Practice Makes Parent

Guest (Male): Hey parents, for almost 40 years, Adventures in Odyssey has been helping kids like yours form relationships with Christ. Now the animated Adventures in Odyssey film Journey into the Impossible will reach a new generation of families. But we need your help to finish the film and launch it in theaters. Your gift will be matched dollar for dollar before May 1st. See the trailer and donate today at focusonthefamily.com/impossible. That's focusonthefamily.com/impossible.

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. We have a very special episode coming up for you all. I wanted to ask you, Danny, before we dive into this idea of the importance of storytelling in parenting, did your mom and dad do storytelling? Did they do it well? Did they do it at all?

Dr. Danny Huerta: They both did their own form of storytelling. They were different in the ways they did it. My mom would read stories that had a lesson to them. My dad would make up stories in his mind. They were usually mystery or some type of crime or some action that would take place. Both were important stories. I loved them both. My dad would freak me out sometimes when I was little.

Rebecca St. James: Because you didn't know if it was real?

Dr. Danny Huerta: No, they were just scary. He did a good job with the mystery type stories. They had some action to them. That's the beauty of it. Moms and dads bring their own form of storytelling. That's what we're going to be talking about. In a world inundated with noise and distraction, storytelling remains a timeless art, a beautiful art.

Many parents would probably say they're not good storytellers. You can bring your own form to it. I enjoyed both forms from my mom and dad. It transcends boundaries and enriches lives. Jesus used parables as he taught and we all love stories. We're drawn to them.

That's why we read books, why social media has done so well, and why people have listened to Adventures in Odyssey for many years. Audio storytelling has been amazing and kids are drawn to that. At homeschool conventions and just going to churches around the country, I love to hear the various stories of how parents and the kids have bonded over Adventures in Odyssey stories over time.

There are some grandparents that have said they loved the stories. My son, now 22, still listens to Adventures in Odyssey. He says sometimes he has to wean himself off of it for a little while because he loves listening to it so much.

We have a big announcement as we talked about last week. Families who follow Adventures in Odyssey are going to lose their minds with this announcement. Focus on the Family is releasing a feature-length animated film. It’s awesome. I saw a little teaser of it. It’s fantastic. It’s a prequel to the Adventures in Odyssey audio series. It tells the story of the Whittaker family before they moved to the town of Odyssey. We'll learn more about that from our guests here. You'll hear more details on that film.

Rebecca St. James: I don't think I told you this, but we got our kids a CD player for Christmas. They’re listening to Adventures in Odyssey on CD. It’s so retro.

Dr. Danny Huerta: You should go all the way back to the tapes and take them all the way back. Way retro.

Rebecca St. James: The movie is called Journey into the Impossible and this is world-class entertainment produced by some of the most talented people in the business. Today, we’re talking with Dave Arnold, who is the Executive Creative Director of Adventures in Odyssey. We're so stoked to have him on the show.

He spearheaded Focus on the Family’s audio dramas like The Chronicles of Narnia, Screwtape Letters, Bonhoeffer, and the Anne of Green Gables series. Joining Dave is John Pomeroy. John has been animating for over 40 years. He’s worked with the Walt Disney Company animating feature films that we know you've seen or at least heard of, like Pocahontas, Winnie the Pooh, The Fox and the Hound, The Rescuers, and Fantasia 2000.

We're just listing our childhood here. John has been busy. He’s the animation director of the new Adventures in Odyssey movie. Gentlemen, welcome to Practice Makes Parent. We're so honored to be with you.

Dave Arnold: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John Pomeroy: Thank you. Good to be here.

Rebecca St. James: What a moment in time. I really wanted to begin by asking you both about the power of storytelling in your own lives. What happened in your childhood when it comes to story that just captured your heart or spoke to something very powerful that shaped your childhood? Was there a moment that spoke to you about storytelling?

Dave Arnold: I came from a broken family. I didn't have parents that really sat down with me and shared story with me like you did, Danny. The story of your mom and your dad talking about story in different ways and complementing each other is a beautiful thing. I didn't have that luxury, unfortunately. My parents divorced when I was three.

In many ways, I didn't have that sort of model for me. But the person who impacted me the most was my brother Steve. My brother Steve was my oldest brother. He really was like a father figure to me. He was so much older than I was because he was 14 years older than I am. He was born with muscular dystrophy and never actually walked a day in his life.

