Practice Makes Parent

Dr. Danny Huerta: Hi and 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. Last week, we had an amazing show. So much so that we just wanted to continue it for two weeks. This was all about helping parents understand a bit more about how to raise gender-confident kids. Really, incredibly timely, I think, in the day and age that we're living in. There was so much good information. So today, we're going to bring you part two of our conversation with Dr. Jeff and Dr. Kathy.

Dr. Danny Huerta: And we're also going to be sharing a listener's voicemail question on how to teach your kids to stand up for their Christian values in the preferred pronoun culture that we seem to be in. That's such an important question to grapple with.

So stay tuned for that. I'll briefly reintroduce our guests. It's Dr. Jeff Myers and Dr. Kathy Koch. They're in the business of training and discipling students, parents, teachers, and Christian leaders. Jeff is the president of Summit Ministries, and Dr. Kathy Koch is the founder and CEO of Celebrate Kids. Both are wonderful ministries. Together, they've written the new book, Raising Gender Confident Kids: Helping Kids Embrace Their God-Given Design. Let's jump into the conversation.

Rebecca St. James: We spoke on our last episode about what you suggest when parents say or their child comes to them saying things like, "I'm trapped in the wrong body," "Gender falls on a spectrum," or "My sexuality is my main identity." You spoke to it with so much wisdom about handling that with curiosity and understanding and really beginning a conversation there. Can you now speak to other tools? Where do we go from there?

We have this empathetic conversation and we've got their trust. It's a continuing conversation, but what are some other tools that we can have as parents? Do we suggest at some point soon after that a counselor? What are some other tools that we can access in that moment so that we're not feeling alone as a parent too?

Dr. Jeff Myers: The best tool we have is truth. Truth transforms. Understanding what we can about gender really does matter because we want parents, grandparents, and educators to be confident. The best tool we have is truth and our own curiosity where we're not going to panic. We find out somebody in a school or a church or a homeschool co-op who has similarly aged children who might discover other things.

We're huge believers in respecting your gender and respecting the opposite gender. Not wanting to be it, but respecting it. I learned a lot from Kathy when we wrote this book together about the beauty of the two genders. There are two. God was good to us, and it's not just about marriage and having babies who become adults. There's more to it.

I think it's fascinating because it was one of the most breakthrough parts of writing this book with you. We divided up chapters. You take the lead on this one, and then I'll take the lead on this one. I had the responsibility to write out a chapter talking about the actual differences between males and females because it seemed glorious.

I wrote out the whole chapter and sent it to Kathy. We talked, and she said, "I don't think we can use this. I don't think this is going to work." I'm thinking, this is my child I just gave birth to, this chapter. I was really brave. But we've learned through the kinds of things we teach in the book. We interact with each other that way.

I said, "Help me understand why you say that." Her response was, "Because if we emphasize too much the extreme differences between males and females, then some people who are really wrestling with this are going to say, 'See, I don't identify with that boy characteristic at all. That proves that I've been born in the wrong body.'" So we have to really walk a fine line.

So we just decided I should go back and rewrite it. The way it came out felt almost worshipful to see how it came together. It was this: God designed males and females to be different on purpose so that they could harmonize with one another. When you start looking at the biological differences between males and females, it makes perfect sense that way.

I can give as many examples as you want, but I'll start with vision. Males and females, based on the kinds of retinal cells we have, see the world differently. A lot of people don't know this. Boys have a preponderance of cells in their eyes that focus on contrast and motion. It's about 30 percent more.

Girls have a preponderance of cells that focus on color and texture. If you want to accurately see the world, you have to see contrast, motion, color, and texture. God literally designed males and females, even boys and girls from birth, designed us so that we need each other to accurately see the world. How males and females respond to stress is another example.

These studies were not done on humans because the only way to study it is to have a person have an experience and then take apart their brain to see what hormones were involved. People usually don't like having that done to them. The rats don't like it either, but the rats didn't complain, apparently. So the study is on rats.

What they found is males, when they are under stress, their bodies upregulate a hormone called dopamine, which moves them into action. Females, when they are experiencing stress, their bodies upregulate a hormone called norepinephrine, which causes them to think or focus or ruminate more. There is not a cross-effect. This is always observed in males, the dopamine, and always observed in females, the norepinephrine.

Think about a stressful situation. If in a stressful situation you think about it but you never act, you don't solve the problem. If you act without thinking about it, you always make the problem worse. God literally designed males and females to respond to stress together to balance so that there would be an appropriate response.

