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I'm afraid my issues are going to mess up my children.

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Do you think they will?

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Welcome to Living Influence.

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I'm your host, Scott Boyd.

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We're talking about parenting.

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And we're talking about a parent's need to mature as his children grow up.

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I find it to be true that children mature parents, mature adults, mature their parents.

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Yeah.

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They do.

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I've had people that I've known, and they had kids late.

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And, oh, my gosh, once they had kids, it changed who those people were.

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Absolutely.

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And so I have a story.

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My oldest son was just becoming a teenager.

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Yeah.

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And I was just beginning to become aware of grace.

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Because I was just beginning to become aware of grace, I wasn't so solid in my belief in who God says I was.

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Yeah, Ben.

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And because I wasn't so solid in believing who God says I was, when my son would show any small sign of disrespect, I would react.

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And he and I would have these conversations that started as conversations, but they go, and pretty soon we're yelling and my wife is behind my son going like this, stop it.

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And I can't stop it.

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And because it's like I'm trying to communicate something.

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It was hard.

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It was a hard time, and I'm not proud of that.

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And in the middle of that, I read a book.

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It talked about listening, really listening.

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And with your teenage child, one of the ways to listen was to repeat back what they said to you in your own words to check out.

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Did I hear you right that you're saying this?

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And so I began to recognize when I was getting in this spot where we were going to have an escalation, and I began to go, I got to listen better.

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And so I would repeat back to him what he told me.

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And it was amazing as I began to listen and communicate with him, and he began to feel heard and trusted that I heard him.

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He softened his reaction towards me, and we'd have a real conversation.

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And not only that, it did something for me.

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I began to trust him more as I listened to what he was really saying instead of reacting to how he was saying it.

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And so it was a moment in my life where I began to mature in my parenting.

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Great, great story.

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Thank you, Scott.

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I mean, that makes the point.

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Let's just talk about it.

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Children have a unique way.

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of exposing us.

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And what happens often is our children, because of the way they interact with us or we interact with them, they really help us.

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This doesn't sound like help, but it is.

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They really help us get in touch with our shame because they trigger it.

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Let me just say it that way.

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They trigger our shame.

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Yeah.

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And when my shame is triggered, it's often because of some unresolved issue in me.

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In parenting, as my children are young, I can pretty much control them.

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Yeah.

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Pretty much.

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But what happens is as they age, if I am not maturing, they cannot.

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So often in the conflicts a father and a son have, a mother and a child have, so often when the child is a teenager, it's often, I hate for parents to hear me say this, but it's true, it's often the immaturity of the parent that is causing the escalation and the inability to resolve.

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Yeah.

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So we got to be really, really careful what we're going to say now about this.

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It's I do, I do understand that shame has a profound way of defining me.

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I have, Scott, I have never met a person.

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I've sat across the table from hundreds of people.

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I have never met a person, many of whom are parents,

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Who do not have an unhealthy self-story.

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I've never met one.

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Something they say about themselves that is unhealthy.

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It starts with, I'm not enough of whatever.

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Whatever the language of my heart is that is my shame story.

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Yeah.

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Now, what happens when we're parenting, we love these kids, we're having a great time, and all of a sudden they do something to trigger that shame story.

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Right.

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Yeah, and you know, they're talking about this.

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I was telling you my story.

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Right.

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Of, I just thought David was being disrespectful.

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Exactly.

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And I think I thought that until maybe I just told this story just right now.

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And right now it's like, you know what he did?

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He wasn't disrespectful.

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He just triggered my shame.

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Absolutely.

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And I thought it was disrespectful.

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And it's one of those things where you blame the person.

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fair making you be this way.

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Right.

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And no, that was my shame that he had triggered.

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Hey, good gift, by the way.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Right now, on the air, but good gift.

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I know, I'm learning something.

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No, but good gift.

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That's why I like doing these podcasts.

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I keep learning stuff.

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Here's another way I know this is happening.

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So many people have sat across, dads and moms.

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Here's their...

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I promised myself I'd never be like my mother.

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I promised myself I would never be like my dad.

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And we end up having the same behavior patterns and it drives us crazy.

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Do I, as a parent, know how to deal with my shame?

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Do I know how to let God deal with my shame?

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I know I have it.

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I know they trigger it.

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You just had a great I got it moment.

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I hope a lot of parents are having those moments.

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But how do I do?

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And so as a Christian, I love to say to people, we know, we're taught it, or we wouldn't be Christians, that Jesus Christ died for our sin.

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We know that.

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That's the message of grace.

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Right.

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But I want to remind you as a Christian parent that Jesus not only died for your sin, but he took upon him your shame.

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I want you to hear that.

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Jesus took upon him your shame.

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Prior to Calvary, Jesus never experienced shame, ever.

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But on the cross, when he took upon him my sin and your sin as a parent, he experienced your shame.

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In that moment on the cross, when he died for your sins, took upon him your shame.

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He created in you a new reality.

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Right.

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And you say it right, Scott.