He was the first person in our very broken family to come to know Jesus. He shared his experience of Christ and his understanding of Christ with me when I was just a little boy. The way he explained the message of Christ was so powerful and it was sticky. It really attached itself to my spirit, even when I was not a believer.

My brother passed away when I was 13. Six years later, that residual impact of his talking to me over and over resurfaced at just the right moment. The Lord introduced himself very gentlemanly to me and called me in a way that was transformative. All of those stories that I heard from my brother resurrected inside of me and changed my life.

Dr. Danny Huerta: What did he do in those stories? What was it about that that drew you in?

Dave Arnold: It was just the way he communicated them. My brother, in spite of the fact that he was so debilitated by his disease, was the most creative person I have ever known in my life. And that includes my brother here, John Pomeroy, who is an amazing talent.

My brother Steve was an artist. He had very limited motion in his arm. One arm was completely unusable. The other arm he was able to sketch with. He would take so much painstaking time. He did charcoals, pencils, paints, he did everything. He even had some galleries that he displayed in our hometown where people would purchase his work.

He told stories through pictures like John does. He told stories to me through poetry that he wrote. He was actually writing an autobiography when he passed away and I've gotten all of his notes and I've read through all of that stuff. It was just in sitting down and talking. That's where story really happens, in the conversation of life. That's how he worked through the things that he experienced. He shared it so freely and so vulnerably that it couldn't help but impact me.

Rebecca St. James: What about for you, John?

John Pomeroy: I had a different type of experience. My father would tell my sister and me stories. He had even invented a little character named Billy Beaver. Once upon a time, there was a little beaver named Billy Beaver. He would pause so that we could say the name because these were the Billy Beaver stories that he would just make up.

My father was an interesting character. He was a headwaiter at a restaurant called The Players during the heyday of Hollywood in the 40s. A lot of our stories would be about Billy Beaver or the moment that he met Judy Garland and got to know Judy Garland on a first-name basis. I mean all types of stories about the Golden Age of Hollywood.

He would take me to adventure movies like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Five Weeks in a Balloon or Mysterious Island. I would go home and I would recreate those movies in clay. That became my storytelling medium for when I was growing up. My mother was kind enough to give me her dining room table, or a section of it, to do my clay work on.

I would recreate animals that I saw at the zoo. I would even create my older brother's football games when he was in high school. That became my storytelling medium. I got interested in puppetry. I remember one summer, 1965, where I wanted to make a perfect replica of Pinocchio from Walt Disney's Pinocchio movie.

My brother took me to the Los Angeles County Library to the reference department. I found pictures and I found a book called The Art of Walt Disney, published in 1941 during the Golden Age of Disney animation. I was leafing through this book. I read it once, twice, thrice, and I forgot about the puppets and I became enamored with animation at the age of 13.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Isn't it incredible, those intersections of just finding your passion of what God has created in you and intersecting with that and then look where you're at now?

John Pomeroy: It is amazing because it's like for a 13-year-old, you're almost like you're receiving a calling to take your skills and crafts that have been given to you and to use those for a good purpose.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Many parents think, I'm not skilled at this whole storytelling thing. I have so much going on in my mind, I can't get to that creative place and start telling stories. Especially as the kids get older and they get a little bit more critical of the stories, parents feel a little bit like they're under-prepared or under-talented for it. What do you think actually matters when a parent is telling a story to a child? How can a parent do this well and just begin to practice storytelling with their kids?

John Pomeroy: For me, I can remember whatever stories my dad was telling my sister and myself, there would always be a challenge or a villain or an obstacle that would get in the way of the hero's dream or goal. That was an important ingredient in the storytelling medium. You present some sort of challenge.

Usually, when you're telling a good story, there's going to be always some sort of opponent that's going to get in the way of achieving your goal. That brings about fear and trepidation and then, hopefully, at the very end, hope or goodness will win out. Those were some of the things I recall that I had growing up in our family.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Dave, how would you coach a parent on this, since you've been writing stories for so long?

Dave Arnold: We're all storytellers. It's just how we tell our story, how we decide to tell it. I think if we're just willing and available for our kids, the fact that we're engaging in their lives in ways that excite them is what they're hungry for anyway. It's not so much the story as it is the relationship with the person that's telling the story.