My wife, Stephanie, and I talk about this often. If you have two pitches of a roof, either pitch, if one was removed, the other would collapse because it's very heavy with wood and shingles and everything else. But when they lean on each other, all of that weight becomes a strength and it provides protection and structure at that point.

Dr. Danny Huerta: You're saying harmonizing. Sometimes it's fist to fist, right? We're thinking of marriage and other places where they don't understand each other's differences. They're not with understanding, so it turns from this to this.

Dr. Jeff Myers: Boys and girls think this way. We work with lots and lots of young people every year, and teenagers think this way. It occurs to them that while they're supposed to be kind to other people and not be rude, it rarely occurs to them that way before we begin talking about marriage and family, that God actually designed you as boys and girls to harmonize together. So how do we do that? How do we focus on honor? How do we focus on respect? These are big conversations that our culture's not having.

Dr. Kathy Koch: They're so important because so many young people are choosing to change gender. You can't change your gender. Let's just put that out there. It's impossibility. But they attempt or they try and they begin down a process because they don't like something about themselves and they prefer something they see in someone else.

It's not possible, but if we teach them things like this, that God was intentional to make us different on purpose with purpose, we can learn to revel in that and receive that and not see it as negative. I had a conversation with a woman shortly after Jeff taught me this who was a deep thinker and was a problem solver but had a hard time finishing. She would ruminate. She was so frustrated.

I had a chance to say, "God made you that way, but don't end there. Find some other people to help you move beyond that, if that makes sense." We've got to be in community and communicate together.

Dr. Danny Huerta: As we're thinking about the beauty of these differences, I wonder how that communication between mom and dad and the way they treat each other begins to reinforce a certain safety one way or another in a child's gender. They feel a certain safety towards a parent, towards a same-sex parent or opposite-sex parent.

Speak to the relationship between a child and the parent and how that impacts the development of their identity as that same sex. Sometimes I've heard some young people, some boys and girls, say, "I don't want to be my dad," or "I hate my mom." These words are super strong and begin to take them into different places. One of them is forming a different identity so that they don't become that person because of so much hurt or pain that's there. Speak to that.

Dr. Kathy Koch: Part of my answer might be to help children identify whether what they don't like in a parent is gender-specific. In other words, you can have a dad who's mean-spirited. You can have a mom who's jealous and self-absorbed and doesn't pay much attention to you. Those are not gender qualities. Those are character flaws, and that would be sin.

You don't hate your gender because you hate something about your mom. I think you earn the right to say that, but I think if we could help kids understand again what God created you to be versus what culture says you have to be. I would go there.

It's really important for men and women, whether it be the mom and the dad—in my case, I'm an aunt and a great aunt—do we model our comfort with our gender? Do we admit that I am comfortable? I have a low voice. Some people listening to this might think that I'm a man speaking. I own that. I'm not upset about that. I've been told by the best of the best, including Jim Daly, that I have a perfect radio voice. It carries well.

So I own that. I'm a female with a low voice. Do we model for kids that we can be uncomfortable but that doesn't mean we have to make major changes? Can we praise God? Psalm 139 verse 14, David writes, "My soul knows it very well." This is right after David writes that we're knit together. Knitting is a precise skill. So God makes no mistakes. I'm not too tall. I'm "cool tall." That's what children have told me.

That's a significant change in belief that I can own. I'm not too tall. If I say I'm too tall, I dishonor God's creative intent. I'm simply tall, and it's one of my best advantages. I can put suitcases into the overhead bin with no trouble, and I can be seen from the back of the room even though I sit on a stool.

The longer you live, the greater the likelihood that you'll see the goodness of God to you. But when you're young, I was too tall. I stood out in a crowd. I didn't fit in the desk. I didn't like it. That's why I say to the Summit students, "Live long and be strong and find out why you are the who you are." So we have to own this. This is a process. What you were saying in episode one about from toddler and then the young in elementary and middle school and pre-teen and high school, there's a process here.

Dr. Danny Huerta: I think that's key. Your story, Kathy, is powerful. My daughter, my niece, and my son have gotten to interact with you at Summit. They have absolutely loved the Summit program, by the way. Both my niece and daughter have said, "I love how Dr. Koch talks about just the confidence of who God created her to be." How did you get there? And how does a parent get their child there?