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I say it a lot because I'm so convinced of it.

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Am I able as a Christian parent to believe that I am not who I used to be and that my shame no longer defines me, that my God defines me?

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Can I learn as a Christian parent to live into who God says I am?

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listen carefully, for my benefit and for the benefit of my children.

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If Scott, in that story, was not mature enough, because you were, to call time out for David's sake, only to discover you were calling it for your sake, praise God.

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And so it's like, wait a minute.

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If my shame is triggered and I'm now defensive and I'm blaming that child for what they're doing to me, that feels like the hardest time in the world to call time out.

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But guess what?

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If you can't in the moment, then in a later moment, get in touch with this reality.

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Can I trust Jesus Christ with my shame just as I have with my sin?

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Scott, has he really made you new?

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Am I really a new person?

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Is my Christian life about changing who I used to be and who I ought to be, or is my Christian life about growing into who I am?

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Our children can often trigger our shame.

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Yeah.

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And when they do, as your illustrated story tells us, that reaction causes us to belittle them.

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And guess what happens?

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I'm not going to say anymore Bill Thralls because now he's going to tell me another super negative.

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Guess what happens when I belittle them?

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I trigger their shame.

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Yeah.

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I trigger their shame.

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And you cut down the tree of trust a little bit.

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And you cut down the tree of trust a lot.

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Yeah.

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So it's like, here I am.

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I'm a Christian parent.

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And I'm being challenged to mature.

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How do I mature?

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I mature going back to our first podcast.

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I mature.

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the same way that my child does.

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I mature by trusting my God's love, my God's truth, and my God's guidance of me.

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I cannot transfer to my child what I have not experienced with God.

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Yeah.

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And so for me, just being honest like you were with your story, my shame triggered my compulsiveness, and my compulsiveness triggered my hiding.

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And my wife's breakthrough moment with me helped me to see that my inability to trust because of my hiding was robbing me of love.

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And so that lesson acted out with my children of freedom in me to be able to say, I am trusting God with me, and I no longer have to hide from you.

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Yeah.

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Oh, Scott, what I just said right there, it just frees me all over again.

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Yeah.

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It frees me all over again.

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It's interesting.

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One of the things, I think, one of the ways we could flip this around is our children—

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will uncover all of our unresolved issues.

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They're good at it.

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They're good at it because they're intimately in our space all the time.

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Exactly.

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They're acting all the time when we're tired, when we're not tired, when, you know, all of those things.

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But they do give us opportunity to realize, oh, my child triggered my shame.

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I have an issue.

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That I need to give attention to.

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Absolutely.

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To trust.

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Amen.

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To trust God with.

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Right.

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To trust another person with.

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What a blessing my kids are because this is how I get to mature.

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And in your maturing, your child no longer lives under the bondage of your blame.

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Right.

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Yeah, that's beautiful.

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And it frees them.

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It frees them.

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And so I want the parents that are listening to say, I'm in that bondage myself.

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How do I get freed?

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From the very bondage you're telling me I'm putting on my kids.

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I blame me.

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I blame me all the time.

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I'm the worst mother that ever lived.

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I'm the worst dad.

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I'm always blaming me.

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Well, all you're really doing is triggering your shame.

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So let's review this real quick.

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Shame is the evidence of unresolved issues in me.

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It's the pain that's been done to me, and it's the pain in me because of what I've

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Scott, I have sat across the table from people whose lives are deeply, deeply, deeply troubled because of what happened to them.

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Yeah.

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Really deeply troubled.

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And I've said to them, and I'll say this to all these people listening, somebody in your life triggers your shame.

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Could have been somebody very close.

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And I want to say to you, forgive them.

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And you say, well, I really have.

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Great.

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But have you ever forgiven them?

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Not for what they did, but how what they did affected you.

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The power of shame is the effect of the unresolved.

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And so it's an important lesson.

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I've shared it with lots of people.

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I've watched hundreds of lives transformed with my simple words.

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No matter how deeply you've been hurt, go back to what happened.

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Forgive them.

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Get in touch with how you were affected because they did it.

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Forgive them for that, because that's where the power of shame is broken.

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And when your children trigger in you your shame, go back to its roots.

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Forgive those who hurt you.

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These are key words, God.

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Forgive yourself for what you've done when your shame was triggered.

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And let that shame be broken so your children do not repeat through your blame the brokenness of their shame.

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We really appreciate you watching.

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You know, one of the basic human needs that all of us have is a need to be affirmed.

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Amen.

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And so I'm just going to share with you my need.

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If you like what we're doing.

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Put in the comment, good job.

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Loved it.

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Thank you.

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I would appreciate hearing that from you.

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We'd love to hear from you.

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We love how our viewers are growing.

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And this grace message transforms lives.

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We appreciate you being here.

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We'll see you next week.

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Thanks again for listening to Living Influence.

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We appreciate you.

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We'd love it if you'd go to livinginfluence.com, contact us, and send us an email.

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We'd love to know what you're thinking.

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See you next week.