Especially if you can tell a story where there's commonality in it. John's talking about good storytelling practices in terms of how to structure stories and various characters. But just from a parental perspective, when I was telling my kids stories, I wanted to do things that were fun. If a story's not fun, it's not going to attach to them.

One of the most ridiculous stories I told my kids when they were little was the Pizza Man. We had just had pizza that night and I just said, "Let me tell you about the Pizza Man." It allowed me to manhandle them a little bit, treat them like the pizza dough, rolling out the pizza dough on the bed, and then I would take it up and throw the pizza in the air.

I can't tell you how many years they asked me to repeat that story every single night because it was a shared relationship. The story wasn't that difficult to come up with. It was a pretty bland story, but it wasn't about that. It was about reaching out to them and connection.

Dr. Danny Huerta: It was a full experience with you. I remember throughout the years growing up, my daughter especially would ask for stories in the car. We'd be in the car and she'd go, "Dad, you know what time it is? I think it's story time. Tell me a story."

Dave Arnold: But that's because you've done that with them. You've committed a relationship of storytelling with your kids and they expect that and they look forward to that with you.

Dr. Danny Huerta: I can see so many parents, this is an opportunity to bring the simple story but one that is relatable. I love that you say that. It causes you to pay attention to whatever you're experiencing in the moment or whatever you just experienced, like the pizza guy, or something that's familiar to them and bringing that out into story. In the imperfection of it all, they may be asking for more. Do you do stories, Rebecca?

Rebecca St. James: My husband actually gets more creative with the storytelling and the voices and all of that. We do read books each night generally, but he's really good with the voices. I'm probably trying to get kids to bed faster than he is.

John, I'm really interested in something to do with imagination. Kids are so imaginative and I feel like they live in story and are so creative. You've worked with the highest of the high when it comes to imaginative minds and you are one yourself, but you've worked with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. How has their approach to storytelling shaped your understanding of the importance of imagination and how have you engaged with that in your own life?

John Pomeroy: Each of those guys, Steven has a particular way of formulating story in his head. He thinks in terms of tentpole moments. A tentpole moment is a moment that stands out. It's a moment that figures into the growth of the character, his need for achieving his goal or his survival.

I’ll give you an example from the movie The Land Before Time. We had one of our luncheon meetings with my partner Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, and myself and Steven Spielberg. He had this idea of a vision, a moment, where Littlefoot has just lost his mother and he's looking for the valley that the mother has told him to go to. The mother got killed in a fight a few sequences earlier by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. So he's all alone.

He sees a shadow cast up against this large rock wall with a sunset in back of him and he thinks it's his mother. So he runs up to it and starts anticipating getting ready to kiss her and he realizes it's his own shadow. It’s just an uplifting moment and then a down. When I refer to tentpole moments, that's what I'm talking about.

He thinks in terms of those. But in one instance though, he's not necessarily thinking of the running plot line, how the story flows from point A to point B to point C. So he would rely on George Lucas to do that. We were having some mid-term story problems with The Land Before Time and Steven sent us to London to meet with George Lucas for about three or four days where we got into a huddle.

We had food brought in to us. We were ironing out some story problems that were created and we added a couple of new characters and just solidified the plot so it's a little more clarified and made more sense. That's how both of these titans in their industry balanced each other. But that was my takeaway from that.

I was in awe of working with both of them. Likewise, they were in awe of working with myself and my two partners. Animation is such a special medium. It requires a lot of imagination. It's a very godly profession in that you are bringing life to something that doesn't exist before. You're creating something from nothing.

Dr. Danny Huerta: It's an exciting thing to be able to do. You get the excitement of what God has experienced, just his feeling of bringing something from nothing. He invites us into that creativity with him to be co-creators with him. Tell us about just as you guys have worked on this film specifically. What's your heart behind that? Adventures in Odyssey has been such an important story opportunity for parents to share with their kids.

John Pomeroy: I've got a quick little thing about working with Dave Arnold. It's funny that Walt Disney during the 30s when he was trying to create his characters and moving towards doing his first feature film, he relied heavily on radio. The spoken word and the characteristic of a particular character really comes across first in that voice.

That informs the animator. So teaming up with someone like Dave Arnold, who's been doing the radio show for the last three decades, was a nice marriage. He thinks in terms of audio entertainment and plot structure, and I'm thinking in terms of pictorial structure and how to get the entertainment infused into the drawn part of it. So that's a marriage that worked out very, very well.