Dr. Kathy Koch: Let me go back to Psalm 139, because my brain was going so fast. Psalm 139 verse 13, we're knit together and fearfully and wonderfully made. I pray our listeners know that. God doesn't make mistakes. We can be confused, but it doesn't mean God was wrong.

But then the 14th verse, David writes, "My soul knows it very well." There are mean-spirited people out there who private message me on Facebook. They're like, "I know this is none of my business, but what are you?" or "Who are you?" It makes me nuts. But it's all okay because I know who I am because God did a good work in me and my soul knows it.

How do we help our kids get to that place? It's the holy, accurate, transforming word of God. We read it to get to know Him, but we also get to know ourselves. We're chosen and adopted and wonderfully created and fearfully made and gifted in advance. God loves us deeply, and Jesus died for us. Do we know that about ourselves? And can we own that deep down in our owning, if I can put it that way?

When our kids are confused, we point them to God's truth and we help them see that we've walked through valleys and we're better for it. Then again, I would say, if your kids are being teased for something, change schools if you have to. Change peer groups if you have to. Don't ever hire that babysitter again if you find out that he or she was a part of the confusion. This is where we protect our kids.

Rebecca St. James: I'm reading a book right now, Hinds' Feet on High Places. It's absolutely amazing. There's a part in there about joyful acceptance. Joyful acceptance of what God brings us in life. All of us are going to experience disappointments and curveballs. But it's this acceptance of what is and then thanking God for it instead of going to this fear, control, entitlement place.

Often, we all do that. It's like, "I'm entitled to be comfortable, so I'm going to change things. I'm going to control. I'm going to fear, and then I'm going to control." So I just think there's a piece here that's really important. And you're encouraging a child's true relationship with Jesus. If they're seeking Him, reading scripture, seeking an intimate relationship with Him, He is going to allow them to joyfully accept what has come their way in life and their unique circumstances and what they have been asked to bury, even painfully sometimes.

Can you speak to the core needs of our children on that note, to help them be strong in their gender identity? I think we've been speaking to a lot of that, but are there other specific core needs of children that we can offer up to them that we haven't spoken of yet?

Dr. Kathy Koch: There are five core needs according to our understanding. I have written a book called Five to Thrive. The first core need is Security. As Danny was saying before, that trust matters. It ought to be the firm foundation. Security is "Who can I trust?" not "What can I trust?"

Then we get to Identity, "Who am I?" One of the reasons we have an identity crisis in our country is we have a security crisis. If children don't know who they can trust, they will not know who to listen to, and they'll go wherever the wind blows them. So security is the foundation of identity. "Who am I?" not "Who was I?" but "Who am I?"

Then we get to Belonging, "Who wants me?" because my identity will inform who I might want to hang out with. I was a band geek when I was a middle school and high school kid. I went to college to march in the band. That's a true story. So your identity facilitates belonging. Belonging facilitates identity. Who we hang out with is going to influence who we are.

Then our belonging leads to Purpose, "Why am I alive?" The reason belonging is first is that we're alive to serve people. We're alive to be known in community. We're alive to be transformed through the interactions with other people. Belonging leads to purpose. "Why am I alive?" If I don't have purpose, I might as well die.

A leading cause of suicide is a lack of purpose. Sometimes kids think, "If I were a boy, I would be able to fulfill this purpose that I think I've been designed to do," which is another reason we have to make sure to introduce them to the lie from the culture that says only boys do that and only girls do that.

Then we get to Competence, "What do I do well?" Security, identity, belonging, purpose, competence. Competence ultimately is what we all need. Competence comes back to security. If I develop competency in decision-making and biblical character and math and science, then I have more security in myself. Not instead of others, but in myself in the appropriate way.

I also become secure in you as the person who taught me to be competent. If you're the mom and the dad and you teach me competence—how to think and how to wrestle and how to discern and how to be joyful even in hard times—if you teach me that, then I have security in you and that changes everything. Jeff has done a brilliant job of looking at the core needs specifically for boys.

Dr. Jeff Myers: As we were writing, we found some interesting information from a woman who claimed to be a leftist progressive who then became a mom and had a son. It was a disaster for her friend group. Then she had another baby and it was a boy. Total catastrophe. Her friends abandoned her because she was giving birth to demons, basically, is how they saw it.

What do we learn from these core needs, from security, identity, belonging, purpose, and competence that can help us raise boys? First of all, the security question is almost always what we call "unleashing the sage." Who is smart? Who's wise? Who gives me a perspective that is beyond what I can find on my own?

