your neighborhood, invite them to your church; maybe you have parenting classes or other ways that you can give them some help.

Generally, in these types of situations, the teenager is in a place that is out of control and already overpowering. So for you to step in does give that reinforcement to that teen that they’re the one in control and empowering.

So I hope this helps, Nate. I understand your perspective. At this point, the reactiveness that was from that greatest generation—we’re swinging all the way to the other end with a gentle parenting side, and really at that point, it was a bit harsh. You kind of pointed that out, that her hide would be tanned, and I want to tell you that also is an overreaction and will create a lot of problems.

So listeners, as we think about Nate’s reaction, what would you do in this situation? Think about that. If you find yourself in this type of situation at school, at church, in the grocery store, what is a good way that you can intervene and think about the relationship you have with that person? Because sometimes there is a wise moment to step in depending on a lot of context there. In this one, it just seems to me that Nate needs to just step aside and pray.

Janelle Brittenstein: The word that keeps coming back to me is posture as well. One of the ways that I differentiate between passing judgment on someone and just extending discernment is do we place ourselves as superior to them, or are we coming in laterally as people who are both in need, we’re equal at the foot of the cross? So even when you’re talking to your child about things like this, are you saying, "If I ever catch you doing that," or this kind of shaming others when they’re not there rather than, "Wow, I can only imagine what that mom is feeling. What do you think that girl was going through, and why do you think she was treating her mom like that?" and continuing to teach our kids a humility in how we discern situations rather than coming in as religiously superior people, which is actually very reminiscent of how the Pharisees looked at other people. Do we see ourselves as people in need of Jesus and people who, by the grace of God, could see ourselves in the same situation?

Rebecca St. James: These kind of dicey or tense conversations are always going to benefit by the power of the actual relationship with the person. So if it’s with our child and we have a good relationship with them, challenging, uncomfortable conversations are going to go better when we have that strength of that relationship and that history and the trust. So obviously, if you have a relationship with somebody, they’re a part of your church community or your neighborhood and there’s established trust, speaking into a situation is going to go better because of that relationship.

So I think just prioritizing the relationship, obviously listening to the Holy Spirit—Danny, I love that you said pray. Just pray for that family. Janelle, I love that you said, you know, refer it back to your own parenting, talk to your child about what you just witnessed. I think that’s a great encouragement to Nate.

But Nate, we are really grateful for your question. We’re going to send you Danny’s awesome book, *Seven Traits of Effective Parenting*, as our way of saying thanks for participating in the show. And we say it each week, but this is so true: this show is a dialogue. We want to hear from you, and it’s great to connect with you when you leave us an email or a voicemail. Let us know your question, and maybe you’ll be featured on the show next time. Just click on the show notes and reach out to us.

Janelle, we’ve had a great time with you today, and we’re excited to invite you back sometime. Thanks for being with us on Practice Makes Parent.

Janelle Brittenstein: Thank you. I’m praying for you parents; this is a big battle for you to win, but this battle belongs to the Lord.

Rebecca St. James: Absolutely. Thank you, Janelle. Well, next week we are going to talk about understanding adaptability in parenting. We’re also going to talk about psychological flexibility and how to create a de-stress menu. Danny, I’m looking forward to hearing that.

Danny Huerta: It’ll be a great conversation; you don’t want to miss it, we promise. I’m Dr. Danny Huerta.

Rebecca St. James: And I’m Rebecca St. James. Join us next time for more tips for transforming your parenting on Practice Makes Parent.