Dr. Danny Huerta: What is the hope? What is the hope of what comes from that? You're combining multiple years of the audio, bringing the animation to life. What is the hope for this generation of parents with their kids?

Dave Arnold: We're going to continue to do Adventures in Odyssey audio. Obviously it's the flagship that has run the engine for many years and people love it. There is no desire nor intention to ever stop doing it as long as the Lord continues to bless it.

We are very aware that there are some people that don't consume audio as much, especially audio stories. They don't understand it unless they taste it. Once they taste it, they're in. Like a Lays potato chip, all you need is one and the bag is gone. But until you can get them into that world, for most young minds, they tend to gravitate toward the screen, toward the visual medium.

We feel like we've saturated a certain market with audio and we want to introduce more people to it. The only way to do that is through a video.

Rebecca St. James: It opens up a whole new generation too of Adventures in Odyssey listeners because they're invited through the movie to the audio. I love what you're doing. What would you say is the primary message of the film?

Dave Arnold: There are a lot of themes that are developed inside the film. Obviously adventure, it's very much an action-based adventure story. But the spine of it, which is what brings the Whittakers to Odyssey, is grieving.

The Whittakers have just lost their son Jerry in the war. In an effort to start over and to create a new normal and to be able to move on, they decide to leave Chicago. Whit leaves his government job and he wants to become a teacher and they decide to move to a place that they've got a friend that lives there and that's where they decide to move, is to Odyssey.

For me, in tackling this idea, I thought everybody in the world is grieving. This is such a tumultuous world we live in and there's so much heartache and pain going on. How can we help them through that using entertainment, which is what Odyssey always tries to do.

We don't shy away from tough issues. We tend to try and tackle them head-on. Instead of just telling these fluffy stories, we attack the issues that kids are dealing with. Kids are dealing with grief. They’re struggling and we can see it in the way they're trying to change themselves or change their bodies or change how they interact with people.

If we can basically go out and in an entertaining way explain to kids that there is no drug, there is no amount of money, there is nothing you can substitute for the love of God in Christ Jesus that is going to change your life, that is the heart basically of the story.

Dr. Danny Huerta: You're inviting them into the bigger story behind the story. That's the goal. You're wanting for families to engage in this. A lot of young families that maybe have not heard of Adventures in Odyssey can step into this wonderful world that's very hopeful, that brings a message that is necessary for families today. That's the heart behind it. I want you guys to expand on that if you want to on what the light is that this is bringing into the culture today.

Dave Arnold: The only other thing I would say about that is that the goal was always from the very beginning to say, let's not create something just for our current audience. They're already being fed. They've got a seat at the table. They've got all the food that they need in a thousand plus stories that we've created over the last 38 years.

But we want to be able to open up this Odyssey universe to new people. So this animation is the funnel that allows people who don't have any exposure to this brand at all to come in, to get a sample of who these characters are, how we tell story, and then they can move on to the episodes in the first season.

Once they're waiting for season two, we have a thousand plus episodes of audio and multiple books and all kinds of content that can reach them and draw them deeper into a relationship with God.

Rebecca St. James: It has all this character building wisdom in every single one of these episodes. It's teaching kids how to go about their lives.

Dave Arnold: It is. It's trying to attach to themes that kids are going through. I mean there are only so many issues in the world that people deal with. There's just a small number of them, but everybody deals with them in different ways.

We could tell hundreds of thousands of stories because everybody deals with story differently. When you introduce a new character and they deal with the same issue, they're going to have different struggles and they're going to navigate their way through it in a different way.

Dr. Danny Huerta: The beauty of this is this is enjoyed as a family. It can be enjoyed between parent and child. Over and over again, I've heard stories of parents saying they so enjoy listening to these stories with their kids.

They don't have to carry the story, but it has inspired some parents to tell their own stories in a different way and they learn from the storytelling that's there in Adventures in Odyssey. So this is an exciting opportunity for parents to be able to go into these character forming conversations with their kids through story.

Dave Arnold: And I would say too, Danny, that that is always the hope that we have as creators, is that we're not the final word. All of our stories open up conversations for moms and dads with their parents to unpack those themes and to discuss those themes.