I know a lot of boys go to Sunday school classes and they hear the stories about being like David or like Noah. He built a boat out of popsicle sticks and they never get around to asking the question, "What kind of man must Noah have been to obey God in the face of constant mockery over a long period of time?" It wasn't just one year. How can we be the kind of man that Noah was? That's really the question, not just knowing about Noah.

The second one on identity is recognizing that boys are designed to be explorers. They have to go out and do things. When they're digging through the trash can at the airport or something, not that that's ever happened with my sons, it's because they're curious to find something. God, I don't even know exactly what it is, but I can help.

Just with my sons, I found putting opportunities in front of them to explore made a huge difference. Sometimes it was just, "We just drove by a factory. I wonder if they give tours." And we would go in. "Hey, do you give tours?" And they would say, "No, we don't give tours here." And we'd say, "Actually, that's fine. We don't need a tour. We just want somebody to show us around." And they're like, "Yeah, we do that."

So we learned how hot tubs were made and how tanker trucks were made and how Coca-Cola gets bottled. Dozens and dozens of these kinds of things because they just want to know. How does this get done? How does that get done? How does that person do that? How do they ever get the courage to decide to go here and do something that's really cool?

The third one is belonging, and we focus on this a lot with boys, and that is the "servant spirit." I want to belong because I'm helping to bring shape to a group because I'm contributing something. A key question for a boy when they leave the house every day is, "Can you find a way today to just ask this question: 'What is happening and how can I help?'" Super simple.

The fourth one, purpose, is the "warrior aspect." God designed boys to fight for something. This is why boys and girls both play sports, but they play for different reasons. One of our friends is a hockey player and she talked about playing on a co-ed team. She said, "Look, we play on a co-ed team because we all like hockey and we all know we're going to go home to our families so we're not going to kill each other out there. But we play for very different reasons and we play very differently. So don't get that confused."

Why do boys play? Because they're learning to be a warrior. They're learning to fight for what makes sense. A boy very often will play because of his team, his coach, and his team. "We're going to prevail in this situation." To conquer, yes. But then the key thing for a warrior is, how do you control this power that you have?

Testosterone, when you start getting it at age 13, gives you this enormous power that you did not have before. How do you control that power? A warrior who's admired is one who knows how to properly use and control the power that he's given.

Dr. Danny Huerta: I was coaching middle school boys' and middle school girls' basketball teams. It was such a contrast. This was early in my days as a clinical social worker, and I was fascinated just by young people developing into who God has created them to be. I had coached the boys first, and they'd be sitting on the bench just focused in on the game, wanting to win. They were on it. I was so excited to see that. I had to rein them back on their temper or some of them over the top on the competition.

Then girls were the next year that I got to coach. I remember this one game, all the girls were crying on the bench. They were talking about things happening at school. It was a social moment. I was like, "Guys, we're playing a game here!"

But that one time when everyone on the bench was crying, then there was a girl that got hurt and was crying and she was coming in, I had to bring out a different part of who I was to coach them well in a game that was so overwhelming to them. Compared to the boys, I never had that moment with them. There's just a difference to how they handle competition. It's not that they both don't compete, it's just different.

Dr. Jeff Myers: We know from all the literature that boys fight 20 times more than girls. We also know that boys are far more likely than girls after the fight is over to become best friends with the one they were fighting. They're done with it. It is the oldest piece of human literature, a story about a guy named Gilgamesh who has this throwdown with a guy named Enkidu. At the end of the fight, Gilgamesh prevails, and then the author says, "And thus they became friends." That's how it happens.

The final thing is competence, and we talk about being "husbandman." Animal husbandry means learning to take care of animals and help them flourish. Every boy wants to know that there's something that when they get involved, flourishing can result. You see how those five core needs, Kathy, that you talk about, when you apply them to gender, actually brings out the glory of the differences that God made rather than something that we should try to diminish.

Rebecca St. James: What about the girls, Kathy? And then we're going to land it here with girls. What a great conversation this has been.

Dr. Kathy Koch: You have "eight great smarts." We wrote a chapter about the eight great smarts and girls. Girls, again, the core needs would work as well. But girls discover who they are in community maybe more so than boys, although the community still does affect boys as we've talked about before.

What's so important with the smarts is to help girls understand again that you can be, for instance, logic-smart. Logic-smart people enjoy math and science, problem-solving, and asking questions. You're going to have some kids say, "Well, then you're probably supposed to be a boy." No, girls can be logic-smart. Why do I write the books I write? Because I have questions I want to answer.

So we write well about being really careful of stereotypes. Word-smart people talk with words. I was a "Chatty Kathy." Now people hire me to talk, which is just great fun. Logic-smart people think with questions. If you have a logic-smart son or daughter questioning gender, they will ask more questions than a different kid in your home that has questions about gender but they might not ask them. Logic-smart kids are going to talk in the form of questions.

Picture-smart kids are creative. It's really important that boys understand they can be creative with pictures. They can have an imagination and they can know the difference between aqua, teal, and blue. Navy is not blue. That's a different kind of blue. It doesn't matter to me, but it does matter to picture-smart people.

Then you can be music-smart, you think with rhythms and melodies. You can be nature-smart, you think with patterns in the outdoor world. You can be body-smart, movement and touch. Boys can be that and girls can be that, and it's really important.

Back to the "tomboy" conversation we had in the first episode. I was at an event with about 175 middle school and high school girls and boys. We were talking and I said, "How many of you girls think that you're tomboys?" The majority of them raised their hands. I proclaimed, "Tomboys are girls!" The boys clapped for them. It was this amazing moment where they understood that they were nature-smart and body-smart and logic-smart and they like to get dirty. They're girls who like those things. It doesn't mean that they're boys.

People-smart girls think with other people. Self-smart girls think deeply inside of themselves. So we think the chapter about both the boys and the girls are super helpful because we ultimately want girls to grow up to be godly women and boys to grow up to be godly men. That's only going to happen if they respect their gender and if we help them understand that it is good that God made them the way that He did.

Rebecca St. James: Absolutely. So in this last minute that we have left with you guys, how should we engage with people who embrace transgender ideology? I think there's a little bit of confusion with a lot of people with this because it's almost like, am I validating that this is true? How do we do this with kindness and compassion and handle that well as a Christian?

Dr. Jeff Myers: You're going to engage the transgender conversation differently depending on the different ages of a child. With small children, it'll start with a question: "Mommy, why did that man with the beard wear a dress at the grocery store?"

Then you can begin talking about, "You know, honey, there are some people who don't feel like they know why they're here. They don't maybe believe in God or they don't think that they have a purpose. They think their lives are kind of an accident and they get really confused. Some people get so confused that they can't even figure out if they're a boy or a girl. I just want you to know I love the design that God gave to you. I also want you to know that we don't make fun of people who are confused. We feel sorry for them, but we don't make fun of them. They still bear God's image."

Middle school, I think the question becomes more how do you work through all of the issues related to puberty? Transgender activists focus on kids who are in the puberty years because they can give an answer to the confusion. "The reason you feel uncomfortable in your body is because you were born in the wrong body. Therefore, you must join our group." When we can say as parents, "That's a really confusing time, and I remember feeling there's got to be something wrong with me because I am just off." And it's okay. Learn to become comfortable being uncomfortable is one of our themes.

With high school students, I think it usually is a question of finding a vocation. People think, "Well, if I can get the right job, I can have an income and respect and so forth." But we've even in this country gotten so crazy that every job is gendered. I had a student who when she told her class, "I think I'm going to go study to be an engineer," she was immediately told by her peers, "You are a boy trapped in a girl's body because you're interested in engineering."

I have a daughter who's a helicopter pilot and she plays rugby. She's a beautiful girl who loves helicopters and rugby. Undoubtedly if she was growing up today, she would be told, "You're born in the wrong body because 99 percent of the people in the helicopter field are male." When she felt confident in just pursuing what she loved doing, those questions faded by the wayside.

So that, I think, gives us also an insight into how to approach this issue with compassion. Just because there's confusion in culture doesn't mean that we have to give up on what we know is the truth. We don't have to be rude about it. We can feel sorry that people are confused, and then we can walk alongside of them to try to find the truth. Or like Kathy said, listen longer.

Rebecca St. James: We want to embark on our wonderful Q&A segment. We really love this because we're getting questions from our audience, things that they need wisdom on, and so we'd love you to weigh in on it too, if you're open to that. This is a question from an anonymous listener who wanted to remain anonymous. Let's listen to that question right now.

Guest (Female): Hi, Danny and Rebecca. How can I teach my children to respond and stand up for their Christian beliefs when it comes to the preferred pronoun culture? Thank you.

Dr. Jeff Myers: First thing is don't feel like you have to get this right every single time. Human conversations are much more complicated than you can prepare for. So it's okay if you don't feel every time like that was awesome, Jesus came forth in that conversation exactly the way I had hoped. There's grace.

Often this would happen for a young adult when they're say at work or at school and somebody says, "My name is so-and-so. My preferred pronouns are these." Our view is a person's name is usually a signifier. It's not an inherent aspect of their being. So if somebody says, "My name is Pat or Kelly," something you think, is that really gendered or not? I don't care. You want to be called Pat, I will call you Pat. You want to be called Boomer, I'll call you Boomer. It's not going to be the issue.

The pronoun thing is trickier because pronouns are references to the nature of reality itself. However, your child almost never going to be in a situation talking to a transgender-identified person and using the pronouns when that person is in the room. You don't look at somebody and say, "Well, she." You say, "You." So that's not going to be the issue.

If it's at work—this is trickier for kids who are at work—they go to their store, they're not customers in the store at the moment, they're chatting about things, and it turns to an edge and it's frustrating and nobody knows exactly what to do. If someone says, "Why don't you acknowledge my pronouns?" then there is a way that you probably want to practice to say, "I appreciate you. I thank God for the dignity He's given to you. I'll treat you as a person with dignity. Whatever name you tell me you want to be called, I will use. But when I think about pronouns, they're referring to something about reality and my conscience tells me that this isn't the best way."

"My conscience tells me this isn't the best way" is the key phrase because most students, when they talk with each other, will say, "Oh, it's your conscience? Okay. I need to back off a little bit. I can't just be judgmental about you because it's your conscience, that's something about you that's actually real." And for some reason, that tends to dial it back a little bit.

Dr. Kathy Koch: And I think we agree to disagree. So I think we can say, "Your value system tells you that you can change your pronoun and it's not a big deal. My value system says that it is a big deal because I believe that you were created by an intentional God that loves you and chose your gender for you. And in the scripture that I've read, it says that love is honest. So I'm just not able to. And I hope that our friendship can make it through this agree-to-disagree situation." I would recommend doing that as well.

Dr. Danny Huerta: And acknowledge the difficulty of it from your standpoint. You're saying, "We've grown up differently. We're two different people and we have different beliefs. And I hope within our mutual respect and love for each other that you can also honor the fact that I see this completely differently."

Dr. Kathy Koch: If we do that right, then that person a week later could come up to us and say, "Tell me more about your belief system." This could be the opening to persuading them to understand that they're wrong. But again, our goal doesn't have to be persuading them that I'm right and they're wrong.

The goal would be to love and to be heard and to hear because so many people in the change-gender community are lonely and isolated and they're desperate for emotional intimacy, which is often why they transition. So if we can step into that space with the confidence that God would give us, then things will be good. And then we pray. We pray for them.

Dr. Danny Huerta: The keywords here were "stand for" and "respond." So we are standing on our Christian beliefs and we're responding instead of reacting. We're not forcing beliefs on another person. But you're articulating, "What is it that I believe? Why do I believe it?" and "I'm responding to you as a human being and I'm saying I love you. I want you to know that. We see things differently." I love how you said that: "I hope our friendship can absorb this because I know it could create tension between us." And you want to acknowledge that.

Dr. Kathy Koch: You're talking about the talk. You're actually treating the relationship as if it exists as a thing that's independent of the two of you but very real. Then let's remember what we have in common. The next time you go to work, we're on the same shift two days later. "Did you watch the game last night?" "My grandmother called and that reminded me to ask you how's your grandmother doing? Didn't you tell me she was sick a week or so ago?" Showing that care to remember that this is a slice of life but it's not all of life and there's so many other things that we can talk about because then they know that they're seen.

Rebecca St. James: Thank you to our anonymous listener for that great question and for all the wisdom that it provides all our listeners. We are going to send you Danny's wonderful book, 7 Traits of Effective Parenting, as our way of saying thanks for participating in the show. If you have a question that you would like our opinion on and our guests' as well, send us a voicemail or an email. It's quick and easy with our new contact feature that's in the show notes. Jeff, Kathy, thanks for being with us and thank you for all you're doing for moms and dads out there trying to raise their kids towards a thriving faith in Christ. Thank you for being on our show here.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Next week, we're going to talk about teaching your kids theology. We had a strong conversation with Hunter Williams and Sam Luce that highlighted the importance of teaching the deep truths that help grow your kids' faith. I think you'll really enjoy it. 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.