When my wife and I had been married for three years, the church we were attending in Northwest Montana, one of the families had a dad who had a mental breakdown. He had three children that lived with him and the church basically took those three kids and put them in different places. Well, the girl that was in the family kind of had attached to me and my wife.

They asked us if we would watch over her until he got better. So we did. We opened up our home to her. About a month after she was in our home, we watched a TV program. They were dealing with a very sensitive topic. It was kind of shocking how sensitive it was because it was a very difficult topic.

At the end of the show, she turned to us and she said, "That happened to me in my home." We had to basically tell childcare services what happened and she was not allowed to go back. We raised her until she was 18. Without that story that we experienced together, that information would never have come out. She may have been burdened with that the rest of her life, alone in that pain and maybe still experiencing it. Exactly. The power of story.

Rebecca St. James: What about for you, John? When you look at this Adventures in Odyssey movie, what’s the part that stands out for you?

John Pomeroy: Animation has great power and great longevity where live action doesn't. There are animated movies, animated characters, animated moments that we remember far into our adulthood. The thing about animation is that it connects the child in all of us.

We revisit that every time we take our own children to an animated film or we see it with someone else or just by ourselves. We reconnect to the child inside of us. What did Jesus Christ tell us? Unless you come as a child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. That's a very important element that we can keep in mind when we're watching animated feature films. I didn't come to this until maybe 25 years ago.

My heart for this particular project is that it will attract people to Christ. That is my mission personally, that I can use my art form to make Jesus Christ attractive to the unsaved of the world. That's the whole idea.

The underpinnings of this story that have been crafted by our director Jamie Mitchell and Dave Arnold and our whole team has underpinnings of the Gospel spread all throughout it in the relationships, in the deeds that are done, in the problems that they come up against and how they solve them. They're always Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." That is what is the underpinning of this entire story. It's an actual blessing to be able to use my art ability of 50-plus years to further the kingdom.

Dr. Danny Huerta: What an encouragement to kids that draw out there. What an encouragement. There are a lot of them, Danny, that are just hungry to not only see a story like this being told but to participate in the further of the art form. I'm hoping it does both and open hearts for the Lord and open hearts for the skill and the craft.

What an encouragement to those artists. I think about kids I've known throughout the years from way back in the 90s as a school social worker and some of the kids that were super talented artistically. They could draw and were struggling in certain areas academically. There are fantastic opportunities for kids with an artistic mind. Love the words you just spoke. Hopefully parents, you gathered the kids that love to draw and doodle, there may be a job out there waiting for them as they discover this talent.

John Pomeroy: Absolutely. There's a brand new generation out there. I mean the last seven years, I've built up my own tutorial series called Pomeroy Art Academy. I'm in the business of teaching and passing on what those men at Disney gave to me. It’s time to pass that on to the next generation of artists.

Rebecca St. James: I might be looking into that for my daughter. I’ll check out the Academy. Check it out.

Dr. Danny Huerta: What's beautiful is with storytelling as well, just knowing the benefits that are there for parents to understand that there are emotional benefits, there are cognitive benefits, and most importantly as we have been talking about, relational benefits. Appreciate the thoughts you guys shared around that storytelling.

Rebecca St. James: Yes, absolutely. Whether it's whispered at bedtime or told around the table or remembered on a long drive, these are the threads that help our children weave meaning and understanding into who they are. These are traditions. In some ways story is the fiber of our family life. Stories matter not because they're flawless but because they're yours, because they're ours.

Dr. Danny Huerta: You don't have to be a professional storyteller to be a powerful one or a good one. You just have to show up, speak from your heart and invite your children into the theater of their minds, their imagination. It's such a beautiful place to go. So keep telling stories, keep listening, and keep building the kind of family legacy that lives long after the words are spoken.

Rebecca St. James: And I love that these redemptive themes that we've been talking about in the Adventures in Odyssey movie and just in our family lives, it's speaking hope into our kids’ lives and stories and hearts. It's so worthwhile to take that time to slow the rhythm down enough where we can do this.

That's exactly why we're excited about the Adventures in Odyssey feature film, Journey into the Impossible. It's a story built with families in mind, one we believe can spark conversations, imagination, and connection in all of our homes.

Dr. Danny Huerta: If you believe stories matter in the lives of children, we'd invite you to help us bring this movie into the world. Your support, whether telling friends and family about it or whether big or small, is a way of helping families grow closer through the power of stories and engage a new generation with biblical truths and with character formation from the inside out.

You can donate safely and securely through the link in the show notes. Whether or not you're able to give, the most important thing is keep telling stories to your kids. Don't stop doing that. Whether it's in the car, whether it's on a walk, a hike, camping, wherever it is, keep telling stories because the stories you share will change their life.

Rebecca St. James: We always like to invite our guests to participate in our Q&A portion of the show. Today's question is an email that comes from the Marks family and they write, "Hey Danny and G’day Rebecca. We're a homeschooling family of seven. We treat the world as our classroom and we try to do a good amount of traveling. We were blessed to go to Greece recently and the topic of mythology came up.

As Christians, how are we supposed to handle that? Do we treat it as fairy tales about fake gods? Myth is in the title. Or can Greek mythology be used to strengthen a Christian worldview? We're going to talk more to our pastors about this, but we'd love your practical parenting take on the topic. Thanks." I think I'm going to throw to the rest of you guys because this is definitely above my pay grade.

Dave Arnold: I'm going to throw to John first on that one.

John Pomeroy: It's interesting. I read the Bible every day and I currently am in the book of Acts. I'm in a section where Paul is speaking to the philosophers in Athens. He says, "Look, men, you worship these things that you've made with your own hand but this is not true. This is not God. God is there is one God of the entire universe who has made this and everything in it."

Dave Arnold: And he said, John, "You have this statue to an unknown God," right? And that's where he said the unknown God is the God of the universe that you were talking about.

Dr. Danny Huerta: What I love about what you're doing is the world is a classroom. You're allowing for your kids to learn all around them. Part of this is learning about belief systems and you've gone to Greece and part of their history and part of every history has a belief system. What you want to talk about is how do these belief systems play out?

You can talk about mythology, how that has played out over times in certain civilizations and go into belief. That is the Christian worldview, talking about belief there and how it drives behavior, it drives emotion, it drives perception, it drives relationship, it drives everything.

As they're going around the world with the classroom being around them, this topic of belief is going to be important for you guys to continue to talk about, especially when it comes to Christian worldview and why that makes such a difference as we enjoy God's creation and as we participate in God's creation as contributors rather than consumers.

Dave Arnold: Because we know that all of the characters in mythology were flawed characters, right? They were not omnipotent. They were not all-powerful. They were very flawed. We have a God who is perfect and there is no God like our God. Ultimately, what you can do is you can look at those and use those as very poor shadows of the perfection of our Creator.

Rebecca St. James: Well said. The contrast. Thank you, gentlemen. So good. Thanks to the Marks family for their question today. We're glad that you listen to the show and we're going to send you Danny's book, Seven Traits of Effective Parenting, to say thanks for sending us your question. We love helping families answer their questions about parenting, so send us yours. Just click on the show notes and send us a voicemail or an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Dave and John, thank you so much for joining us. We can't thank you enough for the work you've been doing now and the work you've been done over the years to serve families.

Rebecca St. James: When I think about the values that you guys have both individually and your journeys spoken into families, the character, the persistence and the patience and the virtues that you've spoken through your art forms, both of you individually, you've made such a massive impact on the world. Thank you how much you pour out of your life into families' lives. It means a lot.

Dave Arnold: Thank you.

John Pomeroy: Pleasure. You're welcome.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Thank you guys for being on the show.

Rebecca St. James: Everybody, don't miss next week's episode because we will be talking to the Five Love Languages hero, Dr. Gary Chapman. Little fan-girling here for me. And Jennifer Thomas as well, who's also amazing on teaching teens healthy communication and conflict resolution. It's going to be a great one. Don't miss it.

Dr. Danny Huerta: Even if you have kids in other stages, these are skills you want to teach your kids, even from the toddler years on up. So join us for that show. Just because it says it's for teens doesn't mean the show is not for you. So be sure to join us. 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.

Guest (Male): Live your truth. A lot of people say that, don't they? But truth isn't something we decide. God has decided it for us. It's our job as believers to share his truth with a world in need. I'll encourage you to do that through my podcast, Refocus with Jim Daly. I visit with fascinating guests about important topics like gender confusion, cancel culture, and more, while helping you share God's love with others. Listen at refocuswithjimdaly.com. That's refocuswithjimdaly